It was the next day on the train on their way to Millerstown, to visit
Hiram's church and his family, that an illuminating little incident
occurred in the matter of the gifts they were taking to the children.
"What's that package you have, Margaret?" Jennie inquired, rather in
the tone of a demand, as the four of them sat in two facing seats of a
day coach, Jennie and Sadie having both offered Daniel the seat by the
window and regarding Margaret with evident disapproval because she had
not offered hers.
"A book for the children," Margaret replied, thinking Jennie's question
and tone both somewhat surprisingly impertinent. "An illustrated book
of Bible stories. I found very little to choose from in the New Munich
shops; this was the best thing I could find. I'm sure your brother
Hiram will approve of such a proper book, though it's at the same time
one that even naughty little boys will love--just full of gruesome
pictures. That's why I got it."
"But Hiram's boys ain't naughty; they're awful well-behaved," Sadie
corrected this unjust aspersion.
"I hope not too well-behaved, or I shan't feel at home with them. I
like 'the dear, delightful bad ones,' as Riley calls them."
"You had no need to buy them a present, Margaret," Jennie reproved her.
"Danny gave me a dollar yesterday for you and him, and then I and Sadie
each put fifty cents at--and I got nice presents for the children from
us all together."
"What did you pay for the book, Margaret?" asked Daniel. "It looks
large."
"I forget exactly; three dollars, I believe, or two-fifty."
"Tut, tut!" exclaimed Daniel hastily. "You're too extravagant!"
"My goodness! Two-fifty or three dollars yet!" cried Jennie. "Money
must be a-plenty with you, Margaret."
"I'll tell you what," suggested Daniel fussily: "keep back the presents
you brought along, Jennie, and give the book from us all, and then the
next time we come to Hiram's we can use those other presents."
"Yes, well, but," objected Jennie, "then I and Sadie won't have paid
our full share if Margaret gave two-fifty or three dollars for the book
yet."
"Which was it, Margaret?" Daniel inquired a bit sharply. "Surely you
know whether you paid two-fifty or three dollars for the book?"
"Does it matter? If you require the exact statistics I remember the
price of the book was three-fifty, and they offered it to me for three."
"Then, Jennie," said Daniel, "you and Sadie each give a quarter more
and we'll save back the other things until the next time."
And to Margaret's unspeakable astonishment her husband's sisters opened
their purses, counted out twenty-five cents each and passed it over to
Daniel, who serenely received it and dropped it into his own purse.
"If you're playing a game," said Margaret, holding out her hand, "I'll
take my share, please--two and a quarter."
"But you and I are one," said Daniel jocularly, "and what's mine is----"
"Your own?" asked Margaret as he hesitated.
Daniel laughed with appreciation of this witty retort. It was
discouraging to Margaret that he always laughed when she was fatuous
and never when she said a thing she considered rather good.
"And, my dear," he admonished her, "remember after this that we always
put together to buy for Hiram's children. We can do better that way,
not only for the children, but it comes lighter on each one of us."
Margaret did not reply. The incident, somehow, struck a chill to her
heart.
"It must be," she concluded, "that Jennie and Sadie have some little
income of their own and are not entirely dependent upon Daniel."
If this were true, she felt it would exonerate her from some of the
forbearance she had been so carefully practising.
As they reached Millerstown just in time for the opening of the service
at Hiram's church, Margaret first saw her brother-in-law from the front
pew, as he stood before his congregation in his pulpit.
"You take notice," Jennie had warned her on their way from the station
to the church, "how the folks in Hiram's church look when we come in
and walk up to the front pew."
"At me?"
"Well, at you, mebby, _this_ Sunday, because this is the first time
they are seeing you. But it's Danny they look at mostly, such a way-up
lawyer as he is, coming into their church. And every year he gives
them a contribution yet."
There actually was a stir in the congregation as the party of four was
ushered to the pew reserved for them, and Margaret noted curiously the
look of satisfaction it brought to the faces of her husband and his
sisters.
