A PASTOR PROMISES AID
Four mature throats were simultaneously cleared, and Mr. Sage, being a
very unusual sort of minister, abruptly put his hand over his mouth—not
quite soon enough, however, to smother a spasmodic chuckle.
Notwithstanding this and other diverting passages, Master Oliver was
finally made to realize the vastness of the dark and terrifying shadow
that hung over him. He listened to the pronouncement of his own doom,
and his warm little heart was beating fast and hard in an ice-cold body
that trembled with awe. He suffered his “uncles” to pat him on the
shoulder and say they would “stand by” him through thick and thin, and
his lip quivered with something far removed from gratitude. He sat up
long past his bed-time, and his eyes were bright and shining where
ordinarily they would have been dull and heavy.
At last the three hangmen arose to depart. They had frightened the poor
boy out of his boots, and now, well-satisfied with their work, were
going home to sleep the sleep of the just and beneficent whilst he was
doomed to a shivery night in which the gallows they had erected for him
was to stand out as if it were real and not a thing of the imagination.
“And, now, Oliver,” said Mr. Sikes consolingly, “you needn’t be afraid
of the fortune coming true, because we’re going to see that it don’t.
We’re going to watch over you, and tend you, and guide you, and some day
we’ll all sit around and laugh ourselves sick over what that infernal
lying gypsy woman said. So don’t you worry. Me and your Uncle Silas and
Mr. Sage here are going to make it our business to see that you grow up
to be a fine, decent, absolutely model young man, and ’long about 1920
or thereabouts we’ll have the doggonedest celebration you ever heard of.
We’ll paint the town—”
“How old will I be then?” piped up Oliver wistfully.
“You’ll be thirty and over,” announced Mr. Sikes.
“And how old will you and Uncle Silas be?”
“About the same age as your Pa—couple of years’ difference, maybe, one
way or the other.”
“How old will that be?”
Mr. Link, who was quick at figures, replied, but with a most singular
hush in his usually jovial voice.
“Why—er—I’ll be seventy-eight, your Pa will be seventy-five, and your
Uncle Joe here will be—you’ll be eighty, Joe. By jiminy, I wonder if—”
“I didn’t know anybody ever lived to be as old as that,” said Oliver, so
earnestly that three of his listeners frowned. “Except Methusalum. Maybe
you’ll all be dead and buried ’fore I’m thirty so what’s going to become
of me then?”
“Why—er—we don’t intend to be dead for a long, long time,” explained
Mr. Sikes. “I’m figuring on living to be a hundred, and so’s your pa and
Uncle Silas. Don’t you worry about us, sonny. We’ll be hanging—I mean,
we’ll be moseying around this here town for forty or fifty years longer,
sure as you’re alive. Yes, sirree.”
“What an awful thing it would be,” groaned Oliver’s father, “if all
three of us was to up and die inside the next eight or ten—”
“If there’s an epidemic like that,” interrupted Mr. Link, scowling at
the tactless Mr. Baxter, “it’ll probably take Oliver off too, so don’t
be foolish.”
Mr. Sage spoke up, dryly. “It will be quite all right for you to die,
gentlemen, whenever the good Lord thinks it most convenient. You seem to
forget that I am one of Oliver October’s self-appointed guardians.
Permit me to remind you that I will still be a mere youth of sixty when
he reaches the age of thirty. So you need not feel the slightest
compunction or hesitancy about dying.”
He was stared at very hard by two of his listeners.
“I wish my Ma was here,” said Oliver October, his lip trembling. Despite
the sincere if voluble protestations of the three visitors, he still
felt miserably in need of a friend and comforter. He could not conceive
of his father taking him in his arms and holding him tight; there wasn’t
anything soft and warm and cushiony about his father; only his mother
could whisper and croon in his ear and snuggle him up close when he was
sick or frightened, and she was gone.
“Amen to that,” said Mr. Sage, fervently.
“Amen!” repeated Mr. Link in his most professional voice.
Mr. Sikes coughed uncomfortably and then put on his hat.
“Well, good night,” said he. “Sleep tight, sonny.”
“Say ‘thank you’ to your Uncle Joe, Oliver,” said Mr. Baxter huskily,
and then, without rime or reason, gave vent to his nervous cackle.
