The word had passed along, and all St. Angé knew that Jock Filmer had a
raw specimen of a parson up at his shack, in safe keeping for the Sunday
events. For Joyce's wedding-day fell upon a Sunday.
"He's fattening him up," said Tom Smith, "and the Lord knows he needs
it! Such a spindling youngster I _never_ saw--a parson!" The contempt
was too deep for Smith's expression, so he gave up. "And to think,"
added the train conductor, stretching his long legs in Tate's tavern,
"there he was on my car, and I never sensed his ideas. Talk about
entertaining angels unaware, it ain't in it! He even cussed mild when I
told him his ticket was punched for Green Lake, and he was headed for
St. Angé. I never would have took him for anything but a plain milksop
till he let forth his opinions."
"I don't call it a proper attitude," broke in Tate, mixing a glass of
vile dilution for Murphy's consumption. "I don't call it a _proper_
attitude for a parson to appear so much like other folks that you can't
tell 'im. It's suspicious, says I. How do we know as he _is_ a parson?"
This suggestion caused the company a moment's pause.
"He better be!" muttered Peter Falstar. "He'd better be what he claims
to be, even if it _is_ a parson. We don't stand for any tricks from
strangers."
This lifted the spirits somewhat. Looked at _that_ way, they had the
matter in their own hands.
"I wonder"--Tate's face assumed its cheerful placidity--"if his marrying
of Jude and Joyce would hold in any court o' law?"
At this the listeners laughed.
"Who ever heard of a marriage in St. Angé getting to a court o' law?"
asked Tom Smith.
"But Jared ain't never had a daughter married before." Tate nodded his
head sagely. "Jared's a deep one, and, taken off his guard, shows he
knows more about law and order than any one man I ever let my eyes fall
on."
"He must be all-fired off his guard," jeered Falstar, "when he talks
order of any kind. Where is he, anyway?"
"Exactly." Tate held his own glass high and firm. "_Where_ is he? Here
is his daughter's wedding day--Where is he? I tell _you_ if that
marriage ain't hard and fast, it's _my_ opinion Birkdale will trifle
with it to suit his own ends. Jude's taking chances when he annexes
Jared to his responsibilities, and don't you forget it! If that marriage
ain't hide-bound, or if Jude don't provide for Birkdale, it's going to
be broke if Jared has to raise all damnation to do it. He's got his eye
to a knothole somewhere, you bet your life on that."
By superhuman sacrifice St. Angé had kept itself sober the Saturday
night preceding the wedding but it did not sleep much. The male
population discussed the day's doings and the women searched their
meagre belongings for appropriate trappings for the next day's
festivities.
Their resources were limited, and the day being Sunday, added to the
difficulty.
"You can't," said draggled Peggy Falstar, "put on real gay toggings in a
church and on a Sunday."
Isa Tate, as leading lady in the place, solved the problem.
"We've got our mourning," she said to Peggy and the others gathered in
Peggy's dirty kitchen. "We always have that on hand. Now we can leave
off the long veils and put some false flowers on our bonnets--real
spruce ones. They will lighten up the black. Them as has black gloves
can wear them, but by carrying a clean handkercher real conspicuous, the
gloom will be brightened some."
"I ain't had a pair of gloves in seventeen years," moaned Peggy.
"Well, you can sort of wind yer handkercher around your hands,"
comforted Isa.
"My feelings may be overcome," said Peggy; "they generally is in
public, and then I'll have to use my handkercher and show my hands."
"You'll have to control yourself." Isa looked grim. "And, land o' love,
a wedding ain't no place for wailing. Tate and me has given Joyce a real
smart white dress, and she's trimmed her old hat all up with little
frost flowers. She's a dabster at fixin' things. She's going to look
real stylish. You know her mother was that way, though it was sorter
knocked out of her, but the last thing she said to me was, 'Isa, I want
you to put my grandmother's specs on me when I'm gone. Specs is dreadful
stylish, and I've always looked forward to my eyes giving out so I could
wear them. My eyes,' says she, 'has lasted better than me, but I want to
be buried in my specs'; and so she was!"
The women all wiped their eyes.
"She was a powerful impressive corpse," whimpered Peggy, "but them specs
gave me a terrible turn when I saw them first. The second look sorter
took away the shock. I do hope," Peggy sighed, "I do hope them specs was
long-distance ones. The good Lord knows Mrs. Birkdale had favourable
reasons for seeing as far off as possible!"
"They was," Isa nodded. "I tried 'em, and things was all blurred to me."
And then the women parted gloomily, to meet again at Joyce's wedding.
It was such a day as only the mountains know. A hushed, golden day with
a mysterious softness of outline on the distant hills.
