Prairie Folks

by Garland, Hamlin

  As he stepped out into the yard next morning, that abominable, sickening, scrawling advertisement was the first thing that claimed his glance—it blotted out the beauty of the morning.

  Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress at the throat, a whisp of her hair sticking assertively from the little knob at the back of her head.

  "Lovely, ain't it! An' I've got to see it all day long. I can't look out the winder but that thing's right in my face." It seemed to make her savage. She hadn't been in such a temper since her visit to New York. "I hope you feel satisfied with it."

  Ripley walked off to the barn. His pride in its clean, sweet newness was gone. 'He slyly tried the paint to see if it couldn't be scraped off, but it was dried in thoroughly. Whereas before he had taken delight in having his neighbors turn and look at the building, now he kept out of sight whenever he saw a team coming. He hoed corn away in the back of the field, when he should have been bugging potatoes by the roadside.

  Mrs. Ripley was in a frightful mood about it, but she held herself in check for several days. At last she burst forth:

  "Ethan Ripley, I can't stand that thing any longer, and I ain't goin' to, that's all! You've got to go and paint that thing out, or I will. I'm just about crazy with it."

  "But, mother, I promised "——

  "I don't care what you promised, it's got to be painted out. I've got the nightmare now, seem' it. I'm goin' to send f'r a pail o' red paint, and I'm goin' to paint that out if it takes the last breath I've got to do it."

  "I'll tend to it, mother, if you won't hurry me"——

  "I can't stand it another day. It makes me boil every time I look out the winder."

  Uncle Ethan hitched up his team and drove gloomily off to town, where he tried to find the agent. He lived in some other part of the county, however, and so the old man gave up and bought a pot of red paint, not daring to go back to his desperate wife without it.

  "Goin' to paint y'r new barn?" inquired the merchant, with friendly interest.

  Uncle Ethan turned with guilty sharpness; but the merchant's face was grave and kindly.

  "Yes, I thought I'd touch it up a little—don't cost much."

  "It pays—always," the merchant said emphatically.

  "Will it—stick jest as well put on evenings?" inquired Uncle Ethan, hesitatingly.

  "Yes—won't make any difference. Why? Ain't goin' to have"——

  "Waal,—I kind o' thought I'd do it odd times night an' mornin.'—kind o' odd times"——

  He seemed oddly confused about it, and the merchant looked after him anxiously as he drove away.

  After supper that night he went out to the barn, and Mrs. Ripley heard him sawing and hammering. Then the noise ceased, and he came in and sat down in his usual place.

  "What y' ben makin'?" she inquired. Tewksbury had gone to bed. She sat darning a stocking.

  "I jest thought I'd git the stagin' ready f'r paintin'," he said, evasively.

  "Waal! I'll be glad when it's covered up." When she got ready for bed, he was still seated in his chair, and after she had dozed off two or three times she began to wonder why he didn't come. When the clock struck ten, and she realized that he had not stirred, she began to get impatient. "Come, are y' goin' to sit there all night?" There was no reply. She rose up in bed and looked about the room. The broad moon flooded it with light, so that she could see he was not asleep in his chair, as she had supposed. There was something ominous in his disappearance.

  "Ethan! Ethan Ripley, where are yeh?" There was no reply to her sharp call. She rose and distractedly looked about among the furniture, as if he might somehow be a cat and be hiding in a corner somewhere. Then she went upstairs where the boy slept, her hard little heels making a curious tunking noise on the bare boards. The moon fell across the sleeping boy like a robe of silver. He was alone.

  She began to be alarmed. Her eyes widened in fear. All sorts of vague horrors sprang unbidden into her brain. She still had the mist of sleep in her brain.

  She hurried down the stairs and out into the fragrant night. The katydids were singing in infinite peace under the solemn splendor of the moon. The cattle sniffed and sighed, jangling their bells now and then, and the chickens in the coops stirred uneasily as if overheated. The old woman stood there in her bare feet and long nightgown, horror-stricken. The ghastly story of a man who had hung himself in his barn because his wife deserted him came into her mind and stayed there with frightful persistency. Her throat filled chokingly.

  She felt a wild rush of loneliness. She had a sudden realization of how dear that gaunt old figure was, with its grizzled face and ready smile. Her breath came quick and quicker, and she was at the point of bursting into a wild cry to Tewksbury, when she heard a strange noise. It came from the barn, a creaking noise. She looked that way, and saw in the shadowed side a deeper shadow moving to and fro. A revulsion to astonishment and anger took place in her.

  "Land o' Bungay! If he ain't paintin' that barn, like a perfect old idiot, in the night."

  Uncle Ethan, working desperately, did not hear her feet pattering down the path, and was startled by her shrill voice.

  "Well, Ethan Ripley, whaddy y' think you're doin' now?"

  He made two or three slapping passes with the brush, and then snapped, "I'm a-paintin' this barn—whaddy ye s'pose? If ye had eyes y' wouldn't ask."

  "Well, you come right straight to bed. What d'you mean by actin' so?"

  "You go back into the house an' let me be. I know what I'm a-doin'. You've pestered me about this sign jest about enough." He dabbed his brush to and fro as he spoke. His gaunt figure towered above her in shadow. His slapping brush had a vicious sound.

  Neither spoke for some time. At length she said more gently, "Ain't you comin' in?"

  "No—not till I get a-ready. You go 'long an' tend to y'r own business. Don't stan' there an' ketch cold."

  She moved off slowly toward the house. His voice subdued her. Working alone out there had rendered him savage; he was not to be pushed any farther. She knew by the tone of his voice that he must not be assaulted. She slipped on her shoes and a shawl, and came back where he was working, and took a seat on a saw-horse.

