Green Valley Part 15

"You wanted to be told. You were going away because I didn't want to tell you," he reminded her quietly.

"I know, but I'm just naturally spoiled and mean and wicked. But oh, won't I be nice to poor Hen Tomlins after this!"

"I'm going to have him take charge of a cla.s.s in wood-carving as soon as we can get one together. He's a master hand at that sort of work and there are any number of boys in this town who will love it and look up to Hen," said the man who did not understand women. The sun was slipping low in the west, pouring a flood of mellow gold over the landscape. It caught the attic windows of the old brick farmhouse that was so nearly ready for its new and young owner.

"Look," exclaimed Nan, pointing down toward it, "there is fairy treasure in your attic."

"Yes," he smiled, "there is. There are trunks up there full of all manner of things that five generations of Churchills could not bear to burn or give away. Some day when the rain is drumming on the roof and the gutters are spouting and all the birds are tucked away in dripping trees and the world is misty with tears, I'm going up there and just revel in second-hand adventure, dead dreams and cobwebs."

"Oh, my gracious, how I'd like to be there too," enviously cried Nanny Ainslee and the next moment crimsoned angrily at herself.

"If you won't mind coming to my house in the rain," said the man who did not understand women--but Nanny wasn't listening. The setting sun flared into a last widespread glory that bathed every gra.s.s blade in Green Valley and in this strong and golden light Nan saw the 6:10 pulling in and f.a.n.n.y Foster hurrying home. Jessup's delivery boy, driving back from his last trip, was larruping his horse and careful Ellen Nuby was taking in her clotheslines.

On the back porch of the Brownlee bungalow Jocelyn was shaking a white tablecloth, for the Brownlees had supper early. Jocelyn flapped and flapped, then folded the cloth neatly as she had seen Green Valley matrons do. That done, she waited.

David Allan was coming home over the hills with his team and Jocelyn was waiting till he came closer before she waved to him and greeted him. All Green Valley knew of these sunset greetings and approved.

So now Nan, with a smile of understanding sympathy, watched and waited too. She could almost see Jocelyn's happy, eager child face. David slowly drew nearer. But after one careless look at the little figure on the porch, his fine head drooped and he went on without a word and left Jocelyn standing there.

From her tree shelter Nan could see the little city girl standing very still, staring after David. Then slowly the little figure went down the steps and into the back garden. There it stood motionless again, staring into the fading sky as if seeking an explanation for David's strange conduct.

But up on the hilltop Nanny beat her hands softly and cried out in pain for Jocelyn. For Nanny knew her Green Valley and she knew that the story of Jocelyn's morning ride with the minister in the Bates' ancient carryall had already gone the rounds, even finding David in the furrows of the fields. And now the big boy was worried and wretched and perhaps angry at the little city girl whom he had so openly courted.

"Oh, dear!" Nanny began to speak her mind but stopped abruptly. For how could she tell this young man from India that he had that morning spoiled forever perhaps a lovely romance. She knew that he was innocent, as innocent as Jocelyn. And she knew that Green Valley meant no harm. It was nothing. And yet so often trouble, sorrow and heartache start in just that kind of nothingness. Out of playful little whirlwinds of careless laughter cruel storms are born.

When Cynthia's son turned to walk home with her Nanny waved him back and spoke curtly.

"My goodness--no! You mustn't. I never let anybody escort me about this foolish little town."

Then she hurried home alone and left John Knight standing on his hilltop.

CHAPTER XI

GETTING ACQUAINTED

n.o.body but a Green Valley man would have dared to do the things that the new minister did in those first months, when even the most daring of reverend gentlemen is apt to be a bit careful and given to the tactful searching for the straight and narrow path which is the earthly lot of pastors.

Cynthia's son however was one of those unconsciously successful men who are so simply true to life and life's laws that the world joyously meets them halfway. And then too his was a rich heritage.

From his great preacher father he had the power of seeing visions and dreaming dreams and the still greater gift of making and persuading other people to see them too. From his mother he had the comrade smile and warm intuitive heart that brought him close to even little souls.

