"Mr. Kimper," said the lady, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I give you my word that I will think earnestly on the subject, and do it at once, and give myself no rest until I have devised some plan to do what you have asked me."

"God bless you, ma'am! God bless you!" said the cobbler, dropping a tear upon one of the grimy hands at work upon the shoe.



CHAPTER IX.

Reynolds Bartram was greatly annoyed by the results of the several interviews he had imposed upon the new assistant cobbler at Bruceton. He had silenced, if not conquered, all the other religious controversialists of the town, and found the weak spots in the armor of many good people not given to controversy, whom he had beguiled into talking on religious themes. Why he should want to converse at all upon such subjects puzzled the people of the town, all of whom had known him from boyhood as a member of a family so entirely satisfied with itself that it never desired any aid from other people, to say nothing of higher powers. Sometimes the Bartrams went to church for social purposes, but always with an air of conferring a favor upon the power in whose honor the edifice was erected.

But Bartram had good enough reasons for his sudden interest in religion. He was in love with Eleanor Prency, and, after the manner of his family regarding everything that interested them, he was tremendously in earnest with his wooing. Like a judicious lawyer, he had endeavored to make his way easier by prepossessing the girl's parents in his favor; but when he began to pass the lines of pleasing civility, within which he had long known the judge and his wife, he was surprised to find an undercurrent of seriousness, the existence of which in the Prency family he never had suspected. The judge appeared to estimate everything from the stand-point of religion and righteousness; so did his wife; so, though in less measure, did the daughter.

Such nonsense, as the self-sufficient youth regarded it, was annoying. To visit a pleasant family with the intention of making a general conquest and find himself confronted by a line of obstacles which he always had regarded as trifling, yet which he was unable to overcome, and to be told that religion was a reality because it had changed Sam Kimper, one of the most insignificant wretches in town, from a lazy, thievish drunkard to an honest, sober, industrious citizen,—all this was to make war upon Reynolds Bartram's constitutional opinions as to the fitness of things.

A change of opinion somewhere was necessary: so it must occur in the Prency family, and as soon as it could be brought about. This was Bartram's first conclusion, after an hour of deep thought. He had started upon a love-making enterprise, and he objected to a complication of interests. If the Prencys chose to talk theology in the privacy of their family life, they were welcome to do so, but he wished none of it, and, unless his head had lost its cunning, he believed he could devise a method of preventing further inflictions of it.

He convinced himself that his best method would be to discover and expose the weakness, perhaps hypocrisy, of the wretched cobbler's professions. Maybe Kimper meant all he said, and thought he believed something which was essential to religion; but had not scores of other common fellows in the town done likewise, during "revivals" and other seasons of special religious effort, only to fall back into their old ways soon afterwards? It was all a matter of birth and training, argued Bartram to himself: the feeblest and most excitable intellects, the world over, were the first to be impressed by whatever seemed supernatural, whether it were called religion, spiritualism, mesmerism, or anything else. It was merely a matter of mental excitement: the stronger the attack, the sooner the relapse. Sam Kimper would lose faith in his fancies sooner or later; it might be somewhat cruel to hasten this result, but what was a little more or less of the life of such a fellow, compared with the lifelong happiness of one of the Bartrams,—the last of the family, and, as the young man fully believed, the best? Should the cobbler's fall be hastened, Bartram would make it right; indeed, he would volunteer in his defense the first time he should again be arrested for fighting or stealing.

But his plan did not work. Day after day he had made excuses to drop into the cobbler's shop and worry the ex-convict into a discussion, but not once did he depart without a sense of defeat. As he said to himself,—

"What can be done with a man who only believes, and won't argue or go to the bottom of things? It's confoundedly ridiculous."

During his last visit, he said,—

"Sam, if the power you profess to believe in can really work such a change as you think He has done in you, He ought to be able to do almost anything else. Don't you think so?"

"That I do," said the cobbler, working away.

"You believe He has power to any extent, I suppose?"

"You're right again, Mr. Bartram."

"Of course you think he loves you dearly?"

"I'm ashamed to think it,—that any such bein' should love a good-for-nothin' feller like me. But what else can I think, Mr. Bartram, after all that's gone on in me, an' what He's said Himself?"

"Very well; then, if He is so powerful and cares so much for you, I suppose He brings you more work and better prices than any one else in your business?"

Sam did not reply to this at once, but after a while he said,—

"It amounts to the same thing: He makes me work harder than I ever knowed how to do before. That brings me more money an' gives me a hope of gettin' along better after a while."

"Oh, well, you have a family,—quite a large family, I believe. Does He do as much for your wife and children as for you?"

"Whatever He's doin' for me is done for all of us, Mr. Bartram."

"Just so. But do you mean to say that what you're making enables you to do for your family all that you should?"

The cobbler's face contracted, under the shade he wore over his eyes. An evil smile overspread the lawyer's countenance. A little time passed; the discussion was becoming sport,—such sport as the angler feels when a wounded fish, a hundred times smaller than he, is struggling and writhing in agony on his hook.

"You don't seem certain about it, Sam," the tormentor finally said.

"Mr. Bartram," the cobbler answered in a little while, "what He done for me came about so quiet an' unknown like that I don't know what he may be doin' for the wife an' children. God knows they need it; an', as He came to look after them that was needy, I don't believe He can make a mistake an' pass by my house."

"But I should think you would be sure about it. You're so sure about your own affairs, you know,—what are called your spiritual affairs."

"I don't know, though," said Sam, simply.

"Have all the children got good shoes and stockings and warm clothes? Winter is almost here, you know."

"No, sir, they haven't," Sam sharply replied.

The lawyer quickly caught the change of tone, and made haste to explain:

"I didn't mean to disturb your peace of mind, Sam; I asked only in order to learn how much foundation there was to your faith. They haven't them, you say. How will they get them?"

"I'll earn 'em," said the cobbler, with a savage dash of his awl which one of his fingers barely escaped.

"But suppose you can't; suppose trade slackens, or Larry takes a notion to a new helper."

"Then I'll beg, rather than have 'em suffer."

"And if folks won't give?"

"Then my folks'll have to go without."

"In spite of your new, loving, strong friend,—your Saviour? If He's all you take Him to be, aren't you sure He'll look out for your family?"

"Mr. Bartram," said the cobbler, resting for a moment, and straightening his weary back, "if I was in trouble,—been doin' somethin' wrong, for instance, an' was hauled into court, an' had you for my lawyer,—though of course I couldn't expect to have so smart a man,—I'd ort to believe that you'd do everythin' that could be done an' ort to be done, ortn't I?"

"Certainly, Sam, certainly," said the lawyer, with his customary professional look of assurance.

"But I wouldn't know all about it in advance, would I? Even if you was to tell me all you meant to do an' how you'd do it, I couldn't take it in. If I could, I'd be just as smart as you,—the idee!—an' wouldn't need you at all."

Both suppositions were so wildly improbable that the lawyer indulged in a sarcastic smile.

"Well, then," continued Sam, "here's somebody helpin' me more than any man ever could,—somebody that's smarter than any lawyer livin'. I s'pose you'll own up to that?"

The idea that any being, natural or supernatural, could be wiser than one of the Bartrams was not pleasing to the lawyer, when suggested so abruptly, but it was conceded, after a moment of thought, by a condescending nod of the head.

"Then," Sam continued, "how am I goin' to be supposed to know all that He's doin' an' not doin' for me, an' when He's goin' to do somethin' else, or whether He's goin' to do it at all. If I was as smart as a lawyer, I wouldn't need one; if I was as smart an' good as Him that's lookin' after me, there wouldn't need to be any God or Saviour, would there?"

"Then you are satisfied He is God and Saviour, eh? Some wiser men have believed differently."

"I only know what I was told an' what I've read for myself, sir. The man that put me up to it told me not to try to believe everythin' that everybody else did, but to believe as much as I could an' live up to it, bein' extra particular about the livin' up."

"But you ought to know something—have some distinct idea—as to whom you're believing in. What do you know about Him, after all?"

"I know," said the cobbler, "just what I've told you before, when you've asked me the same question. I know He was once in the world, an' didn't do anybody any harm, an' done a good deal of good, an' taught folks to do right an' how to do it. Everybody believes that, don't they?"

"I suppose it's safe to admit that much."

"Well, sir, I'm tryin' to foller Him an' learn of Him. I'm believin' in Him just like I believe in old Andrew Jackson."

"Is that all?"

"That's enough,—as far as I've got. You're a good deal smarter than I be, sir: won't you tell me how to go further?"

The lawyer shook his head and departed. The cobbler fell on his knees and buried his face in his hands. The lawyer, chancing to look in the window, saw the movement; then he drew his hat down over his eyes and sauntered off.



CHAPTER X.

The genuineness of the change which had come over Sam Kimper slowly became the subject of general conversation in Bruceton. Judge Prency frequently spoke of it; so did his wife; and, as the Prencys were leaders of village society, whatever interested them became the fashion. People with shoes which needed repairing visited the new cobbler in great numbers, each prompted as much by curiosity as by business, for they seldom haggled about prices.

