IICREEDS AND DEEDS

The Episcopalians met next morning to trim the tree. They had the candles and candies and tinsel decorations sent them by the foreign Santa Claus whom Grover Cleveland had tried to track, and for every member of their congregation they had made little stockings of net. These they proceeded to fill with candy and to hang upon the tree, discussing meanwhile the perambulating tree of the previous day.

“There was nary somebody passed by,” said one, restoring with a bitof lemon stick the equilibrium of a tilted stocking, “the babies got something, every last one of ’em, and the niggers too, so fur as I know.”

“Every one was free to go to the first Christmas celebration,” said the young girl who taught the two-months-a-year free-school. “The shepherds came from the fields, and the angels came from heaven, and I have read that the wise men who came were from so far removed parts of the earth that they didn’t even speak the same language.”

“You reckon they was all Episcopals?”

“No, but when they went away they were all Christians.”

The rest of the decorators were a little awed by such erudition and no further remarks were made till the last gift was tied in its place and the candles, firmly fixed and pointing rafterward, were readyfor the lighting. Then they stood off and surveyed the work of their hands.

“It’s powerful pretty,” said one.

“Yes, but seem like it’s narrow-contracted ’long side of Grover Cleveland’s tree. ’Course we’ve got six ten-cent dolls and he didn’t have nary one and he didn’t have nary candle but——”

“It’s not leavin’ out ary somebody that I’m studyin’ about. Why even our Nick got a shinbone, and I declare if he ain’t fit Grover Cleveland’s dog till he’s mighty nigh chawed his ears plumb off his head.”

“Old man Higgins told me ‘Merry Christmas’ yesterday evening. It’s the first word he’s spoke to me since I left the Methdis’ meetin’-house, and I wish there was something on this yer tree for him, just to show him that we-all ain’t holdin’ a grudge,” and further discussion revealed the fact that everyone there had a neighbour or friend belonging to one of the other churches whom, for one reason or another, he or she would like to invite to the Christmas-tree.

The school teacher took a pencil from her pocket and they gathered round her. “We’ll begin at the first house towards sun-up,” they said; “there’s three somebodies there, there’s two in the next house and——” they counted every person in the neighbourhood and then the school teacher “done a sum.” “Nine pounds more will treat them all to candy,” she said and in a body they proceeded to the store to see if they could buy nine pounds at the wholesale rate.

“I declare, ’tain’t my fault,” pleaded the storekeeper. “I laid in ten pounds extra for Christmas but old man Ledbetter come in yer and he let Grover Cleveland clean me out. You can gen’rally, most alwaystrust Colonel Ledbetter not to do no low down tricks but you-all know how’tis; if Grover Cleveland was a-hankerin’ after the whole top side of the airth his gran’daddy’d git it for him if he could. I’ve ordered some more, but it won’t be here till to-morrow.”

“That’s all right,” said the school teacher, “we’ll meet again this evening to make some more stockings, and we’ll trim the tree all over again and we’ll have a Christmas tree for all Junaluska.”

Some rustic beaux had been hanging about the group listening to the colloquy. They looked at one another and they looked at a row of fresh-faced, luxuriant-haired mountain girls at another counter bartering eggs which they had “toted” from their homes five or six miles away.

“Make it a general spree this evening,” they pleaded, “let uscome to the tree-trimming and bring our girls.”

“We will,” said the teacher, “if you-all will spread the news that it’s to be an un-de-nom-i-na-tional tree and that all the grown-ups are invited to come to-night to the trimming and to bring for the tree whatever gifts they have for their families and their friends, and that young and old are invited to the exercises to-morrow night.”

“Captain Boyce won’t come nor Judge Brevard, ary one; they took a oath never to set foot in that thar meetin’-house.”

“Then we’ll move the tree somewhere else.”

Such was the series of events that transferred the tree and the trimmers to Colonel Ledbetter’s two-room cabin that overlooked the village from a highroad. The log fire blazing wide and high in the chimney place put to shame the candles thatswaled and sputtered in turnip candelabra, but could not dim the light that shone from merry eyes as the happy people helped or hindered with equally good intentions. Long before dispersion could be thought of the tree stood full fruited and ready for the morrow’s harvesting.

“They drew up some benches before the fire and gave themselves to rest and reminiscence”

Suddenly the barking of a dog roused the gully behind the cabin.

