There were moments when he felt, as every man, howsoever brave, must feel at times, that he would like to shift all his responsibilities and go away from the place that seemed destined to tax his powers beyond their capability of endurance. What could he do for the inhabitants of Mt. Hope? What was required of him to do? Ever through his mind ran that world-old question: "Am I my brother"s keeper?" He had never asked, "Are these people my brothers?"
He was up early the next morning, and as soon as breakfast was done, he sat down to add a few touches to the sermon he had prepared as his introduction. It was not the first time that he had retouched it and polished it up here and there. Indeed, he had taken some pride in it.
But as he read it over that day, it did not sound to him as it had sounded before. It appeared flat and without substance. After a while he laid it aside, telling himself that he was nervous and it was on this account that he could not see matters as he did in his calmer moments.
He told himself, too, that he must not again take up the offending discourse until time to use it, lest the discovery of more imaginary flaws should so weaken his confidence that he would not be able to deliver it with effect.
In order better to keep his resolve, he put on his hat and went out for a walk through the streets of Mt. Hope. He did not find an encouraging prospect as he went along. The Negroes whom he met viewed him with ill-favor, and the whites who pa.s.sed looked on him with unconcealed distrust and contempt. He began to feel lost, alone, and helpless. The squalor and shiftlessness which were plainly in evidence about the houses which he saw filled him with disgust and a dreary hopelessness.
He pa.s.sed vacant lots which lay open and inviting children to healthful play; but instead of marbles or leap-frog or ball, he found little boys in ragged knickerbockers huddled together on the ground, "shooting c.r.a.ps" with precocious avidity and quarreling over the pennies that made the pitiful wagers. He heard glib profanity rolling from the lips of children who should have been stumbling through baby catechisms; and his heart ached for them.
He would have turned and gone back to his room, but the sound of shouts, laughter, and the tum-tum of a musical instrument drew him on down the street. At the turn of a corner, the place from which the noise emanated met his eyes. It was a rude frame building, low and unpainted. The panes in its windows whose places had not been supplied by sheets of tin were daubed a dingy red. Numerous kegs and bottles on the outside attested the nature of the place. The front door was open, but the interior was concealed by a gaudy curtain stretched across the entrance within. Over the door was the inscription, in straggling characters, "Sander"s Place;" and when he saw half-a-dozen Negroes enter, the minister knew instantly that he now beheld the colored saloon which was the frequenting-place of his hostess"s son "Lias; and he wondered, if, as the mother said, her boy was not bad, how anything good could be preserved in such a place of evil.
The cries of boisterous laughter mingled with the strumming of the banjo and the shuffling of feet told him that they were engaged in one of their rude hoe-down dances. He had not pa.s.sed a dozen paces beyond the door when the music was suddenly stopped, the sound of a quick blow followed, then ensued a scuffle, and a young fellow half ran, half fell through the open door. He was closely followed by a heavily built ruffian who was striking him as he ran. The young fellow was very much the weaker and slighter of the two, and was suffering great punishment.
In an instant all the preacher"s sense of justice was stung into sudden life. Just as the brute was about to give his victim a blow that would have sent him into the gutter, he felt his arm grasped in a detaining hold and heard a commanding voice,--"Stop!"
He turned with increased fury upon this meddler, but his other wrist was caught and held in a vise-like grip. For a moment the two men looked into each other"s eyes. Hot words rose to the young man"s lips, but he choked them back. Until this moment he had deplored the possession of a spirit so easily fired that it had been a test of his manhood to keep from "slugging" on the football field; now he was glad of it. He did not attempt to strike the man, but stood holding his arms and meeting the brute glare with manly flashing eyes. Either the natural cowardice of the bully or something in his new opponent"s face had quelled the big fellow"s spirit, and he said doggedly, "Lemme go. I wasn"t a-go"n to kill him no-how, but ef I ketch him dancin" with my gal any mo", I----"
He cast a glance full of malice at his victim, who stood on the pavement a few feet away, as much amazed as the dumfounded crowd which thronged the door of "Sander"s Place." Loosing his hold, the preacher turned, and, putting his hand on the young fellow"s shoulder, led him away.
