Part 24

Boston Ben had been an interested attendant at certain law-courts in the States, so in the calm consciousness of his acquaintance with legal procedure he rapidly arraigned Scrabblegrab.

“Scrabblegrab, you’re complained uv for goin’ back on bitters, coaxin’ Curly to give up keards, thus spoilin’ his fun, an’ knockin’ appreciatin’ observers out of their amusement; uv insultin’ the judge, uv not cussin’ when you stumble into the river, uv not havin’ any good p’ints, an’ not showin’ yer bad ones; uv bein’ a set-back on the tone uv the place—lookin’ like a green-apple-fed, vinegar-watered corkscrew, or words to that effect; an’, finally, in savin’ yer money. What hev you got to say agin’ sentence bein’ passed on yer?”

The old man flushed as the chairman proceeded, and when the indictment reached its end, he replied, in a tone which indicated anything but respect for the court:

“I’ve got just this to say, that I paid my way here, I’ve asked no odds of any man sence I’ve ben here, an’ that anybody that takes pains to meddle with my affairs is an impudent scoundrel!”

Saying which, the old man turned to go, while the court was paralyzed into silence.

But Tom Dosser, a new arrival, and a famous shot, now stepped in front of the old man.

“I ax yer parding,” said Tom, in the blandest of tones, “but, uv course, yer didn’t mean me when yer mentioned impudent scoundrels?”

“Yes, I did—I meant you, and ev’rybody like yer,” replied the old man.

Tom’s hand moved toward his pistol. The chairman expeditiously got out of range. Stumpy Flukes promptly retired to the extreme end of the bar, and groaned audibly.

The old man _was_ in the wrong; but, then, wasn’t it _too_ mean, when blood was so hard to get out, that these difficulties _always_ took place just after he’d got the floor clean?

“I don’t generally shoot till the other feller draws,” explained Tom Dosser, while each man in the room wept with emotion as they realized they had lived to see Tom’s skill displayed before their very eyes—“I don’t generally shoot till the other feller draws; but you’d better be spry. I usually make a little allowance for age, but——”

Tom’s further explanations were indefinitely delayed by an abnormal contraction of his trachea, the same being induced by the old man’s right hand, while his left seized the unhappy Thomas by his waist-belt, and a second later the dead shot of Blugsey’s was tossed into the middle of the floor, somewhat as a sheaf of oats is tossed by a practiced hand.

“Anybody else?” inquired the old man. “I’ll back Vermont bone an’ muscle agin’ the hull passel of ye, even if I _be_ a deacon. ‘The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.’”

“The angel needn’t hurry hisself,” said Tom Dosser, picking himself up, one joint at a time. “Ef that’s the crowd yer travelin’ with, and they’ve got a grip anything like yourn, I don’t want nothin’ to do with ’em.”

Boston Ben looked excited, and roared:

“This court’s adjourned _sine die_.”

Then he rushed up to the newly announced deacon, caught him firmly by the right hand, slapped him heartily between the shoulders, and inquired, rather indignantly:

“Say, old Angelchum, why didn’t you ever let folks know yer style, instead uv trottin’ ‘round like a melancholy clam with his shells shut up tight? That’s what this crowd wants to know! Now yev opened down to bed-rock, we’ll git English Sam from Sonora, an’ git up the tallest kind uv a rasslin’ match.”

“Not unless English Sam meddles with my business, you won’t,” replied the deacon, quickly. “I’ve got enough to do fightin’ speretual foes.”

“Oh,” said Boston Ben, “we’ll manage it so the church folks needn’t think ’twas a set-up job. We’ll put Sam up to botherin’ yer, and yer can tackle him at sight. Then——”

“Excuse me, Boston,” interrupted Tom Dosser, “but yer don’t hit the mark. I’m from Vermont myself, an’ deacons there don’t fight for the fun of it, whatever they may do in the village _you_ hail from.” Then, turning to the old man, Tom asked: “What part uv the old State be ye from, deacon, an’ what fetched ye out?”

“From nigh Rutland,” replied the deacon, “I hed a nice little place thar, an’ wuz doin’ well. But the young one’s eyes is bad. None uv the doctors thereabouts could do anythin’ fur ’em. Took her to Boston; nobody thar could do anythin’—said some of the European doctors were the only ones that could do the job safely. Costs money goin’ to Europe an’ payin’ doctors—I couldn’t make it to hum in twenty year; so I come here.”

