SAYS SHE, 'OPEN YORE MOUTH.' AN' OF CO'SE I OPENED IT
"SAYS SHE, 'OPEN YORE MOUTH.' AN' OF CO'SE I OPENED IT"
"Why, bless her old soul, Enoch, you know thet I think the world an' all o' Grandma Gregg! She's the salt o' the earth—an' rock-salt at that. She's saved too many o' my patients by her good nursin', in spite o' my poor doctorin', for me not to appreciate her. But that don't reconcile me to the way she doses you for her worries."
"It took me a long time to see that myself, doctor. But I've reasoned it out this a-way: I s'pose when she feels her temper a-risin' she's 'feerd thet she might be so took up with her troubles thet she'd neglect my health, an' so she wards off any attackt thet might be comin' on. I taken notice that time her strawberry preserves all soured on her hands, an' she painted my face with iodine, a man did die o' the erysipelas down here at Battle Creek, an' likely ez not she'd heerd of it. Sir? No, I didn't mention it at the time for fear she'd think best to lay on another coat, an' I felt sort o' disfiggured with it. Wife ain't a scoldin' woman, I'm thankful for that. An' some o' the peppermints an' things she keeps to dole out to me when she's fretted with little things—maybe her yeast'll refuse to rise, or a thunder-storm'll kill a settin' of eggs—why, they're so disguised thet'cep'n thet I know they're medicine—"
"Well, Kitty, I reckon we better be a-goin'." The doctor tapped his horse. "Be shore to give my love to grandma, Enoch. An' ef you're bound to take that pill—of co'se I can't no mo'n speculate about it at this distance, but I'd advise you to keep clear o' sours an' acids for a day or so. Don't think, because your teeth are adjustable, thet none o' yore other functions ain't open to salivation.Good-night, Enoch."
"Oh, she always looks after that, doctor. She's mighty attentive, come to withholdin' harmful temptations. Good-bye, doctor. It's did me good to open my mind to you a little.
"Yas," he added, looking steadily into his palm as the buggy rolled away—"yas, it's did me good to talk to him; but I ain't no more reconciled to you, you barefaced, high-foreheaded little roly-poly, you. Funny how a pill thet 'ain't got a feature on earth can look me out o' countenance the way it can, and frustrate my speech. Talk about whited sepulchures, an' ravenin' wolves! I don't know how come I to let on thet I was feelin' puny to-night, nohow. I might've knew—with all them clo'es bedaubled over—though I can't, ez the doctor says, see how me a-takin' a pill is goin' to help matters—but of co'se I wouldn't let on to him, an' he a bachelor."
He stopped talking and felt his wrist.
"Maybe my pulse is obstropulous, an' ought to be sedated down. Reckon I'll haf to kill that steer—or sell him, one—though I swo'e I wouldn't. But of co'se I swo'e that in a temper, an' temp'rate vows ain't never made 'cep'in' to be repented of."
Several times during the last few minutes, while the deacon spoke, there had come to him across the garden from the kitchen the unmistakable odor of fried chicken.
He had foreseen that there would be a good supper to-night, and that the tiny globule within his palm would constitute for him a prohibition concerning it.
Grandmother Gregg was one of those worthy if difficult women who never let anything interfere with her duty as she saw it magnified by the lenses of pain or temper. It usually pleased her injured mood to make waffles on wash-day, and the hen-house owed many renovations, with a reckless upsetting of nests and roosts, to one of her "splittin' headaches." She would often wash her hair in view of impending company, although she averred that to wet her scalp never failed to bring on the "neuraligy." And her "neuraligy" in turn meant medicine for the deacon.
It was probably the doctor's timely advice, augmented, possibly, by the potencies of the frying-pan, with a strong underlying sympathy with the worrying woman within—it was, no doubt, all these powers combined that suddenly surprised the hitherto complying husband into such unprecedented conduct that any one knowing him in his old character, and seeing him now, would have thought that he had lost his mind.
With a swift and brave fling he threw the pill far into the night. Then, in an access of energy born of internal panic, he slid nimbly from his perch and started in a steady jog-trot into the road, wiping away the tears as he went, and stammering between sobs as he stumbled over the ruts:
"No, I won't—yas, I will, too—doggone shame, and she frettin' her life out—of co'se I will—I'll sell 'im for anything he'll fetch—an' I'll be a better man, yas, yas I will—but I won't swaller another one o' them blame—not ef I die for it."
This report, taken in long-hand by an amused listener by the road-side, is no doubt incomplete in its ejaculatory form, but it has at least the value of accuracy, so far as it goes, which may be had only from a verbatim transcript.
It was perhaps three-quarters of an hour later when Enoch entered the kitchen, wiping his face, nervous, weary, embarrassed. Supper was on the table. The blue-bordered dish, heaped with side bones and second joints done to a turn, was moved to a side station, while in its accustomed place before Enoch's plate there sat an ominous bowl of gruel. The old man did not look at the table, but he saw it all. He would have realized it with his eyes shut. Domestic history, as well as that of greater principalities and powers, often repeats itself.
Enoch's fingers trembled as he came near his wife, and standing with his back to the table, began to untie a broad flat parcel that he had brought in under his arm. She paused in one of her trips between the table and stove, and regarded him askance.
"Reckon I'll haf to light the lantern befo' I set down to eat, wife," he said, by way of introduction. "Isrul'll be along d'rec'ly to rope that steer. I've done sold him." The good woman laid her dish upon the table and returned to the stove.