“Thank you, Uncle Joe,” muttered Oliver.
Mr. Sage laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Do you say your prayers
every night, Oliver?”
“Yes, sir—I do.”
“Well—er—if Brother Baxter doesn’t mind and if you gentlemen will
excuse me, I think I will go upstairs with Oliver and—and listen to his
prayer.”
A little later on, the tall, spare pastor sat on the side of young
Oliver’s trundle bed in the room across the hall from old Oliver’s and
next to the one in which Annie Sharp, the hired girl, was already sound
asleep. The boy had murmured his “Now I lay me” and, for good measure,
the Lord’s Prayer. Mr. Sage leaned over and, lowering his voice,
said—but not until he had satisfied himself that no one was listening
outside the door:
“You believe I am a good man, don’t you, Oliver—a very good man?”
“Yes, sir. You’re a preacher. You got to be good.”
“Ahem! Quite so. You don’t believe I could tell a lie, do you?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, now I am going to tell you something and I want you to believe
it. Nobody on this earth can foretell the future. Nobody knows what is
going to happen to-morrow, much less what is going to happen years away.
It isn’t possible. God does not give any person that miraculous power.
Our Lord Jesus Christ could perform miracles, but he was the only one
who could do so. Do you think that God would give to all the thieving
gypsies in the world the same divine power that he gave to his only Son,
the Savior? No! Now, listen. There is not a word of truth in what that
old gypsy woman said—not one word, Oliver. You can believe me, you can
trust me. I am God’s minister, and I am telling you to pay no attention
to anything Mr. Sikes and Mr. Link said to you to-night. If God would
only allow me to do so, I would tell you that they are a pair of silly
old fools—but that wouldn’t be kind, so I will not say it. You need not
be afraid. All that talk about your being hung some day is
poppycock—pure poppycock. Don’t you believe a word of it. I came
upstairs with you just for the purpose of telling you this—not really
to hear your prayers. Now don’t you feel better?”
“But you just said, Uncle Herbert, that nobody could see ahead. How do
you know I won’t be—be hung?”
“I am not saying that, my lad. I am merely telling you that the gypsy
woman did not have the power to see ahead. There is no such thing as
true fortune-telling. She claimed to read the stars. Well, do you
suppose that all those millions and millions of stars—any one of them
much greater than the earth—are interested in little bits of things
like you and me? No, siree, Oliver. They don’t even know we exist. That
old gypsy was just lying. They all do. They take your money and then
they go away and laugh at you for being such a goose. So you need not
worry at all about what you were told to-night. And now I am going to
say something to you that will surprise you. It is wrong for me, a
minister of the gospel, to tell you this, but I love fighting Christians
just as much as I love praying Christians. I do not mean that a man
should go about looking for fights. That would be very, very wrong.
Wouldn’t it?” He asked the question abruptly.
“Yes, sir,” said Oliver. “It would.”
“You must keep out of fights whenever you can, but if the time comes
when you _must_ fight—do it as well as you know how and pray about it
afterwards. When your enemy smites you, turn the other cheek like a good
Christian boy—but do not let him hit your other cheek if you can help
it. Defend yourself. Put up your props, as your Uncle Joe says, and sail
into him. You will thus be turning the other cheek, but it does not mean
that he may smite it without resistance on your part. The Bible doesn’t
seem to be very clear on that point, so I am taking the liberty of
telling you just what I think _ought_ to be done when an enemy besets
you with his fists. You must not fight if you can help it, Oliver. A
soft answer turneth away wrath. Sometimes. When I was your age, I had a
good many fights—and you see what I am to-day. A minister of the
gospel. If I had an enemy to-day and he was to set upon me, I should
defend myself to the best of my strength and ability. Your Uncle Joe and
your Uncle Silas are right, however, in counseling you to avoid
conflict. No good ever comes of it. As you grow older you will acquire
wisdom, and wisdom is a very great thing, Oliver. A wise man does not go
about seeking for trouble. He tries to avoid it. And so will you when
you are older. But just at present you are no wiser than other boys of
your age. You were very foolish to fight with Sammy to-day because Jane
egged you on. It is most commendable, of course, to protect a lady in
distress. But Jane was not in distress. She did not need protection.