Sam's family, too, began to receive some attention. Mrs. Prency, having first secured a promise from Sam that the children should go to Sunday-school if they could be decently clad, interested several ladies to the extent of bestowing some old clothing, which she hired a sewing woman to make over into becoming garments for Billy and Mary. Mrs. Kimper, too, was enabled to dress well enough to appear in church, though she stipulated that she should go only to evening services.

"I don't 'mount to much, Mrs. Prency," said she to the family's benefactor; "there ain't much left of me as I once was, but I ain't goin' to have people look at me the way they do, any more than I can help."

"The feeling does you credit, Mrs. Kimper," said the lady, "but you won't long be troubled that way. The oftener you let people see you, the less curious they'll be."

Sam's new way of life, too, began to be discussed where men most congregated. Loungers at stores, the railway station, and the post-office talked of the town's only ex-convict who had not yet gone back to his old ways. Most of the men who talked of him did it in about the manner of spectators of the gladiatorial combats in ancient Rome: they admired the endurance and courage of the man, but seldom did it occur to them to stretch out a hand to help him. There were exceptions to this rule, however. An old farmer who had brought a load of wheat to the station listened to the tale, asked a great many questions about the case, and said, finally,—

"I s'pose you're all doin' all you can to help him along?"

The by-standers looked at one another, but no one answered in the affirmative. One man at last found words to say, "Why, he's tryin' to help hisself along, and we're watchin' to see how he'll succeed. Now, I was along by his place this mornin', an' seen him carryin' in the last wood from his wood-pile. 'Sam,' I hollered, 'don't you want to buy a load of wood? I've got some I want to sell.' 'I need it,' said Sam, 'but I ain't got a cent.' Well, mebbe I'd have trusted him for a load if he'd asked me, but it occurred to me to stand off an' see how he'd manage it. It's cold weather now, an' if he don't get it some way, his family'll go cold. I went by there again at noon-time, but he hadn't got none yit."

"He's as independent like," said another, "as if he hadn't never been in jail."

"You're a pack of heartless hogs!" roared the farmer, getting into his wagon and driving off.

"Can't see that he's any different from the rest of us," muttered one of the by-standers.

Could the group have known the trouble in the new cobbler's heart, as he bent all day over his work and thought of the needed wood, their interest in the subject would have been enhanced. Sam's wife was a cold-blooded creature; the baby was somewhat ailing; it would not do for the fire to go out, yet the fuel he had carried in at morn could not more than last until evening. The little money that had come into the shop during the day would barely purchase some plain food, of which there was never in the house a day's supply. He had not the courage to ask credit for wood; his occasional attempts to "get trusted" had all failed, no matter how small the article wanted. He looked for Larry Highgetty, his employer, to beg a small loan, but Larry, though he came into the shop every morning for his share of the previous day's earnings, could not be found that afternoon.

Suddenly, when the sun was almost down, Sam remembered that a house was being built several squares away. Carpenters always left many scraps behind them, which village custom allowed anyone to pick up. The cobbler devoutly thanked heaven for the thought, closed the shop, and hurried away to the new building. The men were still at work, and there was a great deal of waste lying about.

"May I have some of these leavin's?" asked Sam of the master builder.

The man looked down from the scaffolding on which he stood, recognized the questioner, turned again to his work, and at last answered, with a scowl,—

"Yes, I suppose so. It would be all the same, I guess, if I didn't say so. You'd come after dark and help yourself."

Sam pocketed the insult, though the weight of it was heavy. So was that of the bits of board he gathered; but he knew that such thin wood burned rapidly, so he took a load that made him stagger. As he entered the yard behind his house, he saw, through the dusk which was beginning to gather, a man rapidly tossing cord-wood from a wagon to a large pile which already lay on the ground.

"My friend," gasped Sam, dropping his own load and panting from his exertion, "I guess—you've made a—mistake. I ain't ordered a load of wood from nobody. Guess you've come to the wrong house."

"Guess not," replied the man, who was the farmer that had freed his mind at the railway station during the afternoon.

"This is Sam Kimper's," explained the cobbler.

"Just where I was told to come," said the farmer, tossing out the last sticks and stretching his arms to rest upon them.

"Who was it told you to bring it?" asked the resident.

The farmer stooped and took a large package from the front of the wagon and threw it on the ground; then he threw another.

"Won't you tell me who sent it?" Sam asked again.

The farmer turned his head and shouted,—

"God Almighty, if you must know; and He told me to bring that bag of flour and shoulder of bacon, too."

Then the farmer drove off, at a gait quite unusual in farm-teams.

The cobbler burst into tears and fell upon his knees. When he arose he looked in the direction from which came the rattle of the retreating wheels, and said to himself,—

"I wonder if that man was converted in the penitentiary?"

The story, when Sam told it in the house, amazed the family, though little Mary giggled long on hearing the name of the supposed giver. No sooner was supper ended than the child slipped out of the house and hurried to the hotel to tell her sister Jane all about it. Within half an hour the story had passed, through the usual channels, to all lounging-places that were open, and at one of them—the post-office—it was heard by Deacon Quickset. It troubled the good man a great deal, and he said,—

"There's no knowing how much harm'll be done the fellow by that speech. If he thinks the Lord is going to take care of him in such unexpected ways, he'll go to loafing and then get back into his old ways."

"Didn't the Lord ever help you in any unexpected way, deacon?" asked Judge Prency, who nearly every evening spent a few moments in the post-office lobby.

"Why, yes,—of course; but, judge, Sam and I aren't exactly the same kind of men, I think you'll allow."

"Quite right," said the judge. "You're a man of sense and character. But when Jesus was on earth did He give much attention to men of your general character and standing? According to my memory of the record,—and I've re-read it several times since Sam Kimper's return,—He confined His attentions quite closely to the poor and wretched, apparently to the helpless, worthless class to whom the Kimper family would have belonged had it lived at that time. 'They that are whole need no physician,'—you remember?—'but they that are sick.'"

"According to the way you seem to be thinking, Judge Prency," said the deacon, coldly, "them that's most deserving are to be passed by for them that's most shiftless."

"Those who deserve most are those who need most, aren't they, deacon?—that is, if anyone is really 'deserving,' as we use the word."

"Your notions would break up business entirely, if they were carried out," asserted the deacon.

"Not at all; though I've never discovered that business is the first interest of the Almighty."

"You mean to say that because I work hard and get a little fore-handed I ought to take a lot of shiftless folks and teach them to be lazy and dependent on me?"

"Certainly not, deacon. How you do jump at conclusions! There aren't a lot of shiftless people in this town; there are very few; and even they might be helped, and shamed into taking care of themselves, if you and I and some more fore-handed people were to follow our Master's example."

"I've spoken to every unbeliever in this town about his soul's salvation," said the deacon; "I've always made it a matter of duty. Christ came to preach salvation, and I'm following His example, in my humble way."

"Didn't He do anything else?" asked the judge. "You remember what answer He sent to John in prison, when the Baptist seemed to have lost heart and wondered whether Jesus were really He who should come? He said that to the poor the gospel was preached, but He gave half a dozen other proofs, each of them showing special care for men's bodies."

"Judge, you're talking materialism," said the deacon. "It's a spirit that's getting too common everywhere."

"Oh, no, I'm not; I'm talking the words of Jesus Himself. Aren't they good enough for you? or are you like children at the table who will take only what suits them, and ignore everything else?"

"Such talks never do any good, judge," said the deacon, buttoning his overcoat and turning up the collar. "I've spent a good deal of my life thinking about sacred subjects and trying to lead my fellow-men in the right way. You're not going to make me believe at my time of life that I've been all wrong, and that Jesus Christ came on earth only to start a charity society."

"Nor to teach people to live right?"

"He wants them first to know how to die right. I should think, judge, that Sam Kimper had been converting you over again and doing it backwards. That fellow has only got hold of one end of the Scripture—one little jag end of it."

"Too small an end to be worthy of your attention, I suppose, deacon?"

"This is all wasted time and idle talk, Judge Prency," said the deacon, leaving the place so quickly that he forgot to ask for his letters.



CHAPTER XI.

One bright, breezy October afternoon, Sam Kimper's daughter Jane got "an hour off" from her duties at the hotel, and proceeded to devote it to her highest ideal of possible enjoyment. There were many other pleasures for which she longed, but, as they were unattainable just then, she made the most of that which was within her reach for the time being. It was to array herself in her best and saunter to and fro in the principal streets, look into shop windows, and exchange winks and rude remarks with young men and women with whom she was acquainted.

Although her attire was about what one would expect of a drunkard's child who had spent her later years in the kitchen and corridors of a hotel, Jane was not an unsightly creature. There must have been good physical quality in one side or other of her family, in past generations, which was trying to reappear, for Jane had a fine figure, expressive eyes, and a good complexion. Had any one followed her during her afternoon stroll, and observed her closely during her successive chance meetings with young men and women of her acquaintance, he would have seen hard lines, coarse lines, ugly lines, in her face; yet when in repose the same face was neither unwomanly nor without an occasional suggestion of soul. It was a face like many others that one may see on the streets,—entirely human, yet entirely under the control of whatever influence might be about it for the time being,—the face of a nature untrained and untaught, which would have followed either Jesus or Satan, or both by turns, had both appeared before it in visible shape.