The village volunteer choir was singing a "selection" as they entered:
"We're going home to glory
In the good old-fashioned way."
In Hiram's prayer, which followed, he informed God, whom he addressed
in epistolary style as "Dear God," that "the good old-fashioned way"
was plenty good enough for the members of the Millerstown United
Brethren Church.
Margaret, unable to keep her mind on the rambling discourse intended to
be a prayer, noted that the speaker's accent and diction, while not
illiterate, were very crude, that he took a manifest pleasure in the
hackneyed religious phrases which rolled stentoriously from his lips,
and that he wore an expression, as he prayed, of smug
self-satisfaction. She also observed that, like Daniel, he was small,
slight, and insignificant looking; and she suddenly realized, with a
sinking of her heart, that in this uncouth village preacher she really
saw her husband as he would assuredly appear if stripped of the veneer
which an earlier training and a college education had given him.
As they sat down after the prayer, Sadie whispered to her: "That's
Hiram's Lizzie over there with three of the children." And glancing
across the aisle, Margaret saw in the opposite front pew a buxom,
matronly young woman, dressed somewhat elaborately in clothes of
village cut and with a rather heavy but honest and wholesome
countenance; her three children, shining from soap and water, and
dressed also elaborately in village style, were gathered with her in
the pew.
In the sermon that Hiram preached Margaret couldn't help suspecting
that he was, this morning, doing some "special stunts" to impress her,
so often did his complacent glance wander down to meet her upward,
attentive gaze. For indeed she couldn't help listening to him, so
astonishing did his so-called sermon seem to her, so colossal his
self-approval.
His theme was Lot's unfortunate career in Sodom, and in his
extraordinary paraphrasing of the scriptural story he gave it as his
opinion that probably one of the causes leading to Lot's downfall was
the ambition of Mrs. Lot and her daughter to get into Sodom's Four
Hundred. From the Lot family as social climbers in Sodom, the preacher
launched forth into a denunciation of the idle, dissipated lives of
fashionable women (with which he assumed a first-hand intimacy), a
denunciation that seemed rather irrelevant as spiritual food for his
simple village hearers. He hauled into his discourse, without regard
to sequence of ideas, time, space, or logic, Martha and Mary of the New
Testament, saying that some one had once asked him which of the two
he'd have preferred to marry. "Martha before dinner and Mary after
dinner," had been his response, and his congregation rippled with
amusement and almost applauded. A few moments later he was moving them
to tears by his deep-toned, solemn references to death and the grave
and "the hollow sounds of clods of earth falling upon the coffin lid."
Before pronouncing the Benediction he asked the congregation to "tarry
a moment for social intercourse"; and in the exchange of greetings
which followed, Margaret could see how Daniel, Jennie, and Sadie
revelled in the obsequiousness of most of these shy villagers before
their pastor's distinguished brother and his two elaborately arrayed
sisters; for Jennie and Sadie looked very expensive indeed in their
near-seal coats which they were sure none but an expert could
distinguish from sealskin.
When they presently went over to the parsonage, Jennie informed
Margaret that Lizzie's father had "furnished for her." The parlour
which they entered was fitted out in heavy old-gold plush sofa and
chairs, a marble-topped centre table, a gilt-framed motto over the
mantel, "Welcome," and a rug in front of the sofa stamped with the
words, "Sweet Home."
At the abundant and well-cooked dinner to which they all gathered
immediately after church and which was served without any superfluous
ceremony, since "Hiram's Lizzie" kept but one "hired girl," Hiram
entirely monopolized the table talk, even Daniel being no match in
egotism for his clerical brother, and Jennie managing with difficulty
to wedge in an occasional warning to Sadie to refrain from eating
certain things that might give her "the indigestion."
