Boarding Round/Chapter 19

Mr. Sears passed from his attempted boarding at Kiah Kane's to the Methodist parsonage, stopping by the way one night at his "home." Mrs. Watkins kept her house in the finest order, and the welcome which she gave to their teacher was most cordial. He, too, was in a condition to appreciate it. Mrs. Kane had received him with just as great kindness, but it was impossible that she make his stay at her house pleasant. The demon of strong drink had utterly destroyed what might have been a happy family life. And now Mr. Sears was about to visit another family, where still worse havoc had been wrought by the same foul agent. Mr. Watkins had planned to go the next day, to investigate the condition of Devil's Lane, as there were people in that vicinity, who he thought ought to attend his church, but did not. He proposed to take the teacher with him, if that would be agreeable. The proposition was most gladly accepted by Mr. Sears, for one ​of his scholars lived in that remote corner of the district. He had been there, as one of the committee for charitable work among the poor; but he had not called at the house where the minister proposed to visit. The lady members of his committee were unwilling to call there. In fact, they felt afraid to do so. Mr. Watkins also was especially pleased to have the teacher go with him, because of his lameness. He yet had to have assistance at times. So they planned to go together. The one could thus have a sympathetic friend with him in his pastoral work, and the other secured at least the moral support of the man of God in reconnoitering a stronghold, in which it was reported danger might be lurking for the unwary.

The master dismissed his school a little earlier than usual. With a few days of warmer weather, the snow had largely disappeared, so Mr. Watkins took his carriage for the ride. He was already waiting at the schoolhouse door when the scholars came out. Thus the two men started off happily together. Their conversation naturally turned upon the prospect before them. They would encourage each other. The minister assured his young friend that there could be nothing to harm them if they trusted in the Lord. The master assented, at the same time, he thought it well to remember the advice of Cromwell to his soldiers—to keep their pow​der dry. They discussed the probable difficulties in their way, and under certain adverse conditions, the best methods of approach. It might facilitate matters that it be understood how they should introduce themselves; and it was agreed that the minister should introduce the schoolmaster, and the schoolmaster should introduce the minister. So far the way seemed plain. They were agreed upon that. And they came to be perfectly agreed upon another thing—they were not afraid. They said to each other, "Now we are out on an important errand; let us put on a calm, bold face, and under all circumstances, preserve our equanimity. And let us proceed at once to where His Satanic Majesty lives."

There was a man in the neighborhood which they were proceeding to visit, by the name of Hawley, a notorious character, known in all the region round about for his profanity, and destructive spirit, when drunk. When mad with rum, his temper was something fearful. Then violence was as his native breath. His fury was like that of a tornado; it tore up everything it touched. But his voice! this was within the comprehension of those only who had heard it. His neighbors often affirmed that they had had no difficulty in distinguishing his call to his hogs—which ran in the road—at a distance of more than half a mile. But the listening to Lemuel Hawley's voice was, to the minister and ​the schoolmaster, an event still in the future. They drove steadily on. Arriving at Mr. Hawley's, and finding no hitching post, they turned back a few rods, and were making use of the garden fence, when the gentleman himself drove up. "Old Lem," as he was more often called, had been to Mr. Huggins' store to get his jug refilled; and he had improved the opportunity to get himself refilled at the same time. As he came in sight of his house, he saw two men hitching a horse to his garden fence, and it did not strike him pleasantly. So, as he felt under the necessity of giving vent to the pressure of his wounded feelings in some way, he raised himself up from his seat, and with the broomstick which he used in place of a whip, gave the animal before him a furious blow. This poor creature now had reason, like its master, to feel that it was not struck pleasantly, and it made a spring forward. This gave the man who had risen to his feet, an unusually quick motion backward, and he sat down—not on the narrow board across the wagon, but right behind it, bringing his spinal column into close proximity to the bottom of the wagon-body, while his two hands and his two feet pointed skyward, like the legs of an inverted table. His reins, his hat, and his broomstick, made for the ground, on different sides of the wagon.

"Whoa! who-a! who-o-a!"

​The schoolmaster very quickly arrived on the scene, and the minister, with as great speed as his lameness would permit, both seizing the horse by the bridle; but there was little need of that, for the docile creature had already stopped. It was not in the habit of going, faster than a walk, very far, without stopping to take breath. The occupant of the wagon-body rolled on one side sufficiently to look his visitors in the face. These, remembering their solemn resolution to preserve their equanimity, and also St. Paul's admonition "to think soberly as they ought to think," tried to keep their countenances from undue distortion; but with indifferent success. They were conscious of failure. They were like a great many other people, who find putting their theories in practice much more difficult than believing them. And so it was that, in spite of themselves, the unspent forces of their native depravity did get the upper hand, and they gave way to an improper feeling of merriment. They felt that this was too bad, especially as the minister, in all the solemnity of his office, was making his first pastoral call.