“That’s my Cæsar; he’s struck a ’possum trail,” exclaimed a swain and with one rush young men and maidens made for the moonlit out-of-doors and joined in a ’possum hunt. Only the serious minded remained, fewer than a score of people and yet they were the metaphorical pillars of five different denominations of Christian churches, each struggling independently to establish the same gospel in that little mountain town. They drew up some benches before the fire and gave themselves to rest and reminiscence. On theroad, in the fields, or at his fireside the Junaluskan may address his neighbour as Bill or Jeff or Jack, but in assembly every elderly man is accorded a title, military, civil, or ecclesiastic.

“Gettin’ ’long in years, Colonel Ledbetter,” observed a grizzled mountaineer running his eyes along the blackened rafters of the cabin; “a hundred year old ain’t it?”

“Mighty nigh,” answered the Colonel shooting tobacco juice at a fallen ember before kicking it back into the fire.

“Looks like with a little fixin’ up ’twas good for another hundred. You ain’t let it lately?”

“No, Deacon Higgins, I ain’t.” The speaker doubled into his studying attitude with unperceiving eyes upon the hearth; “the last tenant made a barnyard of the road out yer in front, fed his cattle and hogs there reg’lar so’t women folkscouldn’t git by to go to meetin’ without silin’ their Sunday clothes and he let the ragweed run clean up to the eaves. It hurt my feelin’s to look at the place, ’twas such a contrast to what ’twas when Preacher Carr had it, so I turned him loose and locked the door and I don’t guess I’ll ever rent it again.”

“Preacher Carr certainly did keep it mighty snug,” said Captain Campbell, “and he was powerful proud of it too. He’d point out to every stranger the part the Injins built and the part your father added on to it; and he was proud of all outdoors besides. He ’lowed there wasn’t another tree in the country so handsome to look at as this yer postoak out in front.”

“And if he and his old gray mare was on the homeward road any whar near sundown, she’d break into a trot of her own free will and accord, knowin’ she’d got to git him here intime to see the sun slip down behind the Bald.”

“And he done made a sermon onct ’bout that ar cliff t’other side the road. His tex’ was somethin’ ’bout ‘The shadow of a Great Rock,’ and mighty nigh all the women in the meetin’-house had to unfold their pocket handkerchiefs ’fore he got through.”

“And he done kep’ his tater-patch as clean of weeds as my wife keeps her posy beds.”

“And he worked jes’ as hard to weed the sin out of Junaluska as he did to weed the pusly and cockles out of his roas’n’-ear patch.”

“Amen!” shouted Deacon Higgins.

“And he was always yer when he was needed”—the voice was unsteady and the speaker sat in the shadow. “I tell ye it cuts me powerful that when my wife died last spring there was nary a preacherto take her last test’mony, and she a-askin’ for him all the time. The neighbours done what they could when we laid her away; they sung a hymn and Judge Brevard read a chapter, but there was nary a sermon preached or a lesson of her life said over her, and she a Meth’dis’ in good and reg’lar standin’. I ain’t a-blamin’ our young preacher; the branches was swelled at the fords and the bridges was swept away. He couldn’t git yer nohow. But seem like something’s wrong when we’ve got five meetin’-houses and nary preacher living yer.”

“We don’t have Pres’terian preachin’ but once a month, because our preacher’s got three other charges besides Junaluska. He rides seventeen miles to git yer; but he ain’t Samson and he’s mighty nigh wore out ’fore he begins, and he has to gallop through the sarvice and ride off to after-dark preachin’ somewheres else.”

“Jes’ the same way ’tis with our preacher”—the women were speaking now—“he shakes hands friendly like but I don’t guess, if all the folks in the diff’rent places where he preaches was stood up together, he’d know me and my children from the lot.”

“Them was good old times”—the deacon’s wife took off her sunbonnet and straightened up its crown as she spoke—“when we had one meetin’-house and preachin’ every Sunday and Preacher Carr was right here on the ground ready for marryin’ or buryin’ or any sich like.”

“And Mis’ Carr—she was a mother to all of us.”

“Ourpreacher’s got a right big family and they do say that he don’t make enough to keep ’em all comf’table; but I don’t know how ’tis. Our church agreed to give him thirty dollars this year and we doneraised fo’teen of it cash down and we reckoned we’d about make up the balance of it in apples and potatoes; there was some corn give besides. To be sure there was no way for him to haul it home, for he don’t own a wagon; but seem like, if his other churches done as well by him as we do, he wouldn’t be so peaked looking. They say he ain’t nary top coat to wear, but we-all give him nine pair of mittens and five pair of wristers, and Callerstown give him seven pair of mittens and four comforters for his neck and some wristers besides, and it do seem like his other churches ought to give him a overcoat.”