“Only child?” inquired Tom Dosser, while the boys crowded about the two Vermonters, and got up a low buzz of sympathetic conversation.

The old man heard it all, and to his lonesome and homesick soul it was so sweet and comforting, that it melted his natural reserve, and made him anxious to unbosom himself to some one. So he answered Tom:

“Only child of my only darter.”

“Father dead?” inquired Tom Dosser.

“Better be,” replied the deacon, bitterly. “He left her soon after they were married.”

“Mean skunk!” said Tom, sympathetically.

“I want to judge as I’d _be_ judged,” replied the deacon; “but I feel ez ef I couldn’t call that man bad enough names. Hesby was ez good a gal ez ever lived, but she went to visit some uv our folks at Burlington, an’ fust thing I know’d she writ me she’d met this chap, and they’d been married, an’ wanted us to forgive her; but he was so good, an’ she loved him so dearly.”

“Good for the gal,” said Tom, and a murmur of approbation ran through the crowd.

“Of course, we forgave her. We’d hev done it ef she married Satan himself,” continued the deacon. “But we begged her to bring her husband up home, an’ let us look at him. Whatever was good enough for _her_ to love was good enough for us, and we meant to try to love Hesby’s husband.”

“Done yer credit, deacon, too,” declared Tom, and again the crowd uttered a confirmatory murmur. “Ef some folks—deacons, too—wuz ez good—But go ahead, deac’n.”

“Next thing we heard from her, he had gone to the place he was raised in; but a friend of his, who went with him, came back, an’ let out he’d got tight, an’ been arrested. She writ him right off, beggin’ him to come home, and go with her up to our place, where he could be out of temptation an’ where she’d love him dearer than ever.”

“Pure gold, by thunder!” ejaculated Tom, while a low “You bet,” was heard all over the room.

Tom’s eyes were in such a condition that he thought the deacon’s were misty, and the deacon noticed the same peculiarities about Tom.

“She never got a word from him,” continued the deacon; “but one of her own came back, addressed in his writing.”

“The infernal scoundrel!” growled Tom, while from the rest of the boys escaped epithets which caused the deacon, indignant as he was, to shiver with horror.

“She was nearly crazy, an’ started to find him, but nobody knowed where he was. The postmaster said he’d come to the office ev’ry day for a fortnight, askin’ for a letter, so he must hev got hers.”

“Ef all women had such stuff in ’em,” sighed Tom, “there’ll be one fool less in California. ’Xcuse me, deac’n.”

“She never gev up hopin’ he’d come back,” said the deacon, in accents that seemed to indicate labored breath “an’ it sometimes seems ez ef such faith’d be rewarded by the Lord some time or other. She teaches Pet—that’s her child—to talk about her papa, an’ to kiss his pictur; an’ when she an’ Pet goes to sleep, his pictur’s on the pillar between ’em.”

“An’ the idee that any feller could be mean enough to go back on such a woman! Deacon, I’d track him right through the world, an’ just tell him what you’ve told us. Ef _that_ didn’t fetch him, I’d consider it a Christian duty an’ privilege to put a hole through him.”

“I couldn’t do that,” replied the deacon, “even ef I was a man uv blood; fur Hesby loves him, an’ he’s Pet’s dad; Besides, his pictur looks like a decent young chap—ain’t got no hair on his face, an’ looks more like an innercent boy than anythin’ else. Hesby thinks Pet looks like him, an’ I couldn’t touch nobody looking like Pet. Mebbe you’d like to see her pictur,” continued the deacon, drawing from his pocket an ambrotype, which he opened and handed Tom.

“Looks sweet ez a posy,” said Tom, regarding it tenderly. “Them little lips uv hern look jest like a rose when it don’t know whether to open a little further or not.”

The deacon looked pleased, and extracted another picture, and remarked, as he handed it to Tom:

“That’s Pet’s mother.”

Tom took it, looked at it, and screamed:

“_My wife!_”

He threw himself on the floor, and cried as only a big-hearted man _can_ cry.

The deacon gazed wildly about, and gasped:

“What’s his name?—tell me quick!”

“Tom Dosser!” answered a dozen or more.

“That’s him! Bless the Lord!” cried the deacon, and finding a seat, dropped into it, and buried his face in his hands.

For several moments there was a magnificent attempt at silence, but it utterly failed. The boys saw that the deacon and Tom were working a very large claim, and to the best of their ability they assisted.

