THE RAINY EVENING.
COOL, rainy evening, one of those sudden and sharp reminders of autumn that in our variable climate come to us in the midst of summer. The heavy clouds had made the day shut down early, and the rain was so persistent that it was useless to plan walks or rides, or entertainments of that nature. Also it was an evening when none but those who are habitual callers at special homes are expected.
One of these was Col. Baker. The idea of being detained by rain from spending the evening with Flossy Shipley did not occur to him; on the contrary, he rejoiced over the prospect of a long and uninterrupted talk. The more indifferent Flossy grew to these long talks the more eager was Col. Baker to enjoy them. The further she slipped away from him, the more eagerly he followed after. Perhaps that is human nature; at least it was Col. Baker's nature.
In some of his plans he was disappointed. Mrs. Shipley was gone for a three days' visit to a neighboring city, and Flossy was snugly settled in the back parlor entertaining her father.
"Show him right in here," directed her father, as soon as Col. Baker was announced. Then to Flossy: "Now we can have a game at cards as soon as Charlie comes in. Where is he?"
Rainy evenings, when four people could be secured sufficiently disengaged to join in his favorite amusement, was the special delight of Mr. Shipley. So behold them, half an hour after, deep in a game of cards, Col. Baker accepting the situation with as good a grace as he could assume, notwithstanding the fact that playing cards, simply for amusement, in that quiet way in a back parlor, was a good deal of a bore to him; but it would be bad policy to tell Mr. Shipley so. Their game was interrupted by a ring of the door-bell.
"Oh, dear!" said Mr. Shipley, "I hope that is no nuisance on business. One would think nothing but business would call people out on such a disagreeable night."
"As, for instance, myself," Col. Baker said, laughingly.
"Oh, you. Of course, special friends are an exception."
And Col. Baker was well pleased to be ranked among the exceptions. Meantime the ringer was heralded.
"It is Dr. Dennis, sir. Shall I show him in here?"
"I suppose so," Mr. Shipley said, gloomily, as one not well pleased; and he added, in under tone, "What on earth can the man want?"
Meantime Col. Baker, with a sudden dexterous move, unceremoniously swept the whole pack of cards out of sight under a paper by his side.
It so happened that Dr. Dennis' call was purely one of business; some item connected with the financial portion of the church, which Dr. Dennis desired to report in a special sermon that was being prepared.
Mr. Shipley, although he was so rarely an attendant at church, and made no secret of his indifference to the whole subject of personal religion, was yet a power in the financial world, and as such recognized and deferred to by the First Church.
Dr. Dennis was in haste, and beyond a specially cordial greeting for Flossy, and an expression of satisfaction at her success with the class the previous Sabbath, he had no more to say, and Mr. Shipley soon had the pleasure of bowing him out, rejoicing in his heart, as he did so, that the clergyman was so prompt a man.
"He would have made a capital business man," he said, returning to his seat. "I never come in contact with him that I don't notice a sort of executive ability about him that makes me think what a success he might have been."
There was no one to ask whether that remark meant that he was at present supposed to be a failure. There was another subject which presently engrossed several of them.
"Now be so kind as to give an account of yourself," Charlie Shipley said, addressing Col. Baker. "What on earth did you mean by making a muddle of our game in that way? I was in a fair way for winning. I suppose you won't own that that was your object."
Col. Baker laughed.
"My object was a purely benevolent one. I had a desire to shield your sister from the woebegone lecture she would have been sure to receive on the sinfulness of her course. If he had found her playing cards, what would have been the result?"
Mr. Shipley was the first to make answer, in a somewhat testy tone:
"Your generosity was uncalled for, Colonel. My daughter, when she is in her father's house, is answerable to him, and not to Dr. Dennis, or any other divine."
"I don't in the least understand what you are talking about," said mystified Flossy. "Of what interest could it have been to Dr. Dennis what I am doing; and why should he have delivered a lecture?"