For a time they walked on in silence. Dokesbury had to calm the tempest in his breast before he could trust his voice. After a while he said: "That fellow was making it pretty hot for you, my young friend. What had you done to him?"
"Nothin"," replied the other. "I was jes" dancin" "long an" not thinkin"
"bout him, when all of a sudden he hollered dat I had his gal an"
commenced hittin" me."
"He"s a bully and a coward, or he would not have made use of his superior strength in that way. What"s your name, friend?"
""Lias Gray," was the answer, which startled the minister into exclaiming,--
"What! are you Aunt Caroline"s son?"
"Yes, suh, I sho is; does you know my mothah?"
"Why, I"m stopping with her, and we were talking about you last night.
My name is Dokesbury, and I am to take charge of the church here."
"I thought mebbe you was a preachah, but I couldn"t scarcely believe it after I seen de way you held Sam an" looked at him."
Dokesbury laughed, and his merriment seemed to make his companion feel better, for the sullen, abashed look left his face, and he laughed a little himself as he said: "I wasn"t a-pesterin" Sam, but I tell you he pestered me mighty."
Dokesbury looked into the boy"s face,--he was hardly more than a boy,--lit up as it was by a smile, and concluded that Aunt Caroline was right. "Lias might be "ca"less," but he wasn"t a bad boy. The face was too open and the eyes too honest for that. "Lias wasn"t bad; but environment does so much, and he would be if something were not done for him. Here, then, was work for a pastor"s hands.
"You"ll walk on home with me, "Lias, won"t you?"
"I reckon I mout ez well," replied the boy. "I don"t stay erroun" home ez much ez I oughter."
"You"ll be around more, of course, now that I am there. It will be so much less lonesome for two young people than for one. Then, you can be a great help to me, too."
The preacher did not look down to see how wide his listener"s eyes grew as he answered: "Oh, I ain"t fittin" to be no he"p to you, suh. Fust thing, I ain"t nevah got religion, an" then I ain"t well larned enough."
"Oh, there are a thousand other ways in which you can help, and I feel sure that you will."
"Of co"se, I"ll do de ve"y bes" I kin."
"There is one thing I want you to do soon, as a favor to me."
"I can"t go to de mou"nah"s bench," cried the boy, in consternation.
"And I don"t want you to," was the calm reply.
Another look of wide-eyed astonishment took in the preacher"s face.
These were strange words from one of his guild. But without noticing the surprise he had created, Dokesbury went on: "What I want is that you will take me fishing as soon as you can. I never get tired of fishing and I am anxious to go here. Tom Scott says you fish a great deal about here."
"Why, we kin go dis ve"y afternoon," exclaimed "Lias, in relief and delight; "I"s mighty fond o" fishin", myse"f."
"All right; I"m in your hands from now on."
"Lias drew his shoulders up, with an unconscious motion. The preacher saw it, and mentally rejoiced. He felt that the first thing the boy beside him needed was a consciousness of responsibility, and the lifted shoulders meant progress in that direction, a sort of physical straightening up to correspond with the moral one.
On seeing her son walk in with the minister, Aunt "Ca"line"s" delight was boundless. "La! Brothah Dokesbury," she exclaimed, "wha"d you fin"
dat scamp?"
"Oh, down the street here," the young man replied lightly. "I got hold of his name and made myself acquainted, so he came home to go fishing with me."
""Lias is pow"ful fon" o" fishin", hisse"f. I "low he kin show you some mighty good places. Cain"t you, "Lias?"
"I reckon."
"Lias was thinking. He was distinctly grateful that the circ.u.mstances of his meeting with the minister had been so deftly pa.s.sed over. But with a half idea of the superior moral responsibility under which a man in Dokesbury"s position labored, he wondered vaguely--to put it in his own thought-words--"ef de preachah hadn"t put" nigh lied." However, he was willing to forgive this little lapse of veracity, if such it was, out of consideration for the anxiety it spared his mother.
