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'Charge It': Keeping Up With Harry, a fiction by Irving Bacheller |
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Chapter 13. In Which The Minister Gets Into Love And Trouble |
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_ CHAPTER XIII. IN WHICH THE MINISTER GETS INTO LOVE AND TROUBLE "Cub resigned his place in my office next day, and confessed his purpose, and I heard him with sober respect and tried in every proper way to save him. It wouldn't work. "The lines of panic had left the face of Cub. The two-pound expression had departed from it. The faintness of chaperons would no longer imperil his comfort. "'A hundred and four pounds of candy and twenty suppers, and all for nothing!' I exclaimed. 'You ruin a girl's digestion and chuck her over. It isn't fair.' "'But, sir, I found that I didn't love her,' said Cub. "'What a waste of violets, confectionery, and crab-meat!' "'Yes, sir, in a way; but you see I had to have my training in society,' Cub declared. "What was the use? Cub had no more humor than a sewing-machine. "'The wedding day drew on apace, and just before its arrival a notorious weekly in New York gave the lady a drubbing. Certain circumstances that made her first marriage unhappy were plainly hinted at. The town shuddered with amazement. Cub stood pat, but the Episcopal minister refused to marry them. The Baptist minister balked. It looked like a postponement, but the knot was tied, on schedule time, by the Reverend Robert Knowles. That made no end of talk, and a small party of insurgents left his church. Deacon Benson was on the point of pulling out, and swore so much about it that I advised him to hang on for his own sake. "'But there ain't much to hang on to,' said the Deacon. "'Mrs. Revere-Chalmers-Sayles held a mortgage on the property of the Baptist Society of Pointview, and asked me to foreclose it. "'I have another mortgage on the Congregational church, and they're behind in their interest, but I'm not going to push them,' she said to me. "So young Mr. Knowles had acted from motives of business prudence, and was not much at fault. The old church had ceased to live within its means and had entered the 'charge it' van, and was trying to serve two masters. "Betsey and I paid both mortgages and threw them in the fire. "Young Mr. Knowles came to see us with Marie, and brought the thanks of the parish. They were a good-looking couple. "This minister of the First Congregational Church of Pointview now aspired to be the prime minister of its first heiress. Their acquaintance, which had begun in the arrangements for the servants' ball, had grown in warmth and intimacy as soon as Harry had gone. Robert began to take after Marie, with muffler open and all the gas on. He was a swell of a parson--utterly damned with good-fortune. Had an income from the estate of his father, a call from on high, a crest from Charlemagne, diplomas from college and the seminary, a fine figure, red cheeks, and 'heavenly eyes.' As to his fatal gift of beauty, the young ladies were of one mind. They agreed, also, about the cut of his garments, that were changed several times a day. "A dashing, masculine, head-punching spirit might have saved him with all his ballast, but he didn't have it. The Reverend Robert was a good fellow to everybody--a fairly sound-hearted, decent, handsome fellow, but not a man. To be that, one has to know things at first hand--especially work and trouble. He was a second-hand, school-made thinker. His doctrines came out of the books, but his conduct was mildly modern. He danced and smoked a little, and played bridge and golf, and made his visits in a handsome motor-car. "Marie liked the young man, and she and her mother rode and tramped about with him almost every day of that summer. Deacon Joe showed signs of faintness when he spoke of him. "One day I went up to the Benson homestead and found the old man sitting on his piazza alone. "'Where's Marie?' I asked. "'Off knocking around with the minister,' said Deacon Joe, in a voice frail with contempt. "'She might be in worse company,' I suggested. "'Maybe,' he snapped. "'What's the matter with the minister?' "'Nothing,' said the old man, with a chuckle. 