The Methodists had actually made a break in the settlement. Dancing
had not availed to keep them out. It was no longer a question of
getting "shet" of Wheeler and his Methodist wife, thus extirpating
the contagion. There would now be a "class" formed, a leader
appointed, a regular preaching place established; Hissawachee would
become part of that great wheel called a circuit; there would be
revivals and conversions; the peace of the settlement would be
destroyed. For now one might never again dance at a "hoe-down,"
drink whiskey at a shuckin', or race "hosses" on Sunday, without a
lecture from somebody. It might be your own wife, too. Once let the
Methodists in, and there was no knowin'.
Lumsden, for his part, saw more serious consequences. By his
opposition, he had unfortunately spoken for the enmity of the
Methodists in advance. The preacher had openly defied him. Kike
would join the class, and the Methodists would naturally resist his
ascendancy. No concession on his part short of absolute surrender
would avail. He resolved therefore that the Methodists should find
out "who they were fighting."
Brady was pleased. Gossips are always delighted to have something
happen out of the usual course. It gives them a theme, something to
exercise their wits upon. Let us not be too hard upon gossip. It is
one form of communicative intellectual activity. Brady, under
different conditions, might have been a journalist, writing relishful
leaders on "topics of the time." For what is journalism but elevated
and organized gossip? The greatest benefactor of an out-of-the-way
neighborhood is the man or woman with a talent for good-natured
gossip. Such an one averts absolute mental stagnation, diffuses
intelligence, and keeps alive a healthful public opinion on local
questions.
Brady wanted to taste some of Mrs. Goodwin's "ry-al hoe-cake." That
was the reason he assigned for his visit on the evening after the
meeting. He was always hungry for hoe-cake when anything had
happened about which he wanted to talk. But on this evening Job
Goodwin, got the lead in conversation at first.
"Mr. Brady," said he, "what's going to happen to us all? These
Methodis' sets people crazy with the jerks, I've hearn tell. Hey? I
hear dreadful things about 'em. Oh dear, it seems like as if
everything come upon folks at once. Hey? The fever's spreadin' at
Chilicothe, they tell me. And then, if we should git into a war with
England, you know, and the Indians should come and skelp us, they'd
be precious few left, betwixt them that went crazy and them that got
skelped. Precious few, _I_ tell you. Hey?"
Here Mr. Goodwin knocked the ashes out of his pipe and laid it away,
and punched the fire meditatively, endeavoring to discover in his
imagination some new and darker pigment for his picture of the
future. But failing to think of anything more lugubrious than
Methodists, Indians, and fever, he set the tongs in the corner,
heaved a sigh of discouragement, and looked at Brady inquiringly.
[Illustration: JOB GOODWIN.]
"Ye're loike the hootin' owl, Misther Goodwin; it's the black side
ye're afther lookin' at all the toime. Where's Moirton? He aint
been to school yet since this quarter took up."
"Morton? He's got to stay out, I expect. My rheumatiz is mighty
bad, and I'm powerful weak. I don't think craps'll be good next
year, and I expect we'll have a hard row to hoe, partic'lar if we all
have the fever, and the Methodis' keep up their excitement and
driving people crazy with jerks, and war breaks out with England, and
the Indians come on us. But here's Mort now."
"Ha! Moirton, and ye wasn't at matin' last noight? Ye heerd fwat a
toime we had. Most iverybody got struck harmless, excipt mesilf and
a few other hardened sinners. Ye heerd about Koike? I reckon the
Captain's good and glad he's got the blissin'; it's a warrantee on
the Captain's skull, maybe. Fwat would ye do for a crony now,
Moirton, if Koike come to be a praycher?"
"He aint such a fool, I guess," said Morton, with whom Kike's
"getting religion" was an unpleasant topic. "It'll all wear off with
Kike soon enough."
"Don't be too shore, Moirton. Things wear off with you, sometoimes.
