A DISTURBING LAUGH
A long stretch of wooden sidewalks with here and there a leprous
breaking out of granitoid; a succession of dwellings, each in its yard
of bluegrass, maple trees, and whitewashed palings, with several
residences fine enough to excite wonder--for modest cottages set the
architectural pace in the village; a stretch of open country beyond
the corporate limits, with a footbridge to span the deep ravine--and
then, at last, a sudden glow in the darkness not caused by the moon,
with a circle of stamping and neighing horses encompassing the glow.
The sermon was ended, the exhortation was at the point of loudest
voice and most impassioned earnestness. A number of men, most of them
young, thronged the footpath leading from the stiles to the tent. A
few were smoking; all were waiting for the pretty girls to come forth
from the Christian camp. Fran pushed her way among the idlers with
admirable nonchalance, her sharp elbow ready for the first resistive
pair of ribs.
The crowd outside did not argue a scarcity of seats under the canvas.
Fran found a plank without a back, loosely disposed, and entirely
unoccupied. She seated herself, straight as an Indian, and with the
air of being very much at ease.
The scene was new to her. More than a thousand villagers, ranged along
a natural declivity, looked down upon the platform of undressed pine.
In front of the platform men and women were kneeling on the ground.
Some were bathed in tears; some were praying aloud; some were talking
to those who stood, or knelt beside them; some were clasping
convulsive hands; all were oblivious of surroundings.
Occasionally one heard above the stentorian voice of the exhorter,
above the prayers and exclamations of the "seekers", a sudden shout of
exultation--"Bless the Lord!" or a rapturous "_A-a_-MEN!" Then a
kneeling figure would rise, and the exhorter would break off his plea
to cry, "Our brother has found the Lord!"
From the hundred members of the choir, Fran singled out the man she
had been seeking for so many years. It was easy enough to distinguish
him from the singers who crowded the platform, not only by his baton
which proclaimed the choir-leader, but by his resemblance to the
picture she had discovered in a New York Sunday Supplement.
Hamilton Gregory was clean-shaved except for a silken reddish
mustache; his complexion was fair, his hair a shade between red and
brown, his eyes blue. His finely marked face and striking bearing were
stamped with distinction and grace.
It was strange to Fran that he did not once glance in her direction.
True, there was nothing in her appearance to excite especial
attention, but she had looked forward to meeting him ever since she
could remember. Now that her eyes were fastened on his face, now that
they were so near, sheltered by a common roof, how could he help
feeling her presence?
The choir-leader rose and lifted his baton. At his back the hundred
men and women obeyed the signal, while hymn-books fluttered open
throughout the congregation. Suddenly the leader of the choir started
into galvanic life. He led the song with his sweet voice, his swaying
body, his frantic baton, his wild arms, his imperious feet. With all
that there was of him, he conducted the melodious charge up the
ramparts of sin and indifference. If in repose, Fran had thought him
singularly handsome and attractive, she now found him inspiring. His
blue eyes burned with exaltation while his magic voice seemed to
thrill with more than human ecstasy. The strong, slim, white hand
tensely grasping the baton, was the hand of a powerful chieftain
wielded in behalf of the God of Battles.
On the left, the heavy bass was singing,
"One thing we know,
Wherever we go--
We reap what we sow,
We reap what we sow."
While these words were being doled out at long and impressive
intervals, like the tolling of a heavy bell, more than half a hundred
soprano voices were hastily getting in their requisite number of half
notes, thus--
"So scatter little, scatter little, scatter little, scatter
little,
Scatter little seeds of kindness."
In spite of the vast volume of sound produced by these voices, as well
as by the accompaniment of two pianos and a snare-drum, the voice of
Hamilton Gregory, soaring flute-like toward heaven, seemed to dart
through the interstices of "rests", to thread its slender way along
infinitesimal crevices of silence. One might have supposed that the
booming bass, the eager chattering soprano, the tenor with its thin
crust of upper layers, and the throaty fillings of the alto, could
have left no vantage points for an obligato. Yet it was Hamilton
Gregory's voice that bound all together in divine unity. As one
listened, it was the inspired truth as uttered by Hamilton Gregory
that brought the message home to conscience. As if one had never
before been told that one reaps what one sows, uneasy memory started
out of hidden places with its whisper of seed sown amiss. Tears rose
to many eyes, and smothered sobs betrayed intense emotion.
Of those who were not in the least affected, Fran was one. She saw and
heard Hamilton Gregory's impassioned earnestness, and divined his
yearning to touch many hearts; nor did she doubt that he would then
and there have given his life to press home upon the erring that they
must ultimately reap what they were sowing. Nevertheless she was
altogether unmoved. It would have been easier for her to laugh than to
cry.