During a moment or two of her afternoon out, Jane found herself approaching Mrs. Prency and Eleanor, those ladies being out on one of those serious errands known collectively as "shopping."

"Do see that dreadfully dowdy girl!" exclaimed Miss Eleanor, whose attire was always selected with correct taste.

"She has never had any one to teach her to dress properly, my dear," suggested the mother.

"She might have some one who cared enough for her to keep her from appearing in public in red hair and a blue ribbon," said the daughter.

"Such girls have no one to keep them from doing anything they like, my dear. Let us try to be sorry for them, instead of being disgusted."

"But, mother—"

"Sh-h! she'll hear you. I'm going to bow to her; I wish you'd do the same."

"Mother!"

"To oblige me; I'll explain afterwards."

The couple were now within several steps of Jane, who, with an odd mixture of wistfulness and scare, had been studying Eleanor's attire. When she saw both women looking at her, she began to take a defiant attitude, but the toss of her head was met by one of Mrs. Prency's heartiest smiles, accompanied by a similar recognition from Eleanor. Short as was the time that could elapse before the couple had passed her, it was long enough to show a change in Jane's face,—a change so notable that Eleanor whispered,—

"Did you ever see any one alter looks so quickly?"

"Never; but I sha'n't lose any opportunity to see it again," said Mrs. Prency.

"Mother, dear," said Eleanor, "I hope you're not suddenly going to recognize every common person you may meet on the street. You're so enthusiastic."

"And so different from my daughter in that respect,—eh, dear?"

"But, mother, you've always been so careful and fastidious about your associations and mine. I remember the time, only a year or two ago, while I was at school, when you would have been horrified if I'd had anything to do with a creature like that."

"You were a child then, my dear; you're a woman now. That girl is the daughter of the poor fellow—"

"Sam Kimper?—that you and father talk of so frequently? Yes, I know; she was a horrid little thing in school, two classes below me. But, mother, I don't see why we ought to recognize her just because her father has been in the penitentiary and behaved himself since he came back."

"Because she needs recognition, dear child; because she gets it from plenty of people of her own class, and if she has it from no others she never will be any better than she is; perhaps she will become worse."

"Oh, mother!" exclaimed Eleanor, with a toss of her handsome head, "such people never change. There were plenty of such girls in the same class with me in the public school, and they've all gone off and married common low fellows. Some of them were real pretty girls while they were young, too."

"All the more reason why others of the same kind should have some encouragement to do better, my child."

"But, mother," persisted Eleanor, "what possible good will it do that Kimper girl for us merely to recognize her in the street?"

"You may do as much more for her as you choose, if you think mere courtesy is not enough. Eleanor, you are a healthy, happy girl; you know—and I remember—all a girl's natural fancies and longings. Do you imagine that being badly born and reared can keep that girl from having the same feelings? She probably wishes she could dress as well as the best, attract attention, be respected, have a real fine fellow fall in love with her—"

"The idea!" exclaimed Eleanor, laughing merrily. "But suppose it were all true; how can mere notice from us help her? I'm sure the minute we passed her she made a face and envied me my better clothes."

"You will think differently when you have more experience, my dear. When I was as young as you, I thought—"

"Oh, mother, there she is again," said Eleanor, "crossing the street; she's turning right towards us. And," murmured the young lady, after assuring herself that it was really the same combination of red hair and blue ribbon, "how different she looks!"

"Because two women of some standing and position chanced to notice her. Let's help the good work along, daughter." Then, before Miss Eleanor had time to object, and just as the cobbler's daughter was in front of them, Mrs. Prency stopped, extended her neatly gloved hand, and said, with a pleasant smile,—

"How these girls do grow! You were little Jane only a year or two ago, Miss Kimper."

Never before had Jane Kimper been addressed as "Miss." The appellation sent color flying into her face and brightness into her eyes as she stammered out something about growing being natural.

"You haven't grown fast enough, though, to neglect good looks," continued Mrs. Prency, while Eleanor, endeavoring to act according to her mother's injunctions, drawled,—

"No, indeed!"

Then the cobbler's daughter flushed deeper and looked grateful, almost modest, for girls read girls pretty fairly, and Jane saw that Eleanor was regarding her face with real admiration.

"You girls of the new generation can't imagine how much interest we women who used to be girls have in you," said the judge's wife. "I'm afraid you'd be vain if you knew how much Eleanor and I have looked at you and talked about you."

"I didn't s'pose any lady that was anybody ever thought anything about girls like me," Jane finally managed to say.

"You're greatly mistaken, my dear girl," said the lady. "Nearly every one in this world talks a good deal about every one else whom they know by sight. You really can't imagine how much good it does me to see you looking so well and pretty. Keep right on looking so, won't you? The girls of to-day must be our women a few years hence; that's what I keep impressing upon my daughter day by day,—don't I, dear."

"Indeed you do, mother." Eleanor said it with a look at Jane which was almost a signal for sympathy: the cobbler's daughter was greatly mystified by it.

"I don't see," said Jane, after standing awkwardly for a moment in meditation, "how a girl's goin' to be much of a woman that amounts to anything one of these days if she's nothin' to do now but dirty work at a hotel."

"Maybe she could change her work," suggested the lady.

Jane's lips parted into some hard and ugly lines, and she replied,—

"Some things is easier sayin' than doin'."

"Should you like a different position?" asked Mrs. Prency. "I'm sure it could be had if people knew you wanted it. For instance, I need some one every day for weeks to come to help my daughter and me with our sewing and fitting. There are always so many things to be done as winter approaches. I sometimes feel as if I were chained to my sewing-machine, and have so much to do. But I'm afraid such work would seem very stupid to you. It would mean sitting still all day, you know, with no one to talk to but Eleanor and me."

Jane looked wonderingly at the two women before her. No one but them to talk to! She never had imagined an opportunity to talk to such people at all. She supposed all such women regarded her as part of the scum of the earth, yet here they were speaking pleasantly to her,—Mrs. Prency, a woman who naturally would fill the eye of an impulsive animal like Jane,—Eleanor, the belle of the town,—two women whom no one could look at without admiration. No one but them to talk to! All her associates faded from Jane's mind like a fleck of mist under a sunburst, as she answered,—

"If there's anything you want done that I can do, Mrs. Prency, I'd rather work for you for nothin' than for anybody else for any money."

"Come to my house as soon as you like, then, and we'll promise to keep you busy: won't we, daughter?"

"Yes, indeed," murmured Eleanor, who saw, in her mind's eye, a great deal of her work being done without effort of her own.

"You sha'n't do it for nothing, however; you shall earn fully as much as you do now. Good day," Mrs. Prency said, as she passed on, and Eleanor gave Jane a nod and a smile.

The hotel drudge stood still and looked after the couple with wondering eyes. The judge's wife dropped something as she walked. Jane hurried after her and picked it up. It was a glove. The girl pressed it to her lips again and again, hurried along for a few steps to return it, stopped suddenly, thrust it into her breast, and then, passing the back of her ungloved hand across her eyes, returned to the hotel, her eyes cast down and her ears deaf to occasional remarks intended specially for them.



CHAPTER XII.

Deacon Quickset was entirely truthful when he said to the keeper of the beer saloon that he had worried his pastor again and again to call on the repentant thief and try to bring him into the fold of the church; but he probably did not know that the said pastor had opinions of his own as to the time and manner in which such work should be done. Dr. Guide, under whose spiritual ministrations the deacon had sat every Sunday for many years, was a man of large experience in church work of all kinds, and, although he was extremely orthodox, to the extent of believing that those who already had united with his church were on the proper road to heaven, he nevertheless realized, as a practical man, that frequently there is more trouble with sheep in the road than with those who are straying about.

He had devoted no little of his time since he had been settled over the Bruceton church to the reclamation of doubtful characters of all kinds, but he frequently confided to his wife that one of the most satisfactory proofs to him of the divine origin of the church was that those already inside it were those most in need of spiritual ministrations. He had reclaimed some sad sinners of the baser sort from time to time with very little effort, but people concerning whom he frequently lay awake nights were men and women who were nominally in good standing in his own denomination and in the particular flock over which he was shepherd.

He had therefore made no particular haste to call on Sam Kimper, being entirely satisfied, as he told his wife, his only confidante, that so long as the man was following the course which he was reported to have laid down for himself he was not likely to go far astray, whereas a number of members of the congregation, men of far more influence in the community, seemed determined to break from the straight and narrow way at very slight provocation, and among these, the reverend doctor sadly informed his wife, he feared Deacon Quickset was the principal. The deacon was a persistent man in business,—"diligent in business" was the deacon's own expression in justification of whatever neglect his own wife might chance to charge him with,—but it seemed to some business-men of the town, as well as to his own pastor, that the deacon's diligence was overdoing itself, and that, in the language of one of the store-keepers, he had picked up a great deal more than he could carry. He was a director in a bank, agent for several insurance companies, manager of a land-improvement company, general speculator in real estate, and a man who had been charged with the care of a great deal of property which had belonged to old acquaintances now deceased. That he should be very busy was quite natural, but that his promises sometimes failed of fulfilment was none the less annoying, and once in a while unpleasant rumors were heard in the town about the deacon's financial standing and about his manner of doing business. Still, Dr. Guide did not drop Sam Kimper from his mind, and one day when he chanced to be in the vicinity of Larry Highgetty's shop he opened the door, bowed courteously to the figure at the bench, accepted a chair, and sat for a moment wondering what he should say to the man whom he was expected by the deacon to bring into his own church.

