The Story of a Country Town

by E. W. Howe

In all the stories of robbers and pirates that he told us—and there were many of that kind because we preferred them—I always thought of him as one of the participants, and was pleased when the one I had picked out for Barker freed the captive maiden, flinging back his companions who would murder her, with the declaration that he would have their lives if they persisted, thereupon conducting her within sight of her home, and, having first bidden her a gallant adieu, galloped away. These recitals had much of dashing romance in them, and his robberies were committed generally from motives of daring rather than gain. It was always the mean and stingy misers who were robbed, and if a beautiful maiden was captured at sea she was always taken to her friends, unless she freely consented to marry the pirate captain, which was sometimes the case.

This kind of amusement he kept up at night until we became sleepy, and, lighting us to the room in which we were to sleep, he sat down on the bed if we desired it, and continued the story until we were asleep, when he returned to his own apartment. It seemed to me he dreaded the hour when we would go to sleep and leave him alone; and once when I awoke in the middle of the night, and crept to his door, I found him sitting over the table with his hat and coat on, as if ready to run away.

Barker’s widowed sister, the Mrs. Tremaine already mentioned, whose husband had been a drunkard and a doctor, was his housekeeper (when she was at home, which was seldom the case). I believe she was originally called Betts, or Bett, but this was shortened to B., and by this name she was generally known. It was understood that Dr. Tremaine had been unkind to her before his death, and that their married life had been very miserable, though I never heard either Barker or herself say so. But such was generally thought to be the case nevertheless, for certainly the excellent woman had had trouble. It was also understood that he died in drink, probably from catching fire on the inside, and that with his last breath he referred to his wife as a snake, and to his neighbors as devils. This impression, like the other one with reference to his disposition, had no foundation I ever heard of except that his relict worried a great deal about people who were going to ruin from drink. We supposed, of course, that she was prompted to this by the memory of her late husband, as she was prompted to insist on everybody’s being religious by the wickedness of her brother, the miller. Having no other place to go after her husband’s death, she determined to move West and live with her brother, and had arrived at Fairview a few years before we did. Although there was not a drunkard in the county, she immediately began a war on rum, and when I first encountered the words “Delirium Tremens,” in connection with drunkenness, I remember thinking I was acquainted with his widow.

Next to her desire to save everybody from drunkenness, she wanted to save everybody from sin, and spent most of her time in discussing these two questions; but she had little opposition, for everybody in that country was religious as well as temperate. When she became acquainted with the Rev. John Westlock she at once hailed him as a man raised up to do a great work, and was always with him in the meetings he held in different places, nothing being thought of it if he took her with him and brought her back again.

Together they established a lodge of Good Templars at Fairview, although the people were all sober and temperate, and once a week they met to call upon the fallen brother to shun the cup, and to redeem the country from debauchery and vice. Barker said they spent one-half the evening in “opening” and the other half in “closing.” He also said once that his sister was very much offended that my father preached without pay, for she would have enjoyed making fancy work, to the neglect of her brother’s house, to sell at fairs to pay the minister’s salary, and that she was a brilliant woman at festivals. Barker often criticised her, half in jest and half in earnest, and once when Jo and I were at his house for dinner, and something had been lost, he remarked that if B. were as familiar with her home as she was familiar with the number of gallons of liquor consumed annually, or with the Acts of the Apostles, things would be more comfortable. I think he disliked her because she paid so much attention to other people’s faults and so little to her own; but he treated her courteously, although he appeared to avoid her, and they were not much together. B. frequently left home for days at a time, compelling her patient brother to prepare his own meals or do without, but he never complained unless she chose to construe half-jesting, half-earnest raillery into complaint. At such times she had a way of replying to his light words with a seriousness that I thought disgusted him, and made him resolve never to mention the matter again.

That she was a miserable housekeeper I had frequent occasion to know, and Barker’s house always seemed like a bachelor’s home, as there was nothing about it to indicate that a woman lived there. Jo used to say of Mrs. Tremaine that she talked as the women write who furnish recipes to the newspapers; and when she came to our house the room in which she sat seemed damp for several days thereafter. Once after she had slept there, and I was put into the bed she had occupied a night or two afterward, I amused my mother by asking her to change the sheets, as they seemed like ice and would not thaw out, and the good humor with which she did this convinced me that she did not like B. very well herself. Her face was large and round and of a waxen color, and though it was said by some that she was handsome I never thought so; nor did I admire her dress, which was very rich and expensive, though exceedingly plain. Her teeth were very white, and quite prominent, because she always wore what was intended to be an enchanting smile, and when she kissed me (which she usually did in the earlier days of our acquaintance, as a compliment to a child) I thought she must have just finished washing her face, her lips were so cold and damp. Her hair being very dark, and her face very pale, I thought she resembled a well-dressed and affable corpse risen from the dead, whose business it was to go among the people and warn them that unless they repented of their sins they would very much regret it after death.

CHAPTER VII.
A NEW DISPENSATION.

IN spite of the discontent which prevailed there, Fairview progressed with the years of its history. The hard work of the people paid, and they gradually became well-to-do, although they seemed surprised that they were not in the poor-house, an event they were always promising their families.

The old houses in which they had at first lived were replaced with new ones, the new ones were furnished better than the old ones had been, and there was a general prosperity which surprised them, for they had not expected it so soon, if at all. New people came to settle in spite of the fact that they were neither invited nor expected, and many of those who came first had money ahead, and were regarded by those who came later as of a very old and aristocratic stock. Strangest of all, it was announced that a new minister had been engaged, and that he would arrive with his family, consisting of a wife and one child, in a few days. My father made the announcement at the close of his preaching one spring morning. He had preached to them, he said, because they were too poor to pay a better man; the Lord had prospered them, and he cheerfully made way for a successor who had not only religious enthusiasm, but extensive learning as well. He would continue to exhort his brethren whenever occasion seemed to require, and aid in doing the work of the Master, but he believed the good of the church demanded the arrangement he had made.

There was unusual feeling in his words as he reviewed the hard struggle of the settlement, and when he had finished, The. Meek, though apparently in greater convulsions of laughter than ever, managed to say a few kind words for their pastor, guide, and friend, and two or three of the other men followed in a similar strain. The women began to cry softly, as though the occasion were a funeral, and one by one the people went forward to shake him by the hand, which I thought surprised him, not being certain but that they were glad to get rid of him, while Brother Winter wheeled vigorously about, calling upon everybody to praise the Lord. It was a very unusual occasion, and those who had lounged outside to read the inscriptions on the head-boards in the grave lot came back again to see what it was all about, and heard the news with surprise and astonishment. Finally, the miller’s sister prayed for everybody, but in a voice so low that nobody knew it, after which the meeting broke up, and the congregation gathered in little knots in the church and in the yard to talk of the new minister.