Francis L. Cooper

“ The Captain took one step toward the Elder’s chair, his swarthy old face alight with anticipation and hope. One promise! He would give a hundred, and keep them all. The Captain was fine-looking at all times, every span of him a man and a seaman. But when his face was bright with eagerness, and his muscular body tense with anticipation, he was superb. To those less steeled against human magnetism than Mr. Fox, he was irresistible at such times. The Elder merely waved him back to the vacated chair. ”

“ The seaman bounded down the steps. The sight that met his gaze caused him to stop short. On each side of the low room men and boys were drawn up in lines, and the division was as clean cut as though chosen for a tug of war. The doors at the far end of the gymnasium swung back, and a stranger, stripped to the waist, stepped gingerly into the room. Sim Hicks met the man, and began to tie a pair of boxing gloves to his hands. While the Captain looked on in utter amazement, the doors again swung back, and Mack McGowan entered. ”

“ Miss Splinter was one of those fine spinsters which one so often finds stranded in small villages located near large cities. She was one of the few friends of the Captain in Little River.
“It’s the most disgusting thing I ever saw or heard!” declared Miss Splinter, angrily stamping her foot.
“It’s really too funny for words!” exclaimed Elizabeth.
“What in tarnation is he doing to them?”
“Doing to them!” flashed Miss Splinter indignantly. “My word! It’s what they’re trying to do to him. It is positively disgraceful.” ”

“ The sound of voices suddenly arrested Captain Pott’s fork in mid-air, and the morsel of untasted salt-mackerel dangled uncertainly from the points of the dingy tines as he swung about to face the open door. Fork and mackerel fell to the floor as the seaman abruptly rose and stalked outside. The stern features of the rugged old face sagged with astonishment as he blinked at the small army of men swarming over his littered yard.
“’Mornin’, Cap’n,” cheerily called Hank Simpson, the village storekeeper, as he approached the irate man on the stoop. ”

“ Mack understands me purty well, and he’ll tell you that I didn’t mean nothing by what I said.”
“Josiah Pott! You’re that disrespectful that I’ve a good mind to scold you.”
“What’s up now, Clemmie?”
“The very idea! You calling the minister by his first name.”
“I’ve done it ever since I knowed him, and he wouldn’t like me to change now. Hey, Mr. McGowan?”
“Call me by my first name, Cap’n. Too much dignity doesn’t sit well on your shoulders. You needn’t mind, Miss Pipkin, for that is a habit that was formed before I became a minister, and there is no disrespect, I assure you.” ”

“ Elizabeth reached out and clutched her brother’s arm.
“Mack McGowan!” she whispered faintly. “Oh, what am I saying? Why am I saying that name? What has happened to me?”
“Poor little girl! I thought my little sister was stronger than that. I’ve been a fool for letting you read all those papers after the strain you’ve been through.”
“Mack McGowan!” she repeated. She seized the paper which her brother had lifted from the floor. “Oh, it’s in that paper, and it’s his name! Harold, what does it mean?”
“You must brace up, Beth. The man you are in love with is the son of Adoniah Phillips. ”

“ Sim Hicks bawled at him to get up and go on with the fight. Mr. Beaver squirmed and whined under the tightening grip like a beaten pup. The crowd stood dumb with amazement. Few of those present had ever witnessed the effect of a knock-out blow.
Mr. McGowan was the first to the side of the prostrate man. He lifted him to his feet, and began walking him about. As the stranger regained his senses, he smiled faintly 109 at Hicks’ repeated requests that the fight be finished.
“How long was I out?” asked the pugilist. ”

“ He laughed bitterly. “I didn’t stop to reason. It seems I have no reason.”
“Mr. McGowan, please stop! You frighten me,” cried the girl, drawing away again as he limped a step in her direction.
“Hate!” That one word was like the sharp sudden sting of a whip. “I hate this age of social position, where money stands 208 above the man. I hate the shell of so-called good families, as if lineage made the man, instead of man making the lineage. I hate–––”
“You must stop! Love that gives such torment as you have been describing to me is apt to turn out as nothing more than infatuation. ”

“ The same thing may be said of the church. We may produce a few fair Christians by dragging shore lines of church doctrine, but our success will be due more to luck than to a knowledge of the working of God’s laws.... We have been long-shore Christians for a good many centuries; the day has come for us to break away from the surf of man-made ideas, and launch out till we can feel the swell of a boundless love, a love not confined to the letter of denominational law or creed. We must get into us the spirit of Christianity. ”