  "I'm a-goin' to set right here till you come in, Ethan Ripley," she said, in a firm voice, but gentler than usual.

  "Waal, you'll set a good while," was his ungracious reply. But each felt a furtive tenderness for the other. He worked on in silence. The boards creaked heavily as he walked to and fro, and the slapping sound of the paint-brush sounded loud in the sweet harmony of the night. The majestic moon swung slowly round the corner of the barn, and fell upon the old man's grizzled head and bent shoulders. The horses inside could be heard stamping the mosquitoes away, and chewing their hay in pleasant chorus.

  The little figure seated on the saw-horse drew the shawl closer about her thin shoulders. Her eyes were in shadow, and her hands were wrapped in her shawl. At last she spoke in a curious tone.

  "Well, I don't know as you was so very much to blame. I didn't want that Bible myself—I held out I did, but I didn't."

  Ethan worked on until the full meaning of this unprecedented surrender penetrated his head, and then he threw down his brush.

  "Waal, I guess I'll let 'er go at that. I've covered up the most of it, anyhow. Guess we'd better go in."

  * * *

  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 in July, when his neighbor Jennings came along the road on his way to town. Jennings never went to town except when it r
ained too hard to work outdoors, 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 and preach 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 a dollar. 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 to do 'bout all we c'n stand t' pay our debts, let alone tryun' to support a preacher." And the old man shut the pinchers up on a barb with a vicious grip.

  Easy-going Mr. Jennings laughed in his silent way. "I guess you'll help when 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 with his work. Bacon was what is called land-poor in the West, that is, he had 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 a scoffer. It angered him to have Jennings predict so confidently that he would help.

  The sun was striking redly through a rift in the clouds, about three o'clock in the afternoon, when he saw a man coming up the lane, walking on the grass at the side of the road, and whistling merrily. The old man looked at him from under his huge eyebrows with some curiosity. As he drew near, the pedestrian ceased to whistle, and, just as the farmer expected 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 take fine-cut when I can get it," he said, as Bacon put his hand into his pocket. "Much obliged. How goes it?"

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

  "Yes, I'm the new minister sent around here to keep you fellows in the traces and out of hell-fire. Have y' fled from the wrath?" he asked, in a 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 twisted wire 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 I board with you a week. Narrow the road that leads to light, and broad the 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 next world. We're gettin' old; lay not up your treasures where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal."

  Bacon was thoroughly interested in the preacher, and was studying him carefully. He was tall, straight, and superbly proportioned; broad-shouldered, wide-lunged, and thewed like a Greek racer. His rather small steel-blue eyes twinkled, and his shrewd face and small head, set well back, completed a remarkable figure. He wore his reddish beard in the 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 too much 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 in preachers havin' a little of the flesh and the devil; they can sympathize better with the rest of ye." The sarcasm was lost on Bacon, who continued to look at him. Suddenly he said, as if with an involuntary 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 very purty, 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 ye spend 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 gray wolf 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 strong inclination to shout after him, and retract his invitation; but he did not, only worked on, with an occasional bear-like grin. There was something captivating in this fellow's free and easy way.

  When he came up to the house an hour or two later, in singular good humor 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, he was so genial and put on so few religious frills.

  Mrs. Bacon never put on frills of any kind. She was a most frightful toiler, only excelled (if excelled at all) by her husband. She was still muscular in her age and shapelessness. Unlovely at her best, when about her work in her faded calico gown and flat shoes, hair wisped into a slovenly knot, she was depressing. But she was a good woman, of sterling integrity, and ambitious for her girl.

  Marietta was as attractive as her mother was depressing. She was very young at this time and had the physical perfection—at least as regards body—that her parents must have had in youth. She was above the average height of woman, with strong swell of bosom and glorious, erect carriage 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 milk being skimmed out of the "submerged cans" ready for the "caaves and hawgs," as Mrs. Bacon called them.

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

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

  "Some preachers, not all preachers," laughed Pill, in his mellow nasal. "There are preachers, and then again preachers. I'm one o' the t'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 I go in an' set the tea on."

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

  "How'd y' come to send him here?" asked Mrs. Bacon, nodding toward Pill.

  "Damfino! I kind o' liked him—no nonsense about him," answered Bacon, going into temporary eclipse behind his hands as he washed his face at the 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, told of pioneer experiences in Michigan, and soon won them—hired man and all—to a most favorable opinion of himself. But he did not trench on religious matters at all.

  The hired man in his shirt-sleeves, and smelling frightfully of tobacco and sweat (as did Bacon), sat with open month, at times forgetting to eat, 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 think so sometimes when I'm pinched. Our Western people are so indigent—in plain terms, poor—they can't do any better than they do. But we pull through—we pull through! John, you look like a stout fellow, but I'll bet 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, that bet.

  "I'll take y' in hand an' flop y' both," roared Bacon from his lion-like throat, his eyes glistening with rare good-nature from the shadow of his gray brows. But he admired the minister's broad shoulders at the same time. If this fellow pan
ned 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 talked horses with the hired man, and finished by stripping off his coat and putting on one of Mrs. Bacon's aprons to help milk the cows.

  * * *

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

  They waited till the grace was said, but it threw a depressing atmosphere 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 was placed in his hands by the girl.

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

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

  It was shortly after breakfast that the Elder concluded he'd walk up to Brother 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 inscrutable sidewise 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.

  * * *

  II.

  The school-house down on the creek was known as "Hell's Corners" all through the county, because of the frequent rows that took place therein at "corkuses" and the like, and also because of the number of teachers that had been "ousted" by the boys. In fact, it was one of those places still to be found occasionally in the West, far from railroads and schools, where the primitive ignorance and ferocity of men still prowl, like the panthers which are also found sometimes in the deeps of the Iowa timber lands.