"Mr. Kimper," said the reverend gentleman, finally, "I trust you are getting along satisfactorily in the very good way in which I am told you have started."

"I can't say that I've any fault to find, sir," said the shoemaker, "though I've no doubt that a man of your learnin' an' brains could see a great deal wrong in me."

"Don't trouble yourself about that, my good fellow," said the minister: "you will not be judged by my learning or brains or those of any one else except yourself. I merely called to say that at any time that you are puzzled about any matter of belief, or feel that you should go further than you already have done, I would be very glad to be of any service to you if I can. You are quite welcome to call upon me at my home at almost any time, and of course you know where I can always be found on Sundays."

"I am very much obliged to you, sir," said the cobbler, "but somehow when I go to thinkin' much about such things I don't feel so much like askin' other people questions or about learnin' anythin' else as I do about askin' if it isn't a most wonderful thing, after all, that I've been able to change about as I have, an' that I haven't tumbled backwards again into any of my old ways. You don't know what those ways is, I s'pose, Dr. Guide, do you?"

"Well, no," said the minister, "I can't say that my personal experience has taught me very much about them."

"Of course not, sir; that I might know. Of course I didn't mean anything of that kind. But I sometimes wonder whether gentlemen like you, that was born respectable an' always was decent, an' has had the best of company all your lives, an' never had any bad habits, can know what an awful hole some of us poor common fellows sometimes get down into, an' don't seem to know how to get out of. I s'pose, sir, there must have been lots of folks of that kind when Jesus was around on the world alive: don't you think so?"

"No doubt, no doubt," said the minister, looking into his hat as if with his eyes he was trying to make some notes for remarks on the succeeding Sunday.

"You know, sir, that in what's written about Him they have a good deal to say about the lots of attention that He gave to the poor. I s'pose, if poor folks was then like they are now, most of them was that way through some faults of their own; because every body in this town that behaves himself an' always behaved himself manages to get along well enough. It does seem to me, sir, that He must have gone about among folks a good deal like me."

"That view of the matter never occurred to me," said the reverend gentleman, "and yet possibly there is a great deal to it. You know, Mr. Kimper, that was a long time ago. There was very little education in those times, and the people among whom He moved were captives of a stronger nation, and they seem to have been in a destitute and troubled condition."

"Yes," said Sam, interrupting the speaker, "an' I guess a good many of them were as bad off as me, because, if you remember, He said a good deal about them that was in prison an' that was visited there. Now, sir, it kind o' seems to me in this town—I think I know a good deal about it, because I've never been able to associate with anybody except folks like myself—it seems to me that sort of people don't get any sort of attention nowadays."

The minister assumed his conventional air of dignity, and replied, quickly,—

"I assure you, you are very much mistaken, so far as I am concerned. I think I know them all by name, and have made special visits to all of them, and tried to make them feel assured of the sympathy of those who by nature or education or circumstance chance to be better off than they."

"That ain't exactly what I meant, sir," said the cobbler. "Such folks get kind words pretty often, but somehow nobody ever takes hold of them an' pulls them out of the hole they are in, like Jesus used to seem to do. I s'pose ministers an' deacons an' such folks can't work miracles like He did, an' if they haven't got it in 'em to pull 'em out, why, I s'pose they can't do it. But I do assure you, sir, that there's a good deal of chance to do that kind of work in this town, an' if there had been any of it done when I was a boy, I don't believe I'd ever have got into the penitentiary."

Just then Dr. Brice, one of the village physicians, dropped into the shop, and the minister, somewhat confused, arose, and said,—

"Well, Mr. Kimper, I am very much obliged to you for your views. I assure you that I shall give them careful thought. Good day, sir."

"Sam," said Dr. Brice, who was a slight, nervous, excitable man, "I'm not your regular medical attendant, and I don't know that it's any of my business, but I've come in here in a friendly way to say to you that, if all I hear about your working all day and most of the night too, is true, you are going to break down. You can't stand it, my boy: human nature isn't made in that way. You have got a wife and family, and you seem to be trying real hard to take care of them. But you can't burn the candle at both ends without having the fire flicker out in the middle all of a sudden, and perhaps just when you can least afford it. Now, do take better care of yourself. You have made a splendid start, and there are more people than you know of in this town who are looking at you with a great deal of respect. They want to see you succeed, and if you want any help at it I am sure you can get it; but don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Don't break yourself up, or there won't be anybody to help. Don't you see?"

The shoemaker looked up at the good-natured doctor with a quick expression, and said,—

"Doctor, I'm not doin' any more than I have to, to keep soul and body together in the family. If I stop any of it, I've got to stop carryin' things home."

"Oh well," said the doctor, "that may be, that may be. But I'm simply warning you, as a fellow-man, that you must look out for yourself. It's all right to trust the Lord, but the Lord isn't going to give any one man strength enough to do two men's work. I have been in medical practice forty years, and I have never seen a case of that kind yet. That's all. I'm in a hurry,—got half a dozen people to see. Don't feel offended at anything I've said to you. It's all for your good, you know. Good day."

The doctor departed as rapidly as he had entered, and the cobbler stole a moment or two from his work to think. How his thoughts ran he could scarcely have told afterwards, for again the door opened, and the room darkened slightly, for the person who was entering was Father Black, the Catholic priest, a man whose frame was as big as his heart, he being reputed to be one of the largest-hearted men in all Bruceton. Everybody respected him. The best proof of it was that no one in any of the other churches ever attempted to do any proselyting in Father Black's flock.

"My son," said the priest, seating himself in the chair and spreading a friendly smile over his large, expressive features, "I have heard a great deal of you since you came back from your unfortunate absence, and I merely dropped in to say to you that if it's any comfort to you to know that every day you have whatever assistance there can be in the prayers of an old man who has been in this world long enough to love most those who need most, you may be sure that you have them."

"God bless you, sir! God bless you!" said the cobbler, quickly.

"Have you connected yourself with any church here as yet?" asked the priest.

"No, sir," sighed the cobbler: "one an' another has been pullin' an' haulin' at me one way an' another, tellin' me that it was my duty to go into a church. But how can I do it, sir, when I'm expected to say that I believe this an' that, that I don't know nothin' about? Some of 'em has been very good tryin' to teach me what they seem to understand very well, but I don't know much more than when they begun, an' sometimes it seems to me that I know a good deal less, for, with what one tells me in one way, an' another tells me in another way, my mind—and there's not very much of it, sir—my mind gets so mixed up that I don't know nothin' at all."

"Ah, my son," said the good old priest, "if you could only understand, as a good many millions of your fellow-men do, that it's the business of some men to understand and of others to faithfully follow them, you would not have such trouble."

"Well, sir," said the cobbler, "that's just what Larry's been sayin' to me here in the shop once in a while in the mornin', before he started out to get full; an' there's a good deal of sense in what he says, I've no doubt. But what I ask him is this,—an' he can't tell me, an' perhaps you can, sir. It's only this: while my heart's so full that it seems as if it couldn't hold the little that I already believe an' am tryin' to live up to, where's the sense of my tryin' to believe some more?"

Father Black was so unprepared to answer the question put thus abruptly, accompanied as it was with a look of the deepest earnestness, that there ensued an embarrassing silence in the shop for a moment or two.

"My son," said the priest, at last, "do you fully believe all that you have read in the good book that I am told you were taught to read while you were in prison?"

"Of course I do, sir; I can't do anything else."

"You believe it all?"

"Indeed I do, sir."

"And are you trying to live according to it?"

"That I am, sir."

"Then, my son," said the priest, rising, "God bless you and keep you in your way! Far be it from me to try to unsettle your mind or lead you any further until you feel that you need leading. If ever you want to come to me, you are welcome at any time of the day or night, and what you cannot understand of what I tell you I won't expect you to believe. Remember, my son, the Father of us all knows us just as we are, and asks no more of any of us than we can do and be. Good day, my son, and again—God bless you!"

When the priest went out, Sam rested again for a moment, and then murmured to himself,—

"Two ministers an' one doctor, all good people, tryin' to show me the way I should go, an' to tell me what I should do, an' me a-makin' only about a dollar a day! I s'pose it's all right, or they wouldn't do it."



CHAPTER XIII.

Reynolds Bartram and Eleanor Prency rapidly became so fond of each other that the people of the village predicted an early engagement. The young man had become quite a regular attendant at church,—not that he had any religious feeling whatever, but that it enabled him to look at his sweetheart for an hour and a half every Sunday morning and walk home with her afterwards. Although he had considerable legal practice, it was somehow always his fortune to be on the street when the young lady chanced to be out shopping, and after he joined her there generally ensued a walk which had nothing whatever to do with shopping or anything else except an opportunity for two young people to talk to each other for a long time on subjects which seemed extremely interesting to both.

