Tales of the Chesapeake Part 33

As we go along the road in this way, our furniture mean time having been s.h.i.+pped by water, a very compact and knotty young man rides up behind us upon a nag which we at once identify as church property. The sleekness of the flanks betokens his conversance with other people's corn-cribs, and he has a habit of shying at all the farm-house gates as if habituated to stopping whenever he liked and staying to dinner.

His Perseus has a semi-gallant, semi-verdant way of lifting his hat, and his voice is hard as his knuckles.

"Woa, Sal!" he says (all preachers drive mares, it may be interpolated), "have I the pleasure of addressing Brother Ryder?"

"The same, sir."

"My name is Chough, sir; the annual Conference has done me the favor of a.s.sociating my name with yours at Swan Neck."

"Oh, ho! You are my colleague; my wife, Brother Chough!"

The wife runs Brother Chough over immediately, who looks very red and awkward, and she gives her estimate of him in an undertone. It will be bad for Chough if he is at all airish or scholastic, or individual in his opinions, for between a senior pastor's wife and his young a.s.sistant there is an hereditary distrust; conceit has no show at all in a young itinerant.

But Chough wisely confines his remarks to asking questions about the bishops, and agrees with us that Doctor Bim's address on the church extension cause was sound as the Fathers, and finally gives us his own extraction, which we trace to the respectable Choughs of Caroline County, and at once fraternize with him.

Those were happy days for us children! Cornfield and barn and negro quarter rolled by us like things of fable. We watched the squirrels in the scrubwood as never again we shall take interest in human companions.h.i.+p, and stopped at farm-house troughs to water our nag with keener joy than that with which we have since gazed upon far blue seas or soft cis-alpine lakes and rivers.

At last we reach the place; the complement of free negro cabins lies on its outskirts; we ask the way to the Methodist preacher's residence, and learning with feigned surprise that "he has just gone an' lef town for good," cross a sandy creek and bridge, climb a hill, and stop at our future threshold.

It is an ancient edifice of brick; a pigmy stable stands beside it, with a gate intervening, and in the rear we have a lot big enough to graze one frugal horse, and a garden sufficiently large to employ us boys. Our father starts off immediately to find the keys; but in the face of a gathering of small lads in pinafores and jack-knives, who come to gaze at us, we scale the gate, enter a back shutter, and cry a welcome to our mother from the second-story front.

We hastily scan the several chambers to claim all that we find in the drawers and closets; are gratified to observe the bow-gun and s.h.i.+nney-sticks of the young Wigginses departed, and quite fall out among ourselves over the wooden effigy of an Indian which has tumbled down from the barn-top.

Soon the nearest neighbor of our persuasion arrives with our father, and takes our mother and the baby away to his dwelling. A fat old trustee and local preacher carries off ourself and sister, and we go bashfully and wonderingly into the heart of the town, past the church, past the market-house, past the tavern and court and public hall, until the door of our host closes upon us, and our short sandy hairs appear at the windows to scan the street and the people.

Yeasty, our host, is the only local preacher in Crochettown, where he also keeps a store, but is said to be as rich as Croesus, and miserly as get out; and he has a pretty daughter, Margot, who sweeps into the room like a little queen, and, being older than ourselves, patronizes us till we blush. She rattles off all the town talk, the parties in the winter season, the terrible master of the academy, and the handsomest boys, including Barret, who is dissipated and writes poetry; the beauty of Marian Lee, who seems to be the terror of young gentlemen, though Margot don't see any thing in her, the proud piece!

And so we pick up the history of the village with the diligence of Froissart or Jean de Troyes, and eat last winter's apples by the ruddy grate, listening to Margot, with our very round tow head upon our sister's, filled with vague dreams of greatness and wealth, and old Yeasty's silver half dollars piled up around us, and Margot to chat at our side forever.

Oh! innocent days of itinerant urchinhood, your freshness comes no more; we "move on" as of old--waifs in the wide circuit of this nomad life--but with the hymns which lulled us in the neglected meeting-house, the prophecies they told us of toil, duty, reverence, and content, have floated into heaven whither our father has gone!