The little crumbling church was open to the beauty of the morning, and
John Gaston had decked it within with every flowering thing he could
gather from wood and meadow.
Jock came early and stood in one of the narrow doors of the church,
opening upon the highway. His hands were plunged in his pockets, and a
look of concentration was on his handsome face.
He was going to "set," so he thought, his baby parson on to Jude. There
was excitement in the idea. While he stood there Gaston came and took
his stand at the other narrow door. The architect of the St. Angé church
had had ideas of propriety in regard to established rules.
"Looks--some! don't it?" Jock asked.
"Yes," Gaston replied; "I was bound to have it look as wedding-like as
possible."
"You did the decorating?" Jock asked, and a curious frown settled
between his eyes. "I thought it was the women."
"They're thinking of themselves. Is your parson on to the game, Filmer?"
"He's all right. Gone off to commune with Nater. There he is now."
Drew had entered the rear door, and went at once to the small bare
pulpit.
"Umph!" whispered Gaston. "Looks like a picture of John the Baptist."
"He don't act like it." Jock was in arms at once against any suspected
criticism. "He's got more sand than many a blasted heavyweight. You
ought to hear his gab--it's the newest thing in soul-saving. Sort o'
homeopathic doctrine. Tastes good, but bitter as pisen under the
coating. Real stuff inside, and all that. Get's working after it's
taken, and the sweet taste lasts in your mouth while your innards are
acting like--"
The people were gathering. They passed by Jock and Gaston without
recognition. Social functions in St. Angé ignored all familiar
intimacies.
Jude and Joyce came through the rear door, and sat in the front pew.
The girl moved with the absorption of a sleepwalker beside Jude whose
shufflings bespoke nervous tension. Every now and then he glanced
sheepishly at Joyce. Even to his senses, accustomed as they were to the
girl's beauty, there was a slight shock of surprise.
The little round hat was gracefully wound with frost flowers until it
looked like a wreath upon the pale gold of the glorious hair. The face
was white and luminous, and the eyes looked as if they were expecting a
vision to appear.
The white dress, home-made and cheap, had the unfailing touch that
innate taste always gives, and it fell in soft lines about the slim,
girlish figure. The little work-worn hands were folded loosely. They
were resting a moment before taking up the labour of the new, untried
life.
Drew glanced down as the two came in, and when he saw Joyce he started,
and leaned forward.
He tried to take his eyes from that pale, exquisite face, but could not.
It moved him powerfully not only by its beauty, but by its expression of
entranced expectation.
Could the crude fellow at her side inspire such emotion? It was puzzling
and baffling, but it roused Drew's sympathy, and held him captive. The
rough faces of the men, the pitiable, worn faces of the women, the
sprinkling of freckled, childish faces were blotted out for him. Like a
star in blank space shone that one sweet, waiting face with its wreath
of fairy-like flowers.
* * * * *
She was waiting for something she expected him to give. Drew became
obsessed with this thought. Not the consecration of marriage--No! but
something she--the soul of her--wanted.
Out among the pines in the early morning Drew had made a few notes,
these he clutched in his feverish right hand. When the hour fixed upon
arrived, he arose and stood beside the rickety pulpit stand. He made a
short prayer; he knew it was feeble and rambling.
"Scared to death," thought Gaston, and he heard Filmer breathe heavily.
Then Drew lifted his notes to the desk; tried to fix his eyes and
attention upon them, failed and gazed helplessly at that one face in the
appalling vacancy. Presently the bits of paper fell from his nerveless
hand and fluttered to the floor.
Back in his college days he had had his dream of the vital word he would
say to his people--_his_ people--on that first day when he was to come
to his own. Strangely enough he felt that his time had arrived. Called
only by God, to a people who would never think of desiring him, he must
say his word though only that pale, wonderful face thrilled to his
meaning. If only he could make _her_ understand, he would take it as a
sign from on high that his mission was not to be an unworthy one.
Drew always had the power, even in his weakest moments, to utilize his
panic to more intense concentration. It was the faculty that had made
his college president point to him on more than one occasion as a
success. Now, with the anchor of his notes fluttering in the September
breeze, he put out to sea.
"We brought nothing into this world, and it's certain we can carry
nothing out."
"He's mistaking this for a funeral," thought Gaston, and he struggled to
conquer his inclination to laugh.
But what was happening? The boy up aloft was refuting the statement. His
voice had a power wholly out of proportion to the frail body. He was
getting hold of the people, too, Peggy Falstar was crying openly, and
slow, hard-brought tears were dimming many eyes.