Nevertheless, there were occasional clouds upon their sky. The young man who loves his sweetheart better than he loves himself occasionally appears in novels, but in real life he seems to be an unknown quantity, and young Bartram was no exception to the general rule. In like manner, the young woman who loses sight of her own will, even when in the society of the man whom she thinks the most adorable in the world, is not easy to discover in any ordinary circle of acquaintances.

Bartram and Eleanor met one afternoon, in their customary manner, on the principal street of the village, and walked along side by side for quite a way, finally turning and sauntering through several residence streets, talking with each other on a number of subjects, probably of no great consequence, but apparently very interesting to both of them. Suddenly, however, it was the young man's misfortune to see the two Kimper boys on the opposite side of the street, and as he eyed them, his lip curled, and he said,—

"Isn't it somewhat strange that your estimable parents are so greatly interested in the father of those wretched scamps?"

"Nothing that my father and mother do, Mr. Bartram," said Miss Prency, "is at all strange. They are quite as intelligent as anyone of my acquaintance, I am sure, and more so than most people whom I know, and I have no doubt that their interest in the poor fellow has very good grounds."

"Perhaps so," said the young man, with another curl of his lip, which exasperated his companion. "I sometimes wonder, however, whether men and women, when they reach middle life and have been reasonably successful and happy in their own affairs, are not likely to allow their sympathies to run away with their intelligence."

"It may be so," said Eleanor, "among people of your acquaintance, as a class, but I wish you distinctly to except my parents from the rule."

"But, my dear girl," said the young man, "your parents are exactly the people to whom I am alluding."

"Then do me the favor to change the subject of conversation," said the young lady proudly: "I never allow my parents to be criticised in my hearing by anyone but myself."

"Oh, well," said the young man, "if you choose to take my remarks in that way, I presume you are at liberty to do so; but I am sure you are misunderstanding me."

"I don't see how it is possible to misunderstand anything that is said so very distinctly: you lawyers have a faculty, Mr. Bartram, of saying exactly what you mean—when you choose to."

"Well, I can't deny that I meant exactly what I said."

"But you can at least change the subject, can't you?"

"Certainly, if you insist upon it; but the subject has been interesting me considerably of late, and I am really wondering whether my estimable friend, the judge, and his no less estimable wife may not be making a mistake which their daughter would be the most effective person in rectifying."

"You do me altogether too much honor, sir. Suppose you attempt to rectify their mistakes yourself, since you seem so positive about their existence. To give you an opportunity of preparing yourself to do so, I will bid you good day." Saying which, the young woman abruptly turned into the residence of an acquaintance to make an afternoon call, leaving the young man rather more disconcerted than he would have liked to admit to any of his acquaintances.

He retraced his steps, moodily muttering to himself, and apparently arguing also, for the forefinger of one hand was occasionally touching the palm of the other, and, apparently without knowing in what direction he was walking, he found himself opposite the shop of the shoemaker who had been the indirect cause of his quarrel with his sweetheart.

"Confound that fellow!" muttered Bartram, "he's in my way wherever I move. I've heard too much of him in the stores and the courts and everywhere else that I have been obliged to go. I have to hear of him at the residence of my own sweetheart whenever I call there, and now I find Eleanor herself, who has never been able to endure any of the commoner specimens of humanity, apparently taking up the cudgels in his defence. I wish I could understand the fascination that fellow exerts over a number of people so much better than himself. Hang it! I am going to find out. He is a fool, if ever there was one, and I am not. If I can't get at the secret of it, it will be the first time that I have ever been beaten in examining and cross-examining such a common specimen of humanity."

Thus speaking, the lawyer crossed the street and entered the shop, but, to his disgust, found both the cobbler's sons there with their father. The boys, with a curiosity common to all very young people, and particularly intense among the classes who have nothing in particular to think of, stared at him so fixedly that he finally rose abruptly and departed without saying a word. The boys went out soon after, and Billy remarked to Tom, as the two sauntered homeward,—

"Tom, what do you s'pose is the reason that feller comes in to see dad so much?"

"Gettin' a pair of shoes made, I s'pose," said Tom, sulkily, for he had just failed in an attempt to extract a quarter of a dollar from his father.

"The shoes that dad was makin' for him," said Billy, "was done two or three weeks ago, 'cause I took 'em to his office myself. But he comes to the shop over an' over again, 'cause I've seen him there, an' whenever he comes he manages to get talkin' with dad about religion. He always begins it, too, 'cause dad never says nothin' about it unless the lawyer starts it first."

"Well," said Tom, "seems to me that if he wants to know anythin' on that subject he could go to some of the preachers, that ought to know a good deal more about it than dad does."

"Can't tell so much about that sort o' thing," said Billy. "There's lots of men in this town that don't know much about some things that knows a good deal about some others. You know when that dog we stole last summer got sick, there was nobody in town could do anythin' for him except that old lame nigger down in the holler."

"Well, you're a sweet one, ain't you?" said Tom. "What's dogs got to do with religion, I'd like to know? You ought to be ashamed o' yourself, even if you ain't never been to church."

"Well," said Billy, "what I was meanin' is, some folks seem to know a good deal about things without bein' learned, that other folks will give their whole time to, an' don't know very much about. Every place that I go to, somebody says somethin' to me about dad an' religion. Say, Tom, do you know dad's mighty different to what he used to be before he got took up?"

"Of course I do. He's always wantin' folks to work, an' always findin' fault with everythin' we do that ain't right. He didn't use to pay no attention to nothin'; we could do anythin' we wanted to; and here I am, a good deal bigger, an' just about as good as a man, an' he pays more attention to me than he ever did, an' fusses at me as if I was little bit of a kid. An' I don't like it, either."

"Well, as he said to me t'other day, Tom, he's got to be pretty lively to make up for lost time."

"Well, I wish, then," said Tom, meditatively, "that he hadn't never lost no time, 'cause it's takin' all the spirit out o' me to be hammered at all the time in the way he's a-doin'. I just tell you what it is, Billy," said Tom, stopping short and smiting the palm of one hand with the fist of the other, "I've half a mind, off and on, to go to steady work of some kind, an' I'll be darned if I don't do it, if dad don't let me alone."

"Mis' Prency was talkin' to me the other day about dad," said Billy, "an' she asked me whether he wasn't workin' awful hard at home after he left the shop, an' I said, 'Yes,' an' she said, 'I hope you all do all you can to help him?' an' I kind o' felt ashamed, an' all I could say was that I didn't see nothin' I could help him about, an' she said she guessed if I'd think a little while I could find out. Say, Tom, let's go to work a-thinkin', an' see if there ain't some way to give dad a lift. Seems to me he's doin' everythin' for us all the whole time, an' we ain't doin' nothin' at all for him."

"Oh, now, quit your preachin'," said the elder brother, contemptuously. "If you don't, I'll lamm you."

The younger brother prudently lapsed into entire silence, and the couple soon reached home. Tom strolled about the room, his lower lip hanging down, bestowing glares of different intensity upon every individual and object present, and even making a threatening motion with his foot towards the baby, who had crawled about the floor until it was weary and fretful and was uttering plaintive cries from time to time. His mother was out of the house somewhere, and the baby continued to protest against its physical discomforts until Tom indulged in a violent expletive, which had the effect of temporarily silencing the child and causing it to look up at him with wondering eyes. Tom returned the infant's stare for a moment or two, and then, moved by some spirit which he was not able to identify, he stooped and picked up the infant and sat down in a chair. When his mother returned, she was so astonished at what she saw that she hurried out of the house, down to the shop, and dragged her husband away and back to his home. When the door was opened, Sam Kimper was almost paralyzed to see his big son rocking the youngest member of the family to and fro over the rough floor, and singing, in a hoarse and apparently ecstatic voice,—

"I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines."



CHAPTER XIV.

"Well, doctor," said Deacon Quickset to his pastor one morning, "I hope you have persuaded that wretched shoemaker to come into the ark of safety and to lay hold of the horns of the altar."

"My dear sir," said Dr. Guide to his deacon, "the conversation I had with that rather unusual character has led me to believe that he is quite as safe at present as any of the members of my own congregation."

"Oh, doctor, doctor!" groaned the deacon, "that will never do! What is the church to come to if everybody is to be allowed to believe just what he wants to, and stop just when he gets ready, and not go any further unless he understands everything before him? I don't need to tell you, a minister of the gospel and a doctor of divinity, that we have to live by faith and not by sight. I don't have to go over all the points of belief to a man of your character to show you what a mistake you are making, thinking that way about a poor common fellow that's only got one idea in his head,—one that might be shaken out of it very easily."

"Deacon," said the minister, "I am strongly of the impression that any belief of any member of my congregation could be as easily shaken as the one article of faith to which that poor fellow has bound himself. I don't propose to disturb his mind any further. 'Milk for babes,' you know the apostle says, 'and strong meat for men.' After he has proved himself to be equal to meat, there will be ample time to experiment with some of the dry bones which you seem anxious that I should force upon him."

