Teeftallow/Chapter 18

ON THE fifth morning of the protracted meeting, Nessie Sutton was bold enough to walk out of the dining room of the Scovell House with Abner Teeftallow and see him off to work.

Nessie had a certain right to do this without being gossiped about because she and Abner went to meeting together every night, she had prayed for Abner publicly at the invitation of the minister, kneeling by his side and silently asking God to save him. This action had given her a position so that she could walk out on the piazza with him without arousing small talk.

At this moment she held to a button on his sleeve.

"And Abner, after you join the church, you could start readin' law of evenings. Mr. Sharp will lend you his books. . . ." She loosed the button and looked at Abner with soft possessive eyes.

"How do you know he would?" asked the teamster, to whom the notion of becoming a lawyer was both vague and repellent.

Nessie coloured slightly. "I—I asked him would he."

"You did!" Abner was surprised at the length the girl had gone. A thing like that Abner was accustomed simply to talk about.

Nessie went on: "Mr. Sharp laughed and said 'Certainly.' He said more Southern girls ought to go in for the professions. He said he would give me quizzes."

"Give you quizzes?"

"Well, y-yes," agreed Nessie, considerate of, and a little pleased at, this jealous note. "I thought I might read it too and remember what he said and sorter help you."

​"Huh—I 'magine we can understand it by ourse'ves."

"So you do want me to get you the book?"

Abner pondered uncertainly and finally said, "Yes."

At this point Mr. Tug Beavers came out on the piazza and Nessie said, "Good-bye. Remember I'm going to pray for you an' Tug at exactly twelve o'clock to-day. (Individual prayers all over the village had been arranged by Reverend Blackman.)

Tug was picking his teeth. He manœuvred his jackknife to say, uncomfortably, "Much obliged, I'm shore," and went on out the gate with Abner.

When they were out of earshot, Tug swore an oath and immediately changed it to "By Gum"—for he was trying to stop swearing—"if this keeps on, somethin's goin' to bust shore's hell—I mean—er—now Mary Lou is goin' to pray for me at twelve, too, an' I God, I think that's wrong—doublin' up on a man!"

Mr. Beavers was clearly disturbed at these unfair spiritual tactics. He went on to complain, "I told 'em last night. I always tried to throw my influence on the right side, but Brother Blackman says, 'You got to throw yourse'f, too.—Hell—er, I mean—" He relapsed into a brooding silence and finally said, "If I don't cuss none I don't see how the hell I'm ever goin' to drive them mules."

Abner likewise was low-spirited. He had been able to elide profanity from his conversation without effort, but the idea of becoming a lawyer annoyed him. He looked upon lawyers from the hill point of view as subtle, rather awesome men who had somehow shifted the burden of life from brawn to brain; but who, nevertheless, were bloodless, leech-like, and unworthy to be classed as men. Now Nessie wanted him to become one of these—women had funny tastes. . . .

"Tug," he asked suddenly, "how would you like to be a lawyer?"

"Lawyer hell—I mean jest lawyer—why?"

"Nessie wants me to be one."

"Well, I be d—" He shut his mouth. (He did not ​see how church members expressed themselves on any point whatever.) A suspicion entered his head. He looked at his friend meaningly.

"Is she ashamed of you bein' a teamster?"

"I hadn't thought of that," mused Abner. "Now, if she don't want to go with a teamster, she don't haff to."

When Nessie Sutton watched the teamsters go to their work, she ran back up the stairs to her room with an exquisite trembling in her breast. It was as if a mocking bird suddenly had begun carolling in her heart. As she went skipping down the long hall to her room she put a hand to her bosom for the sheer physical sweetness of the sensation there. She was so happy she could hardly go about the slight housekeeping duties in her room—sweeping and making her bed.

Abner was going to become a lawyer after exactly the romantic fashion of the novels. It would come about through her prayers and persuasions. After he had practised law for a year or two they would marry and live in a fine house near Lanesburg. Then Nessie's mind made an odd jump. She saw herself in this fine mansion with three children romping on the lawn; one was a boy with brown eyes like Abner's, and two were girls with blue eyes like her own. All biological necessities of bringing these children into the world her mind automatically skipped, but the bird of happiness warbled in her bosom again. She felt all her family would be intensely religious. Her children would kneel at her knees and pray.

In her heart Nessie was glad she was a country girl. She considered town girls more or less irreligious, selfish, and with their dancing, impure.

She had been neglected for a long time here in Irontown, but she had gone faithfully to church, Sunday school, and prayer meeting, and now God had blessed her with this great happiness, this breath-taking ecstasy!

As she whisked off her bedclothes, she began singing the gayest of the hymns she knew, "Let a Little Sunshine In." ​As she sang in her slightly nasal country voice, the real sunshine flooded her bedroom and burned along her floor like the light Moses saw burning on the bush.

At half-past eight Nessie went down to the Grand, and within a few minutes Mrs. Roxie Biggers came in with a scrap of pink calico which she wanted to match with thread. The old woman pawed impatiently among the spools in the coloured tray while she talked of something else.