A few minutes of thoughtful silence ensued; then a philosopher spoke.

“It’s a heap easier to ’stablish churches than ’tis to support ’em after they’re sot goin’.”

With a deeply drawn breath ColonelLedbetter stretched out his legs, set his soles upright before the fire, folded his arms and squared himself. He waited respectfully for the old bench to complete its squeaking preface, then, singling out one fork of a blazing log, addressed it earnestly.

“Grover Cleveland, he don’t believe in beliefs and I’ve been a-studyin’ whether he ain’t right. I reason this a-way:

“You-all know how ’tis with the gris’-mills round yer; some of ’em is run by a turbine wheel and some by a overshot wheel and Captain Campbell he’s jes’ sot up a undershot wheel. But if the day of meracles wasn’t past and some of us should stop on our way home from the mill and leave ole Mis’ Jimson a bag of meal, it would keep her and her ole cow from starvin’ plumb to death and she’d never ask which mill ground that ar grist. And in myopinion that’s the way ’tis with these yer diff’rent religious secks we’ve got in Junaluska; they each turn their crank in their own way but there ain’t much choice in the grist they turn out; that is to say, neighbours, if you judge a man from his outgoin’s and his incomin’s it would take more than human jedgment to tell whether he’s been ground by the Piscopals or the Methdises or the Presaterians or the Baptises.

“When we git riled, Presaterian cussin’ don’t sound noways diff’rent from Methdis’ cussin’ and a wayfarin’ man in Junaluska could never tell by lookin’ at the children’s frocks and faces whether their mothers believe that sprinklin’ or duckin’ is the tellin’est means of grace; and Baptis’ hogs and cattle left out on the mountings all winter without fodder and shelter looks jes’ as gaunted-up when spring comes as the Piscopals’ does. I’mbeginnin’ to think, neighbours, that there’s right much more religion indoin’then there is in fussin’ about beliefs.”

“Amen!” shouted a Methodist brother and the speaker gained courage.

“I’d like,” he went on, “to jine hands and pull together again, and don’t meddle with each others’ beliefs, till some one’s deeds shows that his creed is the best. I’d like not to worship any longer in meetin’-houses that ain’t as snug as a barn ought to be. All of us together can keep one building painted and the roof tight and the windows sashed. I’d like not to have a hand in starvin’ or freezin’ any more preachers, but to make one preacher comf’table right here in Junaluska—we done it once and we done it without any outside help too—and we can do it ag’in. I’d like to have him always right yer onthe ground to christen our children, to bury our dead, and to marry our young folks. For myself, I ain’t carin’ what college turned him out so’s he’s a sure-’nough Christian and cares more about right livin’ than he does about beliefs.”

By the wall, the only occupant of a bench with legs of assorted lengths and easily tilted, sat Deacon Higgins who here put in a demurrer. Jolting back and forth, bringing the bench legs and his feet resoundingly upon the floor to mark his time, he sang, his eyes fixed upon a rafter and his heart upon opposition:

“‘I’m Meth’dis born an Pres’terian bred,But Meth’dis will I die!’

“‘I’m Meth’dis born an Pres’terian bred,

But Meth’dis will I die!’

“I’m a shoutin’ Meth’dis.”

“Well, you could continue on a shouting Meth’dis!”

“La, yes;” Colonel Ledbetter’s plan had won some enthusiastic supporters among the women. “Deacon Higgins you could take anamen corner for you and your folks and we-all wouldn’t object to your shoutin’ in once in a while.”

“And if the Piscopals wants to stand up and stretch their legs and try a readin’ match with the preacher now and then, why we could accommodate ’em with some Bible-readin’ ‘long with the singin’ and preachin’; the Bible makes good readin’ for any ’casion.”

“I’m tired,” said a weary-eyed woman. “I’m tired of the everlastin’ scratchin’ round to git ahead of some one else; I’m tired of runnin’ our church with one eye onto four other churches to see that they don’t come out a step ahead.”

Here a horse’s hoofs clattered upon the frozen road in front. Two or three women went to the window. “It’s Preacher Freeman,” they announced. “He’s on his way to Mills’s Ford to see that man that’s been hurt.”

