GETTING ACQUAINTED
Nobody but a Green Valley man would have dared to do the things that
the new minister did in those first months, when even the most daring
of reverend gentlemen is apt to be a bit careful and given to the
tactful searching for the straight and narrow path which is the earthly
lot of pastors.
Cynthia's son however was one of those unconsciously successful men who
are so simply true to life and life's laws that the world joyously
meets them halfway. And then too his was a rich heritage.
From his great preacher father he had the power of seeing visions and
dreaming dreams and the still greater gift of making and persuading
other people to see them too. From his mother he had the comrade smile
and warm intuitive heart that brought him close to even little souls.
And from old Joshua Churchill came that rock-like determination, the
uncompromising honesty and, better than all else, that rare common
sense touched with humorous shrewdness without which no man can greatly
aid his fellows or enjoy life.
All this the new Green Valley minister had, besides bits of very
valuable and legal papers and the old porticoed homestead dozing on a
hill and waiting for the touch of a young hand to wake it into vigorous
and new life. Such parts of Green Valley as failed to appreciate the
more spiritual qualifications of the tall young man from India were
properly impressed with his worldly possessions.
So it was that armed with these advantages Cynthia's son went his way,
smashing hoary precedents and the mossy conventions that will spring up
and grow fibrously strong even in so sunny a spot as Green Valley.
Nobody was surprised, of course, to see little Jim Tumley in the choir;
nor to hear that the minister was giving him lessons on the new piano
whose arrival the prophetic soul of Fanny Foster had predicted. People
passing the Tumley house did however stop beside the hedge and listen
in amazement to the minister playing, for he played surprisingly well.
When complimented on this accomplishment he explained that his mother
had had a piano in India and had taught him how.
But nobody in Green Valley dreamed of seeing old Mrs. Rosenwinkle
marketing right in the madly busy heart of town all on a Saturday
morning. But there she was in her wheel chair, with the minister
alongside to see that the road was safe and clear.
And they say that every little while, right in the midst of her
bargaining, she would look around and say:
"My, but the world is big and pretty."
And when somebody reminded her of her belief that the world was flat
and ended on the far side of Petersen's pasture she never argued the
matter fiercely, as was her wont, but said instead that it _had_ ended
for her with Petersen's pasture until the day the new minister came.
And her daughter told how the paralyzed old body prayed day and night
for this new minister's salvation, he being other than a Lutheran.
Somebody thought that too good a joke to keep and told Cynthia's son
how hard old Mrs. Rosenwinkle was praying for his soul. They expected
him to laugh. But he didn't. He looked suddenly serious just as his
mother used to do when something touched the deep down places in her
heart.
All he said was that no man could ever have too many women praying for
him and that he was grateful as only a man whose mother was sleeping
thousands of miles away in a foreign land could be grateful.
He had his mother's trick of letting people look quite suddenly into
that part of his soul where he kept his finest thoughts and emotions.
And people looked and saw and then usually tiptoed away in puzzled awe
or a dim sympathy. And he had such a habit of turning common sense and
daylight on matters which seemed so baffling until he explained them.
It was just the minister's plain, common sense that finally got Hank
Lolly into the church. When the minister first suggested that Hank
ought to attend church services that worthy stared in amazed horror at
his new friend. And he gave his perfectly good reasons why the likes
of him had no right to step on what was Green Valley's sacred ground.
"Hank, you are entirely mistaken. I have seen you go into Green Valley
parlors and every other room in the house. I watched you move that
clumsy old sideboard of Mrs. Luttins down that narrow stairway and then
through the little side gate. You never chipped a bit of plaster or
trampled a flower beside the walk. Why, you never even tore a bit of
vine off the gate. And yesterday I saw you walking your horses ever so
carefully to the station because inside the van little Jimmy Drummond
was lying on stretchers, going to the hospital. And I was told that
Doc Philipps said he wouldn't have trusted another driver with Jimmy."
"But," groaned Hank, "people like me don't go to church."