As for the children, they sat in awed silence under the double spell of
their father's flow of speech and the presence of a stranger, their new
aunt. They were all three rather dull, heavy children, from whom
Margaret's friendly and playful overtures could extract very little
response.
Hiram boasted about himself so shamelessly that Margaret wondered why
his wife, sensible woman as she appeared to be, did not blush for him.
But Lizzie's Pennsylvania German sense of deep loyalty to her spouse,
her reverence for him as a minister, no less than her natural
simplicity and stupidity, blinded her to his painfully obvious
weaknesses and made her see in him only those things in which he was
her superior. He, on his part, patronized her kindly. She could not
have suited him better if she had been made to order.
"Yes, I'm often told by folks who hear me preach or lecture that I'm a
born orator. That's what they say I am--a born orator. No credit to
me--comes natural. You noticed, sister-in-law, my sermon this morning
was entirely extemporaneous. Only a few notes to guide me. Nothing at
all but a few notes. And did I pause for a word, sister-in-law, did I?"
"I didn't _hear_ you pause, brother-in-law," responded Margaret, adding
to herself, "You big wind-bag! If you ever did pause for a word, your
words might occasionally mean something."
"You might think I spent a great deal of time in the preparation of my
sermons," continued Hiram. "Any one _would_ think so that heard me.
But I can prove it by Lizzie that I don't have to. Give me a text and
get me started and it's like rolling down hill for me. Natural gift.
Couldn't help it if I wanted to. Have my people laughing one minute,
crying the next--story of Mary and Martha--clods of earth falling on
coffin lid--humour and pathos alternately. That's oratory,
sister-in-law. Why, they think here in Millerstown that they can't
have any kind of a celebration without me to speak--Fourth of July,
Memorial Day, Lincoln's and Washington's Birthday celebrations,
Y.M.C.A. meetings, Y.W.C.A. rallies, W.C.T.U. gatherings, S.P.C.A.
anniversaries. I'm constantly in demand, constantly. Nothing quite
right unless Reverend Leitzel's there to speak! Ain't it so, Lizzie?"
"Yes, indeed, it's something wonderful the way they're after him all
the time to speak," said Lizzie with pride.
"When I take my month's vacation in the summer and they have to listen
to a substitute for four Sundays, oh, my, but then you hear them growl!
'The substitute may be a good enough preacher' they say to me, 'but he
won't be our Reverend Leitzel.' And when I come back to them
again--well, the way they flock to hear me the very first Sunday, and
the way they tell me, 'That substitute never made us laugh once; he
never made us shed a tear. There's no sermons like yours, Reverend
Leitzel!' Ain't they always glad to see me back again, Lizzie, after
my vacation?"
"Well, I guess!" replied Lizzie, holding a large slice of bread on her
palm and spreading it with butter for Zwingli.
"I'm even invited to New Munich sometimes to give an address and to
Lebanon and even to Reading yet, and that's a big place. You see they
know I have the power to hold an audience. I never _fail_ to hold my
audience. Did you ever see me fail to hold my audiences, Lizzie?"
"No, indeed, they're always sorry when he stops preaching!" affirmed
Lizzie.
"I was once approached by some men who offered to finance me as an
evangelist, and if I had consented I'd be as rich a man to-day as
brother Daniel is, for there ain't a more money-making profession
to-day than Evangelism, every one knows that. Look at Billy Sunday's
rake-offs! But I had to refuse them because they wanted me to do a
certain thing that my conscience wouldn't leave me do: they said a
feature of my evangelistic campaign would have to be addresses to
audiences of Women Only, on Eugenics; that you couldn't have a swell,
up-to-date evangelistic campaign without that big drawing card. Well,
I said I could easy do that; so that part was all right. _But_ when
they told me that in order to make it a go, I'd have to interduce into
my talk to Women Only, one or two _sudgestive remarks_, I refused!"
said Hiram heroically. "Not one sudgestive remark will I make, I told
them. 'Take me or leave me, but I won't make _one sudgestive remark_
to an audience of Women Only!' So," he concluded grandly, "by standing
up for my principles, you see, I lost a fortune!"
