CHAPTER IV
IT was Sunday morning a week later. Springtown’s principal church stood in the edge of the village, on the red clay road leading up the mountainside, now in the delicate green of spring, touched here and there by fragrant splotches of pink honeysuckle and white, dark-eyed dogwood blossoms. The building was a diminutive affair, with five shuttered windows on either side, a pulpit at one end and a door at the other. A single aisle cut the rough benches into two halves, one side being occupied by the men and the other by the women. The only exception to this rule was a bench set aside, as if by common consent, for Captain Duncan, who always sat with his family, as did any male guests who attended service with them.
The Rev. Jason Hillhouse was the regular pastor. He was under thirty years of age, very tall, slight of build and nervous in temperament. He wore the conventional black frock coat, high-cut waistcoat, black necktie and gray trousers. He was popular. He had applied himself closely to the duties of his calling and was considered a man of character and worth. While not a college graduate, he was yet sufficiently well-read in the Bible and religious literature to suit even the more progressive of mountain churchgoers. He differed radically from many of the young preachers who were living imitations of that noted evangelist, the Rev. Tom P. Smith, “the whirlwind preacher,” in that he was conservative in the selection of topics for discourse and in his mild delivery.
Today he was at his best. Few in the congregation suspected it, but if he distributed his glances evenly over the upturned faces, his thoughts were focussed on only one personality—that of modest Cynthia Porter, who, in a becoming gray gown, sat with her mother on the third bench from the front. Mrs. Porter, a woman fifty-five years of age, was very plainly attired in a homespun dress, to which she had added no ornament of any kind. She wore a gingham poke-bonnet, the hood of which hid her face even from the view of the minister. Her husband, old Nathan Porter, sat directly across the aisle from her. He was one of the roughest-looking men in the house. He had come without his coat, and wore no collar or necktie, and for comfort, as the day was warm, he had even thrown off the burden of his suspenders, which lay in careless loops about his hips. He had a broad expanse of baldness, to the edge of which hung a narrow fringe of white hair, a healthful, pink complexion and blue eyes.
When the sermon was over and the doxology sung, the preacher stepped down into the congregation to take the numerous hands cordially extended to him. While he was thus engaged old Mayhew came from the amen corner on the right, and nodded and smiled patronizingly.
“You did pretty well today, young man,” he said. “I like doctrinal talks. There’s no getting around good, sound doctrine, Hillhouse. We’d have less lawlessness if we could keep our people filled plumb full of sound doctrine. But you don’t look like you’ve been eating enough, my boy. Come home with me and I’ll give you a good dinner. I heard a fat hen squeal early this morning, as my cook jerked her head off. It looks a pity to take life on a Sunday, but if that hen had been allowed to live, she might have broken a commandment by hunting for worms on this day of rest. Come on with me.”
“I can’t, Brother Mayhew; not today, thank you.” The young man flushed as his glance struggled on to the Porters, who were waiting near the door. “The fact is, I’ve already accepted an invitation.”
“From somebody with a girl in the family, I’ll bet.” Mayhew laughed as he playfully thrust the crooked end of his walking-stick against the preacher’s side. “I wish I knew why so many women are dead set on getting a preacher in the family. It may be because they know they will be provided for after some fashion or other by the church at large, in case of death or accident.”
The preacher laughed as he moved on, shaking hands and dispensing cheery words of welcome right and left. Presently the way was clear and he found himself near Cynthia and her mother.
“Sorry to keep you standing here,” he said, his color rising as he took the girl’s hand.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter at all, Brother Hillhouse,” the old woman assured him. “I’ll go on an’ overtake Mr. Porter; you and Cynthia can stroll home by the shadiest way. You needn’t walk fast; you’ll get hot if you do. Cynthia, I won’t need you before dinner. I’ve got everything ready, with nothing to do but lay back the cloth and push the plates into their places. I want Brother Hillhouse just to taste that pound cake you made. I’m a good hand at desserts myself, Brother Hillhouse, but she can beat me any day in the week.”
“Oh, I know Miss Cynthia can cook,” said the minister. “At the picnic at Cohutta Springs last week she took the prize for her fried chicken.”
“I told you all that mother fried that chicken,” said the girl indifferently. She had seen Nelson Floyd mounting his fine Kentucky horse among the trees across the street, and had deliberately turned her back toward him.
“Well, I believe I did fix the chicken,” Mrs. Porter admitted, “but she made the custards and the cake and icing. Besides, the poor girl was having a lot of trouble with her dress. She washed and did up that muslin twice—the iron spoiled it the first time. I declare I’d have been out of heart, but she was cheerful all through it. Here comes Nathan now. He never will go home by himself; he is afraid I’ll lag behind and he’ll get a late dinner.”