“He’s got nine miles further to ride and it’s mighty cold.”

The door opened and a tall man, dark and spare, entered. He might have been thirty years old, but he smiled at the tree with boyish appreciation as he made his way past it and gave the assembly a general “Howdy.” Then he drew off his mittens and went from one to another shaking hands though he didn’t call them all by name. His own church people were there, but it is needless to name their denominational conformity—he was an honour to any church. They gave him a seat before the fire and he stretched out his shabbily shod feet toward it with a tired sigh, but an involuntary one, for he checked it.

“I stopped at your house Judge Brevard,” he said, “and learned that you were here.”

Embarrassed at being found in company so ecclesiastically mixed,Brevard irrelevantly felt of the young man’s coat.

“Tollable thin for this weather,” he said.

“The exercise of riding keeps me warm,” answered the preacher and changed the subject. “I didn’t expect to find all my people here” (with kind eyes he seemed to single out his own). “I’mgladof it,” he continued heartily. “I’mgladto see the whole neighbourhood joining hands.”

He praised the tree, gave a few minutes to general and friendly discourse, arranged with Brevard the personal matter which had been the object of his call, wished them a “Merry Christmas” and went out. They heard him speak to his horse as he untied him but in a moment he entered the cabin again. He came forward haltingly and laid a hand upon the back of a bench, fidgeting like an embarrassed schoolboy as he began to speak:

“Brethren, I spent last night twenty miles from here up on the Harriman Mountain. You-all know what Harriman is like.”

Colonel Ledbetter twisted himself round and faced the speaker.

“It’s the barrenest, ungratefulest land in the North Callina Mountains” (his voice had a defiant twang as if he challenged contradiction), “and how old Preacher Carr wrastles a livin’ out of that place he’s settled on, is more’n I can study out.”

“It’s Preacher Carr I want to speak to you about. You-all know that Brother Carr can get a crop out of a piece of ground if any one can. Next to men’s souls he loves the soil, and, my friends, whether we work with things physical or spiritual, it’s the loving touch that coaxes on the harvest. You-all know that, with late spring frosts and summer droughts, this has been a hard year for our farmers—yourown cribs are only half full of corn and your fodder stacks are few and small; and yet your valley is a Land of Promise compared to Harriman’s Bald. Preacher Carr and his wife are facing a winter of want. They gave me the mountaineer’s welcome, but when she prepared the supper, I heard her gourd-scoop scrape the bottom of the meal bin, and this morning a creditor led away their staggering, starving cow. And yet Brother Carr is not decrepit; he is still hale and hearty but—God pity the old when their work is taken out of their hands before their graves are ready for them.

“He asked after his people in Junaluska (you will be ‘hispeople’ as long as his loyal old soul harbours a sentiment) and, when I told him I should pass through here this evening, he said, ‘Tell them a God-bless you, for me.’ Some one hastold him that his old church is well-nigh gone to ruin and he asked me to take notice of it as I passed by and to shut the door if it stood open.

“So I have come back to ask you to add to your Christmas list the name of your old neighbour, friend, and pastor, this needy servant of God. He has not forgotten you and I know you will not forget him.”

He turned and walked out of the cabin and the group sat in silence till the sound of his horse’s hoofs grew faint.

“Them was good old times,” reiterated the deacon’s wife.

“I was some to blame when Preacher Carr was sent away,” said Colonel Ledbetter, “I own up to it but——”

“You hadn’t a mite more to say about it than the rest of us had——”

“I hadn’t a thing in the worldagin him,” the old man went on without noticing the interruption; “’twas only that two other churches was a-runnin’ opposition to us and their preachers were young men and were drawing off our young people; I thought if we had a young man to preach for us we might get ’em all back again. ’Twas zeal that made me do it, misguided zeal; you see I hadn’t studied it out about religious secks then as I have since.”

But we need not give a full report of that meeting. It was not conducted by parliamentary rules, but its enactments went into effect next day.