"Pity you hadn't 'a' sold 'im day befo' yesterday. I'd 'a' had a heap less pain in my shoulder-blade." She sniffed as she said it; and then she added, "That gruel ought to be e't warm."
By this time the parcel was open. There was a brief display of colored zephyrs and gleaming card-board. Then Enoch began re-wrapping them.
"Reckon you can look these over in the morn-in', wife. They're jest a few new cross-stitch Bible texts, an' I knowed you liked Scripture motters. Where'll I lay 'em, wife, while I go out an' tend to lightin' that lantern? I told Isrul I'd set it in the stable door so's he could git that steer out o' the way immejate."
The proposal to lay the mottoes aside was a master-stroke.
The aggrieved wife had already begun to wipe her hands on her apron. Still, she would not seem too easily appeased.
"I do hope you 'ain't gone an' turned that whole steer into perforated paper, Enoch, even ef 'tis Bible-texted over."
Thus she guarded her dignity. But even as she spoke she took the parcel from his hands. This was encouragement enough. It presaged a thawing out. And after Enoch had gone out to light the lantern, it would have amused a sympathetic observer to watch her gradual melting as she looked over the mottoes:
"A VIRTUOUS WIFE IS FAR ABOVE RUBIES.""A PRUDENT WIFE IS FROM THE LORD.""BETTER A DINNER OF HERBS WHERE LOVE IS—"
"A VIRTUOUS WIFE IS FAR ABOVE RUBIES."
"A PRUDENT WIFE IS FROM THE LORD."
"BETTER A DINNER OF HERBS WHERE LOVE IS—"
She read them over and over. Then she laid them aside and looked at Enoch's plate. Then she looked at the chicken-dish, and now at the bowl of gruel which she had carefully set on the back of the stove to keep warm.
"Don't know ez it would hurt 'im any ef I'd thicken that gruel up into mush. He's took sech a distaste to soft food sense he's got that new set."
She rose as she spoke, poured the gruel back into the pot, sifted and mixed a spoonful of meal and stirred it in. This done, she hesitated, glanced at the pile of mottoes, and reflected. Then with a sudden resolve she seized the milk-pitcher, filled a cup from it, poured the milk into the little pot of mush, hastily whipped up two eggs with some sugar, added the mixture to the pot, returned the whole to the yellow bowl, and set it in the oven to brown.
And just then Enoch came in, and approached the water-shelf.
"Don't keer how you polish it, a brass lantern an' coal ile is like murder on a man's hands. It will out."
He was thinking of the gruel, and putting off the evil hour. It had been his intention to boldly announce that he hadn't taken his medicine, that he never would again unless he needed it, and, moreover, that he was going to eat his supper to-night, and always, as long as God should spare him, etc., etc., etc.
But he had no sooner found himself in the presence of long-confessed superior powers than he knew that he would never do any of these things.
His wife was thinking of the gruel too when she encouraged delay by remarking that he would better rest up a bit before eating.
"And I reckon you better soak yo' hands good. Take a pinch o' that bran out o' the safe to 'em," she added, "and ef that don't do, the Floridy water is in on my bureau."
When finally Enoch presented himself, ready for his fate, she was able to set the mush pudding, done to a fine brown, before him, and her tone was really tender as she said:
"This ain't very hearty ef you're hungry; but you can eat it all. There ain't no interference in it with anything you've took."
The pudding was one of Enoch's favorite dishes, but as he broke its brown surface with his spoon he felt like a hypocrite. He took one long breath, and then he blurted:
"By-the-way, wife, this reminds me, I reckon you'll haf to fetch me another o' them pills. I dropped that one out in the grass—that is, ef you think I still stand in need of it. I feel consider'ble better'n I did when I come in this evenin'."
The good woman eyed him suspiciously a minute. Then her eyes fell upon the words "ABOVE RUBIES" lying upon the table. Reaching over, she lifted the pudding-bowl aside, took the dish of fried chicken from its sub-station, and set it before her lord.
"Better save that pudd'n' for dessert, honey, an' help yo'self to some o' that chicken, an' take a potater an' a roll, and eat a couple o' them spring onions—they're the first we've had. Sence you're a-feelin' better, maybe it's jest ez well thet you mislaid that pill."
The wind blows sometimes from the east in Simkinsville, as elsewhere, and there are still occasional days when the deacon betakes himself to the front gate and sits like a nineteenth-century Simon Stilites on his pillar, contemplating the open palm of his own hand, while he enriches Mrs. Frequent'srépertoireof gossip by a picturesque item.
But the reverse of the picture has much of joy in it; for, in spite of her various tempers, Grandmother Gregg is a warm-hearted soul—and she loves her man. And he loves her.
Listen to him to-night, for instance, as, having finished his supper, he remarks:
"An' I'm a-goin' to see to it, from this on, thet you ain't fretted with things ez you've been, ef I can help it, wife. Sometimes, the way I act, I seem like ez ef I forgit you're all I've got—on earth."
"Of co'se I reelize that, Enoch," she replies. "We're each one all the other's got—an' that's why I don't spare no pains to keep you in health."
TWO GENTLEMEN OF LEISURE
One could see at a glance that they were gentlemen as they strolled leisurely along, side by side, through Madison Square, on Christmas morning.
