Pole Baker: A Novel

by Will N. Harben

FOR midsummer, the next morning was clear and cool. Nathan Porter rolled the family spring-wagon down to the creek and washed off the wheels and greased the axles.

“Your pa's getting ready to drive us to church, Cynthia,” Mrs. Porter adroitly said to the girl as she was removing the dishes from the table in the diningroom. “I wish you'd go with me. I hate to sit there with just your pa.”

There was an instant's hesitation visible in Cynthia's sudden pause in her work and the startled lift of her eyebrows. Then she said:

“All right, mother, if you want me to, I'll go.”

“Well, then, go get out your white muslin and flowered hat. They become you more than anything you wear.”

Without further words Cynthia left the room, and Mrs. Porter walked out into the hall and stood in the front door-way.

“Somehow, I imagine,” she mused, “that she was thinking it would be her last time at our church. I don't know what makes me think so, but she had exactly that look in her face. I do wish I could go in and tell mother all about it, but she's too old and childish to act with caution. I can't go to Nathan, either, for he'd laugh at me; he'd not only do that, but he'd tell it all over the country and drive Cynthia to meet Floyd ahead of time. No, no; I must do the best I can with Mr. Hillhouse's help. He loves her; he'd make her a good, safe husband, too, while that dare-devil would most likely tire of her in a short time, and take to drinking and leave her high and dry in some far-off place. No, Floyd won't do to risk.”

The service was not well attended that morning, owing to a revival in progress at Darley. Reports of the good music and high religious excitement had drawn away a goodly number of Hillhouse's parishioners. But, considering the odd nature of the discourse he had planned, this was perhaps in the young preacher's favor. Indeed, as he sat in his high-backed chair behind the little wooden stand, which held a ponderous open Bible, a glass pitcher of water, and a tumbler, Mrs. Porter, as she and Cynthia entered and took their usual places, thought he looked as if he had not slept the preceding night. His skin was yellow, his hair stood awry, and his eyes had a queer, shifting expression. Had his wily old ally doubted that he intended to fulfil his promise to publicly touch on the matter so near to them both, she could do so no longer after he had risen and stood unconsciously swaying from side to side, as he made some formal announcements in harsh, rigid tones. Indeed, he had the appearance of a man who could have talked of only one thing, thought of only one thing, that to which his whole being was nailed. His subject was that of the sins of the fathers being visited upon their children, even to the third and fourth generations. And Mrs. Porter shrank guiltily as his almost desperate voice rang out in the still room How was it possible for those around not to suspect—to know—that she had instigated the sermon and brought her unsuspecting child there to be swerved by it from the dangerous course she was pursuing? In former sermons Hillhouse had unfailingly allowed his glance to rest on Cynthia's face, but on this occasion he looked everywhere but at her. As he proceeded, he seemed to take on confidence in his theme; his tone rose high, clear, and firm, and quivered in the sheer audacity of his aim. He showed, from that lesson, the serious responsibility resting on each individual—each prospective mother and father. Then, all at once, it dawned on the congregation that Floyd's misfortune had inspired the discourse, and each man and woman bent breathlessly forward that they might not lose a word. The picture was now most clear to their intelligences. And seeing that they understood, and were sympathetically following him, Hillhouse swept on, the bit of restraint between his clinched teeth, to direct, personal reference.

“We can take it home to ourselves, brothers and sisters,” he went on, passionately. “Even in our own humble, uneventful lives here in the mountains, out of the great current of worldliness that flows through the densely populated portions of our land, we have seen a terrible result of this failure of man to do his duty to his posterity. Right here in our midst the hand of God has fallen so heavily that the bright hopes of sterling youth are crushed out completely. There was here among us a fine specimen of mental and physical manhood, a young soul full of hope and ambition. There was not a ripple on the calm surface of that life, not a cloud in the clear sky of its future, when, without warning, the shadow of God's hand spread over it. The awful past was unrolled—one man and woman, for selfish, personal desires, were at the root of it all. Some shallow thinkers claim that there is no hell, neither spiritual nor material. To convince such individuals I would point the scornful finger of proof to the agony of that young man. Are they—that selfish couple—enjoying the bliss of the redeemed and he, the helpless product of their sin, suffering as you know he must be suffering? In this case the tangible and visible must establish the verity of the vague and invisible. They are paying the debt—somewhere, somehow—you may count on that.” Mrs. Porter, with bated breath, eyed Cynthia askance. To her astonishment a flush had risen into the girl's cheeks, and there was in her steady eye something like the thin-spread tear of deep and glorified emotion, as she sat with tightly clasped hands, her breast tumultuously heaving. The house was very still, so still that the rustling of the leaves in the trees near the open windows now and then swept like the soft sighing of grief-stricken nature through the room. Hillhouse, a baffled, almost hunted look on his gaunt face, paused to take a sup of water, and for one instant his eyes met Cynthia's as he wiped his mouth on his handkerchief and with trembling hands returned it to his pocket. Mrs. Porter was conscious of the impression that he had not quite carried the subject to its logical climax, and was wondering how it had happened, when Hillhouse almost abruptly closed his discourse. He sat down, as if crushed by the weight of defeat, and looked steadily and despondently at the floor, while the congregation stood and sang the doxology. Then he rose and, with hands out-stretched as stiffly as those of a wired skeleton, he pronounced the benediction.

As they were turning to leave, Cynthia and her mother faced old Nathan, who stood waiting for them.