Whom the Gods Destroyed

by Josephine Daskam Bacon

"How long——"

"She's been so for two weeks now, and she gets worse and worse. I had the Methodist minister—Harriet used to attend that church—up to talk to her about it, to see if she'd feel better, and he talked for four hours. Harriet sat as still as a stone, he said, and never moved or paid the least attention to him. Finally he asked her why she didn't answer, and she said he hadn't asked her opinion that she could see. So he asked her what it was, and she said that the Lord Almighty created the earth and that his Son, the Redeemer, saved it, and she didn't see anything more for the Holy Ghost to do. And everything that he told her she said one or the other could do perfectly well alone! And the angrier Mr. Dent got, the calmer Harriet was, I suppose, for he left in a rage, almost—I suppose it was trying, even for a minister—and when I went up to Harriet she seemed very calm. She told me triumphantly that the last thing she did was to show him that big Bible of hers with the picture in the front, where she's crossed out the figure of the dove with ink, and to tell him that she was no Papist, to worship graven images of birds!"

Mr. Freeland shook his head gravely. "Dear, dear, dear!" he said.

"And then I got Dr. Henshawe from St. Mary's, in the city, you know, who's out here this summer, to come in. He's a very fine man, and very interesting. He stayed a while with Harriet, and told her not to mind, but to go on, and pray, and do the best she could, and she couldn't be blamed. He told me afterwards that he was far from considering her religious condition a safe one, but that she would soon be ill, and was growing morbid, and he tried to soothe her. She fell into a dreadful passion, and called him a lukewarm Jesuit, and told him that she was going to hell just because she couldn't believe in the Holy Ghost! He was very polite and quiet, and picked a rose when he went—he complimented the house—but Harriet wouldn't eat any dinner nor tea, she was so angry. Of course it excites the others—they haven't much to think about, you know—and I'm really growing nervous. Old William Peterson, that gentle old man, preached a revivalist sermon day before yesterday, and got them all stirred up, so that Mrs. Sheldon groaned and cried all night, and kept Sarah Waters awake. And when Sarah stays awake all night, there's no living with her—none!"

Mr. Freeland looked frankly puzzled. He was not a particularly able man, and very far from originality of any sort. His doctrinal position, though always considered very solid, was somewhat stereotyped, and he had never happened to run against this peculiar form of apostasy. But he was a kindly man, and very honestly convinced of the responsibility of his position; moreover, he remembered Harriet pleasantly; he had thought her a very nice old lady. So he took his little Bible out of his pocket, and hoped that a desire to succeed where Mr. Dent and Dr. Henshawe had failed would not be accounted to him for unrighteousness.

Mrs. Markham led the way across the hall and up the stairs. Before a door she paused to say, "As long as Harriet is upset in this way she has the room alone, because Mary Smith scolds her all night for being so sinful, and it makes them both cross. Mary is in the hall-room, and talks in her sleep so that nobody can rest very well. It doesn't disturb Harriet at all, she's such a sound sleeper, and I wish she could go back! You don't know how this disturbs us! Remember that we have prayer-meeting at half-past four," and she left him alone before the door.

Mr. Freeland knocked loudly and entered. Before him in the clean, bare room, with its rag-carpets, mats, and pine furnishings, sat a little old woman, her hands folded in her lap, her head erect, her eyes fixed uncompromisingly on the door. He started as he saw her face; it was so changed from the time, two weeks or more ago, when he had delivered that admirable prayer for charity and loving kindness on the occasion when the Widow Sheldon had thrown the butter-plate at old Mis' Landers. Thin and sunken, with dark serried hollows under her still bright eyes—she had aged ten years in those weeks.

"My sister, my poor, suffering, misled sister," began the pastor; but Harriet's eyes flashed ominously.

"If you come to talk to me about that Holy Ghost, I ain't got nothin' to say," she declared, "an' if you think I'm goin' to say another word myself, you're mistaken. I'm a pore sinful woman, but I ain't goin' to be pestered t' death! I'm doin' the best I can 'bout it, an' I've prayed 'bout it, an' Mr. Dent an' a Papist, they both talked 'bout it till I nearly died. I don't see any more sense in it than I did before—not a morsel. So if that's what brought you, you might just as well start back this minute!"

Her reverend guest stared at her dumfounded. Was this the little woman who had pressed his hand at the prayer-meeting and thanked him so piously, so meekly, for such "beautiful prayin'?"