They were being told, those plain, dull people, and by a mere boy, too,
that they had brought something into the world. A heritage of strength
and weakness; of good and evil, bequeathed to them by those who had gone
on. From these fragments their souls must weave what is to be taken with
them when Death comes. The effort, the struggle, the success or failure,
will be the part that they leave behind for them who remain, or who are
to come later. In words strangely adapted to his listeners, that frail
boy, with glorified face, was beseeching them, as they valued their
future hope, as they desired to make better the ones who must live
later, to gain a victory over their heritage of weakness and sin by the
God-given elements of strength and goodness, and to blaze the trail for
themselves, and to leave it so free behind them that weak, stumbling
feet might easier find the way.
He was speaking to fathers and mothers for the sakes of their children.
He was urging the two about to marry to see to it that they prepare by
their own consecration, the _path on before_.
A silence filled the little church. The boy, pale and exhausted, was
asking Jude and Joyce to come forward.
Gaston saw them go, side by side, Jude shambling as usual, Joyce
stepping as if hastening to receive something long-desired.
It was the briefest of services. Simple, unadorned, but dignified and
solemn.
Amen!
It was over. Jude and Joyce were married! The people were stirring; were
moving about. The sodden, familiar life was awaiting every one of them.
No; something had happened in St. Angé. Gaston knew it. Filmer knew it.
Peggy Falstar had hold of her little Billy's hand, and Peter followed
with his little daughter Maggie drawn close to him.
Leon Tate was red in the face, and Isa looked stern and thoughtful. Yes;
something had happened in St. Angé. It would never be the same.
Drew went outside the church and joined Filmer. He had seen the uplifted
expression on Joyce's face. He had had his answer from on high; and he
was strangely moved.
He stood beside Filmer, motionless and flushed. Jock contemplated him
from his greater height as if he were a new and startling enigma.
"Say, kid," he drawled presently, striving to hide the excitement that
was causing the perspiration to stand on his forehead; "what got into
you?"
"I reckon it was something getting out of me," Drew replied with the
short cough.
"I don't know as them few words you spoke are capable of holding Jude
and Joyce eternally. What you think?"
"If they cannot, no others could." Again the quick, harsh cough.
"But that sermon!" Jock shrugged his shoulders nervously; "that's what's
shook the foundations of this here town. Leaving out the fact of you
being _you_, standing up there handling folks's feelings as you did, I
want to know if you stand by them ideas you passed out?"
"With all my mind!"
"Not elocuting and acting?"
"Surely not."
"Why, see here, kid, if what you said is true--which, by thunder it
ain't!--don't you see that doctrine, 'bout coming with an outfit, adding
to it, and taking away what you want, and leaving what you must; blazing
trails, clearing away underbrush and what not; why, don't you see that's
worse, by a confounded lot, than the old-fashioned hell?"
"Much, much more solemn." Drew leaned against a tree. His new strength
was exhausted. Jock was too absorbed to notice the weakness and pallor.
"Why," he went on excitedly, "when you know you're going to frizzle at
the end--just you, yourself, you can see the justice of it, and respect
what sent you there, but to eternally be thinking of others, and messing
up their lives--why that's durn rot."
"Filmer," the tone was low and faltering; "we're all one with God, no
matter how you put it. All working together; all bound on the same
journey. Think back; was there never one you loved who suffered with you
and for you? Have you ever considered how much of that one's life you
were hampering, when you dragged him--or her--down?"
Filmer's face twitched.
"Now, see here," he blurted out, and his eyes flashed, "the folks round
here ain't going to stand for this rot, and I don't blame 'em. When they
think it over, they'll get drunker than ever, and they'll even up with
you later. You've got to learn more than you've learned already.
Feelings are private property and outsiders better keep off. Come home
to dinner. You look like a pricked bladder. This here gassing 'bout
things what ain't worthwhile don't pay. Here, lean on me. It's all
gol-durned nonsense using yourself up so."
He took Drew firmly by the arm, and led him away.
Drew was too weak to continue, even had he desired to do so, the
conversation Filmer had forced upon him, but when they were smoking in
the late afternoon Jock returned to the subject.
"I was just wondering," he said, through the haze; "ain't there never no
let up to that new-fangled idea of yours?"
"None. That's the beauty of it."
"Beauty? Huh! Well, we'll drop it. Feel like toddling down to Gaston's?"
Drew rose at once.
They passed down the pine-covered path slowly, and as they neared
Gaston's shack, Filmer paused.
"Wherever you be," he began slowly, "as occasion permits, you're going
to air them sentiments?"
"I'm going to live them. I may never have a chance to preach them. I'm a
bit discouraged about the weakness that followed my first attempt."
"Oh, thunderation! You're going to pick up flesh and strength fast
enough--it's that slush you've got on board that's getting my grouch.
I'd rather you had a natural death, kid. I've taken a liking to you; and
you don't know St. Angé."