Margaret glanced, now and then, at Daniel and his sisters to learn from
their faces whether they considered Hiram sane; but they, far from
looking alarmed or disgusted, seemed to regard the bouquets he flung at
himself as a personal tribute to themselves, his near relatives, who
could at least inhale their fragrance.
"Yes, Hiram's a born preacher, that I will say," remarked Jennie.
"Yes, from a little boy, yet, he always wanted to be a preacher," added
Sadie.
"He's got the gift all right," affirmed Daniel emphatically.
An expectant pause, just here, made Margaret realize that they were
waiting for her to cast her bouquet at Hiram's feet. She was an
amiable creature and would have been perfectly willing to oblige them
if her wits had been more agile; but for the life of her she could
think of nothing to say that would not too deeply perjure her soul.
Her silence, however, in no way daunted Hiram.
"How did _you_ like my sermon this morning, sister-in-law?" he frankly
inquired.
"It was the best--of its kind--I ever heard," responded Margaret,
looking at him without blinking.
"Thank you," he bowed. "I'm sure you are perfectly sincere, too, in
your complimentary opinion."
"Perfectly sincere," said Margaret.
"In what church were _you_ raised?"
"My family has a perpetual life ownership of a pew in the oldest
Episcopal Church in Charleston, but I must admit that it isn't often
occupied."
"You are a Christian, I trust?" said Hiram gravely.
Margaret did not think a reply necessary, or perhaps advisable. So she
made none.
"Are you a Christian, sister-in-law?" Hiram solemnly repeated.
"I'm a Democrat, a Suffragist, a Southerner--I don't know what all!"
said Margaret flippantly.
"Do you mean to tell me, sister-in-law, that you ain't a Christian?"
"I consider that a very personal question, and if you call me
'sister-in-law' again, I'll--I'll steal your little girl here," she
added, slipping her arm about the unresponsive child at her side, "and
take her home with me. Do you want to come to New Munich with your new
aunt, my dear?" she asked the child.
"Yes, ma'am."
This digression diverted the talk for a time from the all-engrossing
topic of Hiram's oratorical prowess, and as there now ensued the
distracting clatter of clearing the laden table for dessert, the
respite continued a bit longer.
But after dinner, when they were again gathered in the parlour, Hiram
continued his monologue with unabated relish, pacing the length of the
room as he talked, his well-disciplined, or utterly phlegmatic,
children sitting in silence among their elders, Daniel fondly holding
on his knee Christian, the youngest of the three (there was a rather
new baby upstairs), and letting him play with his big gold watch.
Having got the impression that Margaret was an "unbeliever," Hiram
entered upon a polemic in defence of "the faith once delivered to the
saints," sweeping from the earth with one fell stroke all the results
of German scholarship in Biblical criticism, refuting in three
sentences the arguments (as he understood them) of Darwin, Spencer, and
Huxley, putting Matthew Arnold severely in his place as "a back
number," rating Emerson as "a gross materialist," and himself as a
godly and spiritually minded favourite of Almighty God.
Margaret soon began to feel very restive under this continued deluge.
She would have liked a chance to cultivate the children, or to talk to
Lizzie and try to discover whether that good, sensible face had
anything behind it besides an evidently doting belief in her husband.
"Probably not," she mused, while Hiram continued to blow his trumpet.
"A merciful Providence, foreseeing her marriage to this unspeakable
ass, made her brainless. Oh! What would Uncle Osmond have done with a
creature like this Hiram? What would happen, I wonder, if I said
'damn' before him? If it weren't for the feelings of Daniel and his
sisters, I'd certainly try it on him. If I find myself alone with him,
I'm _going_ to swear! I'll swear at him! I'll say, 'You little damn
fool!'"