“ She recalled his ghostly features on the night of Harold’s return from abroad. 269 Could there be some unknown reason for her father’s actions against the young minister? And did that reason justify his action?
Her conjectures were cut short by the sound of footfalls on the stair. The tread was heavy, as though the climber were dragging himself up by main force. On the top landing he halted, and turned toward her door.
What caprices emotion plays with judgment! One moment judgment may map out a course as clear as the noonday, and the next moment emotion may lead judgment into a blind alley. ”

“ I cannot imagine any man with a passion to save souls holding to an idea that he can accomplish this by desecrating the place of Divine Worship by turning it into a gymnasium. The only explanation possible is that Mr. McGowan has not been reared under the influences of our best families. Not that this is anything against his character, but fact is fact.”
The room became quiet with interest in anticipation of what might follow. It was true that their minister had come to them as an unknown man, and they were certainly entitled to any disclosure of his past that the city man might wish to give. ”

“ Captain Pott had risen. In his eagerness he stretched out his arms to the confused housekeeper. She turned from staring at the minister, and like a bewildered animal fled blindly in the direction of the kitchen. She found herself, instead, in the seaman’s arms. Here she stuck, and with hysterical sobs clung to the old man. ”

“ He was so manly, too, was my Adoniah.”
“Adoniah?” questioned the minister, sitting up with a suddenness that astonished Miss Pipkin.
“Adoniah was his first name. I ain’t spoke it out loud for years. It does sound sort of queer, doesn’t it? I didn’t think so then.” She sighed deeply. “The spirit of the Lord seemed to go away from me when Adoniah did. If only he’d come back.”
“He has not left you. God is not a hard master, leaving people alone for their shortcomings.” ”

“ I was never intending less to hurt nobody than when I said that to you. I thought ’twould cheer you and Mack up a little; you was both looking a mite blue. You’re a good woman, Clemmie, and any man that’d insult you would have me to settle with purty tolerable quick. ”

“ The Elder lowered his eyes to meet those peering at him from the tangle of fair hair. “As I have already suggested, you might not understand me. It seems that you are determined not to understand. It would be very hard for me to have another falling out with my little girl. Maybe I should say nothing further.”
“If you are intending to say something against Uncle Josiah, perhaps you had better not say it. I’m afraid I wouldn’t understand.”
She turned from her father and tried to gaze through the window. The beating storm, and the light from within, made the pane opaque. ”

“ Beaver’s authority came down. Captain Pott stood in his door, watching the pantomime as Mr. Beaver pumped, backed, stuttered, and blinked out the minister’s dismissal from his wife’s table. The Captain had an extra griddle on the stove when Mr. McGowan returned. Without question or comment he indicated a chair, and the minister smiled like a schoolboy as he drew it up before the place at the Captain’s table which he was to occupy from now on.
“Best eat ’em while they’re sizzling hot,” invited the Captain, dumping a turnerful of cakes on the empty plate. ”

“ Every head turned about, and as the buzz of comment broke from the astonished crowd the Elder rapped for order. The Reverend Mr. Means of New York City moved ponderously forward.
The faces of the sympathetic ones in the audience 166 became exceedingly serious as each looked into the face of the city clergyman. Certainly, this meeting must be of tremendous importance to lead so great a man to leave his metropolitan pulpit to attend a gathering in so small a church.
“We must have better order!” cried Mr. Fox, smiling a welcome to the visiting minister. ”

“ I’m sick of the hull damn round of life,” he said, despondently.
“Josiah Pott! How you do talk! What do you mean by it, anyhow?”
“Purty much as I say. I’m always bungling things of late. I––well–––”
“Now, you set down in that chair, and stop staring at me for all the world like an old wood-owl, ’most scaring the wits out of me. One would think you’d gone clean out of your head. I never heard you talk so in all my born days. If you ain’t sick, you’re in a heap of trouble. ”

“ McGowan drew off to the far end of the mantel, and began, figuratively, to kick himself. He had often declared that a man in love was the biggest mule on earth, and now here he was, the king of them all, a genuine descendant of Balaam’s mount with all his asinine qualities, but lacking his common mule sense. ”