A certain subtle charm—let us call it a dignified aimlessness—hung about them like an easy garment, labelling them as mild despisers of ambitions, of goals, of destinations, of conventionalities.
The observer who passed from casual contemplation of their unkempt locks to a closer scrutiny perceived, even in passing them, that their shoes were not mates, while the distinct bagging at the knees of their trousers was somewhat too high in one case, and too low in the other, to encompass the knees within which were slowly, but surely, gaining tardy secondary recognitions at points more or less remote from the first impressions.
One pair was a trifle short in the legs, while the other—they of the too-low knee-marks—were turned up an inch or two above the shoes: a style which in itself may seem to savor of affectation, and yet, taken with the wearer on this occasion, dispelled suspicion.
It seemed rather a cold day to sit on a bench in Madison Square, and yet our two gentlemen, after making a casual tour of the walks, sat easily down; and, indeed, though passers hurried by in heavy top-coats and furs, it seemed quite natural that these gentlemen should be seated.
One or two others, differing more or less as individuals from our friends, but evidently members of the same social caste, broadly speaking, were also sitting in the square, apparently as oblivious to the cold as they.
"The hardest thing to bear," the taller one, he of the short trousers, was saying, as he dropped his shapely wrist over the iron arm of the bench, "the hardest thing for the individual, under the present system, is the arbitrariness of the assignments of life. The chief advantage of the Bellamy scheme seems to me to be in its harmonious adjustments, so to speak. Every man does professionally what he can best do. If you and I had been reared under that system, now—"
"What, think you, would Bellamy the prophet have made of you, Humphrey?"
"Well, sir, his government would have taken pains to discover and develop my tendency, my drift—"
"Ah, I see. I should judge that nature had endowed you with a fine bump of drift, Humphrey. But has it not been rather well cared for? The trouble with drifting is, so say the preachers, that it necessarily carries one downstream."
"To the sea, the limitless, the boundless, the ultimatum—however, this is irrelevant and frivolous. I am serious—and modest, I assure you—when I speak of my gifts. I have, as you know, a pronounced gift at repartee. Who knows what this might have become under proper development? But it has been systematically snubbed, misunderstood, dubbed impertinence, forsooth."
"If I remember aright, it was your gift of repartee that—wasn't it something of that sort which severed your connection with college?"
"Yes, and here I am. That's where the shoe pinches. Ha! and by way of literal illustration, speaking of the mal-adjustments of life, witness this boot."
The speaker languidly extended his right foot.
"The fellow who first wore it had bunions, blast him, and I come into his bunion-bulge with a short great toe. As a result, here I am in New York in December, instead of absorbing sunshine and the odor of violets in Jackson Square in New Orleans, with picturesqueness and color all about me. No man could start South with such a boot as that.
"I do most cordially hope that the beastly vulgarian who shaped it has gone, as my friend Mantalini would express it, 'to the demnition bow-wows.' You see the beauty of the Bellamy business is that all callings are equally worthy. As a social factor I should have made a record, and would probably have gone into history as a wit."
"Condemn the history! You'd have gone into life, Humphrey. That's enough. You'd have gone into the home—into your own bed at night—into dinner in a dress-coat—into society, your element—into posterity in your brilliant progeny, paterfamilias—"
"Enough, Colonel. There are some things—even from an old comrade like yourself—"
"Beg pardon, Humphrey. No offence meant, I assure you.
"It's only when life's fires are burning pretty low that we may venture to stir the coals and knock off the ashes a little.
"For myself, I don't mind confessing, Humphrey, that there have been women—Don't start; there isn't even a Yule-log smouldering on my heart's hearth to-day. I can stir the smoking embers safely. I say there have been women—a woman I'll say, even—a nursemaid, whom I have seen in this park—a perfect Juno. She was well-born I'd swear, by her delicate ears, her instep, her curved nostrils—"
"Did you ever approach your goddess near enough to catch her curved articulation, Colonel? Or doubtless it flowed in angles, Anglo-Saxon pura."
"You are flippant, Humphrey. I say if this woman had had educational advantages and—and if my affairs had looked up a little, well—there's no telling! And yet, to tell you this to-day does not even warm my heart."
"Nor rattle a skeleton within its closet?"
"Not a rattle about me, sir, excepting the rattle of these beastly newspapers on my chest. Have a smoke, Humphrey?"
The Colonel presented a handful of half-burned cigar-stubs.
"No choice. They're all twenty-five-centers, assorted from a Waldorf lot."
"Thanks."
Humphrey took three. The Colonel, reserving one for his own use, dropped the rest into his outer pocket.
And now eleven men passed, smoking, eleven unapproachables, before one dropped a burning stump.
As Humphrey rose and strode indolently forward to secure the fragment, there was a certain courtliness about the man that even a pair of short trousers could not disguise. It was the same which constrains us to write him down Sir Humphrey.
"I never appropriate the warmth of another man's lips," said he, as, having first presented the light to his friend, he lit a fragment for himself. Then, pressing out the fire of the last acquisition, he laid it beside him to cool before adding it to his store.
"Nor I," responded the Colonel—"at least, I never did but once. I happened to be walking behind General Grant, and he dropped a smoking stub—"
"Which you took for Granted—"
"If you will, yes. It was a bit sentimental, I know, but I rather enjoyed placing it warm from his lips to mine. It was to me a sort of calumet, a pipe of peace, for rebel that I was, and am, I always respected Grant. Then, too, I fancied that I might deceive the fragment into surrendering its choicest aroma to me, since I surprised it in the attitude of surrender, and I believe it did."
