Green Valley Part 16

He had tried, since the age of ten when he had formally and publicly joined the church on the very crest of a great religious wave, to do his part towards making and keeping the Green Valley church on a high spiritual plane. He felt at times that he was close to success and now here from the very ends of the earth came a boy to upset all his plans.

So Mr. Austin suddenly felt ill and old and he went to see Doc Philipps about a tonic. Doc Philipps, who could have been as good a lawyer as he was a doctor, asked a few questions about politics, religion and Mrs. Austin's lumbago and knew exactly what was the matter with James D. Austin. The next time he ran across Cynthia's son he hailed him.

"Look here, Knight, what you been doing to James D. lately?

Been turning his nice little church all upside down, ain't you? Driven him right into a fearful case of grouch and an I-am-through-with-the-things-of-this-world attack, that's what you have."

Cynthia's son looked very soberly and very directly at his friend the doctor and turned on his heel.

"Doc, I'm going to see that poor man right now," said he and Doc Philipps, in telling Nan Ainslee about it afterwards, swore that not only the minister's two eyes but his very voice twinkled.

Cynthia's son found Mr. Austin in his proper and neat office. He went straight to the point.

"Mr. Austin, I've just heard that you were not feeling well, that you were seriously ill from overwork. I can readily believe that. You need rest and a change and freedom from wearisome responsibilities. I think I know just how you feel. Sort of tired and listless. Mother used to get that way in India. Even father used to say sometimes that things did every once in a while look mighty hopeless and useless, but that they'd look bright again after a week or two in the hills. So then we went off for a vacation. That's just what's the matter with you. You need a vacation. And in so far as I can I want to help you get one. You work too hard for the church. Keeping track of accounts and generally managing church matters is always a trying matter.

Father always found it so.

"So I have been thinking of getting you an a.s.sistant, some one to look after things while you take a rest. Why, they tell me you have shouldered church responsibilities since you were a child."

"Yes," modestly admitted the most respectable Mr. Austin. "I have worked for the church these many years and I do need a vacation. But who is there to attend to these matters? I know of no one in Green Valley who could fill my place."

So in complacent, pathetic self-conceit said poor Mr. Austin. And he was utterly unprepared for what followed.

"Why," said Green Valley's new minister without so much as winking an eyelash, "I've been thinking of Seth Curtis for the place. I have been wondering just how I could interest Seth in his town church, how to make him see that its business is his business, and this is my opportunity. Seth, they tell me, is very good at figures. Somebody said that Seth could figure to live comfortably on nothing if he found he had to. Now most churches are perilously near the place where they have to live on nothing and so, if any one can steer our finances in an exact and careful manner, Seth can. And it is the only, absolutely the only way in which he can be interested."

"But," the horrified Mr. Austin found his voice at last, "Seth Curtis is impossible. Even if he joined the church he would be an unbeliever.

I have heard him criticize churches. Why, it can't be thought of!

Why, what would people say if you were to put a man like that right into church work? It would be sacrilege."

There was a little pause and when the minister spoke again there was the unmistakable ring of cool authority in his voice. Mr. Austin suddenly realized that he was speaking to his pastor, the Reverend John Roger Churchill Knight. And as Mr. Austin himself worshipped authority and always saw to it that in his little sphere his own slightest word was obeyed, he listened respectfully.

"I think, Mr. Austin, you are mistaken about Seth Curtis. Seth does not make fun of religion. He merely criticizes churches and their management. Seth is what in these times we call an efficiency expert.

And it always makes such a man impatient to watch waste of money and effort.

"Seth must think well of the church for he sends his wife and children.

And no sane man sends what is dearest to him to a place he does not approve of. Besides, Seth has a very high opinion of you, Mr. Austin."

Which of course had nothing to do with the case. Yet it may have been this irrelevant, human little touch that settled it. For after a little more talk Mr. Austin gave in and, figuratively speaking, turned his face to the wall and hoped to die. And the minister went off to persuade Seth Curtis that his church needed his services.