The bulk of our furniture being delayed, and our mother impatient of accepting hospitality, we move into the great, bare parsonage house on Sat.u.r.day, and sit in the only furnished room. It grieves even ourselves to see how this merry moving has thinned her anxious white face, and therefore we forbear to fret her when we read the three long Bible chapters she exacts. Josh, our brother, does not purposely p.r.o.nounce physician "physiken," as he is in the habit of doing, and our sister remembers for once that ewe lamb is to be called "yo," and not "e-we" in two syllables. The dinner is quite cold, but Josh, who complains, is reminded of the poor Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, who could not afford salt with his potatoes. Josh says that for his part he don't like potatoes anyhow, and will not be comforted.

In the afternoon we present ourselves at Sunday-school, and as the preacher's sons are supposed to be first-cla.s.s ecclesiastical scholars, are put in the Bible-cla.s.s. Here we surprise everybody by the quant.i.ty of verses we know by heart, and get many red and blue tickets for our reward. It must be confessed that we had been twice before paid for the same lesson, it being our perquisite to carry all that we know from school to school. We see Margot among the girls, swinging her feet under the seat as she hummingly commits her lesson to memory, and as her feet are very pretty, they do not perhaps move unconsciously. But Josh and we have quite a battle as to Margot, Josh saying, "She's my girl," and we averring that "we know better--she's mine," until finally our sister disposes of the matter by betraying us to the little coquette, whereat we are both ashamed, and go home hastily.

We feed and curry the horse by turns, and hunt eggs in the stable with boisterous rivalry, and have quite a contest as to who shall go down upon "the circuit" first, which is at last settled in favor of the first person.

On the appointed Sunday we rise betimes, "gear up" the nag to the sulky, and depositing a carpet-stool in the foot, sit upon it between our father's legs, and trot out of town at a respectably slow gait to clear the preacher of any suspicion of keeping a fast horse. Fairly out of town, however, we switch up somewhat, ourself watching over the dasher the clods and dust thrown from the mare's shoes, and our father humming s.n.a.t.c.hes of hymns, with his grave eyes twinkling.

We say "How de do," of course, to every pa.s.ser-by, as it is the pride of the profession to lead the etiquette of the country; and, pa.s.sing remarks upon the badness of the fences, the staunchness of the barns, and the coziness of the dwellings, soon leave the cultivated high-road for one of the by-ways which lead down the spa.r.s.ely-settled "Neck."

The sombre pine forests gather about us; a squirrel or two runs across the route, and a solitary crow caws in the tree-top; we hear the loud "tap-tap-tap" of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r, and see through the sinuous aisles of firs some groups of negroes pattering to church. The men take off their hats obsequiously, and the women duck their heads, and our father says benignantly, "Going to church, boys? that's right! I like to see you honor the Great Master!" At which the younger Africans show their teeth, and the more forward patriarchs reply, "Yes, ma.s.sar, bress de Lord!"

So the teams increase in number like the wayfarers, all with the same object in view, until we see the church at last, standing behind a line of whitewashed palings, flanked by less pretentious worm fences, and in the rear a long shed for horses, open in front, shadows the few tomb memorials of stone and stake.

Several lads and worldlings at the gate, slas.h.i.+ng their boots with riding-whips, make obeisance, while two or three plain old gentlemen walk down to meet us, saying:

"Brother Ryder, we _pre_-sume! Welcome to Dodson's Corner, Brother Ryder!"