The man whom they wished to assist, beheld their faces, that they were, in one sense, no more sober than he was in another.

What a disastrous failure of their carefully laid plan for mutual introductions! But they tried to feel that, in so far as they had no control of circumstances, they were not re​sponsible. They both now began to try to say something:

"Mr. Hawley, I believe." "I hope you are not hurt." "How can we assist you?" "You didn't strike your head, did you?"

By the time these and other sympathetic remarks had been made, "Old Lem" had gotten his feet over the side of the wagonbody, and holding on the board seat, could sit up. He had waited for his visitors to speak, and then he thought his turn had come. He sat with glaring eyes, like a wolf at bay. Suddenly, much like when "the boy stood on the burning deck," "there came a burst of thunder sound," and the minister and the schoolmaster, where were they?

"Who are you? Where d'ye come from?"

Mr. Watkins then attempted to do what they, on the way, had decided to be the proper thing.

"This is Mr. Sears, your schoolmaster, Mr. Hawley. I wanted to come up to make you a call, and he—"

"You wanted to come! and who are you? Talking about my bein' hurt! I sh'd think you was the one that's hurt."

Now it was the master's turn to introduce.

"I am happy to make you acquainted with our new minister, Mr. Watkins. You have probably heard—"

"Yes, I have heard." (Here a volley of oaths came in that may not be repeated.) ​"I've heard enough about men who hain't got nothin' to do but to git up an' talk Sundays. An' ye needn't come here to talk to me week days. When I want to hear a minister, I can go where he is."

"That's right; I shall always be glad to have you come where I am," replied Mr. Watkins. "But I like to go where the people are, too, that I may get acquainted with them in their homes."

"Wal, you'll find religion is a mighty scarce article 'round here. We used to raise a little, but we hain't planted any for some years, and it's pretty much run out. If ye're goin' to keep any, ye've got to tend to it."

"So I think, Mr. Hawley. I wish I could attend to it better."

"I wish so too. Then you wouldn't come 'round here. All the religion there is here comes in that jug."

This he said with a chuckle, followed with more oaths.

"Can't we assist you in getting out of your wagon," asked the schoolmaster.

"Assist me! I can get out." The awfully profane self-imprecations should he fail, are omitted.

The intoxicated man then sprang over the wheel of his wagon and fell sprawling in the mud. His obtrusive friends kindly raised him up.

"You needn't do no more. I c'n stand. ​This mud! If this snow had stayed on, as it ought to." The qualifying adjectives are omitted. The master proceeded to take the horse from the wagon. The minister leaned on his staff, and Mr. Hawley held his jug in one hand, while he steadied himself beside a wheel with the other.

"Lízy! Lízy! where are you? Why ain't ye 'round here to help? Take this horse to the stable. Take this horse, I say."

"How do you do?" said the master to his scholar. "Is this your home? So then you live here, Eliza. Shan't I help you?"

"Oh, no, thank you, sir. I can do it."

Eliza started with the horse for the barn, while her father, grasping more tightly the handle of the jug, began to make his way towards the house.

"Can't I help you?" said Mr. Sears. "I'll carry your—"

"Come in, come along, both of you. I'll help you. I treat my friends when they come. You never had a treat, did you?"

The old trembling man kept on his feet till he reached the doorstep, when, stubbing his toe against the edge of it, he fell flat, and his jug went into several pieces. His attendants tried to help him, and get him up.

"I hope you haven't hurt yourself," said the minister.

"Where's that jug?" The oaths are omitted.

​"I fear your jug is seriously injured," was the involuntary interjection of the master, who immediately chided himself for the tone of his remark. It would not be proper to repeat what the prostrate man said as he was raised up, and assisted into the house. On reaching the kitchen, Mrs. Hawley, who was ironing at a table in the middle of the room, set some chairs near the fire. Her husband was persuaded to occupy one of them, while the other two men sat, one on each side of him. But he was very far from being happy. He was not in a mood to bear disappointment with composure. The breaking of that jug was an unlooked-for calamity. The world appeared to him bad enough before; but now it had grown much worse. And no part of it seemed so bad to him as the people among whom the minister resided, and who made up the membership of his church. So he commenced giving his opinion of the Methodist brethren and sisters. Turning to Mr. Watkins:

"I don't want any more of your religion. I've got more'n I c'n 'tend to now. So don't ye be disappointed, if ye don't do any peddlin' here. But as ye've come, I'm goin' to tell ye some things that mebbe ye don't know."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Hawley, you can tell me a great deal that I don't know. I'm always seeking information."

"Wal, ye don't know the folks here—the ​good folks, I mean. It wouldn't be very strange if I sh'd give ye a little information that ye hain't come after."

"I want to know about my people," said the minister meekly.

