Elmer Gantry

“ But even to the schoolboy-wearied faculty who had done the ramming, who ought to have seen the sources, it was still astonishing that after four years of grunting, Elmer Gantry should come out with these flourishes, which they took perfectly seriously, for they themselves had been nurtured in minute Baptist and Campbellite colleges.
Not one of them considered that there could be anything comic in the spectacle of a large young man, divinely fitted for coal-heaving, standing up and wallowing in thick slippery words about Love and the Soul. ”

“ The little man treated Elmer like a large damp dog, and Elmer licked his shoes and followed.
He also knew that Jim, as quarter, was far more the soul of the team than himself as tackle and captain.
A huge young man, Elmer Gantry; six foot one, thick, broad, big handed; a large face, handsome as a Great Dane is handsome, and a swirl of black hair, worn rather long. His eyes were friendly, his smile was friendly--oh, he was always friendly enough ”

“ Young men sobbed and knelt; a woman shrieked; people were elbowing the standers in the aisles and pushing forward to kneel in agonized happiness, and suddenly they were setting relentlessly on a bewildered Elmer Gantry, who had been betrayed into forgetting himself, into longing to be one with Judson Roberts. ”

“ Elmer fully believed it, for that delightful moment. "These boys are classmates of mine, and they're going to have a chance to speak!"
Eddie Fislinger bleated to his mates, "Oh, fellows, Elm Gantry! Saved!"
Even this alarming interpretation of his motives could not keep Elmer now from the holy zeal of fighting. He thrust aside the one aged man who stood between him and the baker--bashing in the aged one's derby and making him telescope like a turtle's neck--and stood with his fist working like a connecting-rod by his side. ”

“ V The Reverend Elmer Gantry was reading an illustrated pink periodical devoted to prize fighters and chorus girls in his room at Elizabeth J. Schmutz Hall late of an afternoon when two large men walked in without knocking.
“Why, good evening, Brother Bains—Brother Naylor! This is a pleasant surprise. I was, uh—— Did you ever see this horrible rag? About actoresses. An invention of the devil himself. I was thinking of denouncing it next Sunday. I hope you never read it—won’t you sit down, gentlemen?—take this chair—— I hope you never read it, Brother Floyd, because the footsteps of—” ”

“ Though Elmer detested Eddie's sappiness, though he might have liked to share drinks with the lively young baker-heckler, there was no really good unctuous violence to be had except by turning champion of religion. The packed crowd excited him, and the pressure of rough bodies, the smell of wet overcoats, the rumble of mob voices. It was like a football line-up.
"Here, you!" he roared at the baker. "Let the fellow speak! Give him a chance. Whyn't you pick on somebody your own size, you big stiff!"
At his elbow, Jim Lefferts begged, "Let's get out of this, Hell-cat. Good Lord! ”

“ Oh, yes, Brother Elmer was a fine young man—so strong—they all admired him—a little too much tempted by the vain gauds of This World, but that was because he was young. Oh, yes, some day Elmer would settle down and be a fine Christian husband and father and business man. But as to the ministry—no. Mrs. Gantry must not too greatly meddle with these mysteries. It was up to God. A fellow had to have a Call before he felt his vocation for the ministry; a real overwhelming mysterious knock-down Call, such as Eddie himself had ecstatically experienced, one evening in a cabbage patch. ”

“ Elmer was safe nowhere. No sooner had he disposed of one disciple, by the use of spirited and blasphemous arguments patiently taught to him by Jim, than another would pop out from behind a tree and fall on him.
At his boarding-house--Mother Metzger's, over on Beech Street--a Y.M.C.A. dervish crowed as he passed the bread to Elmer, "Jever study a kernel of wheat? Swonnerful! Think a wonnerful intricate thing like that created itself? Somebody must have created it. Who? God! Anybody that don't recognize God in Nature--and acknowledge him in repentance--is dumm. That's what he is!" ”

“ Elmer Gantry, in his next sermon, said that he was so broad-minded that he would be willing to receive an Infidel Shallard in his church, providing he repented.
VIII When he found that he liked the Charity Organization Society and his work in that bleak institution no better than his work in the church, Frank laughed.
“As Bess said! A consistent malcontent! Well, I am consistent, anyway. And the relief not to be a preacher any more! Not to have to act sanctimonious! Not to have men consider you an old woman in trousers! To be able to laugh without watching its effect!” ”