"Dr. Guide," said the deacon, with considerable dignity, "I didn't expect this kind of talk from you. I have been sitting under your ministrations a good many years, and, though sometimes I didn't think you were as sharp-set as you ought to be, still I knew you were a man of level head and good education and knew everything that was essential to salvation; otherwise, why did the best college of our own denomination make you a doctor of divinity? But I've got to let out what is in my heart, doctor, and it is this, that there is no stopping-place for any one that begins to walk the straight and narrow way; he has got to keep on as long as he lives, and if he don't he is going to be crowded off to one side."

"You are quite right, deacon," said the minister; "and therefore I object to putting any stumbling-blocks in any such person's way."

"Do you mean to say, Dr. Guide," asked the deacon, earnestly, "that all the articles of faith that you have always taught us were essential to salvation are to be looked at as stumbling-blocks when they are offered to somebody like that poor dying sinner?"

"I mean exactly that, deacon," said the minister, "and I mean still more, and I mean to preach earnestly on the subject in a short time, and at considerable length, that they have been stumbling-blocks to a great many members of my congregation who should by this time be better men and women than they are. For instance, deacon," said the minister, suddenly, looking very stern and judicial, "Mrs. Poynter has been to me several times to explain that the reason that she does not pay her subscription to the last collection for the Missionary Association is that she cannot get the interest on the mortgage that you have been holding for her for a long time, and which, she says, you have collected."

"Dr. Guide," said the deacon, icily, "religion is religion, and business is business. You understand religion—to a certain extent; though I must own that I don't think you understand it as far as I once thought you did. But about business, you must excuse me if I say you don't know anything, especially if it's business that somebody else has to carry on. If Mrs. Poynter don't like the way I'm doing business for her, she knows a way to get rid of me, and she can do it easily enough."

"Deacon," said the minister, "I don't wish to offend you, but matters of this sort may develop into a scandal, and injure the cause for which both of us profess to be working with all our hearts. And, by the way, the Browning children are likely to be sent away from the academy at which they are boarding, because their expenses are not paid, according to the terms of the trust reposed in you by their father. I have been written to several times by the principal, who is an old friend of mine. Can't the matter be arranged in some way so that I shall not hear any more about it? I have no possible method of replying in a manner that will satisfy the principal."

"Tell him to write to me, doctor; tell him to write to me. He has no business to put such affairs before anybody else. He will get his money. If he didn't believe it, he wouldn't have taken the children in the first place. But I will see that you don't hear any more about either of these matters, and, as I am pretty busy and don't get a chance to see you as often as I'd like, I want to say that it seems to me that now is just the time to get up a warmer feeling in the church. It's getting cold weather, and folks are glad to get together in a warm room where there's anything going on. Now, if you will just announce next Sunday that there's going to be a series of special meetings to awaken religious interest in this town, I think you will do a good deal more good among those who need it than by worrying members of your own congregation about things that you don't understand. I don't mean any offence, and I hope you won't take any; but when a man is trying to do business for a dozen other folks and they are all at him at once, there are many things happening that he can't very well explain."

"I already had determined on a special effort at an early date," said the pastor. "And still more: after two or three conversations with the man whom you were so desirous that I should call upon, I have determined to invite him to assist me in the conduct of the meetings."

"What?" exclaimed the deacon, "bring in that thief and drunkard and ignorant fellow, that is only just out of jail, to teach the way of life to people that need to know it? Why, Dr. Guide, you must be losing your mind!"

"As you intimated about your own business affairs, deacon, that is a subject upon which I am better qualified to judge than you. The meetings will be held, and Mr. Kimper will be asked to assist. In fact, I already have asked him. I trust that his presence will not cause us to lose such valuable assistance as you yourself may be able to give."

"Well, I never!" exclaimed the deacon; "I never did! It beats all! Why, if there was another church of our denomination in this town, I believe I'd take my letters and go to it. I really would!"

Nevertheless, the special meetings were immediately announced, and they began directly afterwards, and, according to the pastor's announcement, the ex-convict was asked to assist. His assistance did not seem to amount to much to those who came through curiosity to listen. But after he had made a speech, which, at the suggestion of Dr. Guide, had been carefully prepared, but which was merely a rehearsal of what he already had said to numerous individual questioners, there was impressive silence in the lecture-room, in which the meetings were to be conducted.

"My friends," said the pastor, rising soon afterwards, "when our Lord was on earth, He once raised His eyes to heaven and said, 'I thank thee, Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes.' I confess to you that I never was able to understand the full meaning of this expression; but, as I have become more and more acquainted with our friend who has just spoken to you, and have learned how fully his faith is grounded, and how entirely his life has been changed by what seems to us the mere beginnings of a religious belief, I am constrained to feel that I have yet a great deal to learn about my own profession and my own duty as a minister. What has just been said to you contains the essence of everything which I have tried to preach from my pulpit in twenty years. I wish it were in my power to re-state it all as clearly as you have heard it this evening, but I confess it is not. I fear to add anything to what you have already heard, for I do not see how in any way I could make this important subject any more clear to your comprehension. I will therefore say no more, but ask, as is the custom, that anyone here present who desires to change his life and wishes the assistance of the prayers of God's people will please rise."

As is usual in all such meetings, there was a general turning of heads from one side to the other. In an instant a single figure in the midst of the little congregation arose, and a second later a hoarse voice from one of the back seats, a voice which most persons present could identify as that of Sam Kimper's son Tom, exclaimed,—

"Great Lord! it's Reynolds Bartram!"



CHAPTER XV.

The story that Reynolds Bartram had "stood up for prayers" went through Bruceton and the surrounding country like wildfire. Scarcely anyone believed it, no matter by whom he was told: the informer might be a person of undoubted character, but the information was simply incredible. People would not believe such a thing unless they could see it with their own eyes and hear it with their own ears: so the special meetings became at once so largely attended that they were held in the body of the church instead of the little basement called the "lecture-room."

The most entirely amazed person in the town was Deacon Quickset. Never before had he been absent, unless sick, from any special effort of his church to persuade the sinners to flee from the wrath to come; but when Dr. Guide announced that he should ask Sam Kimper to assist him in the special meetings, the deacon's conscience bade him halt and consider. Dr. Guide was wrong,—there could be no doubt of that: would it be right, then, merely for the sake of apparent peace and unity, for him, the deacon, to seem to agree with his pastor's peculiar views? The deacon made it a matter of prayer, and the result was that he remained at home.

That Reynolds Bartram had been the first-fruits of the new special effort was a statement which the deacon denied as soon as he heard it. Frequent repetition of the annoying story soon began to impress him with its probability, and finally a brother deacon, who had been present, set all doubt at rest by the assertion that Bartram had not only been converted, but was assisting at the meetings. When, however, the attending deacon went on to inform his absentee brother that Bartram had attributed his awakening and conversion to the influence of Sam Kimper, Deacon Quickset lost his temper, and exclaimed,—

"It's all a confounded lie! It's a put-up job!"

"Brother Quickset!" exclaimed the astonished associate, with a most reproving look.

"Oh, I don't mean that you lie," explained the angry defender of the faith. "If you heard Bartram say it, he did say it, of course. But there's something wrong somewhere. The minister's rather lost his head over Sam Kimper, just because the wretch isn't back in his old ways again, and he's got a new notion in his head about how the gospel ought to be preached. New notions have been plenty enough ever since true religion started; there's always some man or men thinking out things for themselves and forgetting everything else on account of them. There were meddlers of that kind back to the days of the apostles, and goodness knows the history of the church is full of them. They've been so set in their ways that no sort of discipline would cure them; they've even had to be hanged or burned, to save the faith from being knocked to pieces."

"But, brother Quickset," pleaded the other deacon, "every one knows our pastor isn't that sort of a person. He is an intelligent, thoughtful, unexcitable man, that—"

"That's just the kind that always makes the worst heretics," roared the deacon. "Wasn't Servetus that kind of a person? And didn't Calvin have to burn him at the stake? I tell you, deacon, it takes a good deal of the horror out of those times when you have a case of the kind come right up before your eyes."

"What? Somebody being burned?" exclaimed the other deacon, raising his hands in horror.

"No, no," testily replied the defender of the faith. "Only somebody that ought to be."

"But where does the lying come in, that you were talking about?"

"I tell you just what I believe," said Deacon Quickset, dropping his voice and drawing closer to his associate; "I believe Dr. Guide believes just what he says,—of course nobody's going to doubt that he's sincere,—but when it's come to the pinch he's felt a little shaky. What does any other man do when he finds himself shaky about an important matter of opinion? Why, he consults a lawyer, and gets himself pulled through."

"But you don't mean to say that you think Dr. Guide would go to a rank, persistent disbeliever in anything—but himself—like Ray Bartram, do you, in a matter of this kind?"

"Why not? Ministers have often got lawyers to help them when they've been muddled on points of orthodoxy. What the lawyer believes or don't believe hasn't got anything to do with it: it's his business to believe as his client does, and make other folks believe so, too. Ray Bartram is just the sort of a fellow a man would want in such a case. He's got that way of looking as if he knew everything, just like his father had before him, that makes folks give in to him in spite of themselves. Besides, he'll say or do anything to carry his point."

"Isn't that putting it rather strong, Brother Quickset?"

