“It’s the barrenest, ungratefulest land in the North Callina Mountains” (his voice had a defiant twang as if he challenged contradiction), “and how old Preacher Carr wrastles a livin’ out of that place he’s settled on, is more’n I can study out.”
“It’s Preacher Carr I want to speak to you about. You-all know that Brother Carr can get a crop out of a piece of ground if any one can. Next to men’s souls he loves the soil, and, my friends, whether we work with things physical or spiritual, it’s the loving touch that coaxes on the harvest. You-all know that, with late spring frosts and summer droughts, this has been a hard year for our farmers—your own cribs are only half full of corn and your fodder stacks are few and small; and yet your valley is a Land of Promise compared to Harriman’s Bald. Preacher Carr and his wife are facing a winter of want. They gave me the mountaineer’s welcome, but when she prepared the supper, I heard her gourd-scoop scrape the bottom of the meal bin, and this morning a creditor led away their staggering, starving cow. And yet Brother Carr is not decrepit; he is still hale and hearty but—God pity the old when their work is taken out of their hands before their graves are ready for them.
“He asked after his people in Junaluska (you will be ‘his people’ as long as his loyal old soul harbours a sentiment) and, when I told him I should pass through here this evening, he said, ‘Tell them a God-bless you, for me.’ Some one has told him that his old church is well-nigh gone to ruin and he asked me to take notice of it as I passed by and to shut the door if it stood open.
“So I have come back to ask you to add to your Christmas list the name of your old neighbour, friend, and pastor, this needy servant of God. He has not forgotten you and I know you will not forget him.”
He turned and walked out of the cabin and the group sat in silence till the sound of his horse’s hoofs grew faint.
“Them was good old times,” reiterated the deacon’s wife.
“I was some to blame when Preacher Carr was sent away,” said Colonel Ledbetter, “I own up to it but——”
“You hadn’t a mite more to say about it than the rest of us had——”
“I hadn’t a thing in the world agin him,” the old man went on without noticing the interruption; “’twas only that two other churches was a-runnin’ opposition to us and their preachers were young men and were drawing off our young people; I thought if we had a young man to preach for us we might get ’em all back again. ’Twas zeal that made me do it, misguided zeal; you see I hadn’t studied it out about religious secks then as I have since.”
But we need not give a full report of that meeting. It was not conducted by parliamentary rules, but its enactments went into effect next day.