CHAPTER XV
That evening Minister Graves came blustering in after his family were seated at the table. What was this ridiculous thing that he had heard? His home disgraced, his position ruined, his children ostracized. He glanced at Teola and Frederick. His wife, fastening Babe's napkin under the child's chin, remonstrated.
"Why, father, what's the trouble?"
"I was making a clerical call on Mrs. Robman to-day," fumed the Dominie, "and that girl of hers, and a saucy one she is, too, burst into the room, and, mother, what tale do you think she told—before us?"
Frederick glanced at his sister, but Teola's eyes were upon her empty plate. Mrs. Graves shook her head.
"That that Skinner girl came here last night and in all her rags and filth drank coffee from our daughter's cup! Madame, did you ever imagine that such a disgrace could fall upon you?"
Mrs. Graves looked helplessly from her husband's distorted face to her son and daughter.
"She came into your home," went on the minister, "and was asked to take refreshments from your cups. Mrs. Robman said that she disliked to think that such degraded guests were allowed in your home.... Do you understand what that means, Mrs. Graves?"
"Let Frederick explain, father," pleaded the trembling wife; "he was going to speak and you stopped him. What and how did it happen?"
"The girl came to the Rectory to ask prayers for her father," said Frederick, an expression darkening his eyes which his mother dreaded.
"Prayers ... prayers!" roared the minister, "Prayers for a squatter and a murderer!... And drinking coffee from your cups. Such a disgrace can never be lifted from this house."
"What hurt did she do?" irreverently asked Babe. Frederick was thankful for the child's frank question.
"Hurt? Harm, you mean. If she should just hurt a person that could be mended. Harm was what she did!"
"What harm?" persisted Babe.
"Madam, you see your children are all growing up like heathens. There arn't any of the parents whose sons and daughters were here last night, who won't think a long time before they allow them to come again. You understand, don't you, that that squatter covered with germs of all kinds drank from your daughter's cup."
Mrs. Graves started preceptibly. She was noted for a fear of germs.
"Teola, your mouth must be scoured with peroxide ... Oh, if some one would only tell me how it all happened!"
Frederick rose from his chair and impulsively laid his hand on his mother's shoulder. To Teola he looked so tall and strong, so capable of explaining, that she rose, too.
"I will tell you mother," said the student. "The girl was in distress. In some way she had been led to believe that prayers, effective prayers, could bring about any desired result. She simply came to ask us to pray for her father."
Teola was by his side now, reassuringly pressing his arm.
"And where would she go," she broke in suddenly, "if not to a minister's home?"
The pastor's whole family, at least the members that had been submissive—for Babe had always challenged her father's commands—was rising against him. His wife, instead of taking her willful children to task, was weeping; his son and daughter stood beside her refuting every word he said. He brought down his hand with a bang, his eyes narrowing into a slit.
"You will every one do as I say," he cried. "Frederick, you are to stay away from classes for two days, your professors knowing that you have disobeyed your father. If your fellow students ask you why you are absent, you must tell them what I have said. And, you, Teola—"
Frederick stopped the rush of words.
"If I stay away from college two days," he said in a low tone, so deliberate that every word burned into the mother's brain, "I shall never go back again. I am no longer a child and I won't be punished. And what is more, I shall leave your home forever. You may take your choice, father, but not until I make another statement. The girl from the lake asked me to pray for her. That is my intention, and I shall do more if possible. I shall use every bit of influence I have to aid her father to escape hanging.... Also, if you punish Teola, you will never see me again."
Mrs. Graves had risen from her chair. She walked straight to her son—placed her hand upon him.
"Frederick, you wouldn't leave your mother?"
The strong arm pressed about the wearied little form reassuringly.
"And you can bet, papa Graves," put in Babe, "that I'll go with mamma any old day, that's what I will."
Teola stood irresolutely, looking first at Frederick, then at her father. She went toward the minister and almost whispered,
"Father, let me speak! The girl came without having been invited by anyone, and she did not stay five minutes. She was drenched through, and cold ... I gave her my cup of coffee, and she stated her errand and went away."
The minister rose, leaving his supper untouched, put on his overcoat, not one remonstrating word coming from his family, and went out.
Pastor Graves made his way up the town through the main street to Bates' drug-store, his hunger having died in his anger and amazement.
He was positive that he could have brought his children to terms, had not their mother taken sides with them. His thoughts went back to the early days of his married life when nothing had disturbed their peace; the children obeyed, and Mrs. Graves thought her husband's word the essence of all law.