"Sentimental dog that you are!" said Sir Humphrey, smiling, as he inserted the remaining bit of his cigar into an amber tip and returned it to his lips.
"You have never disclosed to me, Humphrey, where you procured that piece of bric-à-brac?"
"Haven't I? That is because of my Bostonian reticence. No secret, I assure you. I found it, sir, in the lining of this coat. The fair donor of this spacious garment on one occasion, at least, gave atipto a beggar unawares."
"Exceptional woman. Seems to me the exceptional beggar would have returned the article."
"Exceptional case. Didn't find the tip for a month. I was in Mobile at the time. I should have written my benefactress had stationery been available and had I known her name. When I returned to New York in the spring there was a placard on the house. Otherwise I should have restored the tip, and trusted to her courtesy for the reward of virtue."
"You have forgotten that that commodity is its own reward?"
"Yes, and the only reward it ever gets, as a New Orleans wit once remarked. Hence, here we are. However, returning to my fair benefactress, I haven't much opinion of her. Any woman who would mend her husband's coat-sleeve with glue—look at this! First moist spell, away it went. Worst of it was I happened to have no garment under it at the time. However, the incident secured me quite a handsome acquisition of linen. Happened to run against a clever little tub-shaped woman whose ample bosom, I take it, was ordered especially for the accommodation of assorted sympathies. She, perceiving my azure-veined elbow, invited me to the dispensing-room of the I. O. U. Society, of which she was a member, and presented me with a roll of garments, and—would you believe it?—there wasn't a tract or leaflet in the bundle—and as to my soul, she never mentioned the abstraction to me. Now, that is what I call Christianity. However, I may come across a motto somewhere, yet. Of course, at my first opportunity, I put on those shirts—one to wear, and the other three to carry. So I've given them only a cursory examination thus far."
"Which one do you consider yourself wearing, Humphrey, and which do you carry?"
"I wear theoutsideone, of course—and carry the others."
"Do you, indeed? Well, now, if I were in the situation, I should feel that I was wearing the one next my body—and carrying the other three."
"That's because you are an egotist and can't project yourself. I have the power the giftie gi'e me, and see myself as others see me. How's that for quick adaptation?"
"Quite like you. If the Scotch poet had not been at your elbow with his offering, no doubt you'd have originated something quite as good. So you may be at this moment absorbing condensed theology,nolens volens."
"For aught I know, yes, under my armpits. However, I sha'n't object, just so the dogmas don't crowd out my morals. My moral rectitude is the one inheritance I proudly retain. I've never sold myself—to anybody."
"Nor your vote?"
"Nor my vote. True, I have accepted trifling gratuities on election occasions; but they never affected my vote. I should have voted the same way, notwithstanding."
"Well, sir, I am always persuaded to accept a bonus on such occasions forabstaining. I have been under pay from both parties, each suspecting me of standing with the opposition. Needless to say, I have religiously kept my contract. I never vote. It involves too much duplicity for a man of my profession."
"Not necessarily. I resided comfortably for quite a period in the basement of the dwelling of a certain political leader in this metropolis, once. He wished to have me register for his butler, but I stickled for private secretary, and private secretary I was written, sir, though I discovered later that the rogue had registered me as secretary to his coachman. However, the latter was the better man of the two—dropped his h's so fast that his master seemed to feel constrained to send everything to H—— for repairs."
"What else could you expect for a man ofaspirations?"
"By thunder, Humphrey, that's not bad. But do you see, by yon clock, that the dinner-hour approacheth?"
The Colonel took from his waistcoat-pocket two bits of paper.
"Somehow, I miss Irving to-day. There's nothing Irving enjoyed so much as a free dinner-ticket. I see the X. Y. Z.'s are to entertain us at 1P.M., and the K. R. G.'s at 4."
Sir Humphrey produced two similar checks.
"Well, sir, were Irving here to-day I'd willingly present him with this Presbyterian chip. There are some things to which I remain sensitive, and I look this ticket in the face with misgivings. It means being elbowed by a lot of English-slaying mendicants in a motto-bedecked saloon, where every bite at the Presbyterian fowl seems a confession of faith that that particular gobbler, or hen, as the case may be, was fore-ordained, before the beginning of time, to be chewed by yourself—or eschewed, should you decline it. Somehow theology takes the zest out of the cranberries for me. However,de gustibus—"
"Well, sir, I am a philosopher, and so was Irving. Poor Irving! He was never quite square. It was he, you know, who perpetrated that famous roach fraud that went the rounds of the press. I've seen him do it. He would enter a restaurant, order a dinner, and, just before finishing, discover a huge roach, a Croton bug, floating in his plate. Of course the insects were his own contribution, but the fellow had a knack of introducing them. He could slip a specimen into his omelette soufflé, for instance, dexterously slicing it in half with his knife, with a pressure that left nothing to be desired. The interloper, compactly imbedded, immediately imparted such an atmosphere to his vicinity that even the cook would have sworn he was baked in. I blush to say I was Irving's guest on one such occasion."
"And Sir Roach paid for both dinners?"
"Bless you, yes. Sir Roach, F.R.S. (fried, roasted, or stewed). Indeed, his hospitality did not end here. We were pressed to call again, and begged not to mention the incident. Of course, this was in our more prosperous days, before either of us had taken on the stamp of our exclusiveness. Even Irving would hesitate to try it now, I fancy."
