Deacon Quickset was entirely truthful when he said to the keeper of the
beer saloon that he had worried his pastor again and again to call on
the repentant thief and try to bring him into the fold of the church;
but he probably did not know that the said pastor had opinions of his
own as to the time and manner in which such work should be done. Dr.
Guide, under whose spiritual ministrations the deacon had sat every
Sunday for many years, was a man of large experience in church work of
all kinds, and, although he was extremely orthodox, to the extent of
believing that those who already had united with his church were on the
proper road to heaven, he nevertheless realized, as a practical man,
that frequently there is more trouble with sheep in the road than with
those who are straying about.
He had devoted no little of his time since he had been settled over the
Bruceton church to the reclamation of doubtful characters of all kinds,
but he frequently confided to his wife that one of the most
satisfactory proofs to him of the divine origin of the church was that
those already inside it were those most in need of spiritual
ministrations. He had reclaimed some sad sinners of the baser sort from
time to time with very little effort, but people concerning whom he
frequently lay awake nights were men and women who were nominally in
good standing in his own denomination and in the particular flock over
which he was shepherd.
He had therefore made no particular haste to call on Sam Kimper, being
entirely satisfied, as he told his wife, his only confidante, that so
long as the man was following the course which he was reported to have
laid down for himself he was not likely to go far astray, whereas a
number of members of the congregation, men of far more influence in the
community, seemed determined to break from the straight and narrow way
at very slight provocation, and among these, the reverend doctor sadly
informed his wife, he feared Deacon Quickset was the principal. The
deacon was a persistent man in business,--"diligent in business" was
the deacon's own expression in justification of whatever neglect his
own wife might chance to charge him with,--but it seemed to some
business-men of the town, as well as to his own pastor, that the
deacon's diligence was overdoing itself, and that, in the language of
one of the store-keepers, he had picked up a great deal more than he
could carry. He was a director in a bank, agent for several insurance
companies, manager of a land-improvement company, general speculator in
real estate, and a man who had been charged with the care of a great
deal of property which had belonged to old acquaintances now deceased.
That he should be very busy was quite natural, but that his promises
sometimes failed of fulfilment was none the less annoying, and once in
a while unpleasant rumors were heard in the town about the deacon's
financial standing and about his manner of doing business. Still, Dr.
Guide did not drop Sam Kimper from his mind, and one day when he
chanced to be in the vicinity of Larry Highgetty's shop he opened the
door, bowed courteously to the figure at the bench, accepted a chair,
and sat for a moment wondering what he should say to the man whom he
was expected by the deacon to bring into his own church.
"Mr. Kimper," said the reverend gentleman, finally, "I trust you are
getting along satisfactorily in the very good way in which I am told
you have started."
"I can't say that I've any fault to find, sir," said the shoemaker,
"though I've no doubt that a man of your learnin' an' brains could see
a great deal wrong in me."
"Don't trouble yourself about that, my good fellow," said the
minister: "you will not be judged by my learning or brains or those of
any one else except yourself. I merely called to say that at any time
that you are puzzled about any matter of belief, or feel that you
should go further than you already have done, I would be very glad to
be of any service to you if I can. You are quite welcome to call upon
me at my home at almost any time, and of course you know where I can
always be found on Sundays."
"I am very much obliged to you, sir," said the cobbler, "but somehow
when I go to thinkin' much about such things I don't feel so much like
askin' other people questions or about learnin' anythin' else as I do
about askin' if it isn't a most wonderful thing, after all, that I've
been able to change about as I have, an' that I haven't tumbled
backwards again into any of my old ways. You don't know what those ways
is, I s'pose, Dr. Guide, do you?"
"Well, no," said the minister, "I can't say that my personal experience
has taught me very much about them."
"Of course not, sir; that I might know. Of course I didn't mean
anything of that kind. But I sometimes wonder whether gentlemen like
you, that was born respectable an' always was decent, an' has had the
best of company all your lives, an' never had any bad habits, can know
what an awful hole some of us poor common fellows sometimes get down
into, an' don't seem to know how to get out of. I s'pose, sir, there
must have been lots of folks of that kind when Jesus was around on the
world alive: don't you think so?"
"No doubt, no doubt," said the minister, looking into his hat as if
with his eyes he was trying to make some notes for remarks on the
succeeding Sunday.
"You know, sir, that in what's written about Him they have a good deal
to say about the lots of attention that He gave to the poor. I s'pose,
if poor folks was then like they are now, most of them was that way
through some faults of their own; because every body in this town that
behaves himself an' always behaved himself manages to get along well
enough. It does seem to me, sir, that He must have gone about among
folks a good deal like me."
"That view of the matter never occurred to me," said the reverend
gentleman, "and yet possibly there is a great deal to it. You know, Mr.
Kimper, that was a long time ago. There was very little education in
those times, and the people among whom He moved were captives of a
stronger nation, and they seem to have been in a destitute and troubled
condition."
"Yes," said Sam, interrupting the speaker, "an' I guess a good many of
them were as bad off as me, because, if you remember, He said a good
deal about them that was in prison an' that was visited there. Now,
sir, it kind o' seems to me in this town--I think I know a good deal
about it, because I've never been able to associate with anybody except
folks like myself--it seems to me that sort of people don't get any
sort of attention nowadays."
The minister assumed his conventional air of dignity, and replied,
quickly,--
"I assure you, you are very much mistaken, so far as I am concerned. I
think I know them all by name, and have made special visits to all of
them, and tried to make them feel assured of the sympathy of those who
by nature or education or circumstance chance to be better off than
they."