"Hank, most ministers don't ride around the country on a moving dray.
But I rode out with you many a time and I sort of feel that you might
come along with me now and then and see the people and things along my
route. You've given me a good time and I'd like to pay back. You'll
like the music and I'm sure you'll understand it all, because I talk
English you know. And anyhow, things get as lonesome sometimes for a
minister in the pulpit as the roads get for a dray driver and I'd
appreciate it to have a friend like you along. I never know when I'll
need a lift and a little help that you could give. Sometimes we have
to move the Sunday-school organ about and there are windows that stick
and all manner of things about a church that only a practiced mover and
driver could do. You know the janitor is rather old and infirm and as
for me--well, Hank, when you come down to it, that's about all we
ministers are, just movers. Our business is to help find just the
right and happiest places for people, to show them their part in the
game of life and keep them from bruising themselves and others. I'm
doing about the same sort of work as you are; that's why I'm asking you
to come along with me."
"Well--if you put it that way,--" murmured Hank, still miserable, "why,
maybe I could drop in. Billy's ordered me a new suit and so--"
"That settles it then, Hank. For there's no sense in getting a new
suit unless you go out in it. And there's no sense in going out unless
you have some definite place to go to. Why, half the people get
clothes just to go to church and the other half go to church just to
wear their clothes. I'll expect you. You can sit comfortably in the
back and watch things and tell me later what you think of the way
things are managed here. You'll see things from the door that I never
see from the pulpit."
Hank went to church in a pair of shoes that squeaked agonizingly and a
suit of clothes that was a marvel of mail-order device. He also wore a
Stetson hat that was new when he entered the church door but which,
through nervous manipulation, aged terribly in that first half hour.
He came early because he felt that he could not endure the thought of
entering a crowded church and then suffered torment as one by one the
congregation nodded to him or addressed him in sepulchral whispers.
When, however, Grandma Wentworth sat down beside him and visited
comfortably before services, and Nan Ainslee stopped to thank him for
something or other he had done for her the week before, he felt better.
As soon as Jim Tumley began to sing and the minister to talk Hank
forgot about himself and became absorbed in the proceedings. He told
the minister later that he'd meant to keep an eye on things for him but
that he got so interested he'd forgotten. About all that he had
observed was that Mrs. Sloan passed her handkerchief a little too
frequently and publicly to the little Sloans. Hank said he thought
they were old enough to have handkerchiefs of their own. He also felt
sure, he said, that Mrs. Osborn and Mrs. Pelham, Jr. were on the outs
again, because of the fact that though Mrs. Pelham's switch was falling
loose and Mrs. Osborn sitting right behind her saw it, she made no
effort to repin it or tell the unfortunate woman about it. Hank
further informed the minister that that second Crawley boy was a limb
and closed his observations by asking the Reverend John Roger Churchill
Knight if he didn't think Nanny Ainslee was the prettiest girl in
church? Whereupon the minister promptly agreed with him.
That, then, was Hank Lolly's introduction to a proper and conventional
religious life. Hank, as soon as he felt sure that he was going to
survive the experience, became wonderfully interested and the next
Sunday reappeared with Barney in tow. It seems that Barney also had
been provided with a new suit and accessories and Hank had promptly
demanded his presence in church.
"You ought to go once, Barney, if only to show the minister that you're
rightly grateful to him for showing you about them there books and
figures and a-pointing out your mistakes to you. And anyhow, if you
don't go, you'll be hanging out in that there pool-room, and first
thing you know you won't be decent and respectable and Billy'll have to
fire you."
"What do you know about that there poolroom, Mr. Lolly?" demanded
Barney.
"Never mind. I know what I know. You're trying to be smart and I'm
surprised. I've heard of your kid doings in that place and I'm
surprised, that's what I am. You don't see Billy Evans trying to make
money in cute ways over night. No, sir! He does a day's work for a
man and throws in a little for good measure before he takes a day's
wages. And he don't do business behind closed doors and thick
curtains, neither. So just you keep out of that there poolroom or I'll
take you over to Doc Mitchell's and have every one of them there
crooked teeth of yourn straightened out."