"Poor Irving! A good fellow, but morally insane. In Baton Rouge now, I believe?"
"Yes. He changed overcoats with a gentleman.
"I wonder how the cooking is in that State institution, Humphrey? Irving is such an epicure—"
"Oh, he's faring well enough, doubtless. Trust those Louisianians for cookery. When Irving is in New Orleans there are special houses where he drops in on Fridays, just forcourt-bouillon. I've known him to weed a bed of geraniums rather than miss it."
"Such are the vicissitudes of pedestrianism. Well,tempus fugit; let us be going. We have just an hour to reach our dining-hall. Here come the crowd from church. The Christmas service is very beautiful. Do you recall it, Humphrey?"
"Only in spots—like the varioloid."
They were quite in the crowd now, and so ceased speaking, and presently the Colonel was considerably in advance of his companion. So it happened that he did not see Humphrey stop a moment, put his foot on a bit of green paper, drop his handkerchief, and in recovering it gather the crumpled bill into it.
Thus it came about that when Sir Humphrey overtook his friend, and, tapping him upon the shoulder, invited him to follow him into a famous saloon, the Colonel raised his eyes in mild surprise.
Sir Humphrey paid for the drinks with a ten-dollar note, and then the two proceeded to the side door of a well-known restaurant.
"Private dining-room, please," he said, and he dropped a quarter into the hands of the servant at the door as he led the way.
It was two hours later when, having cast up his account from the bill of fare, Sir Humphrey, calling for cigars, said: "Help yourself, Colonel. If my arithmetic is correct, we shall enjoy our smoke, have a half dollar for the waiter, and enter the Square with a whole cigar apiece in our breast pockets—at peace with the world, the flesh, and his Satanic majesty. Allow me to give you a light."
He handed the Colonel one of the free dinner-tickets of the X. Y. Z. Society.
"The Presbyterian blue-light I reserve for my own use. Witness it burn.
"Well, Colonel, I hope you have enjoyed your dinner?"
"Thoroughly, sir, thoroughly. This is one of the many occasions in my life, Humphrey, when I rejoice in my early good breeding. Were it not for that, I should feel constrained to inquire whom you throttled and robbed in crossing Fifth Avenue, two hours ago, during the forty seconds when my back was turned."
"And my pious rearing would compel me to answer, 'No one.'
"The wherewithal to procure this Christmas dinner dropped straight from heaven, Colonel. I saw it fall, and gratefully seized it, just in the middle of the crossing."
"Thanks. I have taken the liberty of helping myself to the rest of the matches, Humphrey."
"Quite thoughtful of you. We'll use one apiece for the other cigars. Do you know I really enjoyed the first half of that smoke. It was quite like renewing one's youth."
And so, in easy converse, they strolled slowly down Fifth Avenue.
As Sir Humphrey hesitated in his walk, evidently suffering discomfort from his right boot, he presently remarked:
"I say, Colonel, I think I'll call around tomorrow at a few of my friends' houses, and see if some benevolent housewife won't let me have a shoe for this right foot."
"Or why not try your cigar on the ebony janitor of the apartment-house across the way. He has access to the trash-boxes, and could no doubt secure you a shoe—maybe a pair."
"Thanks, Colonel, for the suggestion, but there are a few things I never do. I never fly in the face of Providence. I shall smoke that cigar intact."
And they walked on.
THE REV. JORDAN WHITE'S THREE GLANCES
The Reverend Jordan White, of Cold Spring Baptist Church, was so utterly destitute of color in his midnight blackness of hue as to be considered the most thoroughly "colored" person on Claybank plantation, Arkansas.
That so black a man should have borne the name of White was one of the few of such familiar misfits to which the world never becomes insensible from familiarity. From the time when Jordan, a half-naked urchin of six, tremblingly pronounced his name before the principal's desk in the summer free Claybank school to the memorable occasion of his registration as an Afro-American voter, the announcement had never failed to evoke a smile, accompanied many times by good-humored pleasantry.
"Well, sir," so he had often laughed, "I reck'n dey must o' gimme de name o' White fur a joke. But de Jordan—I don' know, less'n dey named me Jordan 'caze ev'ybody was afeerd ter cross me."
From which it seems that the surname was not an inheritance.
In his clerical suit of black, with standing collar and shirt-front matched in fairness only by his marvellously white teeth and eyeballs, Jordan was a most interesting study in black and white.
There were no intermediate shades about him. Even his lips were black, or of so dark a purple as to fail to maintain an outline of color. They looked black, too.
Jordan was essentially ugly, too, with that peculiar genius for ugliness which must have inspired the familiar saying current among plantation folk, "He's so ogly tell he's purty."
There is a certain homeliness of person, a combined result of type and degree, which undeniably possesses a peculiar charm, fascinating the eye more than confessed beauty of a lesser degree or more conventional form.
Jordan was ugly in this fashion, and he who glanced casually upon his ebony countenance rarely failed to look again.
He was a genius, too, in more ways than one.
If nature gave him two startling eyes that moved independently of each other, Jordan made the most of the fact, as will be seen by the following confession made on the occasion of my questioning him as to the secret of his success as a preacher.
"Well, sir," he replied, "yer see, to begin wid: I got three glances, an' dat gimme three shots wid ev'y argimint.