“ Great John God!"
"Why, Elmer Gantry!" It was the Sunday School teacher who was shocked now. She sat up on her knees.
"Lulukins! Of all the damned fool baby-talk I ever heard that takes the cake! That's got 'em all beat! For God's sake try to talk like a human being! And don't go squatting there. Suppose somebody came in. Are you deliberately going to work to ruin me? . . . Lulukins!"
She stood up, fists tight. "What have I done? I didn't mean to hurt you! Oh, I didn't, dearest! Please forgive me! I just came in to s'prise you!"
"Huh! You s'prised me all right!"
"Dear! Please! I'm so sorry. ”

“ On Friday Elmer held morning meeting instead of evening meeting, and arranged that Lulu and Floyd and he should have picnic supper in the sycamore grove near the Bains house. He suggested it in a jocund idyllic way, and Lulu brightened. On their way to the grove with their baskets she sighed to him, as they walked behind Floyd, "Oh, why have you been so cold to me? Have I offended you again, dear?"
He let her have it, brutally: "Oh, don't be such a damned whiner! Can't you act as if you had some brains, just for once?" ”

“ Tonight Elmer’s mind reeked with it, and he who had been almost silent during the ecclesiastical wrangling was voluble now. The youngsters panted as he chronicled his meetings with a willing choir-singer, this summer past.
“Tell me—tell me,” fretted Don. “Do girls, oh—nice girls—do they really ever—uh—go with a preacher? And aren’t you ashamed to face them afterwards, in church?”
“Huh!” observed Zenz, and “Ashamed? They worship you!” declared Elmer. “They stand by you the way no wife ever would—as long as they do fall for you. ”

“ Elmer ranged up beside his musical friend, Art Nichols, and as they humped up the steps of a day-coach he muttered, "Art! Art! Got your stomach-medicine here!"
"Great!"
"Say. Look. Fix it so you sit with Sharon. Then pretty soon go out for a smoke--"
"She don't like smoking."
"You don't need to tell her what for! Go out so I can sit down and talk to her for a while. Important business. Here: stick this in your pocket. And I'll dig up s'more for you at Lincoln. Now hustle and get in with her." ”

“ Rigg had driven home. Elmer sat by himself on the huge porch of the Tonawanda Club, a long gray countryhouse on a hill sloping to the Appleseed River, with tawny fields of barley among orchards on the bank beyond. The golf-course was scattered with men in Harris tweeds, girls in short skirts which fluttered about their legs. A man in white flannels drove up in a Rolls-Royce roadster--the only one in Zenith as yet--and Elmer felt ennobled by belonging to the same club with a Rolls-Royce. ”

“ Frank complained while they were laboring along the track after church at Schoenheim:
"Look here, Gantry, something's got to be done. I'm not satisfied about you and Lulu. I've caught you looking at each other. And I suspect you've been talking to the dean about Dr. Zechlin. I'm afraid I've got to go to the dean myself. You're not fit to have a pastorate."
Elmer stopped pumping, glared, rubbed his mittened hands on his thighs, and spoke steadily:
"I've been waiting for this! I'm impulsive--sure; I make bad mistakes--every red-blooded man does. But what about you? ”

“ Of course praying and all that is all O.K., but you got to be practical! We're here to do good, but first you have to cinch a job that you can do good in!"
"You're commercial!" protested Eddie Fislinger, and Frank Shallard: "Good heavens, Gantry, is that all your religion means to you?"
"Besides," said Horace Carp, "you have the wrong angle. It isn't mere brute force that appeals to women--to congregations. It's a beautiful voice. I don't envy you your bulk, Elmer--besides, you're going to get fat--"
"I am like hell!" ”

“ Young Gantry seemed to feel an unmistakable divine call. Something struck him that just uplifted him. He’s got a lot of power. Only—”
The dean irritably sat down in a cane-seated rocker, jerked off his shoes, grunted, drew on his slippers.
“Only, hang it, I simply can’t get myself to like him! Emma, tell me: If I were his age now, do you think I’d go into the ministry, as things are today?”
“Why, Henry! What in the world ever makes you say a thing like that? Of course you would! Why, if that weren’t the case— What would our whole lives mean, all we’ve given up and everything?” ”