We tie up the nag, loosen her bridle bit, and follow into the meeting-house--a lofty building unplastered at the roof, whose open eaves and s.h.i.+ngles give place in summer to nests of wasps, and in the winter to audacious birds, some of which swoop screaming to the pulpit, and beat the window panes in futile flight. Two uncarpeted aisles lead respectively to the men's side and the women's side--for, far be it from us, primitive Methodists, to improve upon the discipline of Wesley--and midway of each aisle, in square areas, stand two high stoves, with branching pipes which radiate from their red-hot cylinders of clay. The pulpit is a square unpainted barricade, with pedestals on each side for a pair of oil-lamps; the cus.h.i.+ons which sustain the Bible are the gift of young unconverted ladies, and are sacredly brought to the place of wors.h.i.+p each Sunday morning and taken away in the afternoon.

By the side of the stove the old stewards and the new minister stand awhile talking over the moral _status_ of the country, the advances made by the Baptists, and the amount of money contributed by Dodson's Corner to the various funds of the church. The folk, meanwhile, drop in by squads, the colored element filling the unsteady gallery in the rear, until our father looks at his open-faced watch, and says:

"Bless my soul, brethren, it is time to begin the services!"

He ascends into the pulpit. We sit on what is known as the "Amen side," with our thumb in our b.u.t.ton-hole, and watch the process of the chief steward, who is unlimbering his tuning-fork. He obtains the pitch of the tune by rapping the pew with this, or, if his teeth be sound, which is rare, touches the p.r.o.ngs with his incisors. Then his head--whose baldness, we imagine, arises from the people in the rear looking all the hair off--is thrown back resolutely, his jaws fly wide open, he projects a tangible stream of music to the roof, to the alarm of the birds, and comes to a dead halt at the end of the second line--for here we have congregational singing, and even those without hymn books may a.s.sist to swell the music. But very often the leader breaks down; the vanguard of old ladies cannot keep up the tune; volunteers make desperate efforts to rally the chorus, but retire discomfited, and the pastor, in addition to praying, reading, and preaching, must finally, in his worn, subdued voice, lead the forlorn hope.

The sermon on this inaugural occasion may justly be termed a work of art. It must be conclusive of the piety, learning, eloquence, and sound doctrine of the preacher, and be by turns argumentative, combative, stirring, pathetic, practical, and pictorial. The text has about the same connection at first with the discourse that a campanile has with a cathedral. A solid eulogium upon the book from which it is taken gives occasion for some side-slashes at Voltaire, Hume, and Gibbon; the deaths of these are contrasted with the obsequies of the righteous, and the old-fas.h.i.+oned, material place of punishment is rea.s.serted and minutely described. The text is then said to naturally resolve itself into three parts--the injunction, the direction, and some practical ill.u.s.trations. The injunction, it is further allowed, re-subdivides itself, and these parts are each proclaimed in the form of speech of "Once more." We are quite too old a hand at listening to imagine that "once more" means _only_ once more, and start to enumerate the beams in the roof, the panes in the windows, and the gray hairs in the old gentleman's head before us. About the time that we feel sleepy an anecdote arouses us: then the iteration of expletives from the members.h.i.+p succeeds; we see that the owner of the tuning-fork has fallen to sleep in so ingenious an att.i.tude that he would never have been detected but for his snore, and are amused by the fas.h.i.+on one good lady has of slowly wagging her head as she drinks in the discourse. A slight commotion in the gallery arises, which gives a steward excuse to steal down the aisle and hasten to the scene of disturbance; the final appeal, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the poetry of mercy, grace, patience, and salvation is said; we all kneel down upon the hard cold floor while the last prayer is being made, and receive the benediction, as if some invisible shadow of bright wings had fallen upon the dust and fever of our lives.

To say that the first person is weary but vindicates the sagacity of our father, who steals down to our side and whispers, "You may go out, Fred, if you are tired." But curiosity compels us to remain after the congregation is dismissed, that we may hear the cla.s.s-meeting experiences.

Those solemn corollaries to the service thrill me with their recollection even now. The almost empty church echoing the sobs of the weary, and heart-bruised, and spirit-broken; the pinched, hard faces of the older people telling their bitter trials in bereavement, misappreciation, and poverty. But bursting through all, that unconquerable enthusiasm which lends to the face more than the glow of intelligence, and to the heart more than the recompense of riches; the timid utterance of the younger converts, outlining the rebellious instincts of their tempted bodies, and their need of more faith, grace, and help divine. While these speak in order, the bald-headed chorister interpolates appropriate s.n.a.t.c.hes of psalms, and the preacher cries, "Patience, my brother! All will be well! Hope on, hope ever!"