"When I'm a preachin' I looks straight at one man an' lays his case out so clair he can't miss it, but, you see, all de time I'm a-layin' him out, my side glances is takin' in two mo'."
"But," I protested, "I should think he whom you are looking at and describing in so personal a manner would get angry, and—"
"So he would, sir, if he knowed I was lookin' at him.But he don't know it. You know, dat's my third glance an' hit's my secret glance. You see, if my reel glance went straight, I'd have ter do like de rest o' you preachers, look at one man while yer hittin' de man behin' 'im, an' dat's de way deythink I is doin', whiles all de time I'm a watchin' 'im wriggle.
"Of cose, sometimes I uses my glances diff'ent ways. Sometimes I des lets 'em loose p'omiskyus fur a while tell ev'ybody see blue lightnin' in de air, an' de mo'ner's bench is full, an' when I see ev'ybody is ready ter run fur 'is life, of co'se I eases up an' settles down on whatever sinner seem like he's de leastest skeered tell I nails 'im fast."
'I DES LETS 'EM LOOSE P'OMISKYUS, TELL EV'YBODY SEE BLUE LIGHTNIN''
"'I DES LETS 'EM LOOSE P'OMISKYUS, TELL EV'YBODY SEE BLUE LIGHTNIN''"
He hesitated here a moment.
"De onies' trouble," he resumed, presently. "De onies' trouble wid havin' mixed glances is 'dat seem like hit confines a man ter preach wrath.
"So long as I tried preachin' Heaven, wid golden streets an' harp music, I nuver fe'ched in a soul, but 'cep'n' sech as was dis a-waitin' fur de open do'tocome in. Dat's my onies' drawback, Brer Jones. Sometimes seem like when Heaven comes inter my heart I does crave ter preach it in a song. Of cose, I does preach Heaven yit, butI bleege ter preach it f'om de Hell side, an' shoo 'em in!"
There was, I thought, the suspicion of a twinkle lurking in the corners of his eyes throughout his talk, but it was too obscure for me to venture to interpret it by a responsive smile, and so the question was put with entire seriousness when I said:
"And yet, Jordan, didn't I hear something of your going to an oculist last summer?"
"Yas, sir. So I did. Dat's true." He laughed foolishly now.
"I did talk about goin' ter one o' deze heah occular-eye doctors las' summer,and I went once-t, but I ain't nuver tol' nobody, an' you mustn't say nothin' 'bout it, please, sir.
"But yer see, sir." He lowered his voice here to a confidential whisper. "Yer see dat was on account o' de ladies. I was a widder-man den, an', tell de trufe, my mixed glances was gettin' me in trouble. Yer know in dealin' wid de ladies, yer don' keer how many glances you got, yer wants ter use 'emone at a time. Why dey was a yaller lady up heah at de crossroads wha' 'blongs ter my church who come purty nigh ter suein' me in de co't-house, all on account o' one o' my side glances, an' all de time, yer see, myreelglance, hit was settled on Mis' White, wha' sot in de middle pew—but in cose she warn't Mis' White den; she was de Widder Simpson."
"And so you have been recently married," I asked; "and how does your wife feel about the matter?
"Well, yer see, sir," he answered, laughing, "she can't say nothin', 'caze she's cross-eyed 'erse'f.
"An' lemme tell you some'h'n', boss." He lowered his tone again, implying a fresh burst of confidence, while his whole visage seemed twinkling with merriment.
"Lemme tell yer some'h'n', boss. You ain't a ma'ied man, is yer?"
I assured him that I was not married.
"Well, sir, I gwine gi'e you my advice. An' I'm a man o' 'spe'unce. I been ma'ied three times, an' of cose I done consider'ble co'tin' off'n an' on wid all three, not countin' sech p'omiskyus co'tin' roun' as any widder gemman is li'ble ter do, an' I gwine gi'e you some good advice.
"Ef ever you falls in love wid air cross-eyed lady, an' craves ter co't'er, you des turn down de lamp low 'fo' yer comes ter de fatal p'int, ur else set out on de po'ch in de fainty moonlight, whar yer can't see 'er eyes, caze dey's nothin' puts a co'tin' man out, and meek 'im lose 'is pronouns wuss 'n a cross-eye. An' ef it hadn't o' been datI knowed what a cook she was, tell de trufe, de Widder Simpson's cross-eye would o' discour'ged me off enti'ely.
"But now," he continued, chuckling; "but now I done got usen ter it; it's purty ter me—seem like hit's got a searchin' glance dat goes out'n its way ter fin' me."
Needless to say, I found the old man amusing, and when we parted at the cross-roads I was quite willing to promise to drop in some time to hear one of his sermons.
Although somewhat famed as a preacher, Jordan had made his record in the pulpit not so much on account of any powers of oratory,per se, as through a series of financial achievements.
During the two years of his ministry he had built a new church edifice, added the imposing parsonage which he occupied, and he rode about the country on his pastoral missions, mounted on a fine bay horse—all the result of "volunteer" contributions.
And Jordan stood well with his people; the most pious of his fold according him their indorsement as heartily as they who hung about the outskirts of his congregation, and who indeed were unconsciously supplying the glamour of his distinguished career; for the secret of Jordan's success lay especially in his power of collecting money fromsinners. So it came about that, without adding a farthing to their usual donations, the saints reclined in cushioned pews and listened to the words of life from a prosperous, well-fed preacher, who was manifestly an acceptable sower of vital seed—seed which took root in brick and mortar, branched out in turret and gable, and flowered before their very eyes in crimson upholstery.