Ye swear ye'll niver swear no more, and ye're willin' to bet that
ye'll niver bet agin, and ye're always a-talkin' about a brave loife;
but the flesh is ferninst ye. When Koike's bad, he's bad all over;
lickin' won't take it out of him; I've throid it mesilf. Now he's
got good, the divil'll have as hard a toime makin' him bad as I had
makin' him good. I'm roight glad it's the divil now, and not his
school-masther, as has got to throy to handle the lad. Got ivery
lisson to-day, and didn't break a single rule of the school! What do
you say to that, Moirton? The divil's got his hands full thair.
Hey, Moirton?"
"Yes, but he'll never be a preacher. He wants to get rich just to
spite the Captain."
"But the spoite's clean gone with the rist, Moirton. And he'll be a
praycher yit. Didn't he give me a talkin' to this mornin', at
breakfast? Think of the impudent little scoundrel a-venturin' to
tell his ould masther that he ought to repint of his sins! He talked
to his mother, too, till she croid. He'll make her belave she is a
great sinner whin she aint wicked a bit, excipt in her grammar, which
couldn't be worse. I've talked to her about that mesilf. Now,
Moirton, I'll tell ye the symptoms of a praycher among the
Mithodists. Those that take it aisy, and don't bother a body, you
needn't be afeard of. But those that git it bad, and are
throublesome, and middlesome, and aggravatin', ten to one'll turn out
praychers. The lad that'll tackle his masther and his mother at
breakfast the very mornin' afther he's got the blissin, while he's
yit a babe, so to spake, and prayche to 'em single-handed, two to
one, is a-takin' the short cut acrost the faild to be a praycher of
the worst sort; one of the kind that's as thorny as a honey-locust."
"Well, why can't they be peaceable, and let other people alone? That
meddling is just what I don't like," growled Morton.
"Bedad, Moirton, that's jist fwat Ahab and Jizebel thought about ould
Elijy! We don't any of us loike to have our wickedness or laziness
middled with. 'Twas middlin', sure, that the Pharisays objicted to;
and if the blissed Jaysus hadn't been so throublesome, he wouldn't
niver a been crucified."
"Why, Brady, you'll be a Methodist yourself," said Mr. Job Goodwin.
"Niver a bit of it, Mr. Goodwin. I'm rale lazy. This lookin' at the
state of me moind's insoides, and this chasin' afther me sins up hill
and down dale all the toime, would niver agray with me frail
constitootion. This havin' me spiritooal pulse examined ivery wake
in class-matin', and this watchin' and prayin', aren't for sich
oidlers as me. I'm too good-natered to trate mesilf that way, sure.
Didn't you iver notice that the highest vartoos ain't possible to a
rale good-nater'd man?"
Here Mrs. Goodwin looked at the cake on the hoe in front of the fire,
and found it well browned. Supper was ready, and the conversation
drifted to Morton's prospective arrangement with Captain Lumsden to
cultivate his hill farm on the "sheers." Morton's father shook his
head ominously. Didn't believe the Captain was in 'arnest. Ef he
was, Mort mout git the fever in the winter, or die, or be laid up.
'Twouldn't do to depend on no sech promises, no way.
But, notwithstanding his father's croaking, Morton did hold to the
Captain's promise, and to the hope of Patty. To the Captain's plans
for mobbing Wheeler he offered a strong resistance. But he was ready
enough to engage in making sport of the despised religionists, and
even organized a party to interrupt Magruder with tin horns when he
should preach again. But all this time Morton was uneasy in himself.
What had become of his dreams of being a hero? Here was Kike bearing
all manner of persecution with patience, devoting himself to the
welfare of others, while all his own purposes of noble and knightly
living were hopelessly sunk in a morass of adverse circumstances.
One of Morton's temperament must either grow better or worse, and,
chafing under these embarassments, he played and drank more freely
than ever.
_CHAPTER XIII._