Stumpy Flukes, under the friendly shelter of the bar, was able to fully express his feelings through his eyelids, but the remainder of the party, by taking turns at staring out the windows, and contemplating the bottles behind the bar, managed to delude themselves into the belief that their eyes were invisible. Finally, Tom arose. “Deacon—boys,” he said, “I never got that letter. I wus afeard she’d hear about my scrape, so I wrote her all about it, ez soon ez I got sober, an’ begged her to forgive me. An’ I waited an’ hoped an’ prayed for an answer, till I growed desperate, an’ came out here.”

“She never heerd from you, Thomas,” sighed the deacon.

“Deac’n,” said Tom, “do you s’pose I’d hev kerried this for years”—here he drew out a small miniature of his wife—“ef I hadn’t loved her? Yes, an’ this too,” continued Tom, producing a thin package, wrapped in oilskin. “There’s the only two letters I ever got from her, an’, just ’cos her hand writ ’em, I’ve had ’em just where I took ’em from for four years. I got ’em at Albany, fore I got on that cussed tare, an’ they was both so sweet an’ wifely, that I’ve never dared to read ’em since, fur fear that thinkin’ on what I’d lost would make me even wuss than I am. But I ain’t afeard now,” said Tom, eagerly tearing off the oilskin, and disclosing two envelopes.

He opened one, took out the letter, opened it with trembling hands, stared blankly at it, and handed it to the deacon.

“Thar’s my letter now—I got ’em in the wrong envelope!”

“Thomas,” said the deacon, “the best thing you can do is to deliver that letter yourself. An’ don’t let any grass grow under your feet, ef you ken help it.”

“I’m goin’ by the first hoss I ken steal,” said Tom.

“An’ tell her I’ll be along ez soon as I pan out enough,” continued the deacon.

“An’ tell her,” said Boston Ben, “that the gov’nor won’t be much behind you. Tell her that when the crowd found out how game the old man was, and what was on his mind, that the court was so ashamed of hisself that he passed around the hat for Pet’s benefit, and”—here Boston Ben thoughtfully weighed the hat in his hands—“and that the apology’s heavy enough to do Europe a dozen times; I know it, for I’ve had to travel myself occasionally.”

Here he deposited the venerable tile with its precious contents on the floor in front of the deacon. The old man looked at it, and his eyes filled afresh, as he exclaimed:

“God bless you! I wish I could do something for you in return.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Boston Ben, “unless—you—You _couldn’t_ make up your mind to a match with English Sam, could you?”

“Come, boys,” interrupted Stumpy Flukes; “it’s my treat—name your medicine—fill high—all charged?—now then—bottom up, to ‘The meanest man at Blugsey’s’!”

“That _did_ mean _you_, deacon!” exclaimed Tom; “but I claim it myself now, so—so I won’t drink it.”

The remainder of the crowd clashed glasses, while Tom and his father-in-law bowed profoundly. Then the whole crowd went out to steal horses for the two men, and had them on the trail within an hour. As they rode off, Stumpy Flukes remarked:

“There’s a splendid shot ruined for life.”

“Yes,” said Boston Ben, with a deep sigh struggling out of his manly bosom, “an’ a bully rassler, too. The Church has got a good deal to answer fur, fur sp’ilin’ that man’s chances.”

DEACON BARKER’S CONVERSION.

OF the several pillars of the Church at Pawkin Centre, Deacon Barker was by all odds the strongest. His orthodoxy was the admiration of the entire congregation, and the terror of all the ministers within easy driving distance of the Deacon’s native village. He it was who had argued the late pastor of the Pawkin Centre Church into that state of disquietude which had carried him, through a few days of delirious fever, into the Church triumphant; and it was also Deacon Barker whose questions at the examination of seekers for the ex-pastor’s shoes had cast such consternation into divinity-schools, far and near, that soon it was very hard to find a candidate for ministerial honors at Pawkin Centre.

Nor was his faith made manifest by words alone. Be the weather what it might, the Deacon was always in his pew, both morning and evening, in time to join in the first hymn, and on every Thursday night, at a quarter past seven in winter, and a quarter before eight in summer, the good Deacon’s cane and shoes could be heard coming solemnly down the aisle, bringing to the prayer-meeting the champion of orthodoxy. Nor did the holy air of the prayer-meeting even one single evening fail to vibrate to the voice of the Deacon, as he made, in scriptural language, humble confessions and tearful pleadings before the throne, or—still strictly scriptural in expression—he warned and exhorted the impenitent. The contribution-box always received his sixpence as long as specie payment lasted, and the smallest fractional currency note thereafter; and to each of the regular annual offerings to the missionary cause, the Bible cause, and kindred Christian enterprises, the Deacon regularly contributed his dollar and his prayers.