"That ain't exactly what I meant, sir," said the cobbler. "Such folks
get kind words pretty often, but somehow nobody ever takes hold of them
an' pulls them out of the hole they are in, like Jesus used to seem to
do. I s'pose ministers an' deacons an' such folks can't work miracles
like He did, an' if they haven't got it in 'em to pull 'em out, why, I
s'pose they can't do it. But I do assure you, sir, that there's a good
deal of chance to do that kind of work in this town, an' if there had
been any of it done when I was a boy, I don't believe I'd ever have
got into the penitentiary."
Just then Dr. Brice, one of the village physicians, dropped into the
shop, and the minister, somewhat confused, arose, and said,--
"Well, Mr. Kimper, I am very much obliged to you for your views. I
assure you that I shall give them careful thought. Good day, sir."
"Sam," said Dr. Brice, who was a slight, nervous, excitable man, "I'm
not your regular medical attendant, and I don't know that it's any of
my business, but I've come in here in a friendly way to say to you
that, if all I hear about your working all day and most of the night
too, is true, you are going to break down. You can't stand it, my boy:
human nature isn't made in that way. You have got a wife and family,
and you seem to be trying real hard to take care of them. But you can't
burn the candle at both ends without having the fire flicker out in the
middle all of a sudden, and perhaps just when you can least afford it.
Now, do take better care of yourself. You have made a splendid start,
and there are more people than you know of in this town who are looking
at you with a great deal of respect. They want to see you succeed, and
if you want any help at it I am sure you can get it; but don't kill the
goose that lays the golden egg. Don't break yourself up, or there
won't be anybody to help. Don't you see?"
The shoemaker looked up at the good-natured doctor with a quick
expression, and said,--
"Doctor, I'm not doin' any more than I have to, to keep soul and body
together in the family. If I stop any of it, I've got to stop carryin'
things home."
"Oh well," said the doctor, "that may be, that may be. But I'm simply
warning you, as a fellow-man, that you must look out for yourself. It's
all right to trust the Lord, but the Lord isn't going to give any one
man strength enough to do two men's work. I have been in medical
practice forty years, and I have never seen a case of that kind yet.
That's all. I'm in a hurry,--got half a dozen people to see. Don't feel
offended at anything I've said to you. It's all for your good, you
know. Good day."
The doctor departed as rapidly as he had entered, and the cobbler stole
a moment or two from his work to think. How his thoughts ran he could
scarcely have told afterwards, for again the door opened, and the room
darkened slightly, for the person who was entering was Father Black,
the Catholic priest, a man whose frame was as big as his heart, he
being reputed to be one of the largest-hearted men in all Bruceton.
Everybody respected him. The best proof of it was that no one in any of
the other churches ever attempted to do any proselyting in Father
Black's flock.
"My son," said the priest, seating himself in the chair and spreading a
friendly smile over his large, expressive features, "I have heard a
great deal of you since you came back from your unfortunate absence,
and I merely dropped in to say to you that if it's any comfort to you
to know that every day you have whatever assistance there can be in the
prayers of an old man who has been in this world long enough to love
most those who need most, you may be sure that you have them."
"God bless you, sir! God bless you!" said the cobbler, quickly.
"Have you connected yourself with any church here as yet?" asked the
priest.
"No, sir," sighed the cobbler: "one an' another has been pullin' an'
haulin' at me one way an' another, tellin' me that it was my duty to go
into a church. But how can I do it, sir, when I'm expected to say that
I believe this an' that, that I don't know nothin' about? Some of 'em
has been very good tryin' to teach me what they seem to understand very
well, but I don't know much more than when they begun, an' sometimes it
seems to me that I know a good deal less, for, with what one tells me
in one way, an' another tells me in another way, my mind--and there's
not very much of it, sir--my mind gets so mixed up that I don't know
nothin' at all."
"Ah, my son," said the good old priest, "if you could only understand,
as a good many millions of your fellow-men do, that it's the business
of some men to understand and of others to faithfully follow them, you
would not have such trouble."
"Well, sir," said the cobbler, "that's just what Larry's been sayin' to
me here in the shop once in a while in the mornin', before he started
out to get full; an' there's a good deal of sense in what he says, I've
no doubt. But what I ask him is this,--an' he can't tell me, an'
perhaps you can, sir. It's only this: while my heart's so full that it
seems as if it couldn't hold the little that I already believe an' am
tryin' to live up to, where's the sense of my tryin' to believe some
more?"
Father Black was so unprepared to answer the question put thus
abruptly, accompanied as it was with a look of the deepest earnestness,
that there ensued an embarrassing silence in the shop for a moment or
two.
"My son," said the priest, at last, "do you fully believe all that you
have read in the good book that I am told you were taught to read while
you were in prison?"
"Of course I do, sir; I can't do anything else."
"You believe it all?"
"Indeed I do, sir."
"And are you trying to live according to it?"
"That I am, sir."
"Then, my son," said the priest, rising, "God bless you and keep you in
your way! Far be it from me to try to unsettle your mind or lead you
any further until you feel that you need leading. If ever you want to
come to me, you are welcome at any time of the day or night, and what
you cannot understand of what I tell you I won't expect you to believe.
Remember, my son, the Father of us all knows us just as we are, and
asks no more of any of us than we can do and be. Good day, my son, and
again--God bless you!"
When the priest went out, Sam rested again for a moment, and then
murmured to himself,--
"Two ministers an' one doctor, all good people, tryin' to show me the
way I should go, an' to tell me what I should do, an' me a-makin' only
about a dollar a day! I s'pose it's all right, or they wouldn't do it."