I never stopped to tell but two, three folks on the way to Brother
Cartwright's, but they must of spread it quick. 'Cause when I got back
home with him it seemed like the hull town was there. It was along about
dusk by this time, and it was a prayer-meeting night at the church.
Mr. Cartwright told his wife to tell the folks what come to the
prayer-meeting he'd be back before long, and to wait fur him. Which she
really told them where he had went, and what fur. Mr. Cartwright
marches right into the kitchen. All the chairs in our house was into the
kitchen, and the women was a-talking and a-laughing, and they had sent
over to Alexanderses for their chairs and to Rogerses for theirn. Every
oncet in a while they would be a awful bust of language come up from
that hole where that unreginerate old sinner was cooped up in.
I have travelled around considerable since them days, and I have mixed
up along of many kinds of people in many different places, and some
of 'em was cussers to admire. But I never hearn such cussing before or
since as old Hank done that night. He busted his own records and riz
higher'n his own water marks for previous times. I wasn't nothing but
a little kid then, and skeercly fitten fur to admire the full beauty of
it. They was deep down cusses, that come from the heart. Looking back
at it after all these years, I can believe what Brother Cartwright said
himself that night, that it wasn't natcheral cussing and some higher
power, like a demon or a evil sperrit, must of entered into Hank's human
carkis and give that turrible eloquence to his remarks. It busted out
every few minutes, and the women would put their fingers into their ears
till a spell was over. And it was personal, too. Hank, he would listen
until he hearn a woman's voice that he knowed, and then he would let
loose on her fambly, going backwards to her grandfathers and downwards
to her children's children. If her father had once stolen a hog, or her
husband done any disgrace that got found out on him, Hank would put it
all into his gineral remarks, with trimmings onto it.
Brother Cartwright, he steps up to the hole in the floor when he first
comes in and he says, gentle-like and soothing, like a undertaker when he
tells you where to set at a home funeral:
"Brother Walters."
"Brother!" Hank yells out, "don't ye brother me, you sniffling,
psalm-singing, yaller-faced, pigeon-toed hippercrit, you! Get me a
ladder, gol dern you, and I'll come out'n here and learn you to brother
me, I will." Only that wasn't nothing to what Hank really said to that
preacher; no more like it than a little yaller, fluffy canary is like a
buzzard.
"Brother Walters," says the preacher, ca'am but firm, "we have all
decided that you ain't going to come out of that cistern till you sign
the pledge."
And Hank tells him what he thinks of pledges and him and church doings,
and it wasn't purty. And he says if he was as deep in eternal fire as
what he now is in rain-water, and every fish that nibbles at his toes
was a preacher with a red-hot pitchfork a-jabbing at him, they could jab
till the hull hereafter turned into snow afore he'd ever sign nothing a
man like Mr. Cartwright give him to sign. Hank was stubborner than any
mule he ever nailed shoes onto, and proud of being that stubborn. That
town was a awful religious town, and Hank he knowed he was called the
most onreligious man in it, and he was proud of that too; and if any one
called him a heathen it jest plumb tickled him all over.
"Brother Walters," says that preacher, "we are going to pray for you."
And they done it. They brought all them chairs close up around that
cistern, in a ring, and they all kneeled down there, with their heads
on 'em, and they prayed fur Hank's salvation. They done it up in style,
too, one at a time, and the others singing out, "Amen!" every now and
then, and they shed tears down onto Hank. The front yard was crowded
with men, all a-laughing and a-talking and chawing and spitting tobacco
and betting how long Hank would hold out. Old Si Emery, that was the
city marshal, and always wore a big nickel-plated star, was out there
with 'em. Si was in a sweat, 'cause Bill Nolan, that run the bar-room,
and some more of Hank's friends, or as near friends as he had, was out
in the road. They says to Si he must arrest that preacher, fur Hank is
being gradual murdered in that there water, and he'll die if he's helt
there too long, and it will be a crime. Only they didn't come into the
yard to say it amongst us religious folks. But Si, he says he dassent
arrest no one because it is outside the town copperation; but he's
considerable worried too about what his duty orter be.
Pretty soon the gang that Mrs. Cartwright has rounded up at the
prayer-meeting comes stringing along in. They had all brung their hymn
books with them, and they sung. The hull town was there then, and they
all sung, and they sung revival hymns over Hank. And Hank he would jest
cuss and cuss. Every time he busted out into another cussing spell they
would start another hymn. Finally the men out in the front yard got
warmed up too, and begun to sing, all but Bill Nolan's crowd, and they
give Hank up for lost and went away disgusted.
