The Law-Breakers

by Ridgwell Cullum

It was a Church. Not a Meeting House. Not even a Chapel. She felt quite sure, had the villagers had their way, it would have been called a Cathedral. There was nothing half-hearted about these people. They recognized the necessity of giving their souls a lift up, with a view to an after life, and they meant to do it thoroughly.

They had no intention of mending their ways. They had no thought of abandoning any of their pursuits or pleasures, be they never so deplorable. But they felt that something had better be done toward assurance of their futures. A Meeting House suggested something too inadequate to meet their special case. It was right enough as far as it went, but it didn’t go far enough. They realized the journey might be very long and the ultimate destination uncertain. A Chapel had its claims in their minds, but Church seemed much stronger, bigger, more powerful to help them in those realms of darkness to which they must all eventually descend. Of course, Cathedral would have been the thing. With a cathedral in Rocky Springs they would have felt certain of their hereafter. But the difficulties of laying hands on a bishop, and claiming him for their own, seemed too overwhelming. So they accepted Church as being the best they could do under the circumstances.

Quite a number of men were standing idly around the structure, watching others at work. It was a weakness of the citizens of Rocky Springs to watch others work. They had no desire to help. They rarely were beset with any desire to help anybody. They simply clustered together in small groups, chewing tobacco, or smoking, and, to a man, their hands were indolently thrust into the tops of their trousers, which, in every case, were girdled with a well-laden ammunition belt, from which was suspended at least one considerable revolver.

There was no doubt in Helen’s mind but that these weapons were loaded in every chamber, and the thought set her merry eyes dancing again.

These men wanted a church, and were there to see they had it. Woe betide—but, was there ever such a gathering of unclean, unholy humanity? She thought not.

Helen knew that every man and woman in the village had had some voice in the erection of the new church. There was not a citizen—they all possessed the courtesy title of “citizens”—in Rocky Springs, who had not contributed something toward it. Those who had wherewithal to give in money or kind, had given. Those who had nothing else to give gave their labor. She guessed the present onlookers had already done their share of giving, and were now there to see that their less fortunate brethren did not attempt to shirk their responsibilities.

For a moment, as the girl drew near, she abandoned her study of the men for a rapid survey of the building itself, and, in a way, it held her flattering attention. As yet there was no roof on it, but the walls were up, and the picturesqueness of the design of the building was fully apparent. Then she remembered that Charlie Bryant had designed the building, and somehow the thought lessened her interest.

The whole thing was constructed of lateral, raw pine logs, carefully dovetailed, with the ends protruding at the angles. There was no great originality of design, merely the delightful picturesqueness which unstripped logs never fail to yield. She knew that every detail of the building was to be carried out in the same way. The roof, the spire, the porches, even the fence which was ultimately to enclose the churchyard.

Then the inside was to be lined throughout with polished red pine. There was not a brick or stone to be used in the whole construction, except in the granite foundations, which did not appear above ground. The lumber was hewn in the valley and milled in John Day’s yard. The entire labor of hauling and building was to be done by the citizens of Rocky Springs. The draperies, necessary for the interior, would be made by the busy needles of the women of the village, and the materials would be supplied by Billy Unguin, the dry goods storekeeper. As for the stipend of the officiating parson, that would be scrambled together in cash and kind from similar sources.

The church was to be a monument, a tribute to a holy zeal, which the methods of life in Rocky Springs denied. Its erection was an attempt to steal absolution for the sins of its citizens. It was the pouring of a flood of oil upon the turbulent waters of an after life which Rocky Springs knew was waiting to engulf its little craft laden with tattered souls. It was a practical bribe to the Deity its people had so long outraged, were still outraging, and had every intention of continuing to outrage.