Prairie Folks Page 4

  III.

  Mr. Pill, with all his seeming levity, was a powerful hand at revivals,as was developed at the "protracted" meetings held at the Corners duringDecember. Indeed, such was the pitiless intensity of his zeal that agloom was cast over the whole township; the ordinary festivities stoppedor did not begin at all.

  The lyceum, which usually began by the first week in December, was putentirely out of the question, as were the spelling-schools and"exhibitions." The boys, it is true, still drove the girls to meeting inthe usual manner; but they all wore a furtive, uneasy air, and theirlaughter was not quite genuine at its best, and died away altogetherwhen they came near the school-house, and they hardly recovered from theeffects of the preaching till a mile or two had been spun behind theshining runners. It took all the magic of the jingle of the bells andthe musical creak of the polished steel on the snow to win them back tolaughter.

  As for Elder Pill, he was as a man transformed. He grew more intenseeach night, and strode back forth behind his desk and pounded the Biblelike an assassin. No more games with the boys, no more poking the girlsunder the chin! When he asked for a chew of tobacco now it was with anair which said: "I ask it as sustenance that will give me strength forthe Lord's service," as if the demands of the flesh had weakened thespirit.

  Old man Bacon overtook Milton Jennings early one Monday morning, asMilton was marching down toward the Seminary at Rock River. It wasintensely cold and still, so cold and still that the ring of the coldsteel of the heavy sleigh, the snort of the horses, and the old man'svoice came with astonishing distinctness to the ears of the hurryingyouth, and it seemed a very long time before the old man came up.

  "Climb on!" he yelled, out of his frosty beard. He was seated on the"hind bob" of a wood-sleigh, on a couple of blankets. Milton clamberedon, knowing well he'd freeze to death there.

  "Reckon I heerd you prowlun' around the front door with my girl lastnight," Bacon said at length. "The way you both 'tend out t' meetun'ought 'o sanctify yeh; must 'a' stayed to the after-meetun', didn'tyeh?"

  "Nope. The front part was enough for"----

  "Danged if I was any more fooled with a man in m' life. I b'lieve thewhole thing is a little scheme on the bretheren t' raise a dollar."

  "Why so?"

  "Waal, y' see Pill ain't got much out o' the app'intment thus fur, andhe ain't likely to, if he don't shake 'em up a leetle. Borrud tendollars o' me t'other day."

  Well, thought Milton, whatever his real motive is, Elder Pill is earningall he gets. Standing for two or three hours in his place night afternight, arguing, pleading, but mainly commanding them to be saved.

  Milton was describing the scenes of the meeting to Bradley Talcott andDouglas Radbourn the next day, and Radbourn, a young law student said:

  "I'd like to see him. He must be a character."

  "Let's make up a party and go out," said Milton, eagerly.

  "All right; I'll speak to Lily Graham."

  Accordingly, that evening a party of students, in a large sleigh, droveout toward the school-house, along the drifted lanes and through thebeautiful aisles of the snowy woods. A merry party of young people, whohad no sense of sin to weigh them down. Even Radbourn and Lily joined inthe songs which they sang to the swift clanging of the bells, until thelights of the school-house burned redly through the frosty air.

  Not a few of the older people present felt scandalized by the singingand by the dancing of the "town girls," who could not for the life ofthem take the thing seriously. The room was so little, and hot, andsmoky, and the men looked so queer in their rough coats and hairevery-which-way.

  But they took their seats demurely on the back seat, and joined in theopening songs, and listened to the halting prayers of the brethren andthe sonorous prayers of the Elder, with commendable gravity. Miss Grahamwas a devout Congregationalist, and hushed the others into gravity whentheir eyes began to dance dangerously.

  However, as Mr. Pill warmed to his work, the girls grew sober enough. Heawed them, and frightened them with the savagery of his voice andmanner. His small gray eyes were like daggers unsheathed, and his small,round head took on a cat-like ferocity, as he strode to and fro, hurlingout his warnings and commands in a hoarse howl that terrified thesinner, and drew 'amens' of admiration from the saints.

  "Atavism; he has gone back to the era of the medicine man," Radbournmurmured.

  As the speaker went on, foam came upon his thin lips; his lifted handhad prophecy and threatening in it. His eyes reflected flames; his voicehad now the tone of the implacable, vindictive judge. He gloated on thepictures that his words called up. By the power of his imagination thewalls widened, the floor was no longer felt, the crowded room grewstill as death, every eye fixed on the speaker's face.

  "I tell you, you must repent or die. I can see the great judgment angelnow!" he said, stopping suddenly and pointing above the stove-pipe. "Ican see him as he stands weighing your souls as a man 'ud weigh wheatand chaff. Wheat goes into the Father's garner; chaff is blown to hell'sdevouring flame! I can see him _now_! He seizes a poor, damned,struggling soul by the _neck_, he holds him over the flaming forge of_hell_ till his bones melt like wax; he shrivels like thread in a flameof a candle; he is nothing but a charred husk, and the angel flings himback into _outer darkness_; life was not in him."