Col. Baker and Charlie Shipley exchanged amused glances, and the former quoted, significantly:
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." Then he added, as Flossy still waited with questioning gaze: "Why, Miss Flossy, of course you know that the clergy think cards are synonyms for the deadly sin, and that to hold one in one's hand is equivalent to being poisoned, body and soul?"
"I am sure I did not know it. Why, I knew, of course, that gambling houses were not proper; but what is the harm in a game of cards? What can Dr. Dennis see, for instance, in our playing together here in this room, and simply for amusement?"
Col. Baker shrugged his handsome shoulders. That shrug meant a great deal, accomplished a great deal. It was nearly certain to silence a timid opposer; there was something so expressively sarcastic about it; it hid so much one felt sure Col. Baker might say if he deemed it prudent or worth while. It had often silenced Flossy into a conscious little laugh. To-night she was in earnest; she paid no attention to the shrug, but waited, questioningly, for her answer, and as it was her turn to play next, it seemed necessary to answer her if one wanted the game to go on.
"I am sure I don't know," Col. Baker said, at last. "I have very little idea what he would consider the harm; I am not sure that he would be able to tell. It is probably a narrow, strait-laced way that the cloth have of looking at this question, in common with all other questions, save prayer-meetings and almsgiving. Their lives are very much narrowed down, Miss Flossy."
Flossy was entirely unsatisfied. She had a higher opinion of Dr. Dennis' "breadth" than she had of Col. Baker's; she thought his life had a very much higher range; she was very much puzzled and annoyed. Her father came into the conflict:
"Come, come, Flossy, how long are you going to keep us waiting? It is of no particular consequence what Dr. Dennis thinks or does not think. He has a right to his own opinions. It is a free country."
Ah, but it did make a tremendous difference to Flossy. She had accepted Dr. Dennis as her pastor; she had determined to look to him for help and guidance in this new and strange path on which her feet had so lately entered.
She wondered if Col. Baker could be right. Was it possible that Dr. Dennis disapproved of cards played at home in this quiet way! If he did, why did he? And, another puzzling point, how did Col. Baker know it? They two certainly did not come in contact, that they should understand each other's ideas.
She went on with her card-playing, but she played very badly. More than once Col. Baker rallied her with good-humored sarcasm, and her father spoke impatiently. Flossy's interest in the game was gone; instead, her heart was busy with this new idea. She went back to it again in one of her pauses in the game.
"Col. Baker, don't you really know at all what arguments clergymen have against card-playing for amusement?"
Again that expressive shrug; but it had lost its power over Flossy, and its owner saw it, and made haste to answer her waiting eyes.
"I really am not familiar with their weapons of warfare; probably I could not appreciate them if I were; I only know that the entire class frown upon all such innocent devices for passing a rainy evening. But it never struck me as strange, because the fact is, they frown equally on all pastimes and entertainments of any sort; that is, a certain class do—fanatics, I believe, is the name they are known by. They believe, as nearly as I am capable of understanding their belief, that life should be spent in psalm-singing and praying."
Whereupon Flossy called to mind the witty things she had heard, and the merry laughs which had rung around her at Chautauqua, given by the most intense of these fanatics; she even remembered that she had seen two of the most celebrated in that direction playing with a party of young men and boys on the croquet ground, and laughing most uproariously over their defeat. It was all nonsense to try to compass her brain with such an argument as that; she shook her head resolutely.
"They do no such thing; I know some of them very well; I don't know of any people who have nicer times. How do you know these things, Col. Baker?"
Col. Baker essayed to be serious:
"Miss Flossy," he said, leaning over and fixing his handsome eyes impressively on her face, "is it possible you do not know that, as a rule, clergymen set their faces like a flint against all amusements of every sort? I do not mean that there are not exceptions, but I do mean most assuredly that Dr. Dennis is not one of them. He is as rigid as it is possible for mortal man to be.
"Herein is where the church does harm. In my own opinion, it is to blame for the most, if not for all, of the excesses of the day; they are the natural rebound of nerves that have been strained too tightly by the over-tension of the church."