The Deacon could quote scripture in a manner which put Biblical professors to the blush, and every principle of his creed so bristled with texts, confirmatory, sustentive and aggressive, that doubters were rebuked and free-thinkers were speedily reduced to speechless humility or rage. But the unregenerate, and even some who professed righteousness, declared that more fondly than to any other scriptural passage did the good Deacon cling to the injunction, “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.” Meekly insisting that he was only a steward of the Lord, he put out his Lord’s money that he might receive it again with usury, and so successful had he been that almost all mortgages held on property near Pawkin Centre were in the hands of the good Deacon, and few were the foreclosure sales in which he was not the seller.

The new pastor at Pawkin Centre, like good pastors everywhere, had tortured himself into many a headache over the perplexing question, “How are we to reach the impenitent in our midst!” The said impenitent were, with but few exceptions, industrious, honest, respectable, law-abiding people, and the worthy pastor, as fully impregnated with Yankee-thrift as with piety, shuddered to think of the waste of souls that was constantly threatening. At length, like many another pastor, he called a meeting of the brethren, to prayerfully consider this momentous question. The Deacon came, of course, and so did all the other pillars, and many of them presented their views. Brother Grave thought the final doom of the impenitent should be more forcibly presented; Deacon Struggs had an abiding conviction that it was the Man of Sin holding dominion in their hearts that kept these people away from the means of grace; Deacon Ponder mildly suggested that the object might perhaps be attained if those within the fold maintained a more godly walk and conversation, but he was promptly though covertly rebuked by the good Deacon Barker, who reminded the brethren that “it is the _Spirit_ that quickeneth”; Brother Flite, who hadn’t any money, thought the Church ought to build a “working-man’s chapel,” but this idea was promptly and vigorously combated by all men of property in the congregation. By this time the usual closing hour had arrived, and after a benediction the faithful dispersed, each with about the ideas he brought to the meeting.

Early next morning the good Deacon Barker, with his mind half full of the state of the unconverted, and half of his unfinished cow-shed, took his stick and hobbled about the village in search of a carpenter to finish the incomplete structure. There was Moggs, but Moggs had been busy all the season, and it would be just like him to want full price for a day’s work. Stubb was idle, but Stubb was slow. Augur—Augur used liquor, and the Deacon had long ago firmly resolved that not a cent of _his_ money, if he could help it, should ever go for the accursed stuff. But there was Hay—he hadn’t seen him at work for a long time—perhaps he would be anxious enough for work to do it cheaply.

The Deacon knocked at Hay’s door, and Hay himself shouted:

“Come in.”

“How are ye, George,” said the Deacon, looking hastily about the room, and delightfully determining, from the patient face of sad-eyed Mrs. Hay and the scanty furnishing of the yet uncleared breakfast-table, that he had been providentially guided to the right spot. “How’s times with ye?”

“Not very good, Deac’n,” replied Hay. “Nothin’ much doin’ in town.”

“Money’s awful sceerce,” groaned the Deacon.

“Dreadful,” responded George, devoutly thanking the Lord that he owed the Deacon nothing.

“Got much to do this winter?” asked the Deacon.

“Not by a d—day’s job—not a single day,” sorrowfully replied Hay.

The Deacon’s pious ear had been shocked by the young man’s imperfectly concealed profanity, and for an instant he thought of administering a rebuke, but the charms of prospective cheap labor lured the good man from the path of rectitude.

“I’m fixin’ my cow-shed—might p’raps give ye a job on’t. ‘Spose ye’d do it cheap, seein’ how dull ev’ry thin’ is?”

The sad eyes of Mrs. Hay grew bright in an instant. Her husband’s heart jumped up, but he knew to whom he was talking, so he said, as calmly as possible:

“Three dollars is reg’lar pay.”

The Deacon immediately straightened up as if to go.

“Too much,” said he; “I’d better hire a common lab’rer at a dollar ’n a half, an’ boss him myself. It’s only a cow-shed, ye know.”

“Guess, though, ye won’t want the nails druv no less p’ticler, will ye, Deac’n?” inquired Hay. “But I tell yer what I’ll do—I’ll throw off fifty cents a day.”

