heavens the night before, and the terrifying sounds that had come over
the waters. Dismal Dan pronounced it all to be a “manifestation.” He had
long expected signs and angry portents in the skies as a warning to
sinners. Probably his biased mind would eagerly have ascribed divine
origin to any natural phenomenon that shooed fish into his ministerial
net.
They spent many days and nights in prayer and assiduous scriptural
readings. A far away look came into Hyatt’s eyes, and an elevation of
brow that did not seem to be of this world. The spiritual calm of the
neophite within cloistered walls was his. He had laid a contrite heart
upon the altar of his fears, and on it rested celestial rays.
He interrupted the period of his reconstruction with a trip down the
river to visit Malindy Taylor. Just what passed at the duck farm was
never known, but, after three days, Malindy opened her heart of stone to
the penitent. They came up the stream in the canoe, and, as the
enraptured township correspondent of the county paper expressed it,
“they were united on the front porch in the sacred bonds of holy
matrimony, by the Reverend Daniel Butters, on the afternoon of Thursday,
the bridegroom being attired in conventional black, and the bride with a
bouquet of white flowers.”
Rat betook himself to the duck farm with his bride. He removed all his
traps from the marsh, for he now considered the problem of his future
earthly existence solved, without the necessity of very much hard work.
He made frequent visits to Dismal Dan, but kept entirely away from the
store. That place was a sink of iniquity that he desired to avoid. He
and the old man spent many hours together that were sweetened with
blissful discourse. Dismal Dan felt that a life time devoted to
expounding the gospels had found glorious fruition in the salvation of
Muskrat Hyatt, and he was greatly elated by the sustained piety of the
proselyte.
He proposed to Brother Hyatt that they go together to the store, and, if
possible, “convert the bunch on the platform.” In his opinion a
successful attack on that citadel of sin would practically put the devil
out of business in the river country.
Brother Hyatt willingly consented. He was without fear of ridicule. He
floated in an atmosphere of moral purity that the mockery of sinners
could not defile.
They took a Bible, two old hymn books, and some lunch to the canoe, and,
accompanied by the trustful and devoted Spot, they proceeded down the
river. They stopped at the house boat and secured the gun and cartridges
that the trapper had left in exchange for the dog, and went on down to
the bridge.
On the river they practiced some of the old hymns, in the rendition of
which Brother Hyatt displayed a woeful technique. They finally gave up
trying to sing them, and Brother Butters droned out the rhythmic lines
in a most doleful way, that Brother Hyatt soon imitated successfully.
Brother Butters then outlined the form of exhortation that he would use
at the store, and instructed his assistant how he was to cooperate with
deep and loud amens, whenever big climaxes were reached. Minor climaxes
were to be left to Brother Hyatt’s judgment. He was to watch Brother
Butters, and when the forefinger was raised above the head, an amen of
more than usual sonorousness was to be forthcoming.
Brother Hyatt had studied the hymn books industriously, and had selected
scattered verses that pleased him and seemed appropriate. They were
laboriously copied on loose sheets of paper. It was his intention to
introduce these snatches of hymns into Brother Butters’s sermon with the
amens, whenever possible, and they both considered that holy power would
thereby be added to the exhortation. The order in which the extracts
were to be introduced was considered on the way down, but the sheets got
somewhat mixed in Brother Hyatt’s pocket before it was time to use them.
The enemies of Satan, with their carefully prepared batteries of pious
invective and Calvinistic hymns, landed safely under the bridge, late in
the afternoon. The canoe was pulled out. Brother Hyatt peeked over the
top of the embankment, and saw that the chairs on the store platform
were all filled, and that its edge was festooned with the usual
attendants.
Tipton Posey, Pop Wilkins, Bill Stiles, Doc Dust, Bill Wirrick, “the
Jaundiced Viking,” “the Serpent’s Hiss,” and the other “regulars,” were
all there. The vineyard looked ripe and inviting.
Bill Stiles hailed the proselyters cordially as they approached the
stronghold.
“Say, Rat, whar you been buried all this time?”
“Bill, they’s sump’n wonderful happened to me. I’ve got religion. A
great light ’as come to me, an’ I’ve repented of all my sins. I’ve
brought that gun an’ them catritches that I traded yer dog fer, an’ I
want you to find that feller an’ give ’em back to ’im. I done wrong, an’
I want to square things up. Three or four times I sold Spot, knowin’
he’d come home, but I’ve spent the money. I’m goin’ to git some of my
friends to pay back ev’ry cent, if I c’n find the fellers that bought
’im.”