Surely this was a fine sentence. The Flossy of a few weeks ago would have admired the smooth-sounding words and the exquisitely modulated voice as it rolled them forth. How had the present Flossy been quickened as to her sense of the fitness of things. She laughed mischievously. She couldn't argue; she did not attempt it. All she said was, simply:
"Col. Baker, on your honor, as a gentleman of truth and veracity, do you think the excesses of which you speak, occur, as a rule, in those whose lives have been very tightly bound by the church, or by anything else, save their own reckless fancies?"
Charlie Shipley laughed outright at this point. He always enjoyed a sharp thing wherever heard, and without regard to whether he felt himself thrust at or not.
"Baker, you are getting the worst of it," he said, gayly. "Sis, upon my word, that two weeks in the woods has made you real keen in argument; but you play abominably."
"There is no pleasure in the game now!" This the father said, throwing down his cards somewhat testily. "Flossy, I hope you will not get to be a girl of one idea—tied to the professional conscience. What is proper for you could hardly be expected to be just the thing for Dr. Dennis; and you have nothing to do, as I said before, with what he approves or disapproves."
"But, father," Flossy said, speaking somewhat timidly, as she could not help doing when she talked about these matters to her father, "if we call clergymen our spiritual guides, and look up to them to set examples for us to follow, what is the use of the example if we don't follow it at all, but conclude they are simply doing things for their own benefit?"
"I never call them my spiritual guides, and I have not the least desire to have my daughter do so. I consider myself capable of guiding my own family, especially my own children, without any help."
This was said in Mr. Shipley's stiffest tone. He was evidently very much tried with this interruption to his evening's entertainment. Whatever might be said of the others, he was certainly very fond of cards. He, however, threw down the remaining ones, declaring that the spirit of the game was gone.
"Merged into a theological discussion," Charlie said, with a half laugh, half sneer; "and of all the people to indulge in one, this particular circle would be supposed to be the last."
"Well, I am certainly very sorry that I was the innocent cause of such an upheaval," Col. Baker said, in the half serious, half mocking, tone that was becoming especially trying to Flossy. "It seems that I unwittingly burst a bombshell when I overturned those cards. I hadn't an idea of it. Miss Flossy, what can I do to atone for making you so uneasy? I assure you it was really pure benevolence on my part. What can I do to prove it?"
"Nothing," Flossy said, smiling pleasantly. She was very much obliged. He had awakened thought about a matter that had never before occurred to her. She began to think there were a good many things in her life that had not been given very much thought. She meant to look into this thing, and understand it if she could. Indeed, that was what she wanted of all things to do.
Nothing could be simpler and sweeter, and nothing could be more unlike the Flossy of Col. Baker's former acquaintance.
"I shouldn't wonder a bit if you had roused a hornet's nest about your ears," Charlie Shipley said to his friend. "Now I tell you, you may not believe it, but my little sister is just exactly the stuff out of which they made martyrs in those unenlightened days when anybody thought there was enough truth in anything to take the trouble to suffer for it. She can be made by skillful handling into a very queen of martyrs, and if you fall in the ruins, it will be your own fault."
But he did not say this until Flossy had suddenly and unceremoniously excused herself, and the two gentlemen were alone over their cigars.
"Confound that Chautauqua scheme!" Col. Baker said, kicking an innocent hassock half across the room with his indignant foot. "That is where all these new ideas started. I wish there was a law against fanaticism. Those young women of strong mind and disagreeable manners are getting a most uncomfortable influence over her, too. If I were you, Charlie, I would try to put an end to that intimacy."
Charlie whistled softly.
"Which do you mean?" he asked at last. "The Erskine girl, or the Wilbur one? I tell you, Baker, with all the years of your acquaintance, you don't know that little Flossy as well as you think you do. Let me tell you, my man, there is something about her, or in her, that is capable of development, and that is being developed (or I am mistaken), that will make her the leader, in a quiet way, of a dozen decided and outspoken girls like those two, and of several men like yourself besides, if she chooses to lead you."
"Well, confound the development then! I liked her better as she was before."
"More congenial, I admit; at least I should think so; but not half so interesting to watch. I have real good times now. I am continually wondering what she will do next."
