He sprang up with guilty haste and went toward the house. A shriveling
change of expression came over him.
The minister began, "A wise son heareth his father's instructions; but a
scorner heareth not rebuke."
"I hear you, father."
"Why did you linger in the garden and forget your duty?"
"I--I cannot tell you, father."
"Do you mean you do not know why?"
"I cannot say I do not know."
"Then answer me."
Nathaniel broke out desperately, "I _cannot_, father--I know no words--I
was--it is so warm--the sun shines--the birches are out--I was glad----"
The minister bowed his head sadly. "Aye, even as I thought. Sinful lust of
the eye draggeth you down to destruction. You whose salvation even now
hangs in the balance, for whose soul I wrestle every night in prayer that
you may be brought to the conviction of sin, 'you were glad.' Remember the
words, 'If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy, may my tongue cleave
to the roof of my mouth.'"
Nathaniel made no reply. He caught at the door, looking up wretchedly at
his father. When the minister turned away without speaking again, he drew
a long breath of relief.
Breakfast was always a silent meal in the Everett house, but on Sabbath
mornings the silence had a heavy significance. The preacher was beginning
then to work himself up to the pitch of storming fervor which made his
sermons so notable, and his wife and son cowered under the unspoken
emanations of the passion which later poured so terribly from the pulpit.
The Reverend Mr. Everett always ate very heartily on Sabbath mornings, but
Nathaniel usually pushed his plate away.
As a rule he walked to church between his father and his mother, like a
little child, although he was now a tall lad of sixteen, but to-day he was
sent back for a psalm-book, forgotten in the hurry of their early start.
When he set out again the rest of the village folk were all in the
meeting-house. The sight of the deserted street, walled in by the forest,
lying drowsily in the spring sunshine, was like balm to him. He loitered
along, free from observation, his eyes shining. A fat, old negro woman
sat on a doorstep in the sun, the only other person not in meeting. She
was a worn-out slave, from a Connecticut seaport, who had been thrown in
for good measure in a sharp bargain driven by the leading man of
Hillsboro. A red turban-like cloth was bound above her black face, she
rested her puffy black arms across her knees and crooned a monotonous
refrain. Although the villagers regarded her as imbecile, they thought her
harmless, and Nathaniel nodded to her as he passed. She gave him a rich
laugh and a "Good morrow, Marse Natty, _good_ morrow!"
A hen clucking to her chicks went across the road before him. The little
yellow balls ran briskly forward on their wiry legs, darting at invisible
insects, turning their shiny black eyes about alertly and filling the air
with their sweet, thin pipings. Nathaniel stopped to watch them, and as he
noticed the pompously important air with which one of the tiny creatures
scratched the ground with his ineffectual little feet, cocking his eye
upon the spot afterward as if to estimate the amount of progress made, the
boy laughed out loud. He started at the sound and glanced around him
hurriedly, moving on to the meeting-house from which there now burst forth
a harshly intoned psalm. He lingered for a moment at the door, gazing back
at the translucent greens of the distant birches gleaming against the
black pines. A gust of air perfumed with shad-blossom blew past him, and
with this in his nostrils he entered the whitewashed interior and made his
way on tiptoe up the bare boards of the aisle.