He improved his typewriting, and that was a fine thing to do. The Reverend Elmer Gantry’s powerful nature had been cramped by the slow use of a pen; it needed the gallop of the keys; and from his typewriter were increasingly to come floods of new moral and social gospels.
In February he held two weeks of intensive evangelistic meetings. He had in a traveling missioner, who wept, and his wife, who sang. Neither of them, Elmer chuckled privily, could compare with himself, who had worked with Sharon Falconer. But they were new to Banjo Crossing, and he saw to it that it was himself who at the climax of hysteria charged down into the frightened mob and warned them that unless they came up and knelt in subjection, they might be snatched to hell before breakfast.
There were twelve additions to the church, and five renewals of faith on the part of backsliders, and Elmer was able to have published in the Western Christian Advocate a note which carried his credit through all the circles of the saints:
The church at Banjo Crossing has had a remarkable and stirring revival under Brother T. R. Feesels and Sister Feesels, the singing evangelist, assisted by the local pastor, Reverend Gantry, who was himself formerly in evangelistic work as assistant to the late Sharon Falconer. A great outpouring of the spirit and far-reaching results are announced, with many uniting with the church.
He also, after letting the town know how much it added to his burdens, revived and every week for two weeks personally supervised a Junior Epworth League—the juvenile department of that admirable association of young people whose purpose is, it has itself announced, to “take the wreck out of recreation and make it re-creation.”
He had a note from Bishop Toomis hinting that the bishop had most gratifying reports from the district superintendent about Elmer’s “diligent and genuinely creative efforts” and hinting that at the coming Annual Conference, Elmer would be shifted to a considerably larger church.
“Fine!” glowed Elmer. “Gosh, I’ll be glad to get away. These rubes here get about as much out of high-class religion, like I give them, as a fleet of mules!”
VII
Ishuah Rogers was dead, and they were holding his funeral at the Methodist Church. As farmer, as store-keeper, as postmaster, he had lived all his seventy-nine years in Banjo Crossing.
Old J. F. Whittlesey was shaken by Ishuah’s death. They had been boys together, young men together, neighbors on the farm, and in his last years, when Ishuah was nearly blind and living with his daughter Jenny, J. F. Whittlesey had come into town every day to spend hours sitting with him on the porch, wrangling over Blaine and Grover Cleveland. Whittlesey hadn’t another friend left alive. To drive past Jenny’s now and not see old Ishuah made the world empty.