'He's a complete gentleman, complete! So plaguy beautiful that he's a kind of a girl's plaything. He couldn't milk a cow or dig a hill o' potatoes. Acts kind o' faint an' sickly to me.' "The Deacon thoughtfully stirred the roots of his beard with the fingers of his right hand, and went on with a squint and a feeble tone which he seemed to think best suited to his subject. "'Talks so low you can hardly hear him. I have to set with my hand to my ear every Sunday to make out what he's sayin', an' he prays as if he had the lung fever. Talks o' hell as though it was a quart o' cold molasses. That's one reason we ain't no respect for it in this community. Ay--'es! That's the reason.' "He squinted his face thoughtfully and resumed with more energy. "'I like to hear a man get up on his hind legs and holler as they used to--by gravy! Ye can't scare anybody by whispers. Damn it, sir, what we need is an old-fashioned revival.' "The Deacon halted to take a chew of tobacco, and went on, with a sorrowful calmness: "'Now this young feller don't want to give no credit to God--not a bit--no, sir! Science has done everything. I've noticed it time an' ag'in. T'other Sunday he said that an angel spoke to Moses, an' the Bible says, as plain as A B C, that God spoke to him. How can he expect that God is going to bless his ministry, an' he never givin' Him any credit?' "'It's rather bad politics, anyhow,' I said. "'An' the church is goin' from bad to worse,' he complained. 'The average attendance is about forty-seven, an' it used to be between five an' six hundred, an' we are all taxed to death to keep it goin'. I have to pay three hundred a year for the privilege o' gittin' mad every Sunday. Two or three of us have got after him an' made him promise to do better. Some awful free-minded folks have crept into the church, an' the fact is, we need their money,' Deacon Joe went on. 'What the minister ought to do is stick to the old doctrines that are safe an' sound. 'St'id o' that he's tryin' to sail 'twixt rock an' reef.' "'Between Scylla and Charybdis,' I suggested. "'Between Silly an' what?' the old man asked, as if in doubt of my meaning. "We were interrupted by the arrival of the Reverend Robert with Marie and her mother, in his handsome landaulet. Marie asked me to go with her to gather wild flowers in a bit of woodland not far away. I went, and soon saw her purpose. She had had the 'jolliest, cutest letter from Harry' that she had ever read, and seemed to be in doubt as to whether she ought to let him write to her. "'Has your grandfather forbidden it?' I asked. "'No.' "'Then it's up to you,' I said. "'Do you think he cares for me?' "'I should think him a fool if he didn't,' I said, looking down into her lovely dark eyes. "'But do you really and truly think that he cares for me?' she insisted. "'I suspect that he does.' "'Why?' "'A lawyer must not betray a confidence.' "'Do you like him?' "'Wait until his uneducation is completed, and I'll tell you. I am beginning to have hope for Harry.' "'I'm sorry grandpapa is so hateful!' she exclaimed, with a sigh. "I stood up for the old man and asked: "'Do you like the Reverend Robert?' "'Very much! He's so good-looking, and has such beautiful thoughts! Have you heard him preach?' "'No.' "'We think his sermons are fine. Everybody likes them but grandpapa. He wants noise, you know--lung power and old theology. I hate it!' "'He doesn't take to Robert?' "'No; he calls him a calf. Nobody is good enough for me, you know. He'd like me to marry some man with a hoe, who would take me to church and Sunday school every sabbath morning, and for a walk to the cemetery in the afternoon, and down to the prayer-meeting every Wednesday night, and on a journey from Genesis to Revelations once a year. It's too much to expect of a human being. Then the hoes are in the hands of Poles, Slavs, and Italians. So what am I to do?' "'Well, you are young--you can afford to wait a while,' I said. "'But not until I am old and all withered up. I am going to marry the man I love within a year or so, if he has the good sense to ask me. Don't you ever go to church?' "'No,' I said. "'Why not?' "I tried to think. There were the ministers--two boys and three old men--dried beef and veal! Not to my knowledge had a single one of them ever expressed an idea. They were seen, but not felt. The Church! Why, certainly, it was founded on the sweetness, strength, and sanity of a great soul. I had almost forgotten that. It had grown feeble. It had got its fortunes entangled in psychological hair. It should have been correcting the follies of the people--their selfishness, their sinful pride, their extravagance, their loss of honor and humanity. Had I not seen, in the case of Harry and his followers, how the Church had failed in its work? Ought it not to have sought and saved them long ago--saved them from needless disaster? It should have been appealing to their consciences. If appeals had failed it should have stung them with ridicule or raised a voice like that of Christ against the Pharisees. The Church! Why, it was living, not in the present, but in the past. Here in Pointview the Church itself had become one of the greatest follies of the time. "'I want you to go next Sunday and hear Mr. Knowles, as a favor to me--won't you?' Marie asked. "'Yes,' I said. 'In the next five Sundays I shall go to every Protestant church in Pointview. I want to know what they're doing. I shall put aside my scruples and go.'" _ |
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