AN hour later they arrived at the bush-arbor, a rough shed upon which
rested a roof of freshly cut boughs of trees and on which there were
benches without backs. The ground was strewn with straw, and at the far
end was a crude platform and table where several ministers sat.
Leaving his companion near the main entrance, Floyd led his horse
some distance away before he could find a suitable place to hitch him.
Returning, he found a seat for himself and Cynthia near the rear. They
had not been there long before Pole Baker slouched in, warm and flushed
from his walk, and sat directly across the aisle from them. Floyd smiled
and called Cynthia's attention to him, but Pole stared straight at the
pulpit and neither looked to the right nor left. Floyd noticed a farmer
bend over and speak to him, and was surprised to see that Pole made no
response whatever. With a puzzled expression on his face, the farmer
sank back into his seat.
The meeting was opened with prayer and a hymn. Then Hillhouse, who had
arrived a little late, came in, a Bible and hymn-book in hand, and went
forward and sat with the other ministers. Floyd noted the shifting look
of dissatisfaction on his thin face, and his absent-minded manner, as he
exchanged perfunctory greetings with those around him.
“Poor fellow!” Floyd said to himself, “he's hard hit, and no wonder.”
He glanced at the fair face at his elbow and thrilled from head to foot.
She was certainly all that a woman could possibly be.
Then there was a rousing sermon from the Rev. Edward Richardson, an
eloquent mountain evangelist. His pleadings bore immediate fruit. Women
began to shed tears, and sob, and utter prayers aloud. This was followed
by tumultuous shouting, and the triumphant evangelist closed his talk by
asking all who felt like it to kneel where they were and receive prayers
for their benefit. Half of the congregation fell on their knees. “Did
you see that?” Floyd whispered to Cynthia, and he directed her attention
to Pole Baker, who was kneeling on the ground, his great, heavily shod
feet under the seat in front of him, his elbows on his own bench, and
his big, splaying hands pressed over his eyes.
“Poor fellow!” she whispered back, “he is making fresh resolutions
to quit drinking, I suppose. I'm so sorry for him. He tries harder
to reform for the sake of his wife and children than any man I know.
Sometimes I am afraid he never will succeed.”
“Perhaps not,” said Floyd. “You see, I know what it is, Cynthia.”
“You?”
“Why, of course, it almost got me down once. There was a point in my
life when I could have been blown one way or the other as easily as a
feather. I don't want to pose as being better than I am, and I confess
that I am actually afraid at times that it may again get the best of
me. God only knows how a man has to fight a thing like that after it
has once become a habit. As long as matters are like they are now, I
can hold my own, I am sure; but I actually believe if I had to meet
some absolutely crushing blow to all my hopes and aspirations, I'd--I'd
really be as weak as Pole is.”
“I don't believe it,” said Cynthia, raising her frank eyes to his. “I
don't believe a word of it,” she repeated, firmly.
“You don't? Well, perhaps your faith will save me.”
The prayer over, the preacher next called on all who felt that they
needed special spiritual help in any particular trial, affliction, or
trouble to come forward and give him their hands. Several men and women
responded, and among them, to Floyd's growing astonishment, was Pole
Baker. He stood erect at his seat for an instant, and then, with his
long arms swinging at his sides, he walked up and shook hands stiffly
with the minister.
“You were right about it,” Floyd said to Cynthia. “I reckon he's making
new resolutions. But where is the fellow going?”
They saw Pole, after releasing the preacher's hand, turn out at the side
of the arbor, and slowly stalk away towards the spot where Floyd had
hitched his horse.
“Perhaps he's going to start back home,” Cynthia said. “It's getting
late and cloudy, and he has a long walk before him.”
“That's it,” said Floyd. “And footing it through the woods as dark as it
is even now is no simple matter; though Pole really has the instincts
of a red Indian. But I don't understand it, for he is not headed towards
home.”
There was another earnest talk from another preacher, and then Hillhouse
closed the meeting with a prayer.
Leaving Cynthia at the arbor, Floyd went down for his horse. He was not
far from the buggy when he saw Pole Baker rise from a flat stone upon
which he had been seated. Without looking at him, Pole went to the
hitch-rein and unfastened it, and led the restive animal around in the
direction he was to go.
“Much obliged to you, old man,” Floyd said, deeply touched by the
action. “I could have done that myself.”
“I know it, Nelson,” Pole responded; “but I've got some'n' to say to
you, an' as it is late an' may take a minute or two, I thought I'd save
all the time I could an' not keep yore little partner waitin'.”
“Oh, you want to see me, do you?”