The truth was that Cold Spring was the only colored church known to its congregation that boasted anything approaching in gorgeousness its pulpit furnishings of red cotton velvet, and never a curious sinner dropped in during any of its services for a peep at its grandeur without leaving a sufficient quota of his substance to endow him with a comfortable sense of proprietorship in it all.
The man who has given a brick to the building of the walls of a sanctuary has always a feeling of interest in the edifice, whether he be of its fold or not, and if he return to it an old man, it will seem to yield him a sort of welcoming recognition. The brick he gave is somewhere doing its part in sustaining the whole, and the uncertainty of its whereabouts seems to bestow it everywhere.
I was not long in finding my way to Jordan's church. It was in summer time, and a large part of his congregation was composed of young girls and their escorts on the afternoon when I slipped into the pew near the door.
The church was crowded within, while the usual contingent of idlers hung about the front door and open windows.
I searched Jordan's face for a few moments, in the hope of discovering whether he recognized me or not, but for the life of me I could not decide. If his "secret glance" ever discerned me in my shadowed corner, neither of the other two betrayed it.
I soon discovered that there was to be no sermon on this occasion, for which I was sorry, as I supposed that his most ambitious effort would naturally take shape in this form. Of this, however, I now have my doubts.
After the conventional opening of service with prayer, Scripture reading, and song, he passed with apparent naturalness to the collection, the ceremony to which everything seemed to tend.
The opening of this subject was again conventional, the only deviation from the ordinary manner of procedure being that, instead of the hat's passing round it was inverted upon the table beside the pulpit, while contributors, passing up the aisles, deposited their contributions and returned to their seats.
This in itself, it will be seen, elevated the collection somewhat in the scale of ceremonial importance.
For some time the house was quite astir with the procession which moved up one side and down the other, many singing fervently as they went, and dramatically holding their coins aloft as they swayed in step with the music, while above all rose the exhortations of the preacher which waxed in fervor as the first generous impulse began to wane.
"Drap in yo' dollar!" he was shouting. "Drap in yo' half dollar! Drap in yo' dime! Drap in yo' nickel. Drap in yo' nickel, I say, an' ef yer ain't got a nickel, come up an' let's pray fur yer!
"Ef yer ain't got a nickel," he repeated, encouraged by the titter that greeted this; "ef yer ain't got a nickel, come up an' let de whole congergation pray fur yer! We'll teck up a collection fur any man dat 'l stan' up an' confess he ain't wuth a nickel."
A half dozen grinning young fellows stepped up now with coins concealed in the palms of their hands.
"Come on! Come on, all you nickel boys! Come on.
"Ev'y nickel is a wheel ter keep salvation's train a-movin'! Come on, I say; bring yo' wheels!
"Ef you ain't got a big wheel fur de ingine fetch a little wheel fur de freight train! We needs a-plenty o' freight kyars on dis salvation train. 'Caze hit's loaded up heavy wid Bibles fur de heathen, an' brick an' lumber to buil' churches, an' medicine fur de sick, an' ole clo'es fur de po'—heap ob 'em wid de buttons cut off'n 'em, but dat ain't our fault, we bleeged ter sen' 'em on! Fetch on yo' little wheels, I say, fur de freight train."
There had been quite a respectable response to this appeal thus far, but again it spent itself and there was a lull when Jordan, folding his arms, and looking intently before him, in several directions apparently, exclaimed in a most tragic tone:
"My Gord! Is de salvation train done stallded right in front o' Claybank chu'ch, an' we can't raise wheels ter sen' it on?
"Lord have mussy, I say! I tell yer, my brers an' sisters, you's a-treatin' de kyar o' glory wuss'n you'd treat a ole cotton mule wagon! You is, fur a fac'!
"Ef air ole mule wagon ur a donkey-kyart was stallded out in de road in front o' dis chu'ch—don' keer ef it was loaded up wid pippy chickens, much less'n de Lord's own freight—dey ain't one o' yer but 'd raise a wheel ter sen' it on! You know yer would! An' heah de salvation train is stuck deep in de mud, an' yer know Arkansas mudhit's mud; hit ain't b'iled custard; no, it ain't, an' hit sticks like glue! Heah de glory kyar is stallded in dis tar-colored Arkansas glue-mud, I say, an' I can't raise wheels enough out'n dis congergation ter sen' it on! An' dis is de Holy Sabbath day, too, de day de Lord done special set apartfurh'istin' a oxes out'n a ditch, es much less'n salvation's train.
"Now, who gwine fetch in de nex' wheel, my brothers, my sisters, my sinner-frien's? Who gwine fetch a wheel? Dat's it! Heah come a wheel—two wheels—three wheels; fetch one mo'; heah, a odd wheel; de train's a-saggin' down lop-sided furone mo' wheel! Heah it come—f'om a ole 'oman, too! Shame on you, boys, ter let po' ole Aunt Charity Pettigrew, wha' nussed yo' mammies, an' is half-blin' an' deef at dat—shame on yer ter let 'er lif' dis train out'n de mud! An' yer know she kyant heah me nuther. She des brung a wheel 'caze she felt de yearth trimble, an' knowed de train was stallded!
"Oh, my brers, de yearth gwine trimble wuss'n dat one o' deze days, an' look out de rocks don't kiver you over! Don't hol' back dis train ef you c'n he'p it on! I ain't axin' yer fur no paper greenbacks to-dayto light de ingine fire!