“That’ll make yer friends awful happy, Rat. Say, you cert’nly are a
pippin! What done all this?”
“Never mind, Bill, you’ll see the light some day. No man knows w’en the
spirit cometh. Brother Butters an’ I are goin’ to hold some services out
in front o’ the store this afternoon. We want all the chairs fixed nice
an’ even. Brother Butters will preach, an’ I’m goin’ to line out hymn
passages ’long with the sermon. We aint got no music, but me linin’ ’em
out’ll be jest the same as if they was played in tunes, fer it’ll show
what they are. I hope that some o’ you fellers’ll bite at what’s
offered.”
Rat was regarded with much concealed levity and mock respect, as he
arranged the chairs in a curved row, and further developments were
awaited with suppressed interest.
Bill Stiles joyfully accepted the center of the row. Tipton Posey and
the Serpent’s Hiss were at the ends. After the chairs were filled the
rest of the audience sat along the edge of the platform and dangled its
feet.
Brother Butters and Brother Hyatt brought out a box, which they placed
on the ground about twenty feet from the audience. Brother Butters
thought that a little distance would add dignity and solemnity.
During the preparations the similarity of the chair arrangement on the
platform to that in the minstrel show at the county seat, which nearly
everybody present had attended during the preceding winter, occurred to
Tipton Posey.
“Mr. Brown!” he called to Bill Stiles in the center.
“Yes, Mr. Bones!” responded Bill, instantly catching the spirit of the
occasion.
“Mr. Brown, why is this congregation like a ten penny nail?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Bones, why this congregation is like a ten penny
nail. Why _is_ this congregation like a ten penny nail?”
“Because, Mr. Brown, it’s goin’ to be driven in,” sagely replied Mr.
Bones, with a significant glance at the gathering rain clouds overhead.
“Gentlemen, please shed yer hats!” said Brother Hyatt, as he pounded for
order on the box with a carrot that he had taken from a basket in the
store. “Brother Butters will now lead in prayer.”
During the invocation, which was brief but heartfelt, Spot walked out
and stretched himself on the ground in front of the box. Brother Butters
and Brother Hyatt both ended the prayer with loud amens.
“Here are the lines o’ the first hymn,” announced Brother Hyatt.
“Blow ye the trumpet! blow
The gladly solemn sound—
Let all the nations know,
To earth’s remotest bound,
The day of Jubilee is come,
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home!
And now the living waters flow,
To cheer the humble soul;
From sea to sea the rivers go,
And spread from pole to pole.”
Brother Butters then began his discourse, most of which consisted of
written extracts from old Calvinistic exhortations.
“Our sermon this afternoon is on the subject of the eternity of hell
torments, and the text is from Matthew 25–46: “These shall go away into
everlasting punishment.””
Brother Hyatt:—“A-A-MEN!—Now feel ye the sting of the lash of the
prophet!”
“Lo, on a narrow neck of land,
Twixt two unbounded seas I stand,
Yet how insensible!
A point of time, a moment’s space,
Removes me to yon heav’nly place,
Or shuts me up in hell!”
Brother Butters:—“You have a glorious opportunity today that may never
come again. The door of mercy is opened wide, but the path that leads to
it is long and narrow. A slight swerve leads to the fiery pit. Many come
from the east, the west, the north, the south, and many fall. We may
conceive of the fierceness of that awful fire of wrath if we think of a
spider, or other noisome insect, thrown into the midst of glowing coals.
How immediately it yields, and curls, and withers in the frightful heat!
What pleasure we take in its agonizing destruction! Here is a little
image of what ye may expect if ye persist in sin, and a picture of the
place where pestilential sinners wail.”
Brother Hyatt:—“A-A-MEN!—Oh, hear ye the happy message!”
“Since man by sin has lost his God,
He seeks creation through,
And vainly hopes for solid bliss,
In trying something new.”
Brother Butters:—“The thought comes to me that the row of sinners in
yonder chairs typifies sin in its vilest form—that of a snake. Tip at
one end suggests the tail, and Dick Shakes, whom ye call ‘the Serpent’s
Hiss,’ at the other, represents the loathsome head. It was a snake that
carried sin into the Garden of Eden. It is a snake that confronts the
Lord’s servants at this meeting, and, in my mind’s eye, I see that
writhing serpent, breeze-shaken and hair-hung, over the yawning abyss of
hell!”