“Two dollars ort to be enough, George,” resumed the Deacon. “Carpenterin’s pooty work, an’ takes a sight of headpiece sometimes, but there’s no intellec’ required to work on a cow-shed. Say two dollars, an’ come along.”

The carpenter thought bitterly of what a little way the usual three dollars went, and of how much would have to be done with what he could get out of the cow-shed, but the idea of losing even that was too horrible to be endured, so he hastily replied:

“Two an’ a quarter, an’ I’m your man.”

“Well,” said the Deacon, “it’s a powerful price to pay for work on a cow-shed, but I s’pose I mus’ stan’ it. Hurry up; thar’s the mill-whistle blowin’ seven.”

Hay snatched his tools, kissed a couple of thankful tears out of his wife’s eyes, and was soon busy on the cow-shed, with the Deacon looking on.

“George,” said the Deacon suddenly, causing the carpenter to stop his hammer in mid-air, “think it over agen, an’ say two dollars.”

Hay gave the good Deacon a withering glance, and for a few moments the force of suppressed profanity caused his hammer to bang with unusual vigor, while the owner of the cow-shed rubbed his hands in ecstasy at the industry of his _employe_.

The air was bracing, the Winter sun shone brilliantly, the Deacon’s breakfast was digesting fairly, and his mind had not yet freed itself from the influences of the Sabbath. Besides, he had secured a good workman at a low price, and all these influences combined to put the Deacon in a pleasant frame of mind. He rambled through his mind for a text which would piously express his condition, and texts brought back Sunday, and Sunday reminded him of the meeting of the night before. And here was one of those very men before him—a good man in many respects, though he _was_ higher-priced than he should be. How was the cause of the Master to be prospered if His servants made no effort? Then there came to the Deacon’s mind the passage, “——he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.” What particular sins of his own needed hiding the Deacon did not find it convenient to remember just then, but he meekly admitted to himself and the Lord that he had them, in a general way. Then, with that directness and grace which were characteristic of him, the Deacon solemnly said:

“George, what is to be the sinner’s doom?”

“I dunno,” replied George, his wrath still warm; “‘pears to me you’ve left that bizness till pretty late in life, Deac’n!”

“Don’t trifle with sacrid subjec’s, George,” said the Deacon, still very solemn, and with a suspicion of annoyance in his voice. “The wicked shall be cast into hell, with—”

“They can’t kerry their cow-sheds with ’em, neither,” interrupted George, consolingly.

“Come, George,” said the good Deacon, in an appealing tone, “remember the apostle says, ‘Suffer the word of exhortation.’”

“’Xcuse me, Deac’n, but one sufferin’ at a time; I ain’t through sufferin’ at bein’ beaten down yet. How about deac’ns not being ‘given to filthy lucre?’”

The good Deacon was pained, and he was almost out of patience with the apostle for writing things which came so handy to the lips of the unregenerate. He commenced an industrious search for a text which should completely annihilate the impious carpenter, when that individual interrupted him with:

“Out with it, Deac’n—ye had a meetin’ las’ night to see what was to be done with the impenitent. I was there—that is, I sot on a stool jest outside the door, an’ I heerd all ’twas said. Ye didn’t agree on nothin’—mebbe ye’v fixed it up sence. Any how, ye’v sot me down fur one of the impenitent, an’ yer goin’ fur me. Well——”

“Go on nailin’,” interrupted the economical Deacon, a little testily; “the noise don’t disturb me; I can hear ye.”

“Well, what way am I so much wickeder ’n you be—you an’ t’other folks at the meetin’-house?” asked Hay.

“George, I never saw ye in God’s house in my life,” replied the Deacon.

“Well, s’pose ye hevn’t—is God so small He can’t be nowheres ‘xcept in your little meetin’-house? How about His seein’ folks in their closets?”

“George,” said the Deacon, “ef yer a prayin’ man, why don’t ye jine yerself unto the Lord’s people?”

“Why? ’Cos the Lord’s people, as you call ’em, don’t want me. S’pose I was to come to the meetin’-house in these clothes—the only ones I’ve got—d’ye s’pose any of the Lord’s people ’d open a pew-door to me? An’ s’pose my wife an’ children, dressed no better ’n I be, but as good ’s I can afford, was with me, how d’ye s’pose I’d feel?”

“Pride goeth before a fall, an’ a haughty sperit before,” groaned the Deacon, when the carpenter again interrupted.