“How are you today, Brother Porter?” Hillhouse asked as they came upon the old man under the trees, a little way from the church.
“Oh, I’m about as common,” was the drawling answer. “You may notice that I limp a little in my left leg. Ever since I had white swellin’ I’ve had trouble with that selfsame leg. I wish you folks would jest stop an’ take a peep at it. It looks to me like the blood’s quit circulatin’ in the veins. It went to sleep while you was a-talkin’ this mornin’—now, I’ll swear I didn’t mean that as a reflection.”
He paused at a fallen tree, put his foot upon it and started to roll up the leg of his trousers, but his wife drew him on impatiently.
“I wonder what you’ll do next,” she said reprovingly. “This is no time and place for that. What would the Duncans think if they was to drive by while you was doing the like of that on a public road? Come on with me, and let’s leave the young folks to themselves.”
Grumblingly Porter obeyed. His wife walked briskly and made him keep pace with her, and they were soon several yards ahead of the young couple. Hillhouse was silent for several minutes, and his smooth-shaven face was quite serious in expression.
“I’m afraid I’m going to bore you on that same old line, Miss Cynthia,” he said presently. “Really, I can’t well help it. This morning I fancied you listened attentively to what I was saying in my sermon.”
“Oh, yes, I always do that,” the girl returned, with an almost perceptible shudder of her shoulders.
“It helped me wonderfully, Miss Cynthia, and once a hope actually flashed through me so strong that I lost my place. You may have seen me turning the pages of the Bible. I was trying to think where I’d left off. The hope was this: that some day, if I keep on begging you, and showing my deep respect and regard you will not turn me away. Just for one minute this morning it seemed to me that you had actually consented, and—and the thought was too much for me.”
“Oh, don’t speak any more about it, Mr. Hillhouse,” Cynthia pleaded, giving him a full look from her wonderful brown eyes. “I have already said all I can to you.”
“But I’ve known many of the happiest marriages to finally result from nothing but the sheer persistence of the man concerned, and when I think of that—and when I think of the chance of losing you, it nearly drives me crazy. I can’t help feeling that way. You are simply all I care for on earth. Do you remember when I first met you? It was at Hattie Mayfield’s party, just after I got this appointment; we sat on the porch alone and talked. I reckon it was merely your respect for my calling that made you so attentive, but I went home that night out of my head with admiration. Then I saw that Frank Miller was going with you everywhere, and that people thought you were engaged, and, as I did not admire his moral character, I was very miserable in secret. Then I saw that he stopped, and I got it from a reliable source that you had refused him because you did not want to marry such a man, and my hopes and admiration climbed still higher. You had proved that you were the kind of a woman for a preacher’s wife—the kind of woman I’ve always dreamed of having as my companion in life.”
“I didn’t love him, that was all,” Cynthia said calmly. “It would not have been fair to him or myself to have received his constant attentions.”
“But now I am down in the dregs again, Miss Cynthia.” Hillhouse gave a sigh. It was almost a groan.
She glanced at him once and then lowered her eyes half fearfully. And, getting his breath rapidly, the preacher bent more closely over her shoulder, as if to catch some reply from her lips. She made none.
“Yes, I’m in the dregs again—miserable, afraid, jealous! You know why, Miss Cynthia. You know that any lover would be concerned to see the girl upon whom he had based his every hope going often with Nelson Floyd. Of all men, he——”
“Stop!” The girl paused, turned upon him suddenly and gazed at him steadily. “If you have anything to say about him don’t say it to me. He’s my friend, and I will not listen to anything against those I like.”
“I’m not going to criticize him.” Hillhouse bit his white, unsteady lip. “A man’s a fool who tries to win by running down his rival. The way to run a man up in a woman’s eyes is to openly run him down. Men are strong enough to bear such things, but women shelter them like they do their babies. No, I wasn’t going to run him down, but I am afraid of him. When you go out driving with him, I——”
Again Cynthia turned upon him and looked at him steadily, her eyes flashing. “Don’t go too far; you might regret it,” she said. “It is an insult to be spoken to as you are speaking to me.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t! You misunderstand me,” protested the bewildered lover. “I—I am not afraid, you understand, of course, I’m not afraid you will not be able to—to take care of yourself, but he has so many qualities that win and attract women that—Oh, I’m jealous, Miss Cynthia, that’s the whole thing in a nutshell! He has the reputation of being a great favorite with all women, and now that he seems to admire you more than any of the rest——”
The girl raised her eyes from the ground; a touch of color rose to her cheeks. “He doesn’t admire me more than the others,” she said tentatively. “You are mistaken, Mr. Hillhouse.”
He failed to note her rising color, the subtle eagerness oozing from her compact self-control.