Brother Hyatt:—“_Can you beat that?_”
“Oh, blissful thought!
There seems a voice in ev’ry gale,
A tongue in ev’ry op’ning flower!”
Bill Stiles:—“This is hot stuff!”
Brother Butters:—“How will the duration of torment without end cause the
heart to melt like wax! Even those proud, sturdy, and hell-hardened
spirits, the devils, tremble at the thoughts of that greater torture,
which they are to suffer on the day of judgment. The poor damned souls
of men will have their misery vastly augmented.”
Brother Hyatt:—“A-A-AMEN!—They will get the limit!”
“Oh, Lord, behold me,
And see how vile I am!”
Brother Butters:—“The fierceness of a great fire, as when a house is all
in flames, gives one an idea of its rage, and we see that the greater
the fire is, the fiercer is its heat in every part, and the reason is,
because one part heats another part.”
Bill Stiles:—“If that rain don’t come pretty soon you fellers’ talk’ll
set fire to that box!”
Brother Hyatt:—“The mockery of sinners availeth not! Now listen to
another verse!”
“I love to tell the story,
’Tis pleasant to repeat
What seems each time I tell it,
More wonderfully sweet.”
Brother Butters:—“We have seen that the misery of the departed soul of a
sinner, besides what it now feels, consists in amazing fears of what is
yet to come. When the union of the soul and the body is actually broken,
and the body has fetched its last gasp, the soul forsakes the old
habitation, and then falls into the hands of devils, who fly upon it,
and seize it more violently than ever hungry lions flew upon their
prey.”
Brother Hyatt:—“A-A-MEN!!!—Oh, what a finish! They are no ice hunks
there!”
“Fresh as the grass our bodies stand,
And flourish bright as day—
A blasting wind sweeps o’er the land,
And fades the grass away!”
Brother Butters:—“We now come to the joy of the saints in heaven who
behold the sufferings of sinners and unbaptized infants in hell. They
shall see their doleful state, and it will heighten their sense of
blessedness. When they shall see the smoke of their torment, and the
raging of the flames, and hear their dolorous shrieks and cries, and
consider that they in the meantime are in the most blissful state for
all eternity, how they will rejoice!”
Brother Hyatt:—“Oh, listen ye to the comforts of the church! Oh, speed
that happy day!”
“Hark! Hark! The notes of joy
Roll o’er the heav’nly plains,
And all the seraphs find employ
For their sublimest strains!”
Brother Butters:—“The scriptures plainly teach that the saints in glory
shall see the doleful state of the damned, and witness the execution of
Almighty wrath.”
Brother Hyatt:—“A-A-MEN!”
“Oh, the transporting rapturous scene,
That rises to my sight!”
Brother Butters:—“The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of
the saints forever, and give them a more lively relish of the joys of
their heavenly home. The righteous and the wicked in the other world
will see each other’s state. Thus the rich man in hell, and Lazarus and
Abraham in heaven, are represented as seeing each other in the 16th
chapter of Luke. The wicked in their misery will see the saints in the
kingdom of heaven.—Luke 13–28–29. ‘There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the
prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.’”
Brother Hyatt:—
“The seraphs bright are hov’ring
Around the throne above—
Their harps are ever tuning
To thrilling strains of love!
They’ll tell the sweet old story
I always loved so well!
Oh, let me float in glory
And hear sinners wail in hell!”
Brother Butters:—“Now come we to the procrastination practiced by the
average sinner, and in Proverbs 27–1 we find the words, ‘Boast not
thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.’”
Brother Hyatt:—
“The lilies of the field,
That quickly fade away,
May well to us a lesson yield,
For we are frail as they!”
Brother Butters:—“Dear friends, tomorrow is not our own. There are many
ways and means whereby the lives of men are ended. It is written in the
book of Job, chapter 21, verse 23, that ‘One dieth in his full strength,
being wholly at ease and quiet.’”
Brother Hyatt:—“A-A-MEN!—Now listen ye unto these words!”
“Melt, melt, these frozen hearts,
These stubborn wills subdue;
Each evil passion overcome,
And form them all anew!”
Brother Butters:—“Oh, ye unregenerates, that wallow in sin and
wickedness on that platform! God despises you, and the flames await you!
Go down upon your accursed knees tonight and beseech salvation. This is
Friday, Saturday may be too late, and everything in the way of grace may
be gone!”