Grover Cleveland and gran’daddy, side by side in the old farm wagon, took the road while it was still so dark that they must needs give the mules the rein. But there were other early risers in that community, for by sunrise Campbell and Greenlee and Brevard and others wereplaying away with hammer and trowel upon the Ledbetter cabin. They repaired the roof, they cemented into place the loose stones of the fireplace, and topped out the fallen chimney; between the logs they spatted clay—taken from the road in front but good as imperial Cæsar’s—and stopped the cracks “to keep the wind away.” They propped the leaning cow shed and before noon an occupant, “mighty nigh all Jersey,” was chewing her cud, while over her head was stored fodder sufficient to keep her chewing till pastures were green. Her neighbour on the other side of a partition was a Kentucky-bred roan mare, which but a few hours ago had been the property of Captain Campbell; he had appeared upon the scene riding a gray and leading the roan all saddled and ready for the road and had made her comfortable in this new home.

In durance a heterogeneous collection of chickens were making one another’s acquaintance over a collation of corn, the only unsociable one among them being Aunt Dicey’s old black hen; her powers were all employed in an effort to rid herself of a streamer of red flannel which the old lady had tied to her tail to discourage her sitting propensities.

Within doors the Christmas tree with its unshed mask still monopolized one room, but in the other cheerful hands worked a metamorphosis. Cobwebs, litter, and soil disappeared, and furniture, country made but adapted to its purpose, took its place. Upon the tough and rough old chestnut floor they levelled a bed of hay and, so that it was soft as pillows to the tread, what matter that each breadth of the rag carpet they spread upon it showed different tones of homemade dyes and the weave of a differentloom? In one corner they corded together a bedstead in the good old fashion of their great-grandparents, and the bed they reared upon it was a marvel. There was a mattress of oat straw and one of corn-husks, a bed of stripped hens’ feathers and one of geese feathers, and bolsters and pillows in numbers sufficient to accommodate a family of hydras. Aunt Dicey furnished blankets spun and woven by her own hands from wool of her own shearing, and among a collection of quilts was a wonderful one of old Mis’ Jimson’s piecing. It contained, by actual count, three thousand one hundred and seventy-nine pieces and she called it “The Foundation of the Great Deep.” When at last that bed was made up, the turkey red cherubs on the pillow-shams (almost the only shams that modernity had introduced among those artless people) lay very close to therafters. Its makers viewed it with admiration and complacency, but Deacon Higgins looked dubious:

“They’re a tollable spry old couple,” he said, “but”—and he wheeled a barrel of potatoes alongside as a suggestion of means of getting into bed.

It would take a readier pen than mine to enumerate and describe all the gifts that were brought to that plenishing. The cupboard door refused to close upon the array of ham, hominy, and honey (the three h’s of the mountaineer), the salt-rising bread, and the soda biscuit.

Major Greenlee was a carpenter. For half a day he planed, sawed, and hammered in a corner and when his work took form it was a capacious meal bin. When bagfuls of corn meal had been emptied into it till it was “plumb full” they all surveyed it with satisfaction and “reckonedthe gourd wouldn’t scrape the bottom of that before spring.”

All day long pedestrians and vehicles had been coming and going before the old house as never before in its history and yet when the sun had set the sky on fire behind the Bald, the gathered people were still awaiting an arrival.

They scanned a mountain road above them, visible only in short lengths where it emerged from the forests into the clearings.

“I see ’em!” a far-sighted old man shouted with a boy’s enthusiasm, “I see Colonel Ledbetter’s white mules! Now they’re behind May’s Peak, you’ll see ’em come out on t’other side.”

And so they watched them from point to point and every time they came into view a squad ran in to re-inspect the cabin and see that every thing was in order.

At last the white mules stoodbefore the door. Colonel Ledbetter and Grover Cleveland sat on the front seat of the wagon, and on chairs behind them sat Preacher Carr and his wife.

Strong hands assisted the wife to alight, but the preacher sprang over the wheel to greet his people. They crowded round him and the young cried, “Merry Christmas,” and the old said, “Welcome Home.”

They seated the pair beside their old beloved fireside. They were eight years older than when they had left it. The preacher had “held his own,” but when they took off the good wife’s bonnet her hair showed very white. A tender hand smoothed it.

“We are growing old,” said the preacher, but they told him that the gospel that he preached and lived would never grow old. They told him too of repairs to be made in the old church; it would lookjust as it used to look but over the door there would be the inscription:

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thyself.

The tree was stripped; the white mules were headed homeward; old man Ledbetter gathered up his reins and a tired little lad nestled close to his side.

“Wake up, Grover Cleveland, wake up! Don’t you hear ’em singing! Jine in, Grover Cleveland, jine in!”

Within the cabin a chorus swelled; without, one thin little voice piped free and clear:

“Crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, Lord of all.”

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