He turned into the drug-store in the middle of the block. Here met, nearly every evening, the head ones of his flock for a little while to talk over religion and politics. Outsiders called it the "Amen Corner" of Ithaca.
"Ah," exclaimed the druggist, "you're early, Graves. Must have had your supper at the going down of the sun."
Graves coughed his embarrassment and sat down.
"Feeling sick, Elias?"
The druggist opened the door for a child to pass out.
"No, not ill, only disgusted with the world in general."
"Skinner's girl coming to the court went against your notions, eh?"
"And every one else's with any sense," snapped Graves.
"Professor Young stopped in here to-day on his way up the hill," resumed Bates, "he had been over to the jail, talking to Skinner, and he says that the man will be murdered if the state hangs him."
"That's all Young knows about it," growled the minister. "You and I know these people, Bates, better then Young does, and Skinner's word isn't worth the powder to blow it up with."
Bates took his accustomary position on the book-keeper's stool and spread his long hands out on his knees.
"Well, the professor says," he went on, "that Skinner can prove that he didn't use the gun."
"How can he prove it?" asked Graves sharply, "only by the oaths of men with no more veracity than he has. I wouldn't believe one of those squatters if he used the sacred oath twenty times over."
"Maybe the next jury will think differently," argued the druggist.
"Bigger fools they then," interrupted Graves. "I don't know what the town is coming to if the fishermen can shoot down our officials without even remonstrance. I'll tell you what, Bates, there'll be a city war over Skinner. Let Young take up the cudgel, and I'll see what the church can do. There's power in the pulpit, I can tell you that."
Bates agreed to this.
"If the citizens of this city," continued the minister, encouraged by the evident acquiescence of the druggist, "should take this matter up as a body, ten men like Young couldn't bring about Skinner's acquittal."
"I'm not so sure," muttered Bates.
"I'm sure," insisted Graves strenuously, "very sure, for, if to a man every one is ready to do his duty, what kind of a jury could they have? Like yesterday's—conviction, swift and sure."
"But" objected the druggist, "a juror who takes his oath in a murder case, must know little or nothing of it. Men would not be accepted if for a week or month they had listened to combative sermons against the prisoner. And you certainly wouldn't have a juror perjure himself, would you, Graves?"
"The district attorney is no fool," replied the minister, softening his argument under the shocked expression of Bates; "he knows when the state is to be benefited by the outcome of a trial. He can leave off certain questions; it has been done."
"I know it," interrupted Bates. "But—it seems hardly fair."
Just then the door opened, and Silas Jones, the richest man in the town, took his seat with the other two "Ameners." The fascinating subject of the day, the unusualness of the squatter trial and the girl with the singing voice, continued to be the topic of conversation. Minister Graves' family, in standing out against him in a matter so near his heart, only strengthened his desire to see the end as he wished it to be—the sentence of yesterday executed against the fisherman without another trial.
"Young lost his senses to-day, don't you think so, Silas?" he asked.
"Well," drawled Jones, "if Skinner didn't commit willful murder, I'd hate to see him hang. It wouldn't do any harm as I see to give him another chance."
"You'll change your mind in church next Sunday," commented the parson. "I'm going to show every man his duty clear and plain."
He brought down his hand upon his knee with an egotistical slap.
"All folks don't think the same way you do, Dominie," persisted Jones. "Now then, Bill Hopkins of the toggery shop, he don't believe in women speakin' in meetin'."
The minister distinctly remembered this. More than once had he taken the delinquent Bill Hopkins to task for taking his letter to another church, but Bill could not be induced to return, because the creed had not been followed by its members, nor enforced by the shepherd of the flock.
Hopkins was the best-read man in the whole county, and his voice went far when he spoke, but for over a year his place among the "Ameners" had been vacant—also his pew in Graves' church. The Dominie needed such men as Bill in his congregation if he would win his fight against the squatters. These thoughts were prominent in his mind when the door admitted a great gust of wind—and the famous Bill Hopkins. The parson caught his breath. Bill spoke a genial good-evening, shook hands around, and bought a small bottle of witch-hazel, some camphor, and was about to leave, when Graves ejaculated:
"Sit down, Bill."
Bill sat down, took his hat from his bald head, and placed his fingers complacently around a smooth white wart on his cranium, and waited.