And that was not nearly as difficult a matter as Green Valley thought it was. For Seth had sense and a love of order and economy and the minister talked to all that was best and wisest in Seth. Though Seth's head was growing bald and Cynthia's son was just a youngster, yet the boy seemed to take Seth's heart right into the hollow of his hand and talk to it as no one but Seth's wife Ruth talked. So to the amazement of himself and family and all of Green Valley Seth Curtis went into the church for the very quality in his make-up that his neighbors were in the habit of ridiculing.

It was amazingly funny, Seth's conversion. But when Green Valley heard how the minister got acquainted with Frank Burton Green Valley laughed and laughed and forgot to eat its meals in telling and retelling it.

Frank Burton, besides being, according to his neighbors, a hopeless atheist, was unlike other Green Valley men in that he had to take a much earlier train to the city mornings and came home two trains later than the other men. Grandma Wentworth always said that it was that difference in Frank's train time that made him so bitter at times.

Frank did, however, have his Sat.u.r.day afternoons and Sundays, and these he spent almost entirely with his chickens and garden and strange a.s.sortment of books. He was a man who did his own thinking, never gave advice, never took it and believed in all creatures tending strictly to their own affairs.

Every once in a while, perhaps from a sudden heart hunger, Frank would select from a whole townful of human beings some one soul for friendship. Frank never got acquainted accidentally. He picked out his few friends deliberately and loved them openly and forever.

Of course, Frank's oldest and dearest friend was Jim Tumley. People said they were born friends. Their mothers had been inseparable, the boys were born within a few days of each other and seemed to be marked with a pa.s.sion of loyalty for one another. Only in their love for music were they alike however.

Frank was a big, square, burly man who went his way surely, confidently, though a little belligerently. Jim was little and fair and ever so gentle. There was never a harsh word in Jim's mouth or a bitter thought in his heart against the world that often bruised him because of his gentleness and frailty. Jim had had only one fight in his life.

When he and Frank were about twelve years old, strange to say, Jim was the taller and stronger. And it was then that Jim fought and vanquished a bully who for months had been making Frank miserable.

Frank never forgot that one fight of Jim's. He shot head and shoulders over his friend and filled out beyond all recognition and took his turn at fighting. And most of his battles then as now were over little Jim Tumley.

To Frank, Jim was the one great friend life had given him. To very many people in Green Valley Jim was just a gentle, frail little chap with a beautiful, golden voice and a miserably weak stomach.

When the new minister put Jim in the choir, Green Valley was mildly surprised though it quickly saw the common sense of the arrangement.

But Frank Burton was for the first time, to Green Valley's certain knowledge, wholly pleased. And he showed his pleasure by never once saying one single, scathing, cynical thing, even when told that Seth Curtis was keeping the church books and getting religion on the side.

And he could have said so much.

What he did say was that he wouldn't mind seeing this kid minister from India. For though months had pa.s.sed since Cynthia's son arrived Frank had never seen him. His unfortunate train time and his home-staying habits kept him from meeting the newcomer. He pictured him as a rather immature, likable, enthusiastic young person whom it might not be a trial to meet once and then forget. And Frank made up his mind that if he ever ran into the boy he would be sincerely courteous to him in payment for his kindness to Jim. Then he promptly forgot everything in his plans for a new chicken house.

He was reading his favorite poultry journal on the train one night when the tall stranger accosted him. Frank didn't remember meeting the man, but the stranger seemed to know him, so without hardly knowing why or how Frank began to talk. And it was surprising how much the stranger knew about chickens, pheasants and wild game. Indeed, he knew so much that five stations from the city Frank was showing him diagrams of his new chicken house and explaining how anxious he was to get at it before the fall rains commenced but that he had so little time, only his Sat.u.r.day afternoons and Sundays.

"Let me give you a hand then Sat.u.r.day, Mr. Burton. I need outdoor work and I'd enjoy building a chicken house and neighboring properly with you Green Valley folks. You know I'm new to Green Valley and as long as I intend to spend the rest of my life here I've a lot to learn."

"Well, there are worse places than Green Valley," admitted Frank, thinking that the man must be the occupant of some one of the new bungalows that had gone up that spring and summer.