"I ain't a-beggin' yer fur no gol' an' silver wheels fur de passenger trains for de saints, 'caze yer know de passenger kyars wha' ride inter de city o' de King, dey 'bleege ter have gol' and silver wheels ter match de golden streets; but, I say, I ain't axin' yer fur no gol' an' silver wheels to-day, nur no kindlin'! De train is all made up an' de ingine is a steamin', an' de b'ilers is full. I sayde b'ilers is full, my dear frien's.
"Full o' what? Whar do dey git water ter run dis gorspil train? Dis heah's been a mighty dry season, an' de cotton-fiel's is a-beggin' now fur water, an' I saywhar do de salvation train git water fur de ingine?
"Oh, my po' sinner-frien's, does you want me ter tell yer?
"De cisterns long de track is bustin' full o' water, an'so long as a sinner got o' tear ter shedde water ain't gwine run out!"
"Yas, Lord!" "Glory!" "Amen!" and "Amen!" with loud groans came from various parts of the house now, and many wheels were added to Glory's train by the men about the door, while Jordan continued:
"Don't be afeerd ter weep! De ingine o' Glory's kyar would o' gi'en out o' water long 'fo' now in deze heah summer dry-drouths if 'twarn't fur de tears o' sinners, an' de grief-stricken an' de heavy-hearted! I tell yer Glory's train stops ter teck in water at de mo'ner's bench eve'y day! So don't be afeerd to weep. But bring on de wheels!"
He paused here and looked searchingly about him.
There was no response. Stepping backward now and running both hands deep into his pockets, he dropped his oratorical tone, and, falling easily into the conversational, continued:
"Well, maybe you right! Maybe you right, my frien's settin' down by de do', an' my frien's leanin' 'gins' de choir banisters, an' I ain' gwine say no mo'. I was lookin' fur you ter come up wid some sort o' wheel, an' maybe a silver wheel ter match dat watch-chain hangin' out'n yo' waistcoat-pocket; but maybe you right!
"When a man set still an' say nothin' while de voice is a callin' I reck'n he knows what he's a-doin'.
"He knows whether de wheels in his pocket isfitt'nfur de gorspil kyar ur not! An' I say ter you to-day dat ef dat money in yo' pocket ain'tclean money, don't youdareter fetch it up heah!
"Ef you made dat money sneakin' roun' henrooses in de dark o' de moon—I don't say you is, butefyou is—you set right still in yo' seat an' don'tdareter offer it ter de Lord, I say!
"Ef you backed yo' wagon inter somebody else's watermillion patch by de roadside an' loaded up on yo' way ter town 'fo' sunup—I don't say you is, mind yer, butef you is—set right whar you is, an' do des like you been doin', 'caze de money you made on dat early mornin' wagon load ain't fitt'n fur wheels fur de gorspil train!
"An' deze yo'ng men at de winders, I say, ef de wheels inyo' pockets come f'ommatchin' nickels on de roadside, or kyard-playin', or maybe drivin' home de wrong pig. (You nee'n't ter laugh. De feller dat spo'ts de shinies' stovepipe hat of a Sunday sometimes cuts de ears off'n de shoat he kills of a Sa'day, 'caze de ears got a tell-tale mark on 'em.)An', I say, ef you got yo' money dat a-way, won't you des move back from de winders, please, an' meck room fur some o' dem standin' behin' yer dat got good hones' wheels ter pass in!"
This secured the window crowds intact, and now Jordan turned to the congregation within.
"An' now, dear beloved." He lowered his voice. "For sech as I done specified,let us pray!"
He had raised his hands and was closing his eyes in prayer, when a man rose in the centre of the church.
"Brer Jordan," he began, laughing with embarrassment. "Ef some o' de brers ur sisters'll change a dime fur me—"
Jordan opened his eyes and his hands fell.
"Bless de Lord!" he exclaimed, with feeling.
"Bless de Lord, one man done claired 'isse'f! Glory, I say! Come on up, Brer Smiff, 'n' I'll gi'e you yo' change!"
"Ef—Brer Smiff'll loanmedat nickel?" said a timid voice near the window.
Smith hesitated, grinning broadly.
"Ef—ef I could o' spared de dime, Mr. Small, I'd a put it in myse'f, but—but—"
"But nothin'! Put de dime in de hat!"
The voice came from near the front now. "Put it all in de hat, Brer Smiff. You owes me a nickel an' I'll loan'd it to Mr. Small."
And so, amid much laughter, Smith reluctantly deposited his dime.
Others followed so fast that when Jordan exclaimed, "Who gwine be de nex'?" his words were almost lost in the commotion. Still his voice had its effect.
"Heah one mo'—two mo'—fo' mo'—eight mo'! Glory, I say! An' heah dey come in de winder! Oh, I'm proud ter see it, yo'ng men! I'm proud ter see it!"
Borrowing or making change was now the order of the moment, as every individual present who had not already contributed felt called upon thus to exonerate himself from so grave a charge.
Amid the fresh stir a tremulous female voice raised a hymn, another caught it up, and another—voices strong and beautiful; alto voices soft as flute notes blended with the rich bass notes and triumphant tenors that welled from the choir, and floated in from the windows, until the body of the church itself seemed almost to sway with the rhythmic movement of the stirring hymn