"Of course it isn't. Don't I know, I should like to ask? Don't I always hire him myself?"

"Oh!" That was the only word the other deacon spoke, but his eyes danced, and he twisted his lips into an odd grin.

"Oh, get out!" exclaimed the pillar of orthodoxy. "You needn't take it that way. Of course what I ask him to do is only right: if I didn't think so, I wouldn't ask him."

"Of course not, brother. But think a moment: do you really believe that any form of professional pride would persuade that young man—proud as Lucifer, and just as conceited and headstrong, a young man who always has argued against religion and against every belief you and I hold dear—to rise for prayers in an inquiry meeting, and afterwards say it was the Christian life of Sam Kimper,—a man whom a high-born fellow like Bartram must believe as near the animals as humanity ever is,—to say it was the Christian life of Sam Kimper that convinced him of the supernatural origin and saving power of Christianity?"

"I can't believe he put it that way: there must be something else behind it. I'm going to find out for myself and do it at once, too. This sort of nonsense must be stopped. Why, if men go to taking everything Jesus Christ said just as He said it, everything in the world in the way of business is going to be turned upside down."

Away went Deacon Quickset to Bartram's office, and was so fortunate as to find the lawyer in. He went right at his subject:

"Well, young man, you've been in nice business, haven't you?—trying to go up to the throne of grace right behind a jail-bird, while the leaders and teachers whom the Lord has selected have been spurned by you for years!"

Reynolds Bartram was too new a convert to have changed his old self and manner to any great extent: so he flushed angrily, and retorted,—

"One thief is about as good as another, Deacon Quickset."

Then it was the deacon's turn to look angry. The two men faced each other for a moment with flashing eyes, lowering brows, and hard-set jaws. The deacon was the first to recover himself: he took a chair, and said,—

"Maybe I haven't heard the story rightly. What I came around for was to get it from first hands. Would you mind telling me?"

"I suppose you allude to my conversion?"

"Yes," said the deacon, with a look of doubt, "I suppose that's what we will have to call it, for want of a better word."

"It is a very short story," said Bartram, now entirely calm, as he leaned against his desk and folded his arms. "Like every other man with any brains, I've always been interested in religion, intellectually, and have had to believe that if it was right, as I heard it talked, it had sometimes got away from its Founder in a manner for which there seemed to be no excuse. Everything was being taught by the servants, nothing by the Master. When I want to know your wishes, deacon, about any matter in which we are mutually interested, I do not go to your back door and inquire of your servants: I go to you, direct. But when people—you among the number—have talked to me about religion, they've always talked Peter and Paul and James and John,—never Jesus."

"The Apostle Paul—" began the deacon, but the lawyer snatched the words from his lips, and continued:

"The Apostle Paul was the ablest lawyer that ever lived. I've studied him a good deal, in past days, for style."

"Awful!" groaned the deacon.

"Not in the least," said the lawyer, with fine earnestness. "He was just the man for his place and his time; 'twas his business to explain the new order of things to the hard-headed Jews, of whom he had been so notable a representative, that to convert him it was necessary that he should be knocked senseless and remain so for the space of three days: you remember the circumstance? He was just the man, too, to explain the new religion to the heathens and pagans of his day, for those Greeks and Romans were a brainy lot of people. But why should he have been quoted to me, or any other man in the community? We don't have to be convinced that Jesus lived: we believe it already. The belief has been born in us; it has run through our blood for hundreds of years. Do you know what I've honestly believed for years about a lot of religious men in this town, you among the number? I've believed that Jesus was so good that you've all been making hypocritical excuses, through your theology, to get away from this!"

"Get away from my Saviour!" gasped the deacon.

"Oh, no; you wanted enough of Him to be saved by,—enough to die by; but when it comes to living by him—well, you know perfectly well that you don't."

"Awful!" again groaned the deacon.

"When I heard of that wretched convict taking his Saviour as an exemplar of daily life and conduct, it seemed ridiculous. If better men couldn't do it, how could he? I had no doubt that while he was under lock and key, with no temptations about him, and nothing to resist, he had succeeded; but that he could do it in the face of all his old influences I did not for an instant believe. I began to study him, as I would any other criminal, and when he did not break down as soon as I had expected, I was mean enough—God forgive me!—to try to shake his faith. The honest truth is, I did not want to be a Christian myself, and had resisted all the arguments I had heard; but I was helpless when dear friends told me that nothing was impossible to me that was being accomplished by a common fellow like Sam Kimper."

"Nothing is impossible to him that believes," said the deacon, finding his tongue for a moment.

"Oh, I believe; there was no trouble about that: 'the devils also believe,'—you remember that passage, I suppose? Finally, I began to watch Sam closely, to see if perhaps he wasn't as much of a hypocrite, on the sly, as some other people I know. He can't make much money on the terms he has with Larry, no matter how much work reaches the shop. I've passed his shop scores of times, early and late, and found him always at work, except once or twice when I've seen him on his knees. I've hung about his wretched home nights, to see if he did not sneak out on thieving expeditions; I've asked store-keepers what he bought, and have found that his family lived on the plainest food. That man is a Christian, deacon. When I heard that he was to make an exhortation at the meeting, I went there to listen—only for that purpose. But as he talked I could not help recalling his mean, little, insignificant face as I'd seen it again and again when I was a younger man, dropping into justices' courts for a chance to get practice at pleading, and he was up for fighting or stealing. It was the same face: nothing can ever make his forehead any higher or broader, or put a chin where nature left one off. But the expression of countenance was so different—so honest, so good—that I got from it my first clear idea of what was possible to the man who took our Saviour for a model of daily life. It took such hold of me that when the pastor asked those who wanted the prayers of God's people to rise, I was on my feet in an instant; I couldn't keep my seat."

"Then you do admit that there are some God's people besides Sam Kimper?" sneered the deacon.

"I never doubted it," replied the lawyer.

"Oh, well," said the deacon, "if you'll go on, now you've begun, you'll see you've only made a beginning. By the way, have you got that Bittles mortgage ready yet?"

"No," said the lawyer, "and I won't have it ready, either. To draw a mortgage in that way, so the property will fall into your hands quickly and Bittles will lose everything, is simple rascality, and I'll have nothing to do with it."

"It's all right if he's willing to sign it, isn't it?" asked the deacon, with an ugly frown. "His signature is put on by his own free will, isn't it?"

"You know perfectly well, Deacon Quickset," said the lawyer, "that fellows like Bittles will sign anything without looking at it, if they can get a little money to put into some new notion. A man's home should be the most jealously guarded bit of property in the world: I'm not going to deceive any man into losing it."

"I didn't suppose," said the deacon, "that getting religious would take away your respect for the law, and make you above the law."

"It doesn't: it makes me resolve that the law shan't be used for purposes of the devil."

"Do you mean to call me the devil?" screamed the deacon.

"I'm not calling you anything: I'm speaking of the unrighteous act you want done. I won't do it for you; and, further, I'll put Bittles on his guard against any one else who may try it."

"Mr. Bartram," said the deacon, rising, "I guess I'll have to take all my law-business to somebody else. Good-morning."

"I didn't suppose I should have to suffer for my principles so soon," said the lawyer, as the deacon started; "but when you want to be converted, come see me and you'll learn I bear you no grudge. Indeed, you'll be obliged to come to me, as you'll learn after you think over all your affairs a little while."

The deacon stopped: the two men stood face to face a moment, and then parted in silence.



CHAPTER XVI.

When Eleanor Prency heard that her lover had not only been converted but was taking an active part in the special religious meetings, she found herself in what the old women of the vicinity called a "state of mind." She did not object to young men becoming very good; that is, she did object to any young man of whom she happened to be very fond becoming very bad. But it seemed to her that there was a place where the line should be drawn, and that Reynolds Bartram had overstepped it. That he might sometime join the church was a possibility to which she had previously looked forward with some pleasurable sense of anticipation. She belonged to the church herself, so did her father and mother, and she had long been of the opinion that a little religion was a very good thing for a young man who was in business and subject to temptation. But, as she regarded the events of the past few evenings as reported by people who had been to the meetings, she became more than ever of the opinion that a little religion would go a long way, and that Reynolds Bartram had more than was necessary.

To add to her annoyance, some of her intimate acquaintances who knew that if the two young people were not engaged they certainly were very fond of each other, and who regarded the match as a matter of course in the near future, began to twit her on the possibility of her lover becoming a minister should he go on in his present earnest course of trying to save lost souls. The more they talked about her, in her presence, as a minister's wife, the less she enjoyed the prospect. Minister's wives in Bruceton were sometimes pretty, but they never dressed very well, and Miss Eleanor was sure, from what she saw of their lives, that they never had any good times.

Fuel was added to the fire of her discontent when her mother announced one morning that Jane Kimper had arrived and would assist the couple at their sewing. To Eleanor, Jane represented the Kimper family, the head of which was the cause of Reynolds Bartram's extraordinary course. Eleanor blamed Sam for all the discomfort to which she had been subjected on account of Bartram's religious aspirations, and she was inclined to visit upon the new seamstress the blame for all the annoyances from which she had suffered.