And from old Joshua Churchill came that rock-like determination, the uncompromising honesty and, better than all else, that rare common sense touched with humorous shrewdness without which no man can greatly aid his fellows or enjoy life.

All this the new Green Valley minister had, besides bits of very valuable and legal papers and the old porticoed homestead dozing on a hill and waiting for the touch of a young hand to wake it into vigorous and new life. Such parts of Green Valley as failed to appreciate the more spiritual qualifications of the tall young man from India were properly impressed with his worldly possessions.

So it was that armed with these advantages Cynthia's son went his way, smashing h.o.a.ry precedents and the mossy conventions that will spring up and grow fibrously strong even in so sunny a spot as Green Valley.

n.o.body was surprised, of course, to see little Jim Tumley in the choir; nor to hear that the minister was giving him lessons on the new piano whose arrival the prophetic soul of f.a.n.n.y Foster had predicted. People pa.s.sing the Tumley house did however stop beside the hedge and listen in amazement to the minister playing, for he played surprisingly well.

When complimented on this accomplishment he explained that his mother had had a piano in India and had taught him how.

But n.o.body in Green Valley dreamed of seeing old Mrs. Rosenwinkle marketing right in the madly busy heart of town all on a Sat.u.r.day morning. But there she was in her wheel chair, with the minister alongside to see that the road was safe and clear.

And they say that every little while, right in the midst of her bargaining, she would look around and say:

"My, but the world is big and pretty."

And when somebody reminded her of her belief that the world was flat and ended on the far side of Petersen's pasture she never argued the matter fiercely, as was her wont, but said instead that it _had_ ended for her with Petersen's pasture until the day the new minister came.

And her daughter told how the paralyzed old body prayed day and night for this new minister's salvation, he being other than a Lutheran.

Somebody thought that too good a joke to keep and told Cynthia's son how hard old Mrs. Rosenwinkle was praying for his soul. They expected him to laugh. But he didn't. He looked suddenly serious just as his mother used to do when something touched the deep down places in her heart.

All he said was that no man could ever have too many women praying for him and that he was grateful as only a man whose mother was sleeping thousands of miles away in a foreign land could be grateful.

He had his mother's trick of letting people look quite suddenly into that part of his soul where he kept his finest thoughts and emotions.

And people looked and saw and then usually tiptoed away in puzzled awe or a dim sympathy. And he had such a habit of turning common sense and daylight on matters which seemed so baffling until he explained them.

It was just the minister's plain, common sense that finally got Hank Lolly into the church. When the minister first suggested that Hank ought to attend church services that worthy stared in amazed horror at his new friend. And he gave his perfectly good reasons why the likes of him had no right to step on what was Green Valley's sacred ground.

"Hank, you are entirely mistaken. I have seen you go into Green Valley parlors and every other room in the house. I watched you move that clumsy old sideboard of Mrs. Luttins down that narrow stairway and then through the little side gate. You never chipped a bit of plaster or trampled a flower beside the walk. Why, you never even tore a bit of vine off the gate. And yesterday I saw you walking your horses ever so carefully to the station because inside the van little Jimmy Drummond was lying on stretchers, going to the hospital. And I was told that Doc Philipps said he wouldn't have trusted another driver with Jimmy."

"But," groaned Hank, "people like me don't go to church."

"Hank, most ministers don't ride around the country on a moving dray.

But I rode out with you many a time and I sort of feel that you might come along with me now and then and see the people and things along my route. You've given me a good time and I'd like to pay back. You'll like the music and I'm sure you'll understand it all, because I talk English you know. And anyhow, things get as lonesome sometimes for a minister in the pulpit as the roads get for a dray driver and I'd appreciate it to have a friend like you along. I never know when I'll need a lift and a little help that you could give. Sometimes we have to move the Sunday-school organ about and there are windows that stick and all manner of things about a church that only a practiced mover and driver could do. You know the janitor is rather old and infirm and as for me--well, Hank, when you come down to it, that's about all we ministers are, just movers. Our business is to help find just the right and happiest places for people, to show them their part in the game of life and keep them from bruising themselves and others. I'm doing about the same sort of work as you are; that's why I'm asking you to come along with me."