"All right, Mr. Lolly, I'll do just as you say and go to church. It
ain't as hard as it sounds, that ain't. Because, honest, Hank, ain't
that there minister a fine guy? He's as good, I believe, as Billy. He
asked me to come on and be in his Sunday-school class and get in on
some fun. And he says to wait until he gets his barn fixed; that he'll
show us boys something. And I bet he will. Why, say, Hank, maybe he
kin do all sorts of circus stunts. You know he's from India and that's
where all the snake charmers and sword swallowers come from, ain't it?"
In this perfectly simple and artless fashion Cynthia's son went about
the creation of his own special Sunday-school class and when he got
through the result was startling. It was the largest and somebody said
the weirdest Sunday-school class ever seen in Green Valley. Indeed,
when Mr. James D. Austin, who was about the most respectable man in
town, saw it he grew quite distressed and suddenly very tired.
He had tried, since the age of ten when he had formally and publicly
joined the church on the very crest of a great religious wave, to do
his part towards making and keeping the Green Valley church on a high
spiritual plane. He felt at times that he was close to success and now
here from the very ends of the earth came a boy to upset all his plans.
So Mr. Austin suddenly felt ill and old and he went to see Doc Philipps
about a tonic. Doc Philipps, who could have been as good a lawyer as
he was a doctor, asked a few questions about politics, religion and
Mrs. Austin's lumbago and knew exactly what was the matter with James
D. Austin. The next time he ran across Cynthia's son he hailed him.
"Look here, Knight, what you been doing to James D. lately?
Been turning his nice little church all upside down, ain't
you? Driven him right into a fearful case of grouch and an
I-am-through-with-the-things-of-this-world attack, that's what you
have."
Cynthia's son looked very soberly and very directly at his friend the
doctor and turned on his heel.
"Doc, I'm going to see that poor man right now," said he and Doc
Philipps, in telling Nan Ainslee about it afterwards, swore that not
only the minister's two eyes but his very voice twinkled.
Cynthia's son found Mr. Austin in his proper and neat office. He went
straight to the point.
"Mr. Austin, I've just heard that you were not feeling well, that you
were seriously ill from overwork. I can readily believe that. You
need rest and a change and freedom from wearisome responsibilities. I
think I know just how you feel. Sort of tired and listless. Mother
used to get that way in India. Even father used to say sometimes that
things did every once in a while look mighty hopeless and useless, but
that they'd look bright again after a week or two in the hills. So
then we went off for a vacation. That's just what's the matter with
you. You need a vacation. And in so far as I can I want to help you
get one. You work too hard for the church. Keeping track of accounts
and generally managing church matters is always a trying matter.
Father always found it so.
"So I have been thinking of getting you an assistant, some one to look
after things while you take a rest. Why, they tell me you have
shouldered church responsibilities since you were a child."
"Yes," modestly admitted the most respectable Mr. Austin. "I have
worked for the church these many years and I do need a vacation. But
who is there to attend to these matters? I know of no one in Green
Valley who could fill my place."
So in complacent, pathetic self-conceit said poor Mr. Austin. And he
was utterly unprepared for what followed.
"Why," said Green Valley's new minister without so much as winking an
eyelash, "I've been thinking of Seth Curtis for the place. I have been
wondering just how I could interest Seth in his town church, how to
make him see that its business is his business, and this is my
opportunity. Seth, they tell me, is very good at figures. Somebody
said that Seth could figure to live comfortably on nothing if he found
he had to. Now most churches are perilously near the place where they
have to live on nothing and so, if any one can steer our finances in an
exact and careful manner, Seth can. And it is the only, absolutely the
only way in which he can be interested."
"But," the horrified Mr. Austin found his voice at last, "Seth Curtis
is impossible. Even if he joined the church he would be an unbeliever.
I have heard him criticize churches. Why, it can't be thought of!
Why, what would people say if you were to put a man like that right
into church work? It would be sacrilege."