“No, I’m not blind,” he went on, blindly building up his rival’s cause. “He admires you extravagantly—he couldn’t help it. You are beautiful, you have vivacity, womanly strength and a thousand other qualities that are rare in this section. Right here I want to tell you something. I know you will laugh, for you don’t seem to care for such things, but you know Colonel Price is quite an expert on genealogical matters. He’s made a great study of it, and his chief hobby is that many of these sturdy mountain people are the descendants of fine old English families, from younger sons, you know, who settled first in Virginia and North Carolina, and then drifted into this part of Georgia. He didn’t know of my admiration for you, but one day at the meeting of the Confederate Veterans at Springtown he saw you on the platform with the other ladies and he said: ‘I’ll tell you, Hillhouse, right there is a living proof of what I have always argued. That daughter of Nathan Porter’s has a face that is as patrician as any woman of English royal birth. I understand,’ the Colonel went on, ‘that her mother was a Radcliff, which is one of the best and most historic of the Virginia families, and Porter, as rough as he is, comes from good old English stock.’ Do you wonder, Cynthia, that I agree with him? There really is good blood in you. Your grandmother is one of the most refined and elegant old ladies I have ever met anywhere, and I have been about a good deal.”
“I am not sure that Colonel Price is right,” the girl said. “I’ve heard something of that kind before. I think Colonel Price had an article in one of the Atlanta papers about it, with a list of old family names. My father knows little or nothing about his ancestry, but my grandmother has always said her forefathers were wealthy people. She remembers her grandmother as being a fine old lady, who, poor as she was, tried to make her and the other children wear their bonnets and gloves in the sun to keep their complexions white. But I don’t like to discuss that sort of thing, Mr. Hillhouse. It won’t do in America. I think we are what we make ourselves, not what others made of themselves. One is individuality, the other imitation.”
The young man laughed. “That’s all very fine,” he said, “when it was your forefathers who made it possible for you to have the mental capacity for the very opinion you have expressed. At any rate, there is a little comfort in your view, for if you were to pride yourself on Price’s theories, as many a woman would, you would look higher than a poor preacher with such an untraceable name as mine. And you know, ordinary as it is, you have simply got to wear it sooner or later.”
“You must not mention that again,” Cynthia said firmly. “I tell you, I am not good enough for a minister’s wife. There is a streak of worldliness in me that I shall never overcome.”
“That cuts me like a knife,” said Hillhouse. “It cuts because it reminds me of something I once heard Pole Baker say in a group at the post-office. He said that women simply do not like what is known as a ‘goody-goody’ man. Sometimes as coarse a man as Pole hits the nail of truth on the head, while a better educated man would miss and mash his thumb. But if I am in the pulpit, I’m only human. It seemed to me the other day when I saw you and Nelson Floyd driving along up the mountain that the very fires of hell itself raged inside of me. I always hold family prayer at home for the benefit of my mother and sister, but that night I cut it out and lay on the bed rolling and tossing like a crazy man. He’s handsome, Miss Cynthia, and he has a soft voice and a way of making all women sympathize with him—why they do it I don’t know. It’s true he’s had a most miserable childhood, but he is making money hand over hand now and has everything in his favor.”
“He’s not a happy man, Mr. Hillhouse, in spite of his success. Anyone who knows him can see that.”
“Oh, I suppose he broods over the mystery that hangs over his childhood,” said the preacher. “That’s only natural for an ambitious man. I once knew a fellow like that, and he told me he never intended to get married on that account. He was morbidly sensitive about it, but it is different with Floyd. He does know his name, and he will, no doubt, discover his relatives some day. But it hurts me to see you with him so much.”
“Why, he goes with other girls,” Cynthia said, her lips set together tightly, her face averted.
“And perhaps you know, Miss Cynthia, that people talk about some of the girls he has been with.”
“I know,” said the girl, looking at him with an absent glance. “There is no use going over that. I hear nothing all day long at home except that—that—that! Oh, sometimes I wish I were dead!”
“Ah, that hurts worse than anything you have ever said!” declared the minister in a tone of pain as he stroked his thin face with an unsteady hand. “Why should a beautiful, pure, human flower like you be made unhappy because of contact with a human weed——?”
“Stop, I tell you! Stop!” The girl stared at him with flashing eyes. “I am not going to have you talk to me as if I were a child. I know him as well as you do. You preach all day long that a person ought to be forgiven of his sins, and yet you want to load some of them down with theirs—that is, when it suits you. He has as good a right to—to—to reform as anyone, and I, myself, have heard you say that the vilest sin often purifies and lifts one up. Don’t get warped all to one side. I shall not respect your views any more if you do.”
Hillhouse was white in the face and trembling helplessly.
“You are tying me hand and foot,” he said, with a groan. “If I ever had a chance to gain my desires, I am killing them, but God knows I can’t help it. I am fighting for my life.”
