The minister did not appear until late in the evening, after Margaret
had gone to her room, for which she was sincerely thankful. She could
hear his voice, fretful and complaining, as he called loudly for Bud to
take the horse. It appeared he had lost his way and wandered many miles
out of the trail. He blamed the country for having no better trails, and
the horse for not being able to find his way better. Mr. Tanner had gone
to bed, but Mrs. Tanner bustled about and tried to comfort him.
"Now that's too bad! Dearie me! Bud oughta hev gone with you, so he
ought. Bud! _Oh_, Bud, you 'ain't gonta sleep yet, hev you? Wake up and
come down and take this horse to the barn."
But Bud declined to descend. He shouted some sleepy directions from his
loft where he slept, and said the minister could look after his own
horse, he "wasn'ta gonta!" There was "plentya corn in the bin."
The minister grumbled his way to the barn, highly incensed at Bud, and
disturbed the calm of the evening view of Margaret's mountain by his
complaints when he returned. He wasn't accustomed to handling horses,
and he thought Bud might have stayed up and attended to it himself. Bud
chuckled in his loft and stole down the back kitchen roof while the
minister ate his late supper. Bud would never leave the old horse to
that amateur's tender mercies, but he didn't intend to make it easy for
the amateur. Margaret, from her window-seat watching the night in the
darkness, saw Bud slip off the kitchen roof and run to the barn, and she
smiled to herself. She liked that boy. He was going to be a good
comrade.
The Sabbath morning dawned brilliantly, and to the homesick girl there
suddenly came a sense of desolation on waking. A strange land was this,
without church-bells or sense of Sabbath fitness. The mountain, it is
true, greeted her with a holy light of gladness, but mountains are not
dependent upon humankind for being in the spirit on the Lord's day. They
are "continually praising Him." Margaret wondered how she was to get
through this day, this dreary first Sabbath away from her home and her
Sabbath-school class, and her dear old church with father preaching. She
had been away, of course, a great many times before, but never to a
churchless community. It was beginning to dawn upon her that that was
what Ashland was--a churchless community. As she recalled the walk to
the school and the ride through the village she had seen nothing that
looked like a church, and all the talk had been of the missionary. They
must have services of some sort, of course, and probably that flabby,
fish-eyed man, her fellow-boarder, was to preach; but her heart turned
sick at thought of listening to a man who had confessed to the
unbeliefs that he had. Of course, he would likely know enough to keep
such doubts to himself; but he had told her, and nothing he could say
now would help or uplift her in the least.
She drew a deep sigh and looked at her watch. It was late. At home the
early Sabbath-school bells would be ringing, and little girls in white,
with bunches of late fall flowers for their teachers, and holding hands
with their little brothers, would be hurrying down the street. Father
was in his study, going over his morning sermon, and mother putting her
little pearl pin in her collar, getting ready to go to her Bible class.
Margaret decided it was time to get up and stop thinking of it all.
She put on a little white dress that she wore to church at home and
hurried down to discover what the family plans were for the day, but
found, to her dismay, that the atmosphere below-stairs was just like
that of other days. Mr. Tanner sat tilted back in a dining-room chair,
reading the weekly paper, Mrs. Tanner was bustling in with hot
corn-bread, Bud was on the front-door steps teasing the dog, and the
minister came in with an air of weariness upon him, as if he quite
intended taking it out on his companions that he had experienced a
trying time on Saturday. He did not look in the least like a man who
expected to preach in a few minutes. He declined to eat his egg because
it was cooked too hard, and poor Mrs. Tanner had to try it twice before
she succeeded in producing a soft-boiled egg to suit him. Only the
radiant outline of the great mountain, which Margaret could see over the
minister's head, looked peaceful and Sabbath-like.
"What time do you have service?" Margaret asked, as she rose from the
table.
"Service?" It was Mr. Tanner who echoed her question as if he did not
quite know what she meant.
Mrs. Tanner raised her eyes from her belated breakfast with a worried
look, like a hen stretching her neck about to see what she ought to do
next for the comfort of the chickens under her care. It was apparent
that she had no comprehension of what the question meant. It was the
minister who answered, condescendingly:
"Um! Ah! There is no church edifice here, you know, Miss Earle. The
mission station is located some miles distant."
"I know," said Margaret, "but they surely have some religious service?"
"I really don't know," said the minister, loftily, as if it were
something wholly beneath his notice.
"Then you are not going to preach this morning?" In spite of herself
there was relief in her tone.
"Most certainly not," he replied, stiffly. "I came out here to rest, and
I selected this place largely because it was so far from a church. I
wanted to be where I should not be annoyed by requests to preach. Of
course, ministers from the East would be a curiosity in these Western
towns, and I should really get no rest at all if I had gone where my
services would have been in constant demand. When I came out here I was
in much the condition of our friend the minister of whom you have
doubtless heard. He was starting on his vacation, and he said to a
brother minister, with a smile of joy and relief, 'No preaching, no
praying, no reading of the Bible for six whole weeks!'"
"Indeed!" said Margaret, freezingly. "No, I am not familiar with
ministers of that sort." She turned with dismissal in her manner and
appealed to Mrs. Tanner. "Then you really have no Sabbath service of any
sort whatever in town?" There was something almost tragic in her face.
She stood aghast at the prospect before her.
