Chapter 12

Deacon Quickset was entirely truthful when he said to the keeper of the beer saloon that he had worried his pastor again and again to call on the repentant thief and try to bring him into the fold of the church; but he probably did not know that the said pastor had opinions of his own as to the time and manner in which such work should be done. Dr. Guide, under whose spiritual ministrations the deacon had sat every Sunday for many years, was a man of large experience in church work of all kinds, and, although he was extremely orthodox, to the extent of believing that those who already had united with his church were on the proper road to heaven, he nevertheless realized, as a practical man, that frequently there is more trouble with sheep in the road than with those who are straying about.

He had devoted no little of his time since he had been settled over the Bruceton church to the reclamation of doubtful characters of all kinds, but he frequently confided to his wife that one of the most satisfactory proofs to him of the divine origin of the church was that those already inside it were those most in need of spiritual ministrations. He had reclaimed some sad sinners of the baser sort from time to time with very little effort, but people concerning whom he frequently lay awake nights were men and women who were nominally in good standing in his own denomination and in the particular flock over which he was shepherd.

He had therefore made no particular haste to call on Sam Kimper, being entirely satisfied, as he told his wife, his only confidante, that so long as the man was following the course which he was reported to have laid down for himself he was not likely to go far astray, whereas a number of members of the congregation, men of far more influence in the community, seemed determined to break from the straight and narrow way at very slight provocation, and among these, the reverend doctor sadly informed his wife, he feared Deacon Quickset was the principal. The deacon was a persistent man in business,--"diligent in business" was the deacon's own expression in justification of whatever neglect his own wife might chance to charge him with,--but it seemed to some business-men of the town, as well as to his own pastor, that the deacon's diligence was overdoing itself, and that, in the language of one of the store-keepers, he had picked up a great deal more than he could carry. He was a director in a bank, agent for several insurance companies, manager of a land-improvement company, general speculator in real estate, and a man who had been charged with the care of a great deal of property which had belonged to old acquaintances now deceased. That he should be very busy was quite natural, but that his promises sometimes failed of fulfilment was none the less annoying, and once in a while unpleasant rumors were heard in the town about the deacon's financial standing and about his manner of doing business. Still, Dr. Guide did not drop Sam Kimper from his mind, and one day when he chanced to be in the vicinity of Larry Highgetty's shop he opened the door, bowed courteously to the figure at the bench, accepted a chair, and sat for a moment wondering what he should say to the man whom he was expected by the deacon to bring into his own church.

"Mr. Kimper," said the reverend gentleman, finally, "I trust you are getting along satisfactorily in the very good way in which I am told you have started."

"I can't say that I've any fault to find, sir," said the shoemaker, "though I've no doubt that a man of your learnin' an' brains could see a great deal wrong in me."

"Don't trouble yourself about that, my good fellow," said the minister: "you will not be judged by my learning or brains or those of any one else except yourself. I merely called to say that at any time that you are puzzled about any matter of belief, or feel that you should go further than you already have done, I would be very glad to be of any service to you if I can. You are quite welcome to call upon me at my home at almost any time, and of course you know where I can always be found on Sundays."

"I am very much obliged to you, sir," said the cobbler, "but somehow when I go to thinkin' much about such things I don't feel so much like askin' other people questions or about learnin' anythin' else as I do about askin' if it isn't a most wonderful thing, after all, that I've been able to change about as I have, an' that I haven't tumbled backwards again into any of my old ways. You don't know what those ways is, I s'pose, Dr. Guide, do you?"

"Well, no," said the minister, "I can't say that my personal experience has taught me very much about them."

"Of course not, sir; that I might know. Of course I didn't mean anything of that kind. But I sometimes wonder whether gentlemen like you, that was born respectable an' always was decent, an' has had the best of company all your lives, an' never had any bad habits, can know what an awful hole some of us poor common fellows sometimes get down into, an' don't seem to know how to get out of. I s'pose, sir, there must have been lots of folks of that kind when Jesus was around on the world alive: don't you think so?"

"No doubt, no doubt," said the minister, looking into his hat as if with his eyes he was trying to make some notes for remarks on the succeeding Sunday.

"You know, sir, that in what's written about Him they have a good deal to say about the lots of attention that He gave to the poor. I s'pose, if poor folks was then like they are now, most of them was that way through some faults of their own; because every body in this town that behaves himself an' always behaved himself manages to get along well enough. It does seem to me, sir, that He must have gone about among folks a good deal like me."

"That view of the matter never occurred to me," said the reverend gentleman, "and yet possibly there is a great deal to it. You know, Mr. Kimper, that was a long time ago. There was very little education in those times, and the people among whom He moved were captives of a stronger nation, and they seem to have been in a destitute and troubled condition."

"Yes," said Sam, interrupting the speaker, "an' I guess a good many of them were as bad off as me, because, if you remember, He said a good deal about them that was in prison an' that was visited there. Now, sir, it kind o' seems to me in this town--I think I know a good deal about it, because I've never been able to associate with anybody except folks like myself--it seems to me that sort of people don't get any sort of attention nowadays."

The minister assumed his conventional air of dignity, and replied, quickly,--

"I assure you, you are very much mistaken, so far as I am concerned. I think I know them all by name, and have made special visits to all of them, and tried to make them feel assured of the sympathy of those who by nature or education or circumstance chance to be better off than they."

