Holman F. Day

“ Everything in the world that's worth while has been branded 'The works of the Devil,' and kept away from me. The only happiness that ever came into my life is loving you, and that is forbidden more than all the rest. Oh, Adalia, there is something wrong in all this." He shook his fist at the big, bare, community house looming over autumn's tattered maples. "But I will not bother you any more, for I am a coward and helpless. You were right. I will not look at you after this. Some one might see the love in my eyes and tell the Elder. ”

“ Why, gentlemen, if I hadn't had the sense to ram that rifle-butt down into the lake and hold it there, I'd have bored him as I would a buck deer."
"I insist, old Tom Ballard, that you're one of God's elect," choked Manning, blinking back his tears.
"I wish you wouldn't say such things—and I knowing what's inside me all the time," pleaded the guide ingenuously. "If anything I did was square, it's only that the old woods, the great, wide, honest, open woods, have been talking to me all these years, Mr. Manning and Mr. Ballou. ”

“ And two or three of the women folks, old maids, went off to the head temple—"Shiloh," so they call it—to be made into saints and go to the uttermost parts of the earth, though why all the lost souls should always be at the uttermost parts of the earth from us I don't know.
The only married woman that the saints lugged away to Shiloh—the only one that gave in and "left all"—was Almira Sykes. I took her down on the stage that morning she went. She, with that look as though tears were squeezing out all over her! The young ones bawling and Brackett on the doorstep, hard as a graven image. ”

“ Almira and Brackett were leaning their heads on the old table side by side, their arms over each other's neck. But now she got up and took the ragged stockings the little ones brought to her, and when we went out of the gate she was beginning to darn them over a wooden goose-egg. It had been just as I told her. Not a stocking in the house whole enough to hold presents.
The snow was all dusted over Tryphosy's hair above her forehead when we came to her door—snow sprinkled on like powder, and all so sparkly. And the wind had flushed her cheeks and her eyes were bright with happy tears. ”

“ This stern call to the night outside made him apprehensive of consequences. "In the morning—"
"I cannot sleep," broke in Ballard, "and he shall not sleep until we talk, You two have known me. I am not a thug. I am not an assassin. I am not a butcher of sheep. But I say to you—and all here take warning—that man must now this night go out with me and talk with me man fashion on my ground, under God's stars and in God's open, where he is not a frocked parson nor I a moccasined guide, but just two men with business to settle. Rans Wallace, walk out." ”

“ You have asked me to put a sin on my immortal soul by jumping into Sabba'day Lake with you. When I told you I loved you I was telling you what is so, for I have been taught to tell the truth. I have learned that the women in the world do not own that they love so freely. But I am only a simple Shaker girl, and I do not know the ways of the world and how to evade plain truth, and so I told you when you asked. ”

“ The man in the canoe was roughly garbed and unshaven, and the man on the shore was a miserable spectacle, but each with the masonry of the huntsman, recognized the other as city-bred.
Ten minutes later Doctor Wallace was telling his story in the camp to two sympathizing New Yorkers. Outside, the guide was stooping his grizzled head over the spider and the teapot steaming on the coals. The frizzle of meat sounded pleasantly appetizing and the odor of bacon was wafted to the nostrils of a clergyman who had never before in his life fully realized that hunger can so wholly dominate spirituality. ”

“ For the first time in their knowledge of him Manning and Ballou heard Tom Ballard's voice break into a cry, a wail of sudden woe. "All I was working and struggling for on God's earth. Took her away—I never saw her again. That's all! I never saw her again—and the bonds that I was fool enough to think God tied they cut asunder, and I knew nothing of it until it had been done. The goddess of the lawyers may be blind, gentlemen, but those with long ladders may whisper in her ear. ”

“ The children got away from that stove with a chorus good to hear, but Sykes fetched one spring in his stocking feet and lit with a soft thump like a panther, right between the young ones and their mother. ”

“ At first the clergyman, occupied with his eager story and enjoying the savor of the arriving dishes, did nothing but glance idly at the man who pad-padded here and there so lightly in his moccasins. And the low camp had many shadows. But when the guide moved the lamp from its shelf to the table and quietly announced that the meal was ready. Doctor Wallace raised his careless gaze to the brown face that appeared for a moment in the yellow flare. He had been rising with hungry alacrity. ”

