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  PART II.

  THE TEST OF ELDER PILL: THE COUNTRY PREACHER

  The lonely center of their social life, The low, square school-house, stands Upon the wind-swept plain, Hacked by thoughtless boyish hands, And gray, and worn, and warped with strife Of sleet and autumn rain.

  ELDER PILL, PREACHER.

  I.

  Old man Bacon was pinching forked barbs on a wire fence one rainy day inJuly, when his neighbor Jennings came along the road on his way to town.Jennings never went to town except when it rained too hard to workoutdoors, his neighbors said; and of old man Bacon it was said he_never_ rested _nights_ nor Sundays.

  Jennings pulled up. "Good morning, neighbor Bacon."

  "Mornin'," rumbled the old man without looking up.

  "Taking it easy, as usual, I see. Think it's going to clear up?"

  "May, an' may not. Don't make much differunce t' me," growled Bacon,discouragingly.

  "Heard about the plan for a church?"

  "Naw."

  "Well, we're goin' to hire Elder Pill from Douglass to come over andpreach every Sunday afternoon at the school-house, an' we want help t'pay him--the laborer is worthy of his hire."

  "Sometimes he is an' then agin he ain't. Y' needn't look t' me f'r adollar. I ain't got no intrust in y'r church."

  "Oh, yes, you have--besides, y'r wife "----

  "She ain't got no more time 'n I have t' go t' church. We're obleeged todo 'bout all we c'n stand t' pay our debts, let alone tryun' to supporta preacher." And the old man shut the pinchers up on a barb with avicious grip.

  Easy-going Mr. Jennings laughed in his silent way. "I guess you'll helpwhen the time comes," he said, and, clucking to his team, drove off.

  "I guess I won't," muttered the grizzled old giant as he went on withhis work. Bacon was what is called land-poor in the West, that is, hehad more land than money; still he was able to give if he felt disposed.It remains to say that he was _not_ disposed, being a sceptic and ascoffer. It angered him to have Jennings predict so confidently that hewould help.

  The sun was striking redly through a rift in the clouds, about threeo'clock in the afternoon, when he saw a man coming up the lane, walkingon the grass at the side of the road, and whistling merrily. The old manlooked at him from under his huge eyebrows with some curiosity. As hedrew near, the pedestrian ceased to whistle, and, just as the farmerexpected him to pass, he stopped and said, in a free and easy style:

  "How de do? Give me a chaw t'baccer. I'm Pill, the new minister. I takefine-cut when I can get it," he said, as Bacon put his hand into hispocket. "Much obliged. How goes it?"

  "Tollable, tollable," said the astounded farmer, looking hard at Pill ashe flung a handful of tobacco into his mouth.

  "Yes, I'm the new minister sent around here to keep you fellows in thetraces and out of hell-fire. Have y' fled from the wrath?" he asked, ina perfunctory way.

  "You are, eh?" said Bacon, referring back to his profession.

  "I am just! How do you like that style of barb fence? Ain't the twistedwire better?"

  "I s'pose they be, but they cost more."

  "Yes, costs more to go to heaven than to hell. You'll think so after Iboard with you a week. Narrow the road that leads to light, and broadthe way that leads--how's your soul anyway, brother?"

  "Soul's all right. I find more trouble to keep m' body go'n'."

  "Give us your hand; so do I. All the same we must prepare for the nextworld. We're gettin' old; lay not up your treasures where moth and rustcorrupt and thieves break through and steal."

  Bacon was thoroughly interested in the preacher, and was studying himcarefully. He was tall, straight, and superbly proportioned;broad-shouldered, wide-lunged, and thewed like a Greek racer. His rathersmall steel-blue eyes twinkled, and his shrewd face and small head, setwell back, completed a remarkable figure. He wore his reddish beard inthe usual way of Western clergymen, with mustache chopped close.

  Bacon spoke slowly:

  "You look like a good, husky man to pitch in the barnyard; you've toomuch muscle f'r preachun'."

  "Come and hear me next Sunday, and if you say so then, I'll quit,"replied Mr. Pill, quietly. "I give ye my word for it. I believe inpreachers havin' a little of the flesh and the devil; they cansympathize better with the rest of ye." The sarcasm was lost on Bacon,who continued to look at him. Suddenly he said, as if with aninvoluntary determination:

  "Where ye go'n' to stay t'night?"

  "I don' know; do you?" was the quick reply.

  "I reckon ye can hang out with me, 'f ye feel like ut. We ain't verypurty, ol' woman an' me, but we eat. You go along down the road and tell'er I sent yeh. Y'll find an' ol' dusty Bible round some'rs--I s'pose yespend y'r spare time read'n about Joshua an' Dan'l"----

  "I spend more time reading men. Well, I'm off! I'm hungrier 'n a graywolf in a bear-trap."

  And off he went as he came. But he did not whistle; he chewed.