When Stephen Gray came in to dinner, he was no less pleased than his wife to note the terms of friendship on which the minister received his son. On his face was the first smile that Dokesbury had seen there, and he awakened from his taciturnity and proffered much information as to the fishing-places thereabout. The young minister accounted this a distinct gain. Anything more than a frowning silence from the "little yaller man" was gain.
The fishing that afternoon was particularly good. Catfish, chubs, and suckers were landed in numbers sufficient to please the heart of any amateur angler.
"Lias was happy, and the minister was in the best of spirits, for his charge seemed promising. He looked on at the boy"s jovial face, and laughed within himself; for, mused he, "it is so much harder for the devil to get into a cheerful heart than into a sullen, gloomy one." By the time they were ready to go home Harold Dokesbury had received a promise from "Lias to attend service the next morning and hear the sermon.
There was a great jollification over the fish supper that night, and "Lias and the minister were the heroes of the occasion. The old man again broke his silence, and recounted, with infinite dryness, ancient tales of his prowess with rod and line; while Aunt "Ca"line" told of famous fish suppers that in the bygone days she had cooked for "de white folks." In the midst of it all, however, "Lias disappeared. No one had noticed when he slipped out, but all seemed to become conscious of his absence about the same time. The talk shifted, and finally simmered into silence.
When the Rev. Mr. Dokesbury went to bed that night, his charge had not yet returned.
The young minister woke early on the Sabbath morning, and he may be forgiven that the prospect of the ordeal through which he had to pa.s.s drove his care for "Lias out of mind for the first few hours. But as he walked to church, flanked on one side by Aunt Caroline in the stiffest of ginghams and on the other by her husband stately in the magnificence of an antiquated "Jim-swinger," his mind went back to the boy with sorrow. Where was he? What was he doing? Had the fear of a dull church service frightened him back to his old habits and haunts? There was a new sadness at the preacher"s heart as he threaded his way down the crowded church and ascended the rude pulpit.
The church was stiflingly hot, and the morning sun still beat relentlessly in through the plain windows. The seats were rude wooden benches, in some instances without backs. To the right, filling the inner corner, sat the pillars of the church, stern, grim, and critical.
Opposite them, and, like them, in seats at right angles to the main body, sat the older sisters, some of them dressed with good old-fashioned simplicity, while others yielding to newer tendencies were gotten up in gaudy attempts at finery. In the rear seats a dozen or so much beribboned mulatto girls t.i.ttered and giggled, and cast bold glances at the minister.
The young man sighed as he placed the ma.n.u.script of his sermon between the leaves of the tattered Bible. "And this is Mt. Hope," he was again saying to himself.
It was after the prayer and in the midst of the second hymn that a more p.r.o.nounced t.i.tter from the back seats drew his attention. He raised his head to cast a reproving glance at the irreverent, but the sight that met his eyes turned that look into one of horror. "Lias had just entered the church, and with every mark of beastly intoxication was staggering up the aisle to a seat, into which he tumbled in a drunken heap. The preacher"s soul turned sick within him, and his eyes sought the face of the mother and father. The old woman was wiping her eyes, and the old man sat with his gaze bent upon the floor, lines of sorrow drawn about his wrinkled mouth.
All of a sudden a great revulsion of feeling came over Dokesbury.
Trembling he rose and opened the Bible. There lay his sermon, polished and perfected. The opening lines seemed to him like glints from a bright cold crystal. What had he to say to these people, when the full realization of human sorrow and care and of human degradation had just come to him? What had they to do with firstlies and secondlies, with premises and conclusions? What they wanted was a strong hand to help them over the hard places of life and a loud voice to cheer them through the dark. He closed the book again upon his precious sermon. A something new had been born in his heart. He let his glance rest for another instant on the mother"s pained face and the father"s bowed form, and then turning to the congregation began, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Out of the fullness of his heart he spoke unto them. Their great need informed his utterance. He forgot his carefully turned sentences and perfectly rounded periods. He forgot all save that here was the well-being of a community put into his hands whose real condition he had not even suspected until now. The situation wrought him up. His words went forth like winged fire, and the emotional people were moved beyond control. They shouted, and clapped their hands, and praised the Lord loudly.