"Green Valley," continued Frank, "has its faults and its fools and bad spots here and there in the roads and entirely too much back-fence and street-corner gossip. But I've seen days here in Green Valley that just about melt all the meanness out of one, they're so fine; and moonlight so soft and pure and holy that you wouldn't mind dying in it.

And Green Valley folks are ornery enough on top and when things are going smoothly for you. But just let there be a smash-up or a stroke of bad luck and their sh.e.l.ls crack and humanness just oozes out of them. They're about as decent a lot as you'll find anywhere."

This, after a hard day and on an empty stomach, was a remarkable speech for Frank Burton. He was not much given to voicing his real feelings and showing his heart to light-hearted Green Valley and usually covered his deeper sentiments with a st.u.r.dy flow of fault-finding.

But there was something magnetic about the young stranger and to his own growing surprise Frank talked on and enjoyed doing it. The two men left the train together and parted at Martin's drug store with the understanding that if it didn't rain they would on the coming Sat.u.r.day start on that chicken house.

And they did. Frank came home that evening in unusually fine spirits and asked his wife about the various new people. He told her of his meeting with the stranger who seemed to know him but whom he did not remember ever seeing before.

Jennie guessed him to be, "Mrs. Hamilton's husband. I've never seen him either but they say he's such a pleasant man. They're both Christian Scientists or something like that and she's ever so nice a woman. They've only been here a few months but everybody likes them."

"Well," spoke up Frank, still thinking of the pleasant pa.s.sing of what was usually a tiresome train trip, "if Christian Science makes a man as likable and neighborly as that I, for one, approve of Christian Science. What did you say his name was--Hamilton?"

It was because Frank was so willing to let every man worship his G.o.d in his very own way that Green Valley, that is the religiously watchful part of it, had decided that Frank was an atheist. For, said these cautious children of G.o.d, "He who is willing to believe in all things believes in nothing."

But it wasn't religion that the two men talked that Sat.u.r.day afternoon.

The sun was warm, the lumber dry, the saws sharp and with the work going smoothly along there was plenty of time for talk, talk on all manner of subjects.

Frank's wife had gone over to Randall's to a special meeting of the sewing society. Not only were the women going to cut out and make up little ap.r.o.ns and dresses for the inmates of the nearest orphanage but they intended to discuss several new social problems that confronted Green Valley. The two most vital being "What do you make of that new saloon keeper and his wife?" and "What goes on behind those poolroom curtains, especially nights?"

Not that there was in Green Valley any interfering Civic League or any such thing as a Pure Morals Society. Green Valley had never had to resort to such measures. It had hitherto trusted human nature, Green Valley sunshine and neighborliness to do whatever work of social mending and reforming had to be done.

But something had happened to the big city to the east, some new mayor or some new civic force had stirred things up in that huge caldron of humanity and slopped it over so that it had begun to trickle away into such quiet little hollows as Green Valley. It trickled so slowly and was as yet so thin a stream that the little towns were hardly aware of it as yet.

Green Valley was only just beginning to itch and wiggle and search and wonder what the matter could be. It was the women, the mothers, who scented trouble first. The men were still placidly doing the same old Sat.u.r.day afternoon tasks, mowing lawns, talking road improvements, swapping yarns and brands of tobacco or, like Frank Burton, doing various building jobs about their premises.

Frank and his helper were certainly enjoying themselves. When the skeleton of that hen house was half up Frank thought it was about time to call a halt for refreshments. He went to the ice-box and brought out a nice home-boiled ham, commandeered a golden loaf of fresh bread, searched about for pickles, mustard, preserves and b.u.t.ter. Then they sat down. And as he ate Frank again waxed talkative.

"I've heard people," he said, "both men and women, talk about marriage being slavery and a lottery and not worth the price folks have to pay for it. But I'm freer as a married man than ever I was single. Why, where I boarded before I married Jennie, you couldn't get a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter or a toothpick between meals even if you'd been a growing kid. And in those days I was always hungry. And I've always hated restaurants where food is cooked in tanks instead of nice little home kettles in a blue and white kitchen. And I hate restaurant dishes. There's never anything interesting about them. And most waitresses are discouraging sort of girls. I just kind of existed in those days.