The first thing you knowed they was a reg'lar revival meeting there, and
that preacher was preaching a reg'lar revival sermon. I been to more'n
one camp meeting, but fur jest natcherally taking holt of the hull human
race by the slack of its pants and dangling of it over hell-fire, I
never hearn nothing could come up to that there sermon. Two or three old
backsliders in the crowd come right up and repented all over agin on the
spot. The hull kit and biling of 'em got the power good and hard, like
they does at camp meetings and revivals. But Hank, he only cussed. He
was obstinate, Hank was, and his pride and dander had riz up. Finally he
says:
"You're taking a ornery, low-down advantage o' me, you are. Let me out'n
this here cistern and I'll show you who'll stick it out longest on dry
land, dern your religious hides!"
Some of the folks there hadn't had no suppers, so after all the other
sinners but Hank had either got converted or else sneaked away, some of
the women says why not make a kind of love feast out of it, and bring
some vittles, like they does to church sociables. Because it seems
likely Satan is going to wrastle all night long, like he done with the
angel Jacob, and they ought to be prepared. So they done it. They went
and they come back with vittles and they made up hot coffee and they
feasted that preacher and theirselves and Elmira and me, all right in
Hank's hearing.
And Hank was getting hungry himself. And he was cold in that water. And
the fish was nibbling at him. And he was getting cussed out and weak and
soaked full of despair. And they wasn't no way fur him to set down and
rest. And he was scared of getting a cramp in his legs, and sinking down
with his head under water and being drownded. He said afterward he'd of
done the last with pleasure if they was any way of suing that crowd fur
murder. So along about ten o'clock he sings out:
"I give in, gosh dern ye! I give in. Let me out and I'll sign your pesky
pledge!"
Brother Cartwright was fur getting a ladder and letting him climb out
right away. But Elmira, she says:
"Don't you do it, Brother Cartwright; don't you do it. You don't know
Hank Walters like I does. If he oncet gets out o' there before he's
signed that pledge, he won't never sign it."
So they fixed it up that Brother Cartwright was to write out a pledge
on the inside leaf of the Bible, and tie the Bible onto a string, and a
lead pencil onto another string, and let the strings down to Hank,
and he was to make his mark, fur he couldn't write, and they was to be
pulled up agin. Hank, he says all right, and they done it. But jest as
Hank was making his mark on the leaf of the book, that preacher done
what I has always thought was a mean trick. He was lying on the floor
with his head and shoulders into that hole as fur as he could, holding
a lantern way down into it, so as Hank could see. And jest as Hank made
that mark he spoke some words over him, and then he says:
"Now, Henry Walters, I have baptized you, and you are a member of the
church."
You'd a thought Hank would of broke out cussing agin at being took
unexpected that-a-way, fur he hadn't really agreed to nothing but
signing the pledge. But nary a cuss. He jest says: "Now, you get that
ladder."
They got it, and he clumb up into the kitchen, dripping and shivering.
"You went and baptized me in that water?" he asts the preacher. The
preacher says he has.
"Then," says Hank, "you done a low-down trick on me. You knowed I has
made my brags I never jined no church nor never would jine. You knowed
I was proud of that. You knowed that it was my glory to tell of it, and
that I set a heap of store by it in every way. And now you've went and
took it away from me! You never fought it out fair and square, neither,
man playing to outlast man, like you done with this here pledge, but you
sneaked it in on me when I wasn't looking."
They was a lot of men in that crowd that thought the preacher had went
too far, and sympathized with Hank. The way he done about that hurt
Brother Cartwright in our town, and they was a split in the church,
because some said it wasn't reg'lar and wasn't binding. He lost his
job after a while and become an evangelist. Which it don't make no
difference what one of them does, nohow.
But Hank, he always thought he had been baptized reg'lar. And he never
was the same afterward. He had made his life-long brags, and his pride
was broke in that there one pertic'ler spot. And he sorrered and grieved
over it a good 'eal, and got grouchier and grouchier and meaner and
meaner, and lickered oftener, if anything. Signing the pledge couldn't
hold Hank. He was worse in every way after that night in the cistern,
and took to lamming me harder and harder.