"This dress is for one of the Skillern childern, pore little things; the Willin' Workers give it an' I'm makin' it." She glanced around to see if any other customer were near and sank her voice.

"You know Mr. Biggers has almost completely overcome his cravin'; ain't that a miracle!"

"He has!" Nessie selected another spool and placed it against the cloth.

"Yes, an' he tol' me this mornin' he b'lieved his faith was a-goin' to pull him through."

"I hope so, Miss Roxie," nodded Nessie earnestly.

"Nessie, in yore prayers, would you min' puttin' in my husban's name an' askin' God to make this cure permanent? I know you are a good Christian girl."

Nessie's heart expanded and tears came to her eyes. "You know I will, Miss Roxie."

Mrs. Biggers made her selection of thread and hurried out of the store compressing her thin lips and narrowing her eyes with the intensity of her purpose. In this instance her purpose was to clothe the children of a destitute family on the edge of town. She was thinking over certain dresses belonging to the children of well-to-do families and she meant to go to the parents and work those dresses out of them for the Skillern children. The old woman was ruthless when it came to forcing other persons to perform charitable deeds. She invariably left every donor angry.

Nessie, with a certain tenderness in her heart, watched her go. Then she went back to the hats Mrs. Peckham had laid out for her. She began sewing some silver lace on a wire hat ​frame and thinking of the time when she would live in a colonial home near Lanesburg with children playing on the lawn—she interrupted her daydream to think, "Dear Christ, have mercy on poor Mr. Biggers and cure him from eating morphine."

Forenoon and afternoon danced by for the happy girl, and at seven-thirty she and Abner set out for church through the limpid evening. Already an irregular procession of people was moving through the streets toward the meeting house, for by now it was necessary to come early to get a seat at all.

Among the line of churchgoers Nessie saw Mrs. Biggers holding her husband's arm and vigorously directing his feeble steps. As usual she was putting so much energy into her directing that she was making it uncomfortable for the invalid at her side. Mr. Biggers himself looked a dozen years older than when Nessie had seen him on the previous Sunday. His face was pasty; he shook, and Nessie sensed by looking at him that this clear pleasant evening was a world of confusion to him. She recalled, with a little pang of self-reproach, her promise to pray for the sick man, for she had forgotten it in her own joys; and now she again murmured fervently, "O Christ, bless Mr. Biggers and take away his cravin' for morphine."

But the intimate pleasure of walking at Abner's side soon swallowed up her concern for anything else.

She pressed his big arm with her fingers and whispered "I borrowed that book from Mr. Sharp this evenin'."

"Did you?" in faint dismay.

"Yes; I have it in my room for you—don't you want to be a lawyer, Abner?"

The mere thought of reading a book depressed Abner.

"Why—yes"—he agreed dubiously, "I suppose so." He recalled Tug's stricture of the morning and glanced around at her. "You ain't ashamed of goin' with a teamster, are you, Nessie?"

Nessie stared in amazement. "Ashamed of you! Me! ​Why, Abner, I—I wouldn't be ashamed of you in the presence of the angels!"

The trembling flame of her affection for him, her pride in him, poured through the girl's fingers and shone through the look in her face.

Abner became suddenly and movingly aware that Nessie loved him. His heart began to beat. A film fell over the evening and blotted out for him the procession of people, the street, the whole village, and left just him and Nessie moving arm-in-arm through a sort of perfumed space. The touch of her fingers felt as intimate to him as the feel of his own flesh; the sentiency of their bodies seemed to pour through their linked arms so that she, in a way, became a very part of his own being; the sweeter, more exquisite part. Unconsciously their breathing fell into rhythm. They moved along through pellucid shadows in silence except for their faint sighs. A strange fancy crossed Nessie's mind, that Abner might, if he liked, walk over her prostrate body with his heavy feet.

A few steps behind them Miss Scovell, eyeing the mere walk of the lovers, whispered acridly to her companion, "Jest look at that—ain't they sickening?"

The spirit of the meeting on that particular night somehow was not so electric as usual. The congregation, perhaps the preacher too, had fallen into one of those slumps which sometimes overtake the most enthusiastic revival. The Reverend Blackman was irritated. Some of his most promising penitents who invariably had come forward to the mourners' bench for the last three or four nights, now, through some perverseness, remained stock still in their seats and would not budge on any proposition.

The minister always worked his hearers into action with "propositions." He would say, "Everybody who wants to meet their mothers in Heaven, walk up and give me your hand! Everybody who wants to see Jesus, come up and give me your hand! What, won't nobody come? Well ​then, anybody who wants to go to Heaven when you die, arise in your seats. Get up, folks! Get up! Everybody that wants to go to Heaven when you die. Say, friends, what's the matter with you? Well, won't you bow your head where you sit in your seats and by that act say, 'I want to go to Heaven when I die'? Brothers! Sisters, what is the matter? Has the devil got you-all in his clutches?"

