The Story of a Country Town

by E. W. Howe

Mateel met us at the door, and as she ushered us into the neat parlor I thought I had never seen a handsomer woman, with the possible exception of Agnes, and I could not but inwardly congratulate Jo on his good fortune. I thought that I could see that she was very fond of him, now that it had been called to my mind, though I may only have imagined it, for she was as polite to me as to him.

“I am glad to see you,” she said, taking my hat, which I was careful to remove, remembering Jo’s experience. “My father did not feel well to-day, and we are all at home, as Mr. Westlock agreed to take his place at Fairview.”

Mr. Shepherd came in at this moment, followed by his respectable wife (who bowed stiffly to both of us at once, as though we were not worth two separate efforts), and impressed me at once with his freedom for a Sunday evening. It was a funeral day at our house, but Mr. Shepherd laughed and talked as though we were at a party. As I looked at his pale and effeminate face, I thought that his daughter was very much like him, and that had a son been born to the family, he would have been like his mother—quiet, dignified, and capable.

“I worked in the field so late Saturday,” he said, with the utmost candor and freedom, “that I felt too tired to preach to-day, so I sent word to your father that he would oblige me by preaching a sermon on future punishment. It is one of the rules of the church that this disagreeable topic be discussed from the pulpit at least once a year. I dislike it, and am glad to shirk. Your father is very fond of the subject, I am told. But no difference what he says about it, I will apologize next Sunday, and deny it. The religion of Fairview seems to make the people miserable; I shall change it if I can. I have been religious all my life, and it never caused me a sorrow. I don’t believe in devils much, but I believe a great deal in angels.”

As he looked at me as if he desired an expression on the subject, I said angels were certainly the most comforting to think about.

“I have been much distressed by the unhappy faces I have seen since coming here, and I hope I may be the humble instrument of brightening them. The right kind of religion will put flowers in the yard, let sunlight in at the window, and fill the house with content and happiness. I became a Christian man because I longed for heaven, rather than because I feared the dreadful abode of the wicked, and it is my intention to introduce this gospel here.”

Mr. Shepherd was directing his conversation to me, as Mateel and Jo had retired to another part of the room and were very much interested in each other. I therefore wished him success in the undertaking.

“I have always thought that the Bible is such a convincing book that it finally converts nearly all the children of men,—I hope all of them,—though the church to which I belong does not cheerfully accept my opinion. The Bible is only in dispute because a new set of men are coming on all the time, who have also to be convinced and saved. Its promises are so magnificent that no one can read them all his life and fail to put himself in the way of their fulfilment; therefore there is no excuse for referring to the disagreeable subject I have just mentioned. You may as well look on the bright side of religion as on the bright side of anything else, and you know we are always having maxims of this kind thrown at us. This is the religion the present pastor of Fairview believes in, and this is the religion he will teach, though I have not taught much of it to-day, for I have not mentioned the subject at all until now. But I only came in to say I was glad to see you, and will go out again,” he said, rising. “I am becoming very worldly of late, for I have been thinking all day of how the potatoes and corn I ploughed last week are getting on rather than of sermons, and I am so sleepy now that you perhaps noticed me blinking. I am also forgetting a great deal of my theology in the hunger which constantly besets me, and if I raise nothing at all this year I will feel well repaid for my work by the good health I have enjoyed. When you return home express my thanks to your father for his sermon.”

As he went out I thought if he was not a remarkable preacher he was certainly a good man. His respectable wife followed, and as she had not said a word I thought we should not miss her company.

“I was just saying to Miss Shepherd,” Jo said, coming over to me, “that you and I have been fast friends since you were born. When I was a very little fellow and Ned only a baby he loved me, and was happier with me than with anyone else. It seems queer that anyone should live to be seventeen years old and have no other intimate friend than his sister’s boy.”