At last the impatient negroes in the gallery have their opportunity, and roll down thunders of exuberant piety, which, by their natural, almost inspired eloquence, pathos, and vehemence, stir even their masters to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of praise.

How must such spiritually social reunions cheer the long, hard lives of these poor, remote believers! He was a profound statesman who, projecting a gospel for the lowly, devised the cla.s.s-meeting as an outlet for their suppressed emotions, sympathies, and sorrows.

However, it is all over, and there is quite a dispute after the "cla.s.s" as to who shall have the pastor's company to dinner. It is a piece of fine diplomacy to determine this. Policy dictates the most influential; feeling, the most reverend and poor. But the interest of the church is paramount; a compliment or a promise appeases the vanity of the humbler, and we follow the double team of the great landholder, Tibbet, and are soon sitting before his roaring fire.

Itinerants are notoriously big eaters. Our father keeps a weather eye on the provender as it is brought in smoking, and it being soon apparent that the dinner is to be orthodox, if not apostolic, his social attributes improve wonderfully. He breaks out in little spurts of anecdote, not entirely secular, nor yet too didactic to be jovial.

They run upon young Brother Bolt, who once, after an unusual happy "revival" night, to show his great faith, tried to leap over a creek and doused himself to the ears; upon the great controversialist, Whanger, who, being invited to preach in a "High Church" pulpit, improved the occasion to trace apostolic succession as far back as Pope Joan; upon the first intelligent contraband of his kind, whose mistress affirmed that if one's ill deeds were numerically greater than his good ones he would be--jammed, and if the contrary, saved, and who responded, "Spose'n dey boff de same, missus?"

These are told with inimitable spirit and mimicry, as want of clerical wit is a direct impeachment of the validity of one's "call" to preach; and when the table is filled, and with outstretched hands the blessing said, our father gets a universal compliment for his carving. There is roast turkey, with rich stuffing, bright cranberry sauce, and savory pies of pumpkin, mince, and persimmon, cider to wash down the mealy ripeness of the sweet potato, and at the end transparent quinces drowned in velvet cream. How glibly goes the time! We play with a young miss, who shows us her library, in which, we are sorry to say, a book about pirates deeply absorbs us. But at last the sulky comes to the door; we say good-by with touched full hearts, and pa.s.s hummingly to appointment No. 2.

This is "Sand Hill," perhaps, or "Mumpson Town," or "Ebenezer," or "Dry Pond;" and when we have mustered again in the afternoon, and in the evening for the third time, turn Sal's head toward the parsonage, and sail along in the night, cold and worn, past fields of stubble, over which the wind sweeps, past negro cabins, watching like human things upon us, through dreary woods where the tall pines rock against the stars and the clouds sail whitely by like witches going to a rendezvous, past cheerful homes, gleaming light and rest and worldly competence, the owners whereof have heard no deep command to carry the gospel into wildernesses, or hearing disobeyed. And all the while our father sings softly to himself, looking now and then at us who are his cross, and again into the s.h.i.+ning constellations which hide his crown.

But we "preacher's sons," by which name we are universally distinguished, have our own crosses as well. It is generally agreed that much ought to be expected of us and little obtained. Let one of us play truant from school, or use a naughty word in play, or make marbles a source of revenue, or fight on the common when provoked, or steal a cherry, and the fact travels our town over like a telegram. We once suffer greatly in repute by selling our neighbor's old iron and bra.s.s to an itinerant pedler, and are alleged to have run up a debit account of one dime with an old negro who sells spruce beer and "horse cakes"--whereafter we fail.

