"Admirable," the other approved. "My beloved helpmate will show you where
the tools are kept, when you can begin immediately."
Gordon made his way past Simmons' store to the plaster bulk of the
Universalist Church, its lawn shared by the four-square, shingled roof of
the parsonage. Back of both structures reached a small field of heavy
grass, where Gordon labored for the remainder of the day.
Late in the afternoon an aged, gaunt man drove an incongruous, two
wheeled, breaking cart into the stable yard behind the parsonage. After
hitching an aged, gaunt white horse, he approached the field's edge, where
Gordon was harvesting. It was the minister's father-in-law, himself a
clergyman for the half century past, a half century that stretched back
into strenuous, bygone days of circuit riding. His flowing hair and a
ragged goatee were white, oddly stained and dappled with lemon yellow, his
skin was leather-like from years of exposure to the elements, to the
bitter mountain winters, the ruthless suns of the August valleys. He was
as seasoned, as tough, as choice old hickory, and had pale, blue eyes in
which the flame of religious fervor, of incandescent zeal, were scarcely
dimmed.
A long supper table was spread in a room where a sideboard supported a
huge silver-plated pitcher swung on elaborately engraved supports, a dozen
blue glasses traced with gold, and a plate that pictured in a grey,
blurred fashion the Last Supper. The gathering ranged variously from the
aged circuit rider to the minister's next but one to the youngest: he had
fourteen children, of which nine were ravenously present. The oldest girl
at the table, a possible sixteen years, had this defiant detachment under
her immediate charge, acquitting herself notably by a constant stream of
sharp negations opposed to a varied clamor of proposals, attempted forages
upon the heaped plates, sly reprisals, and a sustained, hysterical note
which threatened at any time, and in any youthful individual, to burst
into angry wails.
Opposite Gordon Makimmon sat a slight, feminine figure, whom he recognized
as the teacher of the past season's local school. She had a pallid face,
which she rarely raised, compressed lips, and hands which attracted Gordon
by reason of their white deftness, the precise charm of their pointed
fingers. During a seemingly interminable grace, pronounced in a rapid
sing-song by the circuit rider, Gordon saw her flash her gaze about the
table, the room; and its somber, resentful fire, its restrained fury of
impatience, of disdain, of hatred, coming from that fragile, silent shape,
startled him.
The Universalist minister addressed the company in sonorous periods,
which, however, did not prevent him from assimilating a prodigious amount
of food. Between forkfuls of chicken baked in macaroni, "I rejoice that my
ministrations are acceptable to Him," he pronounced; "three souls
Wednesday last, two adults and a child on Sunday."
The aged evangelist could scarcely contain his contempt at this meager
tally. "What would you say, Augustus," he demanded in eager, tremulous
triumph, "to two hundred lost souls roaring up to the altar, casting off
their wickedness like snakes shed their skins? Hey? Hey? What would you
say to two hundred dipped in the blood of the lamb and emerging white as
the Dove? Souls ain't what they were," he muttered pessimistically; "it
used to be you could hear the Redeemed a spell of miles from the church,
now they're as confidential as a man borrowing money. The Lord will in no
wise acknowledge the faint in spirit." Suddenly, "Glory! Glory!" he
shouted, and his old eyes flamed with the inextinguishable blaze of his
enthusiasm.
The minister's wife inserted in the door from the kitchen a face bright
red from bending over the stove. "Now, pa," she admonished, "you'll scare
them children again."