Like a great many other girls who are quite affectionate daughters, she neglected to make a confidante of her mother; and Mrs. Prency was therefore very much surprised, on entering the room after a short shopping-tour, to discover the two young women in utter silence, Eleanor looking greatly vexed and the new sewing-woman very much distressed about something. The older lady endeavored to engage the couple in conversation. After waiting a little while for the situation to make itself manifest, but getting only very short replies, she left the room and made an excuse to call her daughter after her.

"My dear child, what is the matter? Doesn't Jane know how to sew?"

"Yes," said Eleanor, "I suppose so; but she knows how to talk, too, and she has done it so industriously and made me feel so uncomfortable that I have not had any opportunity to examine her sewing."

"My daughter, what can she have said to annoy you so much?"

"Oh," exclaimed Eleanor, savagely snatching to pieces a bit of delicate silk she held in her hand, "what every one else is talking about. What does any one in this town have to talk about just now, I wonder, except Reynolds Bartram and the church? Why is it that they all think it necessary to come and talk to me about it? I am sure I am not specially interested in church work, and I don't believe any one who has talked to me about it is, but I hear nothing else from morning till night when any visitor comes in. I was congratulating myself that I had an excuse to-day, so that I need not see any one who might call, but that dreadful girl is worse than all the rest put together. She seems to think, as her folks at home haven't anything else to talk about, and as her father is so delighted at the 'blessed change,' as she expresses it, that has come over Bartram, that I should feel just as happy about it."

"Well, daughter, don't you?"

"No, mother, I don't. I suppose it's perfectly dreadful in me to say so, but I don't feel anything of the kind. It's just horrid; and I wish you and father would take me away for a little while, or else let me go off on a visit. People talk as if Ray belonged entirely to me,—as if I had something to do about it; and you know perfectly well I haven't."

"Well, dear, is that any reason why you should be jealous of poor Sam Kimper?"

"Jealous!" exclaimed Eleanor, her eyes flashing: "he is the worst enemy I ever had. I haven't had so much annoyance and trouble in all my life as have come to me during the past two or three days through that wretched man. I wish him almost any harm. I even wish he had never gone to the penitentiary"

Mrs. Prency burst out laughing. The young woman saw the blunder she had committed, and continued, quickly,—

"I mean that I wish he had never got out again. The idea of a fellow like that coming back to this town and talking and working on people's sympathies in such a way as to carry intelligent people right off their feet! Here you and father have been talking about him at the table almost every day for a long time!"

"Well, daughter, you seemed interested in everything we said, and thought he might do a great deal of good if he were sincere and remained true to his professions."

"Great deal of good? Yes; but, of course, I supposed he'd do it among his own set of people. I had no idea that he was going to invade the upper classes of society and make a guy out of the very young man that—"

Then Eleanor burst into tears.

"My dear child," said the mother, "you are making altogether too much of very little. Of course, it's impossible that everybody in the town sha'n't be surprised at the sudden change that has come over Mr. Bartram, but it ought to comfort you to know that all the better people in the town are very glad to learn of it, and that his example is making them very much ashamed of themselves, and that, instead of the meetings being conducted almost entirely by him and Sam Kimper, hereafter—"

"Him and Sam Kimper! Mother! the idea of mentioning the two persons in the same day!—in the same breath! How can you?"

"Well, dear, they will no longer manage the meetings by themselves, but a number of the older citizens, who have generally held aloof from such affairs, have resolved that it is time for them to do something, so Reynolds will very soon be a less prominent figure, and I trust you will hear less about him. But don't—I beg of you, don't visit your displeasure on that poor girl. You can't imagine that she had anything to do with her father's conversion, can you, still less with that of Mr. Bartram? Now, do dry your eyes and try to come back to your work and be cheerful. If you can't do more, you at least can be human. Don't disgrace your parentage, my dear. She has not even done that as yet."

Then Mrs. Prency returned to the sewing-room and chatted a little while with the new seamstress about the work in hand. Eleanor joined them in a few moments, and the mental condition of the atmosphere became somewhat less cloudy than before, when suddenly a stupid servant, who had only just been engaged and did not entirely know the ways of the house, ushered directly into the sewing-room Mr. Reynolds Bartram.

Eleanor sprang to her feet, spreading dress-goods, and needles, and spools of silk, and thread, and scissors, and thimbles, all over the floor. Jane looked up timidly for an instant, and bent her head lower over her work. But Mrs. Prency received him as graciously as if she were the Queen of England sitting upon her throne, with her royal robes upon her.

"I merely dropped in to see the judge, Mrs. Prency. I beg pardon for intruding upon the business of the day."

"I don't suppose he is at home," said the lady. "You have been at the office?"

"Yes, and I was assured he was here. I was anxious to see him at once. I suspect I have a very heavy case on my hands, Mrs. Prency. What do you suppose I have agreed to do? I have promised, actually promised, to persuade him to come down to the church this evening and take part in the meetings."

Eleanor, who had just reseated herself, flashed an indignant look at him. The young man saw it; but if the spirit of regeneration had worked upon him to a sufficient extent to make him properly sensitive to the looks and manners of estimable young women, he showed no sign of it at the moment.

"I am sure I wish you well in your effort," said the judge's wife; "and, if it is of any comfort to you, I promise that I will do all in my power to assist you."

Then Eleanor's eyes flashed again, as she said,—

"Mother, the idea of father—"

"Well?"

"The idea of father taking part in such work!"

"Do you know of any one, daughter, whose character more fully justifies him in doing so? If you do, I shall not hesitate to ask Mr. Bartram to act as substitute until some one else can be found."

Then Eleanor's eyes took a very different expression, and she began to devote herself intensely to her sewing.

"If you are very sure," said Bartram, "that your husband is not at home, I must seek him elsewhere, I suppose. Good day! Ah, I beg pardon. I did not notice—I was not aware that it was you, Miss Kimper. I hope if you see your father to-day you will tell him that the good work that he began is progressing finely, and that you saw me in search to-day of Judge Prency to help him on with his efforts down at the church."

And then, with another bow, Bartram left the room.

If poor Jane could have been conscious of the look that Eleanor bent upon her at that instant, she certainly would have been inclined to leave the room and never enter it again. But she knew nothing of it, and the work went on amid oppressive silence. Mrs. Prency had occasion to leave the room for an instant soon after, and Jane lifted her head and said,—

"Who would have thought, Miss, that that young man was going to be so good, and all of a sudden, too?"

"He always was good," said Eleanor, "that is, until now."

"I'm sorry I mentioned it, ma'am, but I s'pose he won't be as wild as he and some of the young men about this town have been."

"What do you mean by wild? Do you mean to say that he ever was wild in any way?"

"Oh, perhaps not," said the unfortunate sewing-girl, wishing herself anywhere else as she tried to find some method of escaping from the unfortunate remark.

"What do you mean, then? Tell me: can't you speak?"

"Oh, only you know, ma'am, some of the nicest young men in town come down to the hotel nights to chat, and they take a glass of wine once in a while, and smoke, and have a good time, and—"

Eleanor looked at Jane very sharply, but the sewing-girl's face was averted, so that questioning looks could elicit no answers. Eleanor's gaze, however, continued to be fixed. She was obliged to admit to herself, as she had said to her mother several days before, that Jane had a not unsightly face and quite a fine figure. She had heard that there were sometimes "great larks," as the young men called them, at the village hotel, and she wondered how much the underlings of the establishment could know about them, and what stories they could tell. Jane suddenly became to her more interesting than she had yet been. She wondered what further questions to ask, and could not think of any that she could put into words. Finally, she left the room, sought her mother, and exclaimed,—

"Mother, I'm not going to marry Reynolds Bartram. If hotel servants know all about his goings-on evenings, what stories may they not tell if they choose? That sort of people will say anything they can of him. I don't suppose they know the difference between the truth and a lie; at least they never do when we hire them."

The mother looked at the daughter tenderly and shrewdly. Then she smiled, and said,—

"Daughter, I can see but one way for you to relieve your mind on that subject."

"What is that?" asked the daughter.

"It is only this: convert Jane."



CHAPTER XVII.

As the special meetings at the church went on, Deacon Quickset began to fear that he had made a mistake. He had taken an active part in all previous meetings of the same kind for more than twenty-five years. The results of some of them had been very satisfactory, and the deacon modestly but nevertheless with much self-gratulation had recounted his own services in all of them.

"Whoso converteth a sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins; that is what the good book says," said the deacon to himself one day, as he walked from his house to his place of business; "and considering the number of people that I have helped to snatch as brands from the burning, it does seem to me that I must have covered a good many sins of my own,—such as they are. I'm only a human being, and a poor, weak, and sinful creature, but there's certainly a good many folks in this town that would not have started in the right way when they did if it hadn't been for what I said to them. Now, here's the biggest movement of the kind going on that ever was known in this town, and I'm out of it. What for? Just because I don't agree with Sam Kimper. I mean, just because Sam Kimper don't agree with me. I don't suppose the thing would have come to anything, anyhow, if it hadn't been for that fool of a young lawyer setting his foot in it in the way he did. Everybody likes excitement, and it's a bigger thing for him to have gone into this protracted meeting than it would be for a circus to come to town with four new elephants. It's rough."