Brother Hyatt:—“Slim chance fer this bunch! It’s you to the red hot
hooks!”
“Hark! What celestial notes,
What melody do we hear?
Soft on the morn it floats,
And fills the ravished ear!”
Brother Butters:—“How can you be reasonably quiet for one day, or for
one night, when you know not when the end will come? If you should be
found unregenerate, how fearful would be the consequence! Consider and
harken unto this counsel! Repent and be prepared for death! The bow of
wrath is bent, the arrow is made ready on the string, and nothing but
the restraint of Almighty anger keeps the arrow one moment from being
made drunk with your blood!”
Brother Hyatt:—“A-A-MEN!! A-A-MEN!!—Oh, ye tight wads of iniquity,
loosen up, fer this is the last call!”
“Let floods of penitential grief
Burst forth from ev’ry eye!”
Brother Butters:—“Be prepared for the opening of the eternal gates of
pearl that are bathed in the light that shines for the meek and the pure
in heart. The blessings of repentance are now before you. The choice of
taking or leaving is yours!”
Brother Hyatt:—“Nuthin’ could be fairer than that!”
“Oh, Bless the harps that played the tune,
That brings us together this afternoon!”
Brother Butters:—“Be prepared for that awful day of judgment, when the
paths that lead to heaven and the paths that lead to hell are divided by
the width of a hair!”
Brother Hyatt:—“A-A-MEN—A-A-MEN!!!”
“There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.”
At this point the rain descended out of the kindly skies, the flaming
oratory was extinguished, and everybody retreated into the store. It was
getting dark, and while the services were not completed, the exhorters
felt that much spiritual progress had been made.
Most of the regulars departed silently when the shower was over.
“Say, Rat, was that you down on the marsh the night we tried the goose
call?” asked Bill Wirrick. “I seen somebody out near the channel w’en
them funny streaks was in the sky. Since it all come out about the goose
call we don’t try to keep it dark no more. The fellers ’round the store
got onto it, an’ they’ve been devillin’ the life out o’ me an’ Tip. The
dad gasted thing wouldn’t work an’ we’ve took it apart. We tried to make
it sound like a flock o’ geese, but it sounded more like a flock o’
thunder storms. Them sky streaks that night was a funny thing. They’s a
paper here some’rs that’s got it all in. Lemme see if I c’n find it. Tip
had it yisterd’y.”
Wirrick finally found the newspaper. Hyatt took it to the dim kerosene
lamp and spent some time studying the long account of the magnetic
storm. It was explained by scientific authorities, and bemoaned by the
interests it had affected. The telegraph and telephone companies had
been put out of business for several hours, and commerce had suffered
while Hyatt’s soul was being purified in celestial fires.
Disillusionment came. As long as the things that were going on in this
world were natural, and could be explained, Rat saw no reason for
worrying about the next. A cherished idol was shattered; his piety was
dead sea fruit.
With the calmness of a cool gamester, who has thrown and lost his
all—slightly pale, but with firm and deliberate step, he went behind the
door and secured the rifle and cartridges he had asked Bill Stiles to
restore to the swindled trapper. With no word of farewell to those
around him, he lighted his long neglected old pipe, reeking with sin and
nicotine, whistled to Spot, and walked away down the path to the river
bank where the canoe had been left, and disappeared.
Brother Butters went out on the platform and looked longingly after him.
Night had fallen upon the river. Somewhere far away in the purple gloom,
that softly lay upon its dimpling and restless tide, was a lost sheep.
Its fleece had become black, but it was more precious than the ninety
and nine that were still within the fold.
VII
THE TURKEY CLUB
“We’re goin’ to take you up the river to the Turkey Club tomorrer,”
announced “Rat” Hyatt, as we left Posey’s store one night. “There’s
goin’ to be some doin’s there that you’ll like, an’ you’ll meet a lot o’
people you never seen before, an’ prob’ly some you won’t never want to
see ag’in.”
We had spent the evening with the usual group that clustered around the
smoky stove when the weather rendered the platform outside
uncomfortable. It was late in the fall and Thanksgiving was only a few
days away, but Indian Summer still lingered, with its purple days and
frosty nights, and I was loth to leave the river country while it
lasted.
The council around the stove often varied in composition, but not in
character. It was always picturesque, not only in its light and shade
and color, but in the primitive philosophy, spontaneous wit, original
profanity and ornate narrative that issued from it.
