The deacon’s store emptied in an instant of every one but Parson Brown, for all the other listeners were men of some means, and stockholders in the mill.
“Here!” shouted the deacon, cutting the cords of a “nest” of pails; “take buckets along with you; like enough it’ll need everybody’s help, and the mill’s only half insured, too! Parson, would you mind sittin’ here until my boy gets back? I’m losin’ enough to-day without having to shut up store, too.”
“Certainly, I’ll stay,” said the old preacher, limping to the front of the store, and laying his hand on the shoulder of the troubled storekeeper; “but, Brother Jones, if the light of that burning mill should show you anything inside of yourself, don’t cover your eyes. It’s for righteousness’ sake I ask it.”
“All right, Brother Brown,” whispered the deacon hoarsely, as he started off with two water-pails in each hand, and murmuring, “What did the old fellow mean by that, I wonder?” Across the street was Squire Tomple, just jumping into his buggy, and the deacon made haste to accept an invitation to a seat beside his fellow-sufferer. The two stockholders did not lack company; Crupp, Judge Macdonald, and most of the other stockholders, either preceded or followed them, and on the road were hundreds of men and boys, full of an enterprising desire to see the largest fire that had ever occurred in Barton, and already experiencing such of the pleasures of anticipation as a heavy column of smoke could create. Coming in sight of the mill itself, the deacon groaned, and the Squire assisted him, for flames were bursting from every window, and the men who had been passing pails of water up ladders and through the stairways had been driven from their work, and had formed a circle which was slowly but steadily widening. Considerable of the wool had been removed and stacked outside the building, and it now became necessary to move this still farther away, but so many hands were ready to seize it that Deacon Jones could not relieve his feelings even by attempting to save property; so he stood still and looked at the fire, as he estimated his losses. Such a day he had not known since he had lost considerable uninsured stock by the explosion of a river steamer. Sidling uneasily about among the crowd, he found several stockholders anxiously comparing pencil notes, and the figures were anything but consolatory supposing all the stock to be saved, there was yet the mill and machinery—value, about ten thousand dollars—which would be totally lost; insurance, five thousand dollars; dead loss, ditto; which left the Squire out of pocket to the extent of a quarter of his subscription. The small profit which had already accrued would not more than cover the loss of the interest on the remaining capital until the mill could be rebuilt, if it seemed advisable to rebuild it.
“Who’s to blame for all this?” asked the deacon angrily.
“We haven’t learned yet,” said the judge, “and I’m afraid it won’t help matters any to know all about it. There goes the last of it!”
As the judge spoke, the blazing frame fell, the small boys shouted “Oh——h!” in chorus, and the deacon’s heart sank like lead as he turned away. He had lost, say, a hundred and fifty dollars by the fire, and Tom Adams’s misfortune would entail additional loss upon him, for a new man would have to be watched and taught and helped, whereas Tom worked as easily as the wheel of a machine. It was but right that the deacon should regret his losses; for though he was a man of considerable property, a dollar looked very large to him, for the reason that his first dollars had each one represented an enormous amount of labor. But when Lawyer Bottom, who had invested in mill stock only with the hope of profit, approached the deacon, and asked, with more curiosity than malice, “How about temperance now, deacon?” the facial contortions which the deacon offered in reply sent the lawyer away in an ecstasy of unholy glee, which almost eradicated his own sense of loss, and which dispelled for a time such little belief as he had in the transforming power of religion. But what is one man’s poison is another’s food. The lawyer’s question was not entirely disposed of by the deacon’s ungracious reply; it repeated itself time and again to the old man, and at the most inopportune times and places; it came to him behind the counter, and made him give wrong weights and measures, with the balance not always in his favor; it came to him when he was making entries in his day-book, and caused him to forget certain items; at his own dinner-table it suddenly made itself heard, and interfered with his relish of the good viands which he so much enjoyed; it dropped in upon him in his dreams, when he could not be on his guard against his better self, and extracted from his conscience a provoking line of answers which in his waking hours he could not gainsay. For three days this depressing experience continued, and then there occurred, at the regular weekly prayer-meeting of Parson Wedgewell’s church, an episode which for months caused mournful reflections in the minds of such of Parson Wedgewell’s parishioners as were not in the habit of attending prayer-meeting. It was noticed by the faithful that Deacon Jones looked unusually solemn and sensitive as he entered the room, and that he did not, as had been hitherto his habit, start the second hymn. This omission having been made good by some enterprising member, however, the deacon got upon his feet and said:
“Brethren, during the past few days my eyes have been opened, and what I have seen hasn’t been pleasant to look upon. It is indeed true, my dear friends, that Satan sometimes appears as an angel of light. For months I’ve been feeling, and real happily, too, what a glorious thing it was to do good; I had been instrumental in saving one man from destruction by keeping him busy, and I’d helped save another”—here the deacon paused suddenly and looked around to make sure that Judge Macdonald was not in the room—“I’d helped save another by taking an interest in the mill. But within a few days I’ve learned that my own righteousness was as filthy rags; ’twas even worse than that, brethren, for the worst rags are worth so much a pound, but I can’t find that my righteousness is worth anything at all. I’ve fought it out with myself, brethren, an’ I believe I’ve conquered; but it makes my heart sick to see what my enemy looks like, an’ to think I’ve got to carry him around with me through the rest of my days. Doin’ good’s all right, even if it does pay in dollars and cents, brethren; but doin’ good for the sake of what it’ll bring is the quickest way of makin’ a hypocrite that I ever found, an’ I’m beginnin’ to think that I’ve found a good many ways in myself, my friends. I ask an interest in the prayers of God’s people, an’ I assure ’em that there’s no danger of any of their prayers bein’ wasted.”
The deacon dropped into his seat, and the silence that prevailed for a moment was simply inevitable in a little company that had never before heard such an extraordinary confession; as one of the members afterward remarked, it sounded like a murderer’s last dying speech. Then good Parson Wedgewell sprang to his feet, and, with streaming eyes and rapid utterances, offered a prayer such as had never been heard in that room before. The songs and prayers which followed were not those to which the meeting were accustomed, and when at last the assemblage separated, there could not be heard from the home-wending couples any critiques of the language or garb of any one who had been present.
As for Deacon Jones, he continued his new fight most valiantly by visiting Tom Adams that very evening, and assuring him that, their supplementary agreement to the contrary notwithstanding, he would continue Tom’s pay during his confinement, and would pay his doctor’s bill also.