Sometimes a woman—But never mind. You understand what I mean, don’t
you, Oliver?”
“No, sir,” said the truthful Oliver.
“Well, what I want you to do, Oliver, is to go on leading a—er—regular
boy’s life. Do the things that are right and square, be honest and
fearless—and no harm will ever come to you. Now, turn over and go to
sleep, there’s a good boy. I will put out the light for you. Don’t lie
awake worrying about things—because there is nothing to worry about.
Good night, Oliver. I have a very great affection for you, my lad, and,
so long as God lets me live, I will always help you when—er—evil
besets you. As it did to-night.”
He smiled dryly, perhaps a little guiltily, as he turned away and
lowered the wick in the lamp that stood on the table near by.
“Don’t blow it out yet, please,” pleaded Oliver October. “I want to ast
you a question.”
“Go ahead, my lad. What is it?” said the man, peering over the lamp
chimney, at the boy huddled up in the bed.
“If you was me, would you take boxing lessons from Uncle Joe?”
Mr. Sage considered, weighing his words. A little wave of color spread
over his pale, ascetic face, and a queer light gleamed in his kindly
eye.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he answered after a moment. Then he blew out the
light. Instead of departing, he strode over and sat down on the edge of
the bed. “I doubt very much if Joe Sikes is a scientific boxer. He
strikes me as a rather rough and tumble sort of fellow. You wouldn’t
learn much from him, I’m afraid. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I
will give you a—er—a few instructions myself, if you will come over to
the house, say once a week—secretly, you understand. You must never
tell anybody that I am—er—giving you lessons in the manly art of
self-defense. It will have to be a very dark secret between us, Oliver.
For the present, at any rate.”
He was glad that he had blown out the light. Somehow he knew that the
small boy’s eyes were upon him, and that they were filled with the sort
of amazement that makes one most uncomfortable. This was proved by the
very significant fact that Oliver did not speak. After a moment Mr. Sage
went on, a little hurriedly:
“You see, Oliver, when I was in college—that was before I went to the
Theological Institute, you know—I went in for the various sports and
games. I was on the football team and the baseball team, and so forth.
Quite a number of us took up boxing. It is very fine exercise for both
the body and the mind. Yes, I will be happy to teach you a few of the
tricks of the—er—sport. Of course, I have not boxed since I became a
minister, but I—er—I dare say I haven’t forgotten how to feint and
block and sidestep and—ahem! Yes, yes—come and see me to-morrow and we
will talk it over.”
As he slowly descended the stairs, he consoled himself with the thought
that he had given the poor lad something besides the gallows to think
about.
The three old men were waiting for him on the porch, and none too
amiably it would appear, judging by the glum silence that greeted him as
he joined them. Mr. Link and Mr. Sikes spoke a gruff “good night” to
Baxter and started off toward the gate at the foot of the slope. The
minister paused at the top of the steps to shake hands with Oliver
October’s harassed parent.
“Thank you for coming over and helping straighten things out,” said Mr.
Baxter. Then he proceeded to commit himself and his two cronies by
adding: “Have you heard anything from Josephine lately?”
Now that was the one question that the people of Rumley religiously and
resolutely refrained from asking Mr. Sage. They persistently asked it of
each other—in an obviously modified form—and they did not hesitate to
bother the postmaster from time to time with inquiries; but they never
asked it of Josephine’s husband. It was a very delicate matter.
Mrs. Sage, in the sixth year of her married life—her baby was then two
years old—surrendered to her ambition. She went on the stage.
And so, it is no wonder that people hesitated about asking Mr. Sage how
she was getting along; to most of them it was almost the same as
inquiring if he knew how she was getting along in hell.
Besides, it was hard to ask questions of a man whose eyes were dark with
unhappiness and whose face was drawn and sad and always wistful.
For nearly four years that very question had been on the tip of Mr.
Baxter’s tongue, struggling for release. He had always succeeded in
holding it back. And now, before he knew what he was about, he let go
and out it came. He was petrified.
“Not lately,” said Mr. Sage, quietly.
Whereupon, for no reason at all, Mr. Baxter cackled inanely.