  Bacon felt as if he had made too much of a concession, and had a stronginclination to shout after him, and retract his invitation; but he didnot, only worked on, with an occasional bear-like grin. There wassomething captivating in this fellow's free and easy way.

  When he came up to the house an hour or two later, in singular goodhumor for him, he found the Elder in the creamery, with "the old woman"and Marietta. Marietta was not more won by him than was Jane Bacon, hewas so genial and put on so few religious frills.

  Mrs. Bacon never put on frills of any kind. She was a most frightfultoiler, only excelled (if excelled at all) by her husband. She was stillmuscular in her age and shapelessness. Unlovely at her best, when abouther work in her faded calico gown and flat shoes, hair wisped into aslovenly knot, she was depressing. But she was a good woman, of sterlingintegrity, and ambitious for her girl.

  Marietta was as attractive as her mother was depressing. She was veryyoung at this time and had the physical perfection--at least as regardsbody--that her parents must have had in youth. She was above the averageheight of woman, with strong swell of bosom and glorious, erectcarriage of head. Her features were coarse, but regular and pleasing,and her manner boyish.

  Elder Pill was on the best of terms with them as he watched the milkbeing skimmed out of the "submerged cans" ready for the "caaves andhawgs," as Mrs. Bacon called them.

  "Dad told you t' come here 'nd stay t' supper, did he? What's come overhim?" said the girl, with a sort of audacious humor.

  "Dad has an awful grutch agin preachers," said Mrs. Bacon, as she wipedher hands on her apron. "I declare, I don't see how "----

  "_Some_ preachers, not _all_ preachers," laughed Pill, in his mellownasal. "There are preachers, and then again preachers. I'm one o' thet'other kind."

  "I sh'd think y' was," laughed the girl.

  "Now, Merry Etty, you run right t' the pig-pen with that milk, whilst Igo in an' set the tea on."

  Mr. Pill seized the can of milk, saying, with a twang: "Show me the waythat I may walk therein," and, accompanied by the laughing girl, maderapid way to the pig-pen just as the old man set up a ferocious shout tocall the hired hand out of the cornfield.

  "How'd y' come to send _him_ here?" asked Mrs. Bacon, nodding towardPill.

  "Damfino! I kind o' liked him--no nonsense about him," answered Bacon,going into temporary eclipse behind his hands as he washed his face atthe cistern.

  At the supper table Pill was "easy as an old shoe," ate with his knife,talked on fatting hogs, suggested a few points on raising clover, toldof pioneer experiences in Michigan, and soon won them--hired man andall--to a most favorable opinion of himself. But he did not trench onreligious matters at all.

  The hired man in his shirt-sleeves, and smelling frightfully of tobaccoand sweat (as did Bacon), sat with open month, at times forgetting toeat, in his absorbing interest in the minister's yarns.

  "Yes, I've got a family, too much of a family, in fact--that is, I thinkso sometimes when I'm pinched. Our Western people are so indigent--inplain terms, poor--they _can'
t_ do any better than they do. But we pullthrough--we pull through! John, you look like a stout fellow, but I'llbet a hat I can _down_ you three out of five."

  "I bet you can't," grinned the hired man. It was the climax of all, thatbet.

  "I'll take y' in hand an' flop y' both," roared Bacon from his lion-likethroat, his eyes glistening with rare good-nature from the shadow of hisgray brows. But he admired the minister's broad shoulders at the sametime. If this fellow panned out as he promised, he was a rare specimen.

  After supper the Elder played a masterly game of croquet with Marietta,beating her with ease; then he wandered out to the barn and talkedhorses with the hired man, and finished by stripping off his coat andputting on one of Mrs. Bacon's aprons to help milk the cows.

  * * * * *

  But at breakfast the next morning, when the family were about pitchinginto their food as usual without ceremony, "_Wait!_" said the visitor,in an imperious tone and with lifted hand. "Let us look to the Lord forHis blessing."

  They waited till the grace was said, but it threw a depressingatmosphere over the meal; evidently they considered the trouble begun.At the end of the meal the minister asked:

  "Have you a Bible in the house?"

  "I reckon there's one in the house somewhere. Merry, go 'n see 'f y'can't raise one," said Mrs. Bacon, indifferently.

  "Have you any objection to family devotion?" asked Pill, as the book wasplaced in his hands by the girl.

  "No; have all you want," said Bacon, as he rose from the table andpassed out the door.

  "I guess I'll see the thing through," said the hand. "It ain't justsquare to leave the women folks to bear the brunt of it."

  It was shortly after breakfast that the Elder concluded he'd walk up toBrother Jennings' and see about church matters.

  "I shall expect you, Brother Bacon, to be at the service at 2:30."

  "All right, go ahead expectun'," responded Bacon, with an inscrutablesidewise glance.

  "You promised, you remember?"

  "The--devil--I did!" the old man snarled.

  The Elder looked back with a smile, and went off whistling in the warm,bright morning.