He looked questioningly at the rich man, and the druggist with the wide-spread hands. The church subject had been thrashed out long ago—the women of the congregation gaining the day in spite of the august presence of some of the deacons, who openly declared that the female portion of the church was unbecomingly usurping the authority of the men. Because of this flagrant disobedience of the church's creed, Bill Hopkins had taken his name from the roll, and was known to have said that he would not be led by a shepherd who could not order his flock. To-night he smacked his lips for the coming argument while the minister, glad to have him among them again, felt his hopes rise higher.
Bates flattened his hands with delight, noticing a smile that drew down the corners of Jones' lips. Long ago the pleasant religious argument of Ithaca's "Amen" corner had become a thing of the past, because of the absence of Bill Hopkins. He had been the zest of the crowd.
The Dominie, forgetting his grievance of the supper table, straightened himself for the combat. He had suddenly conceived a plan whereby he could gain a friend to aid him in the coming squatter fight. Bill Hopkins still waited with a quizzical expression in his shaggy-browed eyes.
"Strange happenings in town for a few days past," said Graves.
"The Skinner case?" asked Bill, rubbing gently the smooth white wart.
"Yes," assented the minister. "What do you think of it all, Bill?"
"The girl's a brick," commented Hopkins—and sank into silence.
"The girl's not being tried for murder," rebuked the minister sharply.
"But she played her part with feelin' and power," was the drawling reply.
The clergyman saw a flitting expression of triumph in the druggist's face.
"She'd make a capital actress," ruminated Graves.
He glanced at the rich man to see if he coincided with him, but that gentleman was looking into the street.
"We all act in this world," excused Bill; "even you ministers use methods that you have found in elocution to bring your beliefs to bear upon your congregations."
Graves did not relish being classed with the squatter's child, but he made no comment upon it. He changed his tactics.
"Bill," said he, "have you altered your ideas about the church?"
"What ideas?"
"Well, about women having the privilege of speaking in meetings."
Bill shook his head, and Graves resumed:
"Well, I'm changing my mind ... I'm going to stop this nonsense."
The rich man sat up and the druggist, scenting a religious rumpus, drew his stool nearer. Bill coughed loudly.
"Those women," continued Graves, "have had their own way too long ... I shall put a stop to it immediately."
Bill Hopkins wondered what was coming. It behooved him to wait and see; so he settled back with his head bowed and his piercing eyes directed steadily upon the pastor. A dark flush mounted to the minister's face. He had expected that such condescension to an ex-member would be received with enthusiasm. As no other of the "Ameners" offered a word, Graves continued:
"Next thing that we know, the women will be coming into the church with uncovered heads. I wonder I've stood it so long."
Still Bill did not speak. He could remember that when the dispute had been at its height these had not been the sentiments of Pastor Graves. In fact, when a delegation had gone to the parsonage to demand obedience to the constitution of the church, the Dominie had replied that the ladies had come out victorious in the matter, and that it was an old-fashioned idea to forbid the women to speak or pray in public if they so wished; and the crest-fallen delegates had gone away from the rectory, and Bill Hopkins, with several others, from the church.
Seeing that not one of the respectable "Ameners" was going to help him, the Dominie sputtered out his wrath in another direction.
"If Young had kept his hands off that Skinner business, there wouldn't have been the slightest chance of the fisherman winning out."
"Ah! here's where the shoe pinches," thought Hopkins; "the parson needs help to wrest Skinner's squatter rights from him."
But he did not voice his thoughts.
"I guess that's right, Dominie," were his spoken words. "Skinner didn't have many friends in the court until that girl came in. She certainly did make a change in the ideas of most people in this town."
"Fools! to let a child like that break up the dignity of a court-room." Graves settled back angrily in his chair. He had lost in the game he was about to play with Bill Hopkins—lost before the game had begun.
"Skinner can thank his kid for his life, nevertheless," interjected Jones, "for another jury will never convict him.
"Think not?" queried the druggist.
Bates' question remained unanswered, for Dominie Graves turned the subject again.
"Bill, if I come out strong in the church and give you your own way in the disputed question, then you must do something for me. I'll speak to you later about it."
"Pretty far along in the day," was Bill's answer, "but as you please, Dominie. I don't know what you want, but most of your friends will stick by you if the church is run on its old plan and according to the creed and the Bible."
When Minister Graves walked home he felt that in spite of family differences he had scored a point in getting from Hopkins a tacit consent to come back into his congregation.