“ Elmer Gantry never knew who sent him thirty dimes, wrapped in a tract about holiness, nor why. But he found the sentiments in the tract useful in a sermon, and the thirty dimes he spent for lively photographs of burlesque ladies. ”

“ Early left a widow by Logan Gantry, dealer in feed, flour, lumber, and agricultural implements, a large and agreeable man given to debts and whisky, she had supported herself and Elmer by sewing, trimming hats, baking bread, and selling milk. She had her own millinery and dressmaking shop now, narrow and dim but proudly set right on Main Street, and she was able to give Elmer the three hundred dollars a year which, with his summer earnings in harvest field and lumber-yard, was enough to support him—in Terwillinger, in 1902.
She had always wanted Elmer to be a preacher. ”

“ Six preachers had combined to assist the Paris parson in his ceremony, and one of them was no less than the Rev. Dr. Ingle, come all the way from St. Joe, where he was said to have a Sunday School of six hundred. As a young man--very thin and eloquent in a frock coat--Dr. Ingle had for six months preached in Paris, and Mrs. Gantry remembered him as her favorite minister. He had been so kind to her when she was ill; had come in to read "Ben Hur" aloud, and tell stories to a chunky little Elmer given to hiding behind furniture and heaving vegetables at visitors. ”

“ From the little man came an odor of whisky which stirred Elmer powerfully. So long since he'd had a drink! Nothing for two months except a few nips of hard cider which Lulu had dutifully stolen for him from her father's cask.
"Well, what is your line, Brother?" said the little man.
"I'm in the shoe game."
"Well, that's a fine game. Yes-sir, people do have to have shoes, no matter if they're hard up or not. My name's Ad Locust--Jesus, think of it, the folks named me Adney--can you beat that--ain't that one hell of a name for a fellow that likes to get out with the boys and have a good time! ”

“ On his knees, Elmer told the Lord that he had been dealt with as no man before or since. The dean approved his agonies very much.
“There, there, my boy. The Lord will lighten your burden in his own good time. Perhaps this will be a blessing in disguise—you’re lucky to get rid of such a woman, and this will give you that humility, that deeper thirsting after righteousness, which I’ve always felt you lacked, despite your splendid pulpit voice. ”

“ Elmer listened as little as possible, but he was too feeble to make threats.
It was a golden relief when the train bumped to a stop at Gritzmacher Springs. The station was a greasy wooden box, the platform was thick with slush, under the kerosene lights. But Jim was awaiting him, a refuge from confusing theological questions, and with a furious “G’night!” to Eddie he staggered off. ”

“ He lunched with Sharon and Elmer.
"Which hymns do you find the most effective when you make your appeal for converts, Dr. Binch?" asked Elmer.
"Well, I'll tell you, Brother Gantry," said the authority. "I think 'Just as I Am' and 'Jesus, I Am Coming Home' hit real folksy hearts like nothing else."
"Oh, I'm afraid I don't agree with you," protested Sharon. "It seems to me--of course you have far more experience and talent than I, Dr. Binch--"
"Not at all, my dear sister," said Dr. Binch, with a leer which sickened Elmer with jealousy. "You are young, but all of us recognize your genius." ”

“ Where are you staying in Lincoln?
"Now see here, Brother Gantry--"
"Elmer!"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous! Just because I'm so fagged out that it's nice to play at being a human being, don't try to take advantage--"
"Sharon Falconer, will you quit being a chump? I admire your genius, your wonderful work for God, but it's because you're too big to just be a professional gospel-shouter every minute that I most admire you. You know mighty good and well that you like to be simple and even slangy for a while. ”

“ It was pleasant to be small in her presence and look up to her.
What the "something about church work" which he was going to ask her was, he had no notion, but Elmer was a very ready talker in the presence of young women. He launched out:
"I need your advice. I've never met anybody that combined common sense and spiritual values like what you do."
"Oh, my, you're just flattering me, Brother Gantry!"
"No, I'm not. Honest, I ain't! You don't appreciate yourself. ”

“ Say, Elmer, I've got some of the best Bourbon you or anybody else ever laid your face to right here in my hip pocket. I suppose you being in a highbrow business like the shoe business, you'd just about faint if I was to offer you a little something to cure that cough!"
"I guess I would, all right; yes-sir, I'd just about faint."
"Well, you're a pretty big fellow, and you ought to try to control yourself." ”