"Well--if you put it that way,--" murmured Hank, still miserable, "why, maybe I could drop in. Billy's ordered me a new suit and so--"

"That settles it then, Hank. For there's no sense in getting a new suit unless you go out in it. And there's no sense in going out unless you have some definite place to go to. Why, half the people get clothes just to go to church and the other half go to church just to wear their clothes. I'll expect you. You can sit comfortably in the back and watch things and tell me later what you think of the way things are managed here. You'll see things from the door that I never see from the pulpit."

Hank went to church in a pair of shoes that squeaked agonizingly and a suit of clothes that was a marvel of mail-order device. He also wore a Stetson hat that was new when he entered the church door but which, through nervous manipulation, aged terribly in that first half hour.

He came early because he felt that he could not endure the thought of entering a crowded church and then suffered torment as one by one the congregation nodded to him or addressed him in sepulchral whispers.

When, however, Grandma Wentworth sat down beside him and visited comfortably before services, and Nan Ainslee stopped to thank him for something or other he had done for her the week before, he felt better.

As soon as Jim Tumley began to sing and the minister to talk Hank forgot about himself and became absorbed in the proceedings. He told the minister later that he'd meant to keep an eye on things for him but that he got so interested he'd forgotten. About all that he had observed was that Mrs. Sloan pa.s.sed her handkerchief a little too frequently and publicly to the little Sloans. Hank said he thought they were old enough to have handkerchiefs of their own. He also felt sure, he said, that Mrs. Osborn and Mrs. Pelham, Jr. were on the outs again, because of the fact that though Mrs. Pelham's switch was falling loose and Mrs. Osborn sitting right behind her saw it, she made no effort to repin it or tell the unfortunate woman about it. Hank further informed the minister that that second Crawley boy was a limb and closed his observations by asking the Reverend John Roger Churchill Knight if he didn't think Nanny Ainslee was the prettiest girl in church? Whereupon the minister promptly agreed with him.

That, then, was Hank Lolly's introduction to a proper and conventional religious life. Hank, as soon as he felt sure that he was going to survive the experience, became wonderfully interested and the next Sunday reappeared with Barney in tow. It seems that Barney also had been provided with a new suit and accessories and Hank had promptly demanded his presence in church.

"You ought to go once, Barney, if only to show the minister that you're rightly grateful to him for showing you about them there books and figures and a-pointing out your mistakes to you. And anyhow, if you don't go, you'll be hanging out in that there pool-room, and first thing you know you won't be decent and respectable and Billy'll have to fire you."

"What do you know about that there poolroom, Mr. Lolly?" demanded Barney.

"Never mind. I know what I know. You're trying to be smart and I'm surprised. I've heard of your kid doings in that place and I'm surprised, that's what I am. You don't see Billy Evans trying to make money in cute ways over night. No, sir! He does a day's work for a man and throws in a little for good measure before he takes a day's wages. And he don't do business behind closed doors and thick curtains, neither. So just you keep out of that there poolroom or I'll take you over to Doc Mitch.e.l.l's and have every one of them there crooked teeth of yourn straightened out."

"All right, Mr. Lolly, I'll do just as you say and go to church. It ain't as hard as it sounds, that ain't. Because, honest, Hank, ain't that there minister a fine guy? He's as good, I believe, as Billy. He asked me to come on and be in his Sunday-school cla.s.s and get in on some fun. And he says to wait until he gets his barn fixed; that he'll show us boys something. And I bet he will. Why, say, Hank, maybe he kin do all sorts of circus stunts. You know he's from India and that's where all the snake charmers and sword swallowers come from, ain't it?"

In this perfectly simple and artless fashion Cynthia's son went about the creation of his own special Sunday-school cla.s.s and when he got through the result was startling. It was the largest and somebody said the weirdest Sunday-school cla.s.s ever seen in Green Valley. Indeed, when Mr. James D. Austin, who was about the most respectable man in town, saw it he grew quite distressed and suddenly very tired.