"That ain't exactly what I meant, sir," said the cobbler. "Such folks get kind words pretty often, but somehow nobody ever takes hold of them an' pulls them out of the hole they are in, like Jesus used to seem to do. I s'pose ministers an' deacons an' such folks can't work miracles like He did, an' if they haven't got it in 'em to pull 'em out, why, I s'pose they can't do it. But I do assure you, sir, that there's a good deal of chance to do that kind of work in this town, an' if there had been any of it done when I was a boy, I don't believe I'd ever have got into the penitentiary."

Just then Dr. Brice, one of the village physicians, dropped into the shop, and the minister, somewhat confused, arose, and said,--

"Well, Mr. Kimper, I am very much obliged to you for your views. I assure you that I shall give them careful thought. Good day, sir."

"Sam," said Dr. Brice, who was a slight, nervous, excitable man, "I'm not your regular medical attendant, and I don't know that it's any of my business, but I've come in here in a friendly way to say to you that, if all I hear about your working all day and most of the night too, is true, you are going to break down. You can't stand it, my boy: human nature isn't made in that way. You have got a wife and family, and you seem to be trying real hard to take care of them. But you can't burn the candle at both ends without having the fire flicker out in the middle all of a sudden, and perhaps just when you can least afford it. Now, do take better care of yourself. You have made a splendid start, and there are more people than you know of in this town who are looking at you with a great deal of respect. They want to see you succeed, and if you want any help at it I am sure you can get it; but don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Don't break yourself up, or there won't be anybody to help. Don't you see?"

The shoemaker looked up at the good-natured doctor with a quick expression, and said,--

"Doctor, I'm not doin' any more than I have to, to keep soul and body together in the family. If I stop any of it, I've got to stop carryin' things home."

"Oh well," said the doctor, "that may be, that may be. But I'm simply warning you, as a fellow-man, that you must look out for yourself. It's all right to trust the Lord, but the Lord isn't going to give any one man strength enough to do two men's work. I have been in medical practice forty years, and I have never seen a case of that kind yet. That's all. I'm in a hurry,--got half a dozen people to see. Don't feel offended at anything I've said to you. It's all for your good, you know. Good day."

The doctor departed as rapidly as he had entered, and the cobbler stole a moment or two from his work to think. How his thoughts ran he could scarcely have told afterwards, for again the door opened, and the room darkened slightly, for the person who was entering was Father Black, the Catholic priest, a man whose frame was as big as his heart, he being reputed to be one of the largest-hearted men in all Bruceton. Everybody respected him. The best proof of it was that no one in any of the other churches ever attempted to do any proselyting in Father Black's flock.

"My son," said the priest, seating himself in the chair and spreading a friendly smile over his large, expressive features, "I have heard a great deal of you since you came back from your unfortunate absence, and I merely dropped in to say to you that if it's any comfort to you to know that every day you have whatever assistance there can be in the prayers of an old man who has been in this world long enough to love most those who need most, you may be sure that you have them."

"God bless you, sir! God bless you!" said the cobbler, quickly.

"Have you connected yourself with any church here as yet?" asked the priest.

"No, sir," sighed the cobbler: "one an' another has been pullin' an' haulin' at me one way an' another, tellin' me that it was my duty to go into a church. But how can I do it, sir, when I'm expected to say that I believe this an' that, that I don't know nothin' about? Some of 'em has been very good tryin' to teach me what they seem to understand very well, but I don't know much more than when they begun, an' sometimes it seems to me that I know a good deal less, for, with what one tells me in one way, an' another tells me in another way, my mind--and there's not very much of it, sir--my mind gets so mixed up that I don't know nothin' at all."

"Ah, my son," said the good old priest, "if you could only understand, as a good many millions of your fellow-men do, that it's the business of some men to understand and of others to faithfully follow them, you would not have such trouble."

"Well, sir," said the cobbler, "that's just what Larry's been sayin' to me here in the shop once in a while in the mornin', before he started out to get full; an' there's a good deal of sense in what he says, I've no doubt. But what I ask him is this,--an' he can't tell me, an' perhaps you can, sir. It's only this: while my heart's so full that it seems as if it couldn't hold the little that I already believe an' am tryin' to live up to, where's the sense of my tryin' to believe some more?"

Father Black was so unprepared to answer the question put thus abruptly, accompanied as it was with a look of the deepest earnestness, that there ensued an embarrassing silence in the shop for a moment or two.

"My son," said the priest, at last, "do you fully believe all that you have read in the good book that I am told you were taught to read while you were in prison?"

"Of course I do, sir; I can't do anything else."

"You believe it all?"

"Indeed I do, sir."

"And are you trying to live according to it?"

"That I am, sir."

"Then, my son," said the priest, rising, "God bless you and keep you in your way! Far be it from me to try to unsettle your mind or lead you any further until you feel that you need leading. If ever you want to come to me, you are welcome at any time of the day or night, and what you cannot understand of what I tell you I won't expect you to believe. Remember, my son, the Father of us all knows us just as we are, and asks no more of any of us than we can do and be. Good day, my son, and again--God bless you!"

When the priest went out, Sam rested again for a moment, and then murmured to himself,--

"Two ministers an' one doctor, all good people, tryin' to show me the way I should go, an' to tell me what I should do, an' me a-makin' only about a dollar a day! I s'pose it's all right, or they wouldn't do it."