There was a little pause and when the minister spoke again there was
the unmistakable ring of cool authority in his voice. Mr. Austin
suddenly realized that he was speaking to his pastor, the Reverend John
Roger Churchill Knight. And as Mr. Austin himself worshipped authority
and always saw to it that in his little sphere his own slightest word
was obeyed, he listened respectfully.
"I think, Mr. Austin, you are mistaken about Seth Curtis. Seth does
not make fun of religion. He merely criticizes churches and their
management. Seth is what in these times we call an efficiency expert.
And it always makes such a man impatient to watch waste of money and
effort.
"Seth must think well of the church for he sends his wife and children.
And no sane man sends what is dearest to him to a place he does not
approve of. Besides, Seth has a very high opinion of you, Mr. Austin."
Which of course had nothing to do with the case. Yet it may have been
this irrelevant, human little touch that settled it. For after a
little more talk Mr. Austin gave in and, figuratively speaking, turned
his face to the wall and hoped to die. And the minister went off to
persuade Seth Curtis that his church needed his services.
And that was not nearly as difficult a matter as Green Valley thought
it was. For Seth had sense and a love of order and economy and the
minister talked to all that was best and wisest in Seth. Though Seth's
head was growing bald and Cynthia's son was just a youngster, yet the
boy seemed to take Seth's heart right into the hollow of his hand and
talk to it as no one but Seth's wife Ruth talked. So to the amazement
of himself and family and all of Green Valley Seth Curtis went into the
church for the very quality in his make-up that his neighbors were in
the habit of ridiculing.
It was amazingly funny, Seth's conversion. But when Green Valley heard
how the minister got acquainted with Frank Burton Green Valley laughed
and laughed and forgot to eat its meals in telling and retelling it.
Frank Burton, besides being, according to his neighbors, a hopeless
atheist, was unlike other Green Valley men in that he had to take a
much earlier train to the city mornings and came home two trains later
than the other men. Grandma Wentworth always said that it was that
difference in Frank's train time that made him so bitter at times.
Frank did, however, have his Saturday afternoons and Sundays, and these
he spent almost entirely with his chickens and garden and strange
assortment of books. He was a man who did his own thinking, never gave
advice, never took it and believed in all creatures tending strictly to
their own affairs.
Every once in a while, perhaps from a sudden heart hunger, Frank would
select from a whole townful of human beings some one soul for
friendship. Frank never got acquainted accidentally. He picked out
his few friends deliberately and loved them openly and forever.
Of course, Frank's oldest and dearest friend was Jim Tumley. People
said they were born friends. Their mothers had been inseparable, the
boys were born within a few days of each other and seemed to be marked
with a passion of loyalty for one another. Only in their love for
music were they alike however.
Frank was a big, square, burly man who went his way surely,
confidently, though a little belligerently. Jim was little and fair
and ever so gentle. There was never a harsh word in Jim's mouth or a
bitter thought in his heart against the world that often bruised him
because of his gentleness and frailty. Jim had had only one fight in
his life.
When he and Frank were about twelve years old, strange to say, Jim was
the taller and stronger. And it was then that Jim fought and
vanquished a bully who for months had been making Frank miserable.
Frank never forgot that one fight of Jim's. He shot head and shoulders
over his friend and filled out beyond all recognition and took his turn
at fighting. And most of his battles then as now were over little Jim
Tumley.
To Frank, Jim was the one great friend life had given him. To very
many people in Green Valley Jim was just a gentle, frail little chap
with a beautiful, golden voice and a miserably weak stomach.
When the new minister put Jim in the choir, Green Valley was mildly
surprised though it quickly saw the common sense of the arrangement.
But Frank Burton was for the first time, to Green Valley's certain
knowledge, wholly pleased. And he showed his pleasure by never once
saying one single, scathing, cynical thing, even when told that Seth
Curtis was keeping the church books and getting religion on the side.
And he could have said so much.