“ But"—and here the spirit of the woman broke through the crust of sect and religious reserve and threw at him the true rebuke—"the wickedness that is in you it is for God to forgive, after you have made your peace with Him. Between you and me, Brother Paul, there is another matter. It is your cowardice. You have come to me with a coward's words to-night. You have asked me to be a coward with you. I have God and my faith between me and the world now. Would I be wise to exchange those blessed safeguards for a coward?" ”

“ But not a star—that is, not an astronomer's star. Yet there was a star in sight that had always seemed a sort of heavenly star to me when I'd look at it nights—a star in a heaven that I'd tried to get into several times in my life, I'm free to confess.
"'Miry," said I, "there's a light over to Tryphosy Snell's across the field. She's the one to know what to do when such poor old no 'counts as you and I bust our tugs. Come along." ”

“ Her swimming eyes gazed adoringly at him from the shadow of the Shaker bonnet.
"May I kiss you?" he stammered.
"Yea," she said. "for you are a man to-day not a thief in the night."
As their lips met Elder Vance hastened about the bend in the road.
"Think you that we shall allow you to go in sin and shame to carnal destruction in the world?" he demanded. "You are not wed. You shall not go away together!"
Paul pointed through the soft shimmer of the autumn sunlight to a little white house on the summit of a distant hill. A spire rose by. ”

“ Doctor Wallace declined tobacco. The sportsmen puffed their pipes comfortably and buzzed conversation with the languid calm of those enjoying digestion. The quiet man in moccasins cleared the table, soused the pans at the pond's side and replenished his fire from time to time. Doctor Wallace, clasping and unclasping his flat fingers, watched him with side-long glances and endeavored to continue his hat, but his inapposite replies, his embarrassment, his incoherency at least became apparent even to their rather careless attention. ”

“ Elder Vance licked his lips with a look of uncertainty in his face.
"I have found," and Paul's gaze met all the stares that were focussed on him, "that I am not one of you. I have tried to be faithful and content and live according to my vow. But a man thinks different things from a boy. ”

“ You might think that none of those hard-headed folks up our way would "leave all and follow," to any great extent. But you go to those meetings a week and hear them sing those songs that make you shiver inside as though your heart was a tunked funny-bone—hear them pray so soft, and then stretch out their hands while some woman was singing some such thing as this:—
"Won't you come a little while and talk with Jesus? ”

“ Manning gave a grunt that seemed to resent this grouping.
"We are in the woods now," he said. "We're on the level of Nature where a man sizes things differently in spite of himself. I've known Tom Ballard a good many years. I never saw yellow in him. My opinion is only that of a layman, parson, but as long as the white tie and frock coat are off you just now you'd better be merely plain man and settle your man's business in private. Ballou and I don't care to listen or to meddle. Really, we don't." ”

“ Paul scuffed away heavily behind his harrow and he kicked discontentedly at every earth ball in his path. His peace of mind was further disturbed by Elder Vance. The grim old man stumped across the mottled, broken ground and halted him with a toil-gnarled hand upraised peremptorily.
"I have spoken to you before," said the elder, "regarding your conversations with a sister of the community. There is no profit for the soul in a dialogue with woman. Woman has been prone to talk since the dialogue in the Garden of Eden. And always much mischief has come about from it. ”

“ She loves music. And she left it running away on "There's a Land that is Fairer than Day," whilst she soothed Almira and patted her head and got her a cup of hot tea and fussed around her in all those sorts of ways that women folks understand about.
And when I had got done explaining I said:—
"Tryphosy, I tried to bust open a way into Brack Sykes' heart with a club, I reckon, like the old fool I always am, always blunderin' round. I guess you know how to use the golden key that opens the heart to love and forgiveness. ”

“ I guess underneath, though, her idea was that when she and the saints got to praying for Brackett down at the temple he'd have to curl up and come in, too. Benson Taylor told me that at the seventy-two hours fast at the temple Almira Sykes stayed on her knees for nigh the whole stretch and prayed her way right into hell to get her husband's soul—that was the way he said it.
Well, the Lord has called some of the greatest to his service and they have sacrificed the things of earth to serve him—and the world has been better for it, I suppose. ”

