"I'd like to ask you a few questions."
"No, not now. You think out your present position yourself. Find out
just what you have saved from your land-slide."
The elder man rose; he hardly seemed the same man who had dominated his
people a few days before. He turned with still greater embarrassment.
"I want to ask a favor. I'm going back to my family. I'm going to say
something of what you've said, to my congregation--but--I'm in debt--and
the moment they know I'm a backslider, they're going to bear down on me
pretty heavy. I'd like to be independent."
"I see. How much do you need?" mused Radbourn.
"I guess two hundred would stave off the worst of them."
"I guess Brown and I can fix that. Come in again to-night. Or no, I'll
bring it round to you."
The two men parted with a silent pressure of the hand that meant more
than any words.
When Mr. Pill told his wife that he could preach no more, she cried, and
gasped, and scolded till she was in danger of losing her breath
entirely. "A guinea-hen sort of a woman" Councill called her. "She can
talk more an' say less 'n any woman I ever see," was Bacon's verdict,
after she had been at dinner at his house. She was a perpetual irritant.
Mr. Pill silenced her at last with a note of impatience approaching a
threat, and drove away to the Corners to make his confession without
her. It was Saturday night, and Elder Wheat was preaching as he entered
the crowded room. A buzz and mumble of surprise stopped the orator for a
few moments, and he shook hands with Mr. Pill dubiously, not knowing
what to think of it all, but as he was in the midst of a very effective
oratorical scene, he went on.
The silent man at his side felt as if he were witnessing a burlesque of
himself as he listened to the pitiless and lurid description of torment
which Elder Wheat poured forth,--the same figures and threats he had
used a hundred times. He stirred uneasily in his seat, while the
audience paid so little attention that the perspiring little orator
finally called for a hymn, saying:--
"Elder Pill has returned from his unexpected absence, and will exhort in
his proper place."
When the singing ended, Mr. Pill rose, looking more like himself than
since the previous Sunday. A quiet resolution was in his eyes and voice
as he said:--
"Elder Wheat has more right here than I have. I want 'o say that I'm
going to give up my church in Douglass and--" A murmur broke out, which
he silenced with his raised hand. "I find I don't believe any longer
what I've been believing and preaching. Hold on! let me go on. I don't
quite know where I'll bring up, but I think my religion will simmer down
finally to about this: A full half-bushel to the half-bushel and sixteen
ounces to the pound." Here two or three cheered. "Do unto others as
you'd have others do unto you." Applause from several, quickly
suppressed as the speaker went on, Elder Wheat listening as if
petrified, with his mouth open.
"I'm going out of preaching, at least for the present. After things get
into shape with me again, I may set up to teach people how to live, but
just now I can't do it. I've got all I can do to instruct myself. Just
one thing more. I owe two or three of you here. I've got the money for
William Bacon, James Bartlett, and John Jennings. I turn the mare and
cutter over to Jacob Bensen, for the note he holds. I hain't got much
religion left, but I've got some morality. That's all I want to say
now."
When he sat down there was a profound hush; then Bacon arose.
"That's _man's_ talk, that is! An' I jest want 'o say, Andrew Pill, that
you kin jest forgit you owe me anything. An' if ye want any help come to
me. Y're jest gittun' ready to preach, 'n' I'm ready to give ye my
support."
"That's the talk," said Councill. "I'm with ye on that."
Pill shook his head. The painful silence which followed was broken by
the effusive voice of Wheat:--
"Let us pray--and remember our lost brother."
* * * * *
The urgings of the people were of no avail. Mr. Pill settled up his
affairs and moved to Cresco, where he went back into trade with a
friend, and for three years attended silently to his customers, lived
down their curiosity, and studied anew the problem of life. Then he
moved away, and no one knew whither.
One day last year Bacon met Jennings on the road.
"Heerd anything o' Pill lately?"
"No, have you?"
"Waal, yes. Brown told me he ran acrost him down in Eelinoy, doun' well,
too."
"In dry goods?"
"No, preachun'."
"Preachun'?"
"So Brown said. Kind of a free-f'r-all church, I reckon, from what Jedge
told me. Built a new church; fills it twice a Sunday. I'd like to hear
him, but he's got t' be too big a gun f'r us. Ben studyun', they say;
went t' school."
Jennings drove sadly and thoughtfully on.
"Rather stumps Brother Jennings," laughed Bacon, in a good-humored
growl.