The church people, much to our dissatisfaction, present us with castaway coats and boots, which we are made to wear, and once or twice, when we encounter Margot in this shape, we burst into tears and run home to hide our wounded vanity in the stable loft. There, in the "mow," while we devise bitter and futile conspiracies against society, the mare, munching her fodder, looks up at us with patient eyes, as if to say: "Am I not also mortified for the faith?" But we are cut to the heart to think that Margot may contrast us with better-dressed boys, and therefore think us of little spirit, learning, and courage. It is for you, pretty coquette, that we carry many scandals and scars! We do not quite love you, Margot; but we are foolishly vain and sensitive, and your eyes are very beautiful!

Still we are acknowledged at school to be "smart." All preacher's sons are so by common concession, and though we may not visit the circus, like others, we get abundance of free tickets for concerts, panoramas, and gla.s.s-blowers. Once, indeed, the great Chippewa chief, Haw-waw-many-squaw, having thrown the town into consternation by placards of himself scalping his enemies and smoking their tobacco, makes a triumphal entry into the main street at full gallop, and pitching his tent before the court-house, walks into the parsonage--war plumes, moccasins, and all--gives us complimentary seats, and eats the better half of our dinner. This incident is a source of pride to ourself beyond any thing experienced by any urchin besides. We boast of it frequently, and, being disliked therefor, commit several impromptu scalpings on our own account.

Vagabonds unnumbered beg our hospitality, and get it. Some of these it would be difficult to determine, either as to profession or destination. Many of them are systematic pensioners upon the preacher, and plead devotion to our denomination as a means of gaining our hearts. They have the gossip of the "Conference" at their tongues'

ends, and lead our family devotion with the grace and hypocrisy of Belial.

The weddings that we hold are frequent and various. Runaway couples come to us, blus.h.i.+ng and short-winded, satisfy us of their lawful age, are united, and pa.s.s into the moon, leaving a five-dollar bill behind them. We cannot quite find it in our hearts, even at this late day, to forgive those numerous candidates for felicity who hold the par value of a wedding ceremony to be no more than two dollars. Yet, though we grieve to admit it, two dollars is the average fee. At one time the negro population, anxious to be wived by a white preacher, makes inroads upon us _en ma.s.se_ to the detriment of decorum and our carpets. We summarily shut down upon this business when we find that their fees come to but half a dollar a pair.

However, the year drifts by, and we are greatly concerned to know if it is the sentiment of Swan Neck that we shall continue its pastor another year. Old Yeasty, Margot's father, as we are aware, feels himself slighted because we do not call upon him of Sundays to make the closing prayers; for Yeasty's prayer is a sermon under another name, and runs the morning into twilight; but a sly compliment that we pay him in a diplomatic sermon at the end of the conference year brings him round all right, and back we go to Swan Neck.

So with burying the dead and writing their obituaries; making the babes pure with that holy sprinkling which gives them, dying early, to a Christian immortality; launching our thunders upon the bold, softening the hearts of the errant, mingling with our unbending creed the more pliable ethics of worldly graces, and, in a word, walking like Saint John on the savage border of civilization, to thrill the brutal and unlettered with the tidings of one just day to come--our itinerant lives drift on till the marble slab in the meeting-house wall writes the itinerant's only human memorial.

We have dreamed our last. Burst from the narrow chrysalis which we would gladly rebuild again, the seething, churning sea is before us and around us; we only catch, like the strains of bells through the fog, the hum of hymns, the drowsy murmur of the buzzing Sabbath-school, and the nasal ring of the itinerant's summer sermon.

Margot is married to Chough, our whilom colleague, and makes her migration in his Bedouin train, and does not know how once she thrilled us. The tuning-fork is rusty, and the chorister in his coffin may hear, if he can, his successor stirring the birds in the roof with his sonorous melody. All are at rest, and we live on--moving, moving, moving--so deeply fastened into our natures are our early instincts; but every night we say the same parsonage prayer, and every morning look upon the wall where hangs the grave, grim features we revere--the Itinerant Preacher.

CHESTER RIVER.