The Brown Study

by Grace S. Richmond

He took his way to the meeting in the schoolhouse, however, with a step less rapid than was usually his. It might have been the enervating influence of the mild spring air; it might have been the pressure of certain recollections which he had not yet succeeded, in the two months which had passed since the farewell dinner at Webb Atchison's, in so putting aside that they should not often depress and at times even dominate his spirit. Though he had left the old life completely behind him, and had settled into the new with all the conviction and purpose he could summon, he was subject, especially when physically weary, as to-night, to a heaviness of heart which would not be mastered.

"But I must—I must—stiffen my back," he said sternly to himself, as he neared the dingy schoolhouse toward which, from all directions, he could see his audience making its way. It was not the first time he had addressed these girls and women, in so informal and unostentatious a manner that no one of his hearers had so much as suspected his profession, but had taken him for one of their own class. "He's got a way with him," they put it, "that makes you feel like you could listen to him all night." The sight of them now provided the stimulus he needed, and as he smiled and nodded at two or three whom he had personally met he felt the old interest in his task coming to his aid.

And in a brief space he was standing before them telling them the things he had come to tell. It was not his message he had lacked—that had been made ready long before the hour—it was only the peculiar power and magnetism of speech and manner which had been the treasure of St. Timothy's, that he had felt himself unable to summon as he came to this humble audience. But now, as almost always, he was able to use every art at his command to capture their attention, to hold it, to carry it from point to point, and finally to drive his message home with appealing force. And this message was, as always, the simple message of belief in the things which make for righteousness.

Not all his auditors could arrive on time; they were obliged to come when they could. Brown's talks had to be subject to constant though painstakingly muffled interruptions, as one after another stole into the room. His attraction for his hearers, however, once he was fairly launched, was so great that there were few wandering eyes or minds. Therefore, to-night, when he had been speaking for a quarter of an hour, the quiet entrance of two figures which found places near the door at the back of the room disturbed nobody, and caused only a few heads to turn in their direction.

Those who did note the arrivals saw that they were strangers to the assembly. They saw something else, also, though they could not have told what it was. The two women, one young, one of middle age, were plainly dressed in cheap suits of dark serge, such as many of the working-women were wearing. Their hats were of the simplest and most inexpensive design, though lacking any of the commonplace finery to be seen everywhere throughout the room. But there was about the pair an undeniable since unconcealable air of difference, of refinement if it were only in the manner in which they slipped into their seats and fixed their eyes upon the speaker, with no glances to right or left. The eyes which noted them noted also that both were possessed of faces such as need no accessories of environment to make them hold the gaze of all about them.

"Settlement folks," guessed one girl to another, with a slight curl of the lip.

"Sh-h—! Who cares what they are when he's talkin'?" gave back the other—and settled again to listening.

Brown had seen the newcomers, but they were far back in the room, which was by no means brilliantly lighted, and beneath the shadows of their hats there was for him no hint of acquaintance. He therefore proceeded, untrammelled by a knowledge which would surely have been his undoing had he possessed it at that stage of the evening. He went on interesting, touching, appealing to his listeners, waging war upon their hearts with all the skill known to the valiant, forceful speaker. Yet such was his apparent simplicity of method that he seemed to all but two of those who heard him to be merely talking with them about the things which concerned them.

His was not the ordinary effort of the amateur social worker—such though he felt himself to be. He had not a word to say to his hearers about "conditions"; he gave them no impression of having studied them and their environment till he knew more about it all than they did—or thought he did. He brought to them only what they felt, consciously or unconsciously, to be an intimate understanding of the human heart, whether it were found beating under the coarse garments of the factory hand or the silken ones of the "swells up-town." Gently but searchingly he showed them their own hearts, showed them the ugly things, the strange things, the wonderful things, of their own hearts—and then, when he had those hearts beating heavily and painfully before him, applied the healing balm of his message. Hard eyes grew soft, weary faces brightened, despairing mouths set with new resolve, and when the hour ended there seemed a clearer atmosphere, a different spirit, in the crowded room, than that which earlier had pervaded it.

"Say, ain't he what I told you?" One girl, passing near the two strangers as the company dispersed, inquired of another. "Don't it seem like he knows what you don't know yourself about how you're feelin'?"