What he did say was that he wouldn't mind seeing this kid minister from
India. For though months had passed since Cynthia's son arrived Frank
had never seen him. His unfortunate train time and his home-staying
habits kept him from meeting the newcomer. He pictured him as a rather
immature, likable, enthusiastic young person whom it might not be a
trial to meet once and then forget. And Frank made up his mind that if
he ever ran into the boy he would be sincerely courteous to him in
payment for his kindness to Jim. Then he promptly forgot everything in
his plans for a new chicken house.
He was reading his favorite poultry journal on the train one night when
the tall stranger accosted him. Frank didn't remember meeting the man,
but the stranger seemed to know him, so without hardly knowing why or
how Frank began to talk. And it was surprising how much the stranger
knew about chickens, pheasants and wild game. Indeed, he knew so much
that five stations from the city Frank was showing him diagrams of his
new chicken house and explaining how anxious he was to get at it before
the fall rains commenced but that he had so little time, only his
Saturday afternoons and Sundays.
"Let me give you a hand then Saturday, Mr. Burton. I need outdoor work
and I'd enjoy building a chicken house and neighboring properly with
you Green Valley folks. You know I'm new to Green Valley and as long
as I intend to spend the rest of my life here I've a lot to learn."
"Well, there are worse places than Green Valley," admitted Frank,
thinking that the man must be the occupant of some one of the new
bungalows that had gone up that spring and summer.
"Green Valley," continued Frank, "has its faults and its fools and bad
spots here and there in the roads and entirely too much back-fence and
street-corner gossip. But I've seen days here in Green Valley that
just about melt all the meanness out of one, they're so fine; and
moonlight so soft and pure and holy that you wouldn't mind dying in it.
And Green Valley folks are ornery enough on top and when things are
going smoothly for you. But just let there be a smash-up or a stroke
of bad luck and their shells crack and humanness just oozes out of
them. They're about as decent a lot as you'll find anywhere."
This, after a hard day and on an empty stomach, was a remarkable speech
for Frank Burton. He was not much given to voicing his real feelings
and showing his heart to light-hearted Green Valley and usually covered
his deeper sentiments with a sturdy flow of fault-finding.
But there was something magnetic about the young stranger and to his
own growing surprise Frank talked on and enjoyed doing it. The two men
left the train together and parted at Martin's drug store with the
understanding that if it didn't rain they would on the coming Saturday
start on that chicken house.
And they did. Frank came home that evening in unusually fine spirits
and asked his wife about the various new people. He told her of his
meeting with the stranger who seemed to know him but whom he did not
remember ever seeing before.
Jennie guessed him to be, "Mrs. Hamilton's husband. I've never seen
him either but they say he's such a pleasant man. They're both
Christian Scientists or something like that and she's ever so nice a
woman. They've only been here a few months but everybody likes them."
"Well," spoke up Frank, still thinking of the pleasant passing of what
was usually a tiresome train trip, "if Christian Science makes a man as
likable and neighborly as that I, for one, approve of Christian
Science. What did you say his name was--Hamilton?"
It was because Frank was so willing to let every man worship his God in
his very own way that Green Valley, that is the religiously watchful
part of it, had decided that Frank was an atheist. For, said these
cautious children of God, "He who is willing to believe in all things
believes in nothing."
But it wasn't religion that the two men talked that Saturday afternoon.
The sun was warm, the lumber dry, the saws sharp and with the work
going smoothly along there was plenty of time for talk, talk on all
manner of subjects.
Frank's wife had gone over to Randall's to a special meeting of the
sewing society. Not only were the women going to cut out and make up
little aprons and dresses for the inmates of the nearest orphanage but
they intended to discuss several new social problems that confronted
Green Valley. The two most vital being "What do you make of that new
saloon keeper and his wife?" and "What goes on behind those poolroom
curtains, especially nights?"
Not that there was in Green Valley any interfering Civic League or any
such thing as a Pure Morals Society. Green Valley had never had to
resort to such measures. It had hitherto trusted human nature, Green
Valley sunshine and neighborliness to do whatever work of social
mending and reforming had to be done.