Mrs. Tanner's neck stretched up a little longer, and her lips dropped
apart in her attempt to understand the situation. One would scarcely
have been surprised to hear her say, "Cut-cut-cut-ca-daw-cut?" so
fluttered did she seem.
Then up spoke Bud. "We gotta Sunday-school, ma!" There was pride of
possession in Bud's tone, and a kind of triumph over the minister,
albeit Bud had adjured Sunday-school since his early infancy. He was
ready now, however, to be offered on the altar of Sunday-school, even,
if that would please the new teacher--and spite the minister. "I'll take
you ef you wanta go." He looked defiantly at the minister as he said it.
But at last Mrs. Tanner seemed to grasp what was the matter.
"Why!--why!--why! You mean preaching service!" she clucked out. "Why,
yes, Mr. West, wouldn't that be fine? You could preach for us. We could
have it posted up at the saloon and the crossings, and out a ways on
both trails, and you'd have quite a crowd. They'd come from over to the
camp, and up the cañon way, and roundabouts. They'd do you credit, they
surely would, Mr. West. And you could have the school-house for a
meeting-house. Pa, there, is one of the school board. There wouldn't be
a bit of trouble--"
"Um! Ah! Mrs. Tanner, I assure you it's quite out of the question. I
told you I was here for absolute rest. I couldn't think of preaching.
Besides, it's against my principles to preach without remuneration. It's
a wrong idea. The workman is worthy of his hire, you know, Mrs. Tanner,
the Good Book says." Mr. West's tone took on a self-righteous
inflection.
"Oh! Ef that's all, that 'u'd be all right!" she said, with relief. "You
could take up a collection. The boys would be real generous. They always
are when any show comes along. They'd appreciate it, you know, and I'd
like fer Miss Earle here to hear you preach. It 'u'd be a real treat to
her, her being a preacher's daughter and all." She turned to Margaret
for support, but that young woman was talking to Bud. She had promptly
closed with his offer to take her to Sunday-school, and now she hurried
away to get ready, leaving Mrs. Tanner to make her clerical arrangements
without aid.
The minister, meantime, looked after her doubtfully. Perhaps, after all,
it would have been a good move to have preached. He might have impressed
that difficult young woman better that way than any other, seeing she
posed as being so interested in religious matters. He turned to Mrs.
Tanner and began to ask questions about the feasibility of a church
service. The word "collection" sounded good to him. He was not averse to
replenishing his somewhat depleted treasury if it could be done so
easily as that.
Meantime Margaret, up in her room, was wondering again how such a man as
Mr. West ever got into the Christian ministry.
West was still endeavoring to impress the Tanners with the importance of
his late charge in the East as Margaret came down-stairs. His pompous
tones, raised to favor the deafness that he took for granted in Mr.
Tanner, easily reached her ears.
"I couldn't, of course, think of doing it every Sunday, you understand.
It wouldn't be fair to myself nor my work which I have just left; but,
of course, if there were sufficient inducement I might consent to preach
some Sunday before I leave."
Mrs. Tanner's little satisfied cluck was quite audible as the girl
closed the front door and went out to the waiting Bud.
The Sunday-school was a desolate affair, presided over by an elderly and
very illiterate man, who nursed his elbows and rubbed his chin
meditatively between the slow questions which he read out of the
lesson-leaf. The woman who usually taught the children was called away
to nurse a sick neighbor, and the children were huddled together in a
restless group. The singing was poor, and the whole of the exercises
dreary, including the prayer. The few women present sat and stared in a
kind of awe at the visitor, half belligerently, as if she were an
intruder. Bud lingered outside the door and finally disappeared
altogether, reappearing when the last hymn was sung. Altogether the new
teacher felt exceedingly homesick as she wended her way back to the
Tanners' beside Bud.
"What do you do with yourself on Sunday afternoons, Bud?" she asked, as
soon as they were out of hearing of the rest of the group.
The boy turned wondering eyes toward her. "Do?" he repeated, puzzled.
"Why, we pass the time away, like 'most any day. There ain't much
difference."
A great desolation possessed her. No church! Worse than no minister! No
Sabbath! What kind of a land was this to which she had come?
The boy beside her smelled of tobacco smoke. He had been off somewhere
smoking while she was in the dreary little Sunday-school. She looked at
his careless boy-face furtively as they walked along. He smoked, of
course, like most boys of his age, probably, and he did a lot of other
things he ought not to do. He had no interest in God or righteousness,
and he did not take it for granted that the Sabbath was different from
any other day. A sudden heart-sinking came upon her. What was the use of
trying to do anything for such as he? Why not give it up now and go back
where there was more promising material to work upon and where she would
be welcome indeed? Of course, she had known things would be
discouraging, but somehow it had seemed different from a distance. It
all looked utterly hopeless now, and herself crazy to have thought she
could do any good in a place like this.
And yet the place needed somebody! That pitiful little Sunday-school!
How forlorn it all was! She was almost sorry she had gone. It gave her
an unhappy feeling for the morrow, which was to be her first day of
school.
Then, all suddenly, just as they were nearing the Tanner house, there
came one riding down the street with all the glory of the radiant
morning in his face, and a light in his eyes at seeing her that lifted
away her desolation, for here at last was a friend!
She wondered at herself. An unknown stranger, and a self-confessed
failure so far in his young life, and yet he seemed so good a sight to
her amid these uncongenial surroundings!