Although the preacher had ceased his exhortations for the singing of
the evangelistic hymn, he was by no means at the end of his resources.
Standing at the margin of the platform, looking out on the
congregation, he slowly moved back and forth his magnetic arms in
parallel lines. Without turning his body, it was as if he were
cautiously sweeping aside the invisible curtain of doubt that swung
between the unsaved and the altar. "This way," he seemed to say.
"Follow my hands."
Not one word did he speak. Even between the verses, when he might have
striven against the pianos and the snare-drum, he maintained his
terrible silence. But as he fixed his ardent eyes upon space, as he
moved those impelling arms, a man would rise here, a woman start up
there--reluctantly, or eagerly, the unsaved would press their way to
the group kneeling at the front. Prayers and groans rose louder.
Jubilant shouts of religious victory were more frequent. One could,
now hardly hear the choir as it insisted--
"We reap what we sow,
We reap what we sow."
Suddenly the evangelist smote his hands together, a signal for song
and prayer to cease.
Having obtained a silence that was breathless he leaned over the edge
of the platform, and addressed a man who knelt upon the ground:
"Brother Clinton, can't you get it?"
The man shook his head. "You've been kneeling there night after
night," the evangelist continued; "don't you feel that the Lord loves
you? Can't you feel it? Can't you feel it _now?_ Can't you get it?
Can't you get it _now?_ Brother Clinton, I want you to get through
before these revival services close. They close this night. I go away
to-morrow. This may be your last opportunity. I want you to get it
now. All these waiting friends want you to get it now. All these
praying neighbors want to _see_ you get it. Can't you get through to-
night? Just quietly here, without any excitement, without any noise or
tumult, just you and your soul alone together--Brother Clinton, can't
you get through to-night?"
Brother Clinton shook his head.
Fran laughed aloud.
The evangelist had already turned to Hamilton Gregory as a signal for
the hymn to be resumed, for sometimes singing helped them "through",
but the sound of irreverent laughter chilled his blood. To his highly
wrought emotional nature, that sound of mirth came as the laughter of
fiends over the tragedy of an immortal soul.
"Several times," he cried, with whitened face, "these services have
been disturbed by the ungodly." He pointed an inflexible finger at
Fran: "Yonder sits a little girl who should not have been allowed in
this tent unaccompanied by her parents. Brethren! Too much is at
stake, at moments like these, to shrink from heroic measures. Souls
are here, waiting to be saved. Let that little girl be removed. Where
are the ushers? I hope she will go without disturbance, but go she
shall! Now, Brother Gregory, sing."
The corps of ushers had been sadly depleted by the young men's
inclination to bivouac outside, where one could see without being
obliged to hear. As the song swept over the worshipers in a wave of
pleading, such ushers as still remained, held a brief consultation.
The task assigned them did not seem included in their proper
functions. Only one could be found to volunteer as policeman, and he
only because the evangelist's determined eye and rigid arm had never
ceased to indicate the disturber of the peace.
Fran was furious; her small white face seemed cut in stone as she
stared at the evangelist. How could she have known she was going to
laugh? Her tumultuous emotions, inspired by the sight of Hamilton
Gregory, might well have found expression in some other way. That
laugh had been as a darting of tongue-flame directed against the
armored Christian soldier whose face was so spiritually beautiful,
whose voice was so eloquent.
Fran was suddenly aware of a man pausing irresolutely at the end of
the plank that held her erect. Without turning her head, she asked in
a rather spiteful voice, "Are you the sheriff?"
He spoke with conciliatory persuasiveness: "Won't you go with me,
little girl?"
Fran turned impatiently to glare at the usher.
He was a fine young fellow of perhaps twenty-four, tall and straight,
clean and wholesome. His eyes were sincere and earnest yet they
promised much in the way of sunny smiles--at the proper time and
place. His mouth was frank, his forehead open, his shoulders broad.
Fran rose as swiftly as if a giant hand had lifted her to her feet.
"Come on, then," she said in a tone somewhat smothered. She climbed
over the "stringer" at the end of her plank, and marched behind the
young man as if oblivious of devouring eyes. The men at the tent-
entrance scurried out of the way, scattering the shavings and sawdust
that lined the path.
As they passed the last pole that supported a gasolene-burner, Fran
glanced up shyly from under her broad hat. The light burned red upon
the young usher's face, and there was something in the crimson glow,
or in the face, that made her feel like crying, just because--or so
she fancied--it revived the recollection of her loneliness. And as she
usually did what she felt like doing, she cried, silently, as she
followed the young man out beneath the stars.