But something had happened to the big city to the east, some new mayor
or some new civic force had stirred things up in that huge caldron of
humanity and slopped it over so that it had begun to trickle away into
such quiet little hollows as Green Valley. It trickled so slowly and
was as yet so thin a stream that the little towns were hardly aware of
it as yet.
Green Valley was only just beginning to itch and wiggle and search and
wonder what the matter could be. It was the women, the mothers, who
scented trouble first. The men were still placidly doing the same old
Saturday afternoon tasks, mowing lawns, talking road improvements,
swapping yarns and brands of tobacco or, like Frank Burton, doing
various building jobs about their premises.
Frank and his helper were certainly enjoying themselves. When the
skeleton of that hen house was half up Frank thought it was about time
to call a halt for refreshments. He went to the ice-box and brought
out a nice home-boiled ham, commandeered a golden loaf of fresh bread,
searched about for pickles, mustard, preserves and butter. Then they
sat down. And as he ate Frank again waxed talkative.
"I've heard people," he said, "both men and women, talk about marriage
being slavery and a lottery and not worth the price folks have to pay
for it. But I'm freer as a married man than ever I was single. Why,
where I boarded before I married Jennie, you couldn't get a slice of
bread and butter or a toothpick between meals even if you'd been a
growing kid. And in those days I was always hungry. And I've always
hated restaurants where food is cooked in tanks instead of nice little
home kettles in a blue and white kitchen. And I hate restaurant
dishes. There's never anything interesting about them. And most
waitresses are discouraging sort of girls. I just kind of existed in
those days.
"But ever since I've married Jennie I've lived. Jennie never talks
much about what she's cooking. But she'll let you come in the kitchen
and lift the kettle lids if you want to and poke around and never once
let on that you're a nuisance. And she never gets angry if you dig
into the fresh bread or crack the frosting on the new cake. So take it
all in all I've always considered all this talk about married life
being nothing but self-sacrifice just so much rot--why--hello, Sammy!"
This to a little overall-clad figure that was pressing itself
insinuatingly against the back gate.
"Want to come in and help with the tools?" called Frank, well knowing
that that jar of Jennie's preserves was perfectly visible from that
back gate.
Sammy said hello and sure he'd come in and help, and did with
remarkable speed. When he came up to the two men he looked shyly at
Frank's assistant and said, "Hello! What are _you_ doing around here?"
And the tall stranger laughed and said he was helping with the tools
too.
And then Frank asked Sammy if his mother allowed him to eat between
meals and Sammy said, "Oh, sure--I kin eat any time at all--it never
hurts me." So Frank got him nicely started.
In no time at all however two other figures appeared and swung
themselves up on the back fence. They sat quietly, at first waiting
for some one to discover them. Both men had their backs to the fence
now and Sammy, though perfectly aware of the new arrivals, was
selfishly busy.
So presently two pair of bare feet began to swing harder and harder and
a careless but piercing whistle began to challenge a selfish world's
attention.
Frank winked at his helper and said nothing nor moved.
The whistle became shriller. And then came a sudden suspicious silence
that evidently made Sammy a little uncomfortable. He knew just about
what was coming.
"Hello--Pieface," came one gentle greeting.
"Hello--Dearie," chirped the owner of the second pair of bare feet.
"Look at Mother's Darling feeding his face!"
"Isn't he cunning! Isn't he cute!"
A third figure swung itself to the top of the fence.
"Don't fill your little tummy too full, Sammy dear," it contributed
dutifully.
At the malice and scorn that fairly dripped from the words Sammy raised
resentful eyes from his slice of bread and jam. Frank smiled hopefully.
"Oh, Frank, Sammy goes to Sunday-school he does."
"Every Sunday--don't ya, Sammy?"
"Bet he goes to Sunday-school just to sponge. Bet he's a grafter--bet
he--"
But at this point Frank's helper turned about and faced the fence. And
a strange thing happened. The three little figures sitting in a row
gave one look, one shout of, "Holy gee--it's _him_!" and vanished as
suddenly as they had come.