The real trouble was that the congregation had been over-preached. These village folk had been kept awake for five nights until twelve or one o'clock, and they were accustomed to going to bed at eight. They were exhausted. Now an emotional backwash had set in, but it seemed to the Reverend Blackman that his hearers had decided deliberately to go to hell.

The preacher was as nerve-worn as any in his audience and now he stood in the pulpit in his shirt sleeves, wet with sweat.

"Brothers! Sisters!" he shouted. "Isn't there a single person here who wants to keep out of the fiery torments of the damned!"

The audience blinked in silence. The Reverend Blackman had a feeling that all these immortal souls were somehow plunged into a trance by the power of Satan, and there they sat, the only sign of life their blinking eyes.

A sort of agony went over the preacher; a kind of professional agony, good for one sermon only, which would disappear on the following morning, but which was, nevertheless, a bona-fide agony.

"Brothers! Sisters!" he yelled, flinging out his arms. "For God's sake break the spell of the devil! Kain't you hear his deceitful voice whispering in your hearts, 'Set still, you'll have time enough yet! Go up another time!' Oh, my friends, how do you know there is goin' to be another time?" The minister sobbed. "I know some soul is receiving his last invitation now! I know somebody in this congregation will never have another chance to accept Christ. God pity him! God pity him! Somebody is frittering away ​the very last moment of their chance for salvation! O God, move their hard hearts!

"Brother Northcutt! Sister Biggers! Sister Wendler, get out and work among these lost souls. They are saying by their actions they don't want to meet Jesus in Heaven! They are willing to sink to a burning hell! O my God! What will become of these people! Brother Northcutt, I knew a man once, a doctor in Polk Flat, Alabama, a healthy young man . . ." The Reverend Blackman flung up his hands with a sense of the futility of relating the tragedy. He turned to the choir and motioned for a song.

For some strange reason the choir seemed always exempt from the preacher's maledictions. They were like the Greek chorus, a group explanatory of, but outside of, the dramatic action. Now they began a heavy drumming hymn,

The Reverend Blackman started up the aisle to do personal work. The dissipated face of Mr. Tug Beavers near the door attracted him and he made his way among the seats to Tug's side.

"My friend," he lifted his voice above the plangent uproar, "won't you give your heart to God?"

Tug became exceedingly nervous. "I—I'm goin' to, some day, Brother Blackman."

"Some day! Some day! Brother, don't you know it's the devil whispering that answer? He is standing right by your side lulling you to destruction!"

"I'm comin' up some day," repeated Tug emptily. "I always try to throw my influence on the . . ."

Tug's answers were in a very low voice while the minister meant himself to be heard all over the house.

"But, my God, brother, who knows you will live another day! We are worms of the dust! The least thing may kill you! You are not sure you will ever get home alive to-night! My dear brother, with life that uncertain, and torment ​stretching out for ever and ever, won't you come on now! Don't you want to meet your old gray-haired mother in Heaven? This minute she's reaching down over the battlements of Heaven pleading with you! Pleading, praying—won't you come!"

The minister himself was sobbing; responsive tears arose in Tug's own eyes, but through some strange spell, which he himself interpreted as the influence of the devil, he could not budge from his seat. All he could do was to shake his head, compress his lips, and mumble, "No—no—not to-night."

The minister paused and looked intently at Tug for several seconds.

"Brother," he said solemnly, "do you gamble?"

Tug sat silent.

"Do you get drunk and carry concealed weapons? Listen, God knows I love you! Give me that pistol in your pocket! Give me that bottle of rot-gut whisky in your pocket! Give 'em to me and go up to God's altar and say, 'Here I am, Lord, a sinner, take me and make me a better man!'"

Mary Lou Meredith at Tug's side was weeping openly now. She knew very well that Tug had both the whisky and the pistol.

"Do go, Tug! Please, please go, Tug!" she wept.

Tug blinked back his own tears and swallowed at the pain in his throat, but shook his head. He really wanted to go now but could not.

The preacher arose in deep frustration. "God have mercy on you," he intoned in solemn anger. "The devil has got you exactly where he wants you! God will not bear with you for ever, young man!" He shook a finger at Tug. "God will send some terrible calamity on you to break your stubborn heart!"

A wide silence fell on the congregation at this almost malediction. The singing stopped. Amid the silence Perry Northcutt's voice prayed, "O God, if it takes a calamity to lead us to You, do not spare us!"

​The Reverend Blackman went back to his pulpit. He lifted his hands. He told the people that they sat and mocked him, that he could do nothing for them and that he would end the meeting that night.

The congregation sat in shocked silence at this extreme step. The minister dismissed them; they arose and filed queerly out into the night.

Abner left the church oppressed by the general feeling of coming evil. He peered ahead and saw Tug and Mary Lou walk out of the church into outer darkness. To the youth's fevered imagination this seemed a sort of symbol, and he wished from the bottom of his heart that Tug had gone to the mourners' bench when the preacher had asked him.