I
Elder Brown told his wife good-by at the farmhouse door as
mechanically as though his proposed trip to Macon, ten miles away,
was an everyday affair, while, as a matter of fact, many years had
elapsed since unaccompanied he set foot in the city. He did not
kiss her. Many very good men never kiss their wives. But small
blame attaches to the elder for his omission on this occasion,
since his wife had long ago discouraged all amorous demonstrations
on the part of her liege lord, and at this particular moment was
filling the parting moments with a rattling list of directions
concerning thread, buttons, hooks, needles, and all the many
etceteras of an industrious housewife’s basket. The elder was
laboriously assorting these postscript commissions in his memory,
well knowing that to return with any one of them neglected would
cause trouble in the family circle.
Elder Brown mounted his patient steed that stood sleepily
motionless in the warm sunlight, with his great pointed ears
displayed to the right and left, as though their owner had grown
tired of the life burden their weight inflicted upon him, and was,
old soldier fashion, ready to forego the once rigid alertness of
early training for the pleasures of frequent rest on arms.
“And, elder, don’t you forgit them caliker scraps, or you’ll be
wantin’ kiver soon an’ no kiver will be a-comin’.”
Elder Brown did not turn his head, but merely let the whip hand,
which had been checked in its backward motion, fall as he answered
mechanically. The beast he bestrode responded with a rapid whisking
of its tail and a great show of effort, as it ambled off down the
sandy road, the rider’s long legs seeming now and then to touch the
ground.
But as the zigzag panels of the rail fence crept behind him, and
he felt the freedom of the morning beginning to act upon his
well-trained blood, the mechanical manner of the old man’s mind
gave place to a mild exuberance. A weight seemed to be lifting
from it ounce by ounce as the fence panels, the weedy corners, the
persimmon sprouts and sassafras bushes crept away behind him, so
that by the time a mile lay between him and the life partner of his
joys and sorrows he was in a reasonably contented frame of mind,
and still improving.
It was a queer figure that crept along the road that cheery May
morning. It was tall and gaunt, and had been for thirty years or
more. The long head, bald on top, covered behind with iron-gray
hair, and in front with a short tangled growth that curled and
kinked in every direction, was surmounted by an old-fashioned
stove-pipe hat, worn and stained, but eminently impressive. An
old-fashioned Henry Clay cloth coat, stained and threadbare,
divided itself impartially over the donkey’s back and dangled on
his sides. This was all that remained of the elder’s wedding suit
of forty years ago. Only constant care, and use of late years
limited to extra occasions, had preserved it so long. The trousers
had soon parted company with their friends. The substitutes were
red jeans, which, while they did not well match his court costume,
were better able to withstand the old man’s abuse, for if, in
addition to his frequent religious excursions astride his beast,
there ever was a man who was fond of sitting down with his feet
higher than his head, it was this selfsame Elder Brown.
The morning expanded, and the old man expanded with it; for while
a vigorous leader in his church, the elder at home was, it must be
admitted, an uncomplaining slave. To the intense astonishment of
the beast he rode, there came new vigor into the whacks which fell
upon his flanks; and the beast allowed astonishment to surprise
him into real life and decided motion. Somewhere in the elder’s
expanding soul a tune had begun to ring. Possibly he took up the
far, faint tune that came from the straggling gang of negroes away
off in the field, as they slowly chopped amid the threadlike rows
of cotton plants which lined the level ground, for the melody he
hummed softly and then sang strongly, in the quavering, catchy
tones of a good old country churchman, was “I’m glad salvation’s
free.”
It was during the singing of this hymn that Elder Brown’s regular
motion-inspiring strokes were for the first time varied. He began
to hold his hickory up at certain pauses in the melody, and beat
the changes upon the sides of his astonished steed. The chorus
under this arrangement was:
I’m _glad_ salvation’s _free_,
I’m _glad_ salvation’s _free_,
I’m _glad_ salvation’s _free_ for _all_,
I’m _glad_ salvation’s _free_.
Wherever there is an italic, the hickory descended. It fell about
as regularly and after the fashion of the stick beating upon the
bass drum during a funeral march. But the beast, although convinced
that something serious was impending, did not consider a funeral
march appropriate for the occasion. He protested, at first, with
vigorous whiskings of his tail and a rapid shifting of his ears.
Finding these demonstrations unavailing, and convinced that some
urgent cause for hurry had suddenly invaded the elder’s serenity,
as it had his own, he began to cover the ground with frantic leaps
that would have surprised his owner could he have realized what
was going on. But Elder Brown’s eyes were half closed, and he
was singing at the top of his voice. Lost in a trance of divine
exaltation, for he felt the effects of the invigorating motion,
bent only on making the air ring with the lines which he dimly
imagined were drawing upon him the eyes of the whole female
congregation, he was supremely unconscious that his beast was
hurrying.
And thus the excursion proceeded, until suddenly a shote, surprised
in his calm search for roots in a fence corner, darted into the
road, and stood for an instant gazing upon the newcomers with that
idiotic stare which only a pig can imitate. The sudden appearance
of this unlooked-for apparition acted strongly upon the donkey.
With one supreme effort he collected himself into a motionless mass
of matter, bracing his front legs wide apart; that is to say, he
stopped short. There he stood, returning the pig’s idiotic stare
with an interest which must have led to the presumption that never
before in all his varied life had he seen such a singular little
creature. End over end went the man of prayer, finally bringing up
full length in the sand, striking just as he should have shouted
“free” for the fourth time in his glorious chorus.
Fully convinced that his alarm had been well founded, the shote
sped out from under the gigantic missile hurled at him by the
donkey, and scampered down the road, turning first one ear and
then the other to detect any sounds of pursuit. The donkey,
also convinced that the object before which he had halted was
supernatural, started back violently upon seeing it apparently turn
to a man. But seeing that it had turned to nothing but a man, he
wandered up into the deserted fence corner, and began to nibble
refreshment from a scrub oak.
For a moment the elder gazed up into the sky, half impressed with
the idea that the camp-meeting platform had given way. But the
truth forced its way to the front in his disordered understanding
at last, and with painful dignity he staggered into an upright
position, and regained his beaver. He was shocked again. Never
before in all the long years it had served him had he seen it
in such shape. The truth is, Elder Brown had never before tried
to stand on his head in it. As calmly as possible he began to
straighten it out, caring but little for the dust upon his
garments. The beaver was his special crown of dignity. To lose it
was to be reduced to a level with the common woolhat herd. He did
his best, pulling, pressing, and pushing, but the hat did not look
natural when he had finished. It seemed to have been laid off into
counties, sections, and town lots. Like a well-cut jewel, it had a
face for him, view it from whatever point he chose, a quality which
so impressed him that a lump gathered in his throat, and his eyes
winked vigorously.
Elder Brown was not, however, a man for tears. He was a man of
action. The sudden vision which met his wandering gaze, the donkey
calmly chewing scrub buds, with the green juice already oozing
from the corners of his frothy mouth, acted upon him like magic.
He was, after all, only human, and when he got hands upon a piece
of brush he thrashed the poor beast until it seemed as though even
its already half-tanned hide would be eternally ruined. Thoroughly
exhausted at last, he wearily straddled his saddle, and with his
chin upon his breast resumed the early morning tenor of his way.