Frank laughed and then grew puzzled.
"Some friends of mine and Sammy's. I wonder what made the little imps
bolt like that. They usually sit on that back fence till every bit of
language is used up. Why, they hadn't got more than started and Sammy
here hadn't even begun. What ailed you, Sammy?"
"Oh, I rather think I frightened them," said Frank's assistant. "But I
think that before long they will feel enough at home with me to come
and sit on my back fence."
Sammy was left to clear up while the men went back to work. Both
hammers were merrily ringing when old man Vingie strolled by and
stopped to visit. He went on presently but before he was out of sight
Bill Trumbull and Old Peter Endby came up.
There was a worried look in Bill's large florid face and the light of
utter unbelief in Peter's eye. They both laid their arms neighbor
fashion along the fence and watched the toilers silently for a few
seconds. Then Peter spoke up in grieved tones:
"Seems like you might have asked old neighbors to give you a hand,
Frank. I had no notion you was in any such turrible hurry to start
this here new chicken house of yourn. It don't look respectable or
kindly, you acting that way, neglecting to tell old neighbors--"
"It's a slander on this here neighborhood, that's whot it is, Frank,"
Bill Trumbull complained. "Here's Peter and me both old-time
carpenters, full of energy and advice and ripe years and experience,
and you don't drop so much as a hint. Why, I remember the time when we
put up barns with wooden pegs and durn good barns they were and are,
for there's some of them still standing as strong as the day they were
built. There's the Churchill barn. That's our work, Peter's and mine.
Seems you've forgotten considerable, Frank. Why, your father wouldn't
have thought of starting a chicken house without first talking it over
with us."
When they had passed on, Bill supporting Peter's left elbow so's to
case the rheumatism in his partner's left knee, Frank turned amazed
eyes to his assistant.
"Now what in time," he wanted to know, "is the matter with those two
precious old lunatics? Why, Pap Trumbull and Dad Endby are both over
eighty. Dad's so twisted with rheumatism that he couldn't bend to pick
up his pipe if he dropped it. And Pap's got asthma so bad that it's
all he can do to draw his breath on the installment plan. Why, I've
never consulted them in all my born days though I always let them come
over and criticize my work to their heart's content. But something's
eating them to-day."
"Perhaps they're surprised at seeing me, a comparative stranger here,
helping you. They may even be a bit jealous, you know."
Frank's assistant volunteered this explanation wonderingly as if he too
were puzzled about something.
"Well--it gets me," murmured Frank, then added under his breath, "well,
by jinks--if here ain't old Knock-kneed Bailey and Shorty Collins going
by. And they're looking this way. And by the Lord Harry--there's
Curley Anderson. Why, Curley hasn't been over on this side of town
since he sold that little house of his that he built all by himself,
working nights, with nothing but an old saw and a second-hand hammer.
His wife was left a fortune right after and made Curley sell and build
her a cement block villa over on Broadway. She won't even let Curley
walk down this way, though they say he hates her villa and just hankers
for this little bit of a home he built himself here ten years ago.
"Well--by the holy smoke--look yonder! I'm seeing things to-day. Why
there's Dudley Rivers and James D. Austin, that holy man, and he's
actually bowing to me. Now what do you know about that? What's going
on in this town to-day, anyhow? It must be something unusual to bring
out a crowd like that."
Frank's lower jaw suddenly dropped. Sudden suspicion leaped into his
gray-blue eyes. He turned to the man who all afternoon had been
helping him build his chicken house.
"Say--who in hell--are you anyhow?"
And Cynthia's son mopped his thick hair and looked as suddenly
dumfounded. After that he grinned.
"For pity sakes--don't you know me? Why, you were pointed out to me
the very second week I came as the town atheist. I supposed of course
I had been pointed out to you. I'm Cynthia Churchill's son. I buried
father and mother in India and then came home, as they wanted me to.