“And behind another’s back,” added the girl firmly. “You’ve got to be fair to him! As for myself, I don’t believe half the things that the busybodies have said about him. Let me tell you something.”
They had come to a little brook which they had to cross on brown, almost submerged stepping-stones, and she paused, laying her small hand on his arm, and said portentously: “Nelson Floyd has been alone with me several times and has never yet told me that he loved me.”
“I’m not going to say what is in my mind,” Hillhouse said, with a cold, significant sneer on his white lip, as he took her hand and helped her across the stream.
“You say you won’t?” Cynthia gave him her eyes wonderingly, almost pleadingly.
“That is, not unless you will let me be plain with you,” Hillhouse answered; “as plain as I’d be to my sister.”
They walked on side by side in silence, now very near her father’s house.
“You may as well finish what you were going to say,” the girl gave in, with a sigh of resignation tinged with a curiosity that devoured her precaution.
“Well, I was going to say that, if what I have gathered here and there is true, it is Nelson Floyd’s favorite method to look, do you understand?—to look love to the girls he goes with. He has never, it seems, committed himself by a scratch of a pen or by word of mouth, and yet every silly woman he has paid attention to, before he began to go with you, has secretly sworn to herself that she was the world and all to him.”
Cynthia’s face became grave. Her glance went down and for a moment she seemed incapable of speech. Finally, however, her color rose and she laughed defiantly.
“Well, here is a girl, Mr. Hillhouse, who will not be fooled that way, and you may rely on that. So, don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of myself.”
“I’ve no doubt you will,” said the preacher gloomily.
“Yes, you’ll see that I can,” Cynthia declared with animation. “There’s mother on the porch. Good gracious, do change the subject. If she sets in on it, I’ll not come to the table. She likes you and hates the ground Nelson Floyd walks on.”
“Perhaps that, too, will be my damnation,” Hillhouse retorted. “I know something about human nature. I may see the day that I’d be glad of a doubtful reputation.”
He caught her reproachful glance at this remark as he opened the gate for her and followed her in. Porter sat on the porch in the shade reading a newspaper, and his wife stood in the doorway.
“Run in and take off your things, Cynthia,” Mrs. Porter said, with a welcoming smile. “Brother Hillhouse can sit with your pa till we call dinner. I want you to help me a little bit. Your grandmother is lying down, and doesn’t feel well enough to come to the table.”
When the women had gone in, and the preacher had seated himself in a rough, hide-bottomed chair near his host, Porter with a chuckle reached down to the floor and picked up a smooth stick about twenty inches long, to the end of which was attached a piece of leather about three inches wide and four inches long.
“That’s an invention o’ mine,” Porter explained proudly as he tapped his knee with the leather. “Brother Hillhouse, ef you was to offer me a new five-dollar note fer this thing, an’ I couldn’t git me another, I’d refuse p’int-blank.”
“You don’t say,” said Hillhouse, concentrating his attention on the article by strong effort; “what is it for?”
“I don’t know any other name fer it than a ‘fly-flap,’” said Porter. “I set here one day tryin’ to read, an’ the flies made sech a dead set at my bald head that it mighty nigh driv’ me crazy. I kept fightin’ ’em with my paper an’ knockin’ my specs off an’ losin’ my place at sech a rate that I got to studyin’ how to git out of the difficulty, fer thar was a long fly spell ahead of us. Well, I invented this thing, an’ I give you my word it’s as good fun as goin’ a-fishin’. I kin take it in my hand—this way—an’ hold the paper too, an’ the minute one o’ the devilish things lights on my scalp I kin give a twist o’ the wrist an’ that fly’s done fer. You see, the leather is too flat an’ soft to hurt me, an’ I never seen a fly yit that was nimble enough to git out from under it. But my fun is mighty nigh over,” Porter went on. “Flies has got sense; they profit by experience the same as folks does. At any rate, they seem to know thar’s a dead-fall set on my bald spot, an’ they’ve quit tryin’ to lay their eggs in the root-holes o’ my hair. Only now and then a newcomer is foolhardy an’ inclined to experiment. The old customers are as scared o’ my head as they are of a spider-web.”
“That certainly is a rare device,” said Hillhouse. “I don’t know that I ever heard of one before.”
“I reckon not,” the farmer returned placidly. “Somebody always has to lead out in matters of improvement. My wife an’ daughter was dead set agin me usin’ it at fust. They never looked into the workin’ of it close, an’ thought I mashed my prey on my head, but thar never was a bigger mistake. The flap don’t even puncture the skin, as tender as their hides are. I know, beca’se they always fall flat o’ their backs an’ kick awhile before givin’ up.”
At this moment Mrs. Porter came to the door and announced that dinner was ready.