  It was this astonishing figure, powerfully acted, that scared poor TomDixon into crying out for mercy. The effect on the rest was awful. Tosee so great a sinner fall terror-stricken seemed like a providentialstroke of confirmatory evidence, and nearly a dozen other young peoplefell crying. Whereat the old people burst out into amens withunspeakable fervor. But the preacher, the wild light still in his eyes,tore up and down, crying above the tumult:

  "The Lord is come with _power_! His hand is visible _here_. Shout_aloud_ and spare _not_. Fall before him as _dust_ to his feet!Hypocrites, vipers, scoffers! the _lash_ o' the _Lord_ is on ye!"

  In the intense pause which followed as he waited with expectant,uplifted face--a pause so deep even the sobbing sinners held theirbreath--a dry, drawling, utterly matter-of-fact voice broke the tensehush.

  "S-a-y, Pill, ain't you a bearun' down on the boys a _leetle too_ hard?"

  The preacher's extended arm fell as if life had gone out of it. His faceflushed and paled; the people laughed hysterically, some of them thetears of terror still on their cheeks; but Radbourn said, "Bravo,Bacon!"

  Pill recovered himself.

  "Not hard enough for _you_, neighbor Bacon."

  Bacon rose, retaining the same dry, prosaic tone:

  "I ain't bitin' that kind of a hook, an' I ain't goin' to be _yanked_into heaven when I c'n _slide_ into hell. Waal! I must be goin'; I'vegot a new-milk's cow that needs tendin' to."

  The effect of all this was indescribable. From being at the very mouthof the furnace, quivering with fear and captive to morbid imaginings,Bacon's dry intonation had brought them all back to earth again. Theysaw a little of the absurdity of the whole situation.

  Pill was beaten for the first time in his life. He had been struck belowthe belt by a good-natured giant. The best he could do, as Baconshuffled calmly out, was to stammer: "Will some one please sing?" Andwhile they sang, he stood in deep thought. Just as the last verse wasquivering into silence, the full, deep tones of Radbourn's voice roseabove the bustle of feet and clatter of seats:

  "And all _that_ he preaches in the name of Him who came bringing peaceand good-will to men."

  Radbourn's tone had in it reproach and a noble suggestion. The peoplelooked at him curiously. The deacons nodded their heads together incounsel, and when they turned to the desk Pill was gone!

  "Gee whittaker! That was tough," said Milton to Radbourn; "knocked thewind out o' him like a cannon-ball. What'll he do now?

  "He can't do anything but acknowledge his foolishness."

  "You no business t' come here an' 'sturb the Lord's meetin'," cried oldDaddy Brown to Radbourn. "You're a sinner and a scoffer."

  "I thought Bacon was the d
isturbing ele"----

  "You're just as bad!"

  "He's all _right_," said William Councill. "I've got sick, m'self, ofbein' _scared_ into religion. I never was so fooled in a man in my life.If I'd tell you what Pill said to me the other day, when we was inRobie's store, you'd fall in a fit. An' to hear him talkin' heret'night, is enough to make a horse laugh."

  "You're all in league with the devil," said the old man wildly; and sothe battle raged on.

  Milton and Radbourn escaped from it, and got out into the clear, cold,untainted night.

  "The heat of the furnace don't reach as far as the horses," Radbournmoralized, as he aided in unhitching the shivering team. "In the vast,calm spaces of the stars, among the animals, such scenes as we have justseen are impossible." He lifted his hand in a lofty gesture. The lightfell on his pale face and dark eyes.

  The girls were a little indignant and disposed to take the preacher'spart. They thought Bacon had no right to speak out that way, and MissGraham uttered her protest, as they whirled away on the homeward ridewith pleasant jangle of bells.

  "But the secret of it all was," said Radbourn in answer, "Pill knew hewas acting a part. I don't mean that he meant to deceive, but he gotexcited, and his audience responded as an audience does to an actor ofthe first class, and he was for the time in earnest; his imagination_did_ see those horrors,--he was swept away by his own words. But whenBacon spoke, his dry tone and homely words brought everybody, preacherand all, back to the earth with a thump! Every body saw that, afterweeping and wailing there for an hour, they'd go home, feed the calves,hang up the lantern, put out the cat, wind the clock, and go to bed. Inother words, they all came back out of their barbaric _powwow_ to theirnatural modern selves."

  This explanation had palpable truth, but Lily had a dim feeling that ithad wider application than to the meeting they had just left.

  "They'll be music around this clearing to-morrow," said Milton, with asigh; "wish I was at home this week."

  "But what'll become of Mr. Pill?"

  "Oh, he'll come out all right," Radbourn assured her, and Milton's cleartenor rang out as he drew Eileen closer to his side:

  "O silver moon, O silver moon, You set, you set too soon-- The morrow day is far away, The night is but begun."