And I'm glad I came. It's home and these Green Valley folks are my
people. They have made me feel welcome. I supposed everybody knew me
from seeing me about town."
For a long while Frank said nothing. With the explanation his
momentary anger and amazement died away. He was remembering,
remembering Cynthia Churchill. Why, he remembered as though it was
yesterday that when she was twenty he was ten. And he had loved her
because she had once helped him to tie up his pet chicken's broken leg.
And so this tall big chap with the glad eyes was Cynthia's son! Years
ago the mother had tied up his pet hen's leg. And to-day her son had
helped him build his most pretentious hen house.
"No," said Frank at last, "I didn't know you were the chap from India.
I thought you belonged up in one of those new bungalows. Of course,
that accounts for the crowd. Why, we've been making history here in
this back yard this afternoon. The atheist and the preacher building a
chicken coop! Oh, say, John, Green Valley will be talking about this
fifty years from now. Let's have some buttermilk. This thing has just
about knocked me over."
When they had had two glasses apiece Frank again inspected his
assistant.
"But say--do ministers in India do such darn common things as building
chicken houses? I can't remember ever seeing a minister mixing so
carelessly with us low-down sinners or standing around in public with
his sleeves rolled up and his frock coat off. Aren't you a queer breed
of parson?"
"Maybe," Cynthia's son admitted, "but so was father. He could help
bring a baby into the world, could wash and dress it, cure it if it was
sick, bury it if it died. He could teach a woman how to cook a meal
and cut out a dress. He knew how to heal a horse's sore back and how
to help a man get over needing whisky. He used to brush my mother's
hair nights when her head ached and make whistles for me and tell the
little brown children stories, study the stars with the old men and
coax the women into using his medicines instead of their charms."
"For heaven's sake! When did your father get time to talk religion?"
wondered Frank.
"Oh, he never talked religion much. He just sort of lived and
neighbored with his people and just laughed most of the time at mother
and me. He was always busy and never took care of himself. Just
before he died he explained things to me. He said:
"'Son, I came out of the West to bring a message to the East. You go
back to the West with a message from the Orient. Tell them back home
there that hearts are all alike the world over. And that we all, white
men, black men, yellow men and brown men, are playing the very same
game for the very same stakes and that somehow, through ways devious
and incomprehensible, through honesty and faith, failure and
perseverance, we find at last the great content, the peace that passeth
understanding.'
"So I have come home to preach that. But I haven't had time as yet to
do much. I've been getting up a Sunday-school class and getting Seth
Curtis interested in the church finances and getting acquainted with
Hank Lolly and Mrs. Rosenwinkle and--atheists."
"Yes--and among other things you've put Jim into the choir."
"Oh, that was easy--just common sense. It's going to be ever so much
harder though to get at Jim Tumley's generous friends and convince them
that Jim's stomach won't stand their friendly donations.
"I don't know how I'm going to show them that if they love him they
must protect him from themselves. It's going to be hard work. But
he's worth saving, that little man with the lark's voice and the gentle
heart."
When Jennie, hearing the news, hurried home from the other end of town,
really frightened for the first time in her married life, the young
minister was gone and Frank was sitting out on the back porch staring
at nothing.
"Frank," Jennie began breathlessly, "is he gone?"
"Yes--he's gone."
"Frank--you--I hope you didn't get mad at him. He's different--not
like other ministers--and he's really a boy in some things."
"Jennie," and Frank reassured her, "you're darn right that boy is
different. He's so darn different from all the rest of them I've met
that I'm going to church next Sunday. James D. and Dudley and others
of that stripe will probably die of shock but just you press your best
dress, Jennie, for we're surely going. Why that man's no minister.
Don't slander him. He's a human being."
Jennie's eyes grew a bit misty, for with no babies to love, Frank was
her all in all and her one great sorrow was that so few people knew the
real Frank.
"And come to think of it, Jennie," Frank mused, "you weren't so far
wrong in thinking that it was a Christian Scientist who was coming. I
guess that's just about what he is--a Christian scientist."