"Wal, I think you'll git more'n you'll want 'fore you've been here a year. Them ancient females down there will inform you of things you have never dreamed of."

"Good things, I hope," the minister ventured to suggest.

"Good things! did ye ever know any good things come from women?"

"Some, it seems to me," the minister still protested.

"Now, I tell ye how 'tis." And Mr. Hawley began to feel reconciled to the situation. He would like to talk to his visitors. He had something to say to them. So he went on:

"You have forgotten how things got started in this world. This world is full of bad things, but it was a woman who set them going. It was Eve, not Adam. As Milton says, 'She plucked and ate.' She bit into the apple, and instantly felt the coursing of sin through her veins. Then she gave to Adam. Poor fellow! he didn't know what she was givin' him; but she did know. She didn't know when she first took the apple; and Adam didn't know, when she offered him a bite; but she did know. She deliberately ​set the wickedness to going in Adam. She was the first one to sin, not in ignorance, but knowingly. Now I've heard all these things preached. I attended your church till a few years ago. I know what you folks preach. Now you see that Eve, knowing what she was doing, made Adam sin. And that is what she has been doing ever since. I should have had something in the world, if it had not been for the bad influence of women. My woman here is all right, but then. So, Mr. Watkins, it's the women in your parish that you've got to 'tend to. Some on 'em are old, an' some are young, some are middle aged, and some ain't anywhere. There's that correspondent of The Looking-glass—what's her name?—you'd better keep on the right side of her, if ye want to stay where ye are. Many a minister, as good as you are, has been rooted out of his home by the correspondent of some local paper. (The profane adjectives are omitted.) So do you keep that woman from throwin' out hints. You can't patch up the mischief she can do ye. But she'll keep ye all right if you pat her softly, and praise her a little once in a while. There's another woman there, Soph Haggleton; she's young yet, though she used to go to church there when I went. She used to try to be a leader in the sewing society when my woman here belonged to it. Them women have been workin' for the poor folks over here lately. ​I've seen 'em go by here. They said they come from there. There was a young feller and two girls. They've been over here two or three times. They say he had different women each time. The same old work of Eve and her female descendants! Them women in your church go along till they can't.—by stretching the truth, where they usually stretch it,—can't be called young, and then they have one kind o' work to do, and that is to take care of their minister. You'll find they'll take care o' you, an' your wife. You have one I s'pose. If ye hain't, there's chances enough 'round here to git one. You have one woman in your church that I guess you know well enough by this time, Liz Gimbleton. She's a kind o' cousin to my wife here. She was born into the world to take care of the minister and the minister's wife. She'd be good looking if her eyes wa'n't crossed, and she hadn't red hair. If 't wa’n't for these, you wouldn't notice her sharp nose and her peaked chin. Oh, Liz is nice in her way. She can plan other folks' business the best of anybody I ever saw. She comes up here once in a while, but she never speaks to me. Wal, I don't have to look her in the face so much as if she did. She's a good girl." This he said with unpleasant words, that consigned poor Liz to an undesirable situation. Upon this, Mrs. Hawley, who had continued her ironing, with her back toward her visitors, ​turned around to her husband, and with a face as bland as a June morning, said in the softest, sweetest tones, "Why, Mr. Hawley, how you do talk! I think a great deal of my cousin Lizzie. She's one of the best friends that we—"

"'TEND to your business!"

This example of dynamite stress of voice, following the course of the fist, that was thrust up into Mrs. Hawley's face, occasioned a sudden change of scene in that domestic drama. It was much as if a shell, dropped in the midst, had burst with a terrific crash, the fragments flying in every direction. The minister and the schoolmaster involuntarily put their hands up, as if to hold their heads on. Personal safety was the subject uppermost in their minds just then. And as the oaths, which seemed to rebound from the mantel to the window panes, and then strike in other places about the room, were growing louder and hotter, Mr. Watkins wisely concluded that his present usefulness was at an end; so, motioning to the master to get their hats, he began to make the best time his infirmities would permit, in efforts to reach the outside door. The schoolmaster acted as a kind of rear guard. Once or twice he turned, and tried to say good evening, but he could not be heard. The minister wished to be equally polite, but circumstances did not permit him to give any proper expression to his ​wishes. For the instant, he forgot the solemn declaration which he and the schoolmaster had made to each other, on starting out, that they were not afraid. The only reasonable explanation that could be made was, that they were not afraid then; but that such declaration of their mental state did not necessarily include the future. That circumstances alter cases, is a law, which they for once had no disposition to dispute, in its practical application. So the minister and the schoolmaster got safely out of doors!

While riding home, after a good deal of conversation which partook somewhat of the nature of mutual condolence, they came to be in perfect, and somewhat happy, agreement, that in making pastoral calls, one cannot tell beforehand what may be included in such calls, or what may be the result.