“ I cal’late Eadie Beaver would say the Lord took my strength away, but the Lord don’t need to give that feller a hand. He’s a hull host to himself.”
“He doesn’t look in the least like one,” declared Elizabeth.
“He doesn’t? Why, his arm is as big–––”
“No, no! I mean he doesn’t look like a minister.”
“He ain’t like none I ever see. He used to ship with me during the summer months when he was in school, and he’s man clean to the ground. I can’t see why in tarnation a big feller like him wants to take up such a sissy’s job of piloting a lot of women to heaven.” ”

“ You mean to throw him out of a job, and you mean to keep him from getting another by working through that Means hypocrite. Yes, I can see through you, as plain as a slit canvas. There’s something infernal back of all this, and that something is your goat. You’re skeered that the minister is going to get it, and that’s what is ailing you. By God! I’ll be on deck to help him, whether he’s a preacher or a detective from Australia looking for crooks. You’ve been lying all these years about where you made your money. ”

“ Unless a man can learn that, he had better stay out of the ring. What is true in boxing, is just as true in life.”
“But, when there are those who threaten to 204 wreck your whole life and your work, what are you going to do?”
“That is the time when one needs to summon every ounce of self-control he possesses. It is when the other man is seeking to land a knock-out blow that one needs to keep his head the coolest, for unless he does he can’t make his best calculations.”
“Oh, Mr. McGowan! You’ll keep that way in this trouble, and not let any of them get in that kind of blow?” ”

“ We cannot afford to permit our churches to suffer from such teachings as those given you to-night, and I dare say, which have been given you many times past. Brethren, as great as is our love for this young minister, it is as nothing in comparison with the devotion that should be ours where the doctrines of our church are concerned. I opposed the ordination of Mr. McGowan in the New York Presbytery a year ago on the ground that he was not sound in doctrine, but when my brethren passed him over my protest I acquiesced as a Christian must always do when the voice of the majority speaks. ”

“ Lord, Jim!” cried the Captain, aiming a powerful finger in the direction of the Elder. “I’ve got proof enough to lock you up in the London Towers, or wherever it was you let Adoniah suffer for your infernal wickedness. Proof! Hell! You ain’t that big a fool. Set still and hear me. You never see the shores of Africa. It was in Australia that you and Adoniah got in with that trader Rogers,––Emmie’s father,––and you was getting rich trading in opals. Then, the both of you fell in love with Emmie, and Adoniah beat you out and married her. ”

“ The Elder tried to smile.
“I had good reason to go slow. A mite of caution is a purty fair endowment of nature where some people’s schemes is concerned. If I’d used a little of it last spring I’d not be in the fix I am to-day.”
“But that bump of caution on your head is pretty hard on your friends.”
“I cal’late it won’t hurt my friends none. We wa’n’t speaking of them just then. Anyhow, it’s kept me with a clean conscience to sleep with, and I’d a heap sight rather ship with clear rigging than be ballasted with some 233 people’s money and have to make bedfellows with their conscience.” ”

“ A little wizened-looking man smiled cordially and addressed the chair, but the “chair” seemed oblivious to all about him.
“Should not the ministry of to-day place greater emphasis on the philosophy of life than upon time-worn theology that has come to us from the middle ages?” asked the man.
“We should preach both where they affect life; neither where they do not,” was the quick response.
“I am an instructor in philosophy in the high school over at Marble Point, and I was led by your last reply concerning your belief in the book of Genesis to believe you are somewhat of a philosopher. ”

“ Harold followed with his eyes the direction of her gaze. His hand tightened in hers. The minister had just recognized them, and was waving his cap high over his head in welcome. Elizabeth lifted her handkerchief and permitted the light breeze to flutter it. Harold answered with a swing of his arm. Mr. McGowan started toward them.
“Drive me home, Harold. I can’t see him now.”
“But, Sis, this may be our only time together. Tell me what to do. I’m lost. I don’t know which way to turn.”
“I must see Uncle Josiah first. He has had time to think a lot, and he may know how to help us. ”

“ The man he mentioned was a trader in Sydney. He had married an only daughter of an older trader, and then something happened. The younger man disappeared very suddenly. The old trader searched for years, but in vain. Recently, he died, leaving a large estate. His wife has taken up the search for the lost daughter. It was the name of the old trader’s son-in-law that crumpled up Mr. Fox like an autumn leaf. The young trader’s name was Adoniah Phillips.”
Though he had been anticipating this, the Captain fell back into his chair and stared blankly at the minister. ”