On this occasion “Pop” Wilkins had told, with much circumstantial
detail, a long story about his old plug hat. He said it “was minted
about thirty years ago some’rs down east,” and was bought for him by
subscription by the congregation over which he at that time presided.
The hat was in the Allegheny river a couple of days during its journey
to his address, but when it finally got to him the congregation had it
all fixed up so that everybody said it was just as good as new. Since
then he had only had to have it repaired twice. He had a great affection
for it, on account of its old associations, and hoped that it would be
buried with him when he died—a hope that was shared by all present. The
old plug was an echo of years long departed and a never-failing butt of
merry jest. The tickets of all the raffles that had ever been held in
that part of the country, that anybody could remember, had been shaken
up in Pop’s hat.
The old man’s story had reminded his listeners of others, and it was
quite late when Posey remarked that he was going upstairs to bed, and
“to keep things from bein’ carried off” he was “goin’ to lock up.”
At ten the next morning five of us started up stream in three of the
small boats that were usually attached to stakes under the bridge. Hyatt
and I were in his duck canoe, which he skilfully propelled with his long
paddle. Posey and Pop Wilkins followed, in a leaky green craft with
squeaky oars. Far in the rear Bill Stiles stemmed the gentle current in
his “push boat,” which he declared was never intended for anybody but
him. This idea had been generally accepted along the river, for Bill’s
boat was the only one for many miles up and down stream that had never
been borrowed or stolen. The fact that it was so “tippy” that nobody but
Bill seemed to be able to sit in it without being spilled into the river
accounted for its immunity.
[Illustration:
“BILL” STILES
]
“Some day,” remarked Bill, “a cold wet stranger’ll come to the store to
git warm, an’ tell some kind of a story about fallin’ offen the bridge
into the river, but ev’rybody’ll know what’s happened. Nobody that’s
acquainted ’round ’ere’ll ever try to navigate with my push boat.”
He called the craft “The Flapjack.” The roughly lettered name appeared
in yellow paint on each side of the bow, and to his subtle mind, it was
a sufficient warning to the unwary. He said that the name was also
lettered along the bottom of the boat underneath, “an’ anybody that
wants to c’n take e’r out’n the river an’ read it. She won’t keep ’im
wait’n more’n a few minutes.”
The river was low and we scraped gently over a few sand bars on the way
up. After proceeding about two miles we came to a wobbly and much
patched bridge, on which were several figures. A fringe of cane fish
poles drooped idly from its sides. The figures were motionless and would
remain so until the Turkey Club activities began.
“Here’s where we git off,” said Hyatt, as we turned in near the bridge.
We waited for the rest of the flotilla to come up. When our party had
all arrived we climbed a zig-zag path and walked along the road to the
little gray church a few hundred feet away. It was here that the
Reverend Daniel Butters—“The Javelin of the Lord”—was wont to expound
the gospels, formulate dreary doctrines, and to depict the frightfulness
of damnation to his superannuated and docile flock.
So far as human faith and opinion could influence the destinies of any
of these aged and serene believers, their spiritual safety had been
assured for many years. They went regularly to church, principally
because they wanted to be seen there, and because they had nothing else
particularly to do or think about Sundays. Alas, how the ranks of
worldly worshipers would dwindle were it not for these things!
Like that of many preachers, the voice of Butters was of one crying in a
desert to passing airs and unheeding sands. There were none to succor or
uplift, and none to be beckoned to the fold. They were all in, and
further effort was painting the lily and adding perfume to the rose. The
strife was won, but yet he battled on. The great tide of human error
flowed far beyond his ken, and he could drag no spiritual spoil from its
turbid waters.
In fancy his religious establishment might be likened to a cocoon, into
which none might enter, and from which none might emerge, except in a
new and glorified state.
Some mournful Lombardy poplars stood in front of the unpainted
structure, and on one side was the little cemetery, with its serried
mounds and conventional epitaphs. A weeping willow wept near the center
of the plot, some rabbits hopped about near the broken fence at the
farther side of the enclosure, and a stray cow fed peacefully among the
leaning slabs.
“There’s a lot o’ people represented in that flock o’ tombstones,”
observed Hyatt, as we turned in from the road, “an’ they’s a lot o’
cussedness out there that it’s a good thing to have covered up.”
Both physically and spiritually the old church was a dismal remnant, but
it was the regional social center. The building was utilized in many
profane ways that saddened the pious heart of the Reverend Butters, but
to him, its crowning desecration was the Turkey Club.