“ The impatience and disaffection of many weeks: of rigorous suppression in the Shaker community rung in his voice. "I stopped her to talk to her."
"Spiritual matters are better for meditation than for discourse in the working hours," said the Elder, "And of course there can be no other than spiritual matters for discourse between man and woman in this community!"
Conversation was never brisk among the men of the community. Therefore Paul, the only young man in the community, had plenty of opportunity for reflection. ”

“ The guide had stepped into the low doorway.
"Excuse me, Mr. Manning, and you, Mr. Ballou," he said courteously, for interrupting the party. But I have a little business with this visiting gentleman here, and he will oblige me if he will step outside." He had the low, soft voice of the veteran woodsman. Forest dwellers never speak loudly.
Dr. Wallace half rose, choked with an audible rattle, and sat down. The New York men stared a bit, for even in the unconventional woods such a request from a guide was not usual. ”

“ But do you pretend to tell me that if I bring your wife, 'Miry Sykes, to this door to-night, when her children are waitin' for Santa Claus, you'll have the heart to bar her out?"
"Jest as sartin as I'd shet out a looservee," he gritted. Little children snuggled on the doorsteps and not a one with a clean face or her dress buttoned straight! And when things are bad enough for an old bach like me to notice them, they have got to be pretty bad. ”

“ The people outside pity us poor fools here."
"Poor fools!" she echoed. "I don't care if I am a fool. God tells us that there are mansions in Heaven for those who are fools on earth for His sake."
"Won't you go with me?" ”

“ Sometimes a man isn't responsible for what he thinks or does, is he? I took him down the lake, and there wasn't anything said. His back was towards me. He shivered all the time. There are crust hunters that can snow-shoe up to a slumping deer and cut its throat while the creature looks up and bleats and rolls those great eyes. Did you ever hear of Tom Ballard doing that? ”

“ Adalia's shrieks called the help that came.
Bethnial and Japhet came stumbling through the night and, muttering mild protest, awkwardly disentangled the antagonists. At command of the panting Elder, Paul was hustled into the men's quarters and after a struggle was deposited in a room that could be barred and locked.
"Pray to God to quell the devil that is in you," Elder Vance shouted through the keyhole. "And prepare yourself for the discipline that His servants in this community may see fit to visit upon you under His guidance. You are a man of black sin." ”

“ Lost men were like lost needles in that wilderness. He, tattered and scratched and unkempt and aching after his mad scamperings in his lost man's panic, had he ever been well-garbed and calm and eloquent in a pulpit? ”

“ I could see 'em sitting and whispering together. If a little tyke ain't got the license to holler and lark a bit the night before Christmas what's the good of bein' a young one once in your life time?
But there wasn't anything to be gained standing out there swallowing wind, and I took 'Mira by the arm and boosted her along. I was lugging the presents. I don't believe Santa Claus ever walks up to houses feeling just as I did then. I reckon his disposition must be more cheerful than that or else he wouldn't be in the business. But I never was afraid of Brackett Sykes, not so you would notice. ”

“ Yes, sir, hard face that man has! And the way he spoke chilled me worse than the wind. And the little girls cuddling there on the steps!
"You can settle such things as that with your wife yourself," said I. "I'm a stage driver, not a divorce lawyer. I shall never say the nay to 'Miry Sykes if ever she wants to ride on my stage."
"Then you'll be cartin' paupers into the place," he snarled. "She ain't got a cent to her name, and she wrote and told me so. Them saints have stripped her." ”

“ And I said so to him when I pushed the boat off the shore, and I said, too, 'I ain't one of those that hold God's commission to meddle.' But I'd forgot then that he is a minister, and I'm afraid he'll think I meant to twit him. For he bowed his head and rowed off. But I didn't mean it that way. And it's all between us right here, ain't it, Mr. Ballou and Mr. Manning? Ministers are an example to them that sit under them and look to them, and women have tender feelings. ”