Pole hesitated, his glance on the ground; the sockets of his big eyes
were full-looking, and the muscles of his face and great neck were
twitching. Presently he stared Floyd steadily in the eyes and began:
“Nelson, you've knowed me a good many years in the way one man knows a
friend an' neighbor, or even a brother, but you don't plumb understand
me yit. The Lord God Almighty's made men side by side in life as
different as two kinds o' plants, or two sorts o' minerals. Me'n' you
is friends, an' I'm a-goin' to say at the start that I love you as a
brother, but we see things different--me'n' you do--we act different
about some things. That's what I want to see you about.”
“Oh, I see!” Floyd had never been more perplexed in his life, but he
waited for Pole's explanation.
“I hain't here to reflect on the character of women in general,
nuther,” said Baker, “though what I say mought sound like it to the
shallow-minded. I'm here to tell you that the Lord God has made some o'
the sweetest an' best an' purest women that ever lived unable to resist
the fire the devil kindles in some men's eyes. Jest as the Almighty
allowed Old Nick to play smash right among the elected angels o' heaven
tell he was kicked out, so does he let 'im play hell an' damnation with
the best an' purest here on earth, usin' as his devilish instrument men
who excuse the'rselves on the plea that it's human natur'. A good woman
will sometimes be as helpless under a hot-blooded man's eye and voice
as a dove is when it flutters an' stands wonderin' before a rattlesnake
that means to devour it soul and body.”
“Pole, what's all this mean?” Floyd asked, slightly irritated.
“You wait an' see, dern yore hide!” said Pole. “Ef I kin afford to talk
to you when I'm due at my home an' fireside, you kin afford to listen,
fer ef it don't do you some good, it will be the beginnin' o' more harm
than you ever had to tackle in yore short life. I want to tell you,
Nelson, that that little woman you drove out here has been as true a
friend to me as _you_ have, an' if I have to side with one or the other,
it will be with the weakest one.”
“She's made sacrifices fer me. She saved little Billy's life, an' one day
while I was lyin' too drunk to hold my head up in the swamp betwixt
her daddy's house an' mine, she found me thar an' run an' fetched
fresh water in my hat, an' bathed my nasty, bloated face with her wet
handkerchief, an' kept tellin' me to brace up an' not go home that away
an' make my wife feel bad. She done that, Nelson Floyd, _an', by the
holy God_, ef you think I'm a-goin' to set idle an' even _think_ thar's
_a bare resk_ o' her bein' made unhappy by a big, strappin' thing in
pants, an' a vest, an' coat, an' a blue neck tie, you've got little
enough sense to need a guardeen to look after yore effects. I don't say
thar _is_ danger nor thar hain't, but I seed you doin' a thing back thar
on the road that didn't strike me as bein' plumb right, coupled with
what I seed when you climbed over the fence o' Nathan Porter's orchard
nigh midnight not long back. I've already told you I love you like a
brother, but while meetin' was goin' on I made up my mind to say this
to you. I got down at the preacher's invite an' prayed on it, an' I went
forward an' give 'im my hand on it, axin' the sanction o' the Lord on
it, an' I'm here to tell you to yore teeth, Nelson, that ef a hair o'
that bonny head is harmed _through you_ I will kill you as I would a
p'ison snake! Now, I've said it. I'd 'a' had to say it ef you had been
my twin brother, an' I'm not a-goin' to be sorry fer it, nuther. Yore a
good, well-meanin' young man, but you ain't yorese'f when you give way
to hot blood.”
Floyd was standing behind the neck of his horse, and for an instant Pole
could not see his face. There was silence for a moment. Then Floyd came
round the horse and stood facing the mountaineer. He was pale, his lower
lip was twitching; there was a look in his eyes Baker had never seen
there before.
“Pole,” he said, “I'd shoot any other man on God's earth for talking to
me as you have.
“You mean you'd _try_, Nelson.”
“Yes, I mean I'd try; but I can't be mad at you. We've been too close
for that, Pole. I admire you more than any man alive. With all your
faults, you have done more, in the long run, to lift me up than any
other influence. I don't know what to say to you. I--I feel your words
keenly, but you understand that I cannot, after what you have said,
and the way you've said it, make promises. That would really be--be an
insult to--to the lady in question, and an acknowledgment that no brave
man could make to another.”
“I understand that, Nelson.” And Pole, with a softened face, held out
his big, warm hand. “Shake, old boy. Let it all pass. Now that you
understand me, I'm goin' to trust you like a friend. No good man will
harm the sister of a friend, noway, an' that's what she is to me. She's
my little sister, Nelson. Now, you go take 'er home. I don't like the
looks o' that cloud in the west,' an' I don't like the way that hoss o'
your'n keeps layin' back his ears an' snortin' at ever' leaf that blows
by.”