John Ward, Preacher Part 23

Alfaretta, by force of habit, began to stumble through the answer: "'We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin, or eternal life at the hand--at the hand--of G.o.d, by reason of'"--Here her memory failed her.

"Well," her father said impatiently, "can't you remember the rest? 'Works done by unregenerate men are sinful, and cannot please G.o.d,' you know.

Go on."

But Alfaretta could not go on, and the elder would not betray his own lack of memory by attempting to quote.

"So you see," he continued, "it isn't any use to talk of how good and kind she is, or what she does; it is what she believes that will settle her eternal salvation."

But Alfaretta was unconvinced. "Well, sir," she said stubbornly, "it don't seem to me that way, fer she's the best woman, except mother, I ever saw. I reckon if anybody goes to heaven, she will; don't you, Thaddeus?"

Thaddeus was tilting back in his chair, his curly black head against the whitewashed wall, and thus suddenly and embarra.s.singly appealed to--for he was divided between a desire to win the approval of the elder and to show his devotion to Alfaretta--he brought his chair down with a clatter of all four legs on the floor, and looked first at the father and then at the daughter, but did not speak.

"Don't you, Thaddeus?" repeated Alfaretta severely, for the elder was dumb with astonishment.

"Well," said Thaddeus, struggling for some opinion which should please both,--"well, I do suppose we can hope for the best; that isn't against the catechism."

But the elder did not notice his feeble compromise, while Alfaretta only gave him a quick, contemptuous look, for her father, opening and shutting his mouth slowly for a moment, began to say,--

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a child that's ungrateful for the best of teaching and sound doctrine! Many's the time,"

said the elder, lifting his eyes and hands,--"many's the time I've showed her the truth; many's the time I've explained how every other sort of religion is all wrong, and is of its father the Devil! And I've brought her up faithful to the catechism and the confession, yet now the child would instruct the parent! This comes," he cried, becoming very angry, and beating his hand so violently upon the table that the family Bible fell with a crash to the floor, from which Thaddeus lifted it,--"this comes from your settin' in the seat of the scornful, and bein' in the kitchen of an unbeliever! You'll leave her; do you hear me, Alfaretta?

You'll leave her this day month. I'll perform my duty to my child's soul, even if Brother Ward's wife has to do her own cooking. Yes, and I'll do my duty to Brother Ward, too, though I used to think him a pious young man. I'll tell him he has got to convert that woman's soul She's a corrupter of youth, she's a teacher of false doctrines,--her tellin' Mrs.

Davis there wasn't any h.e.l.l!--she's a--a Episcopalian, so she is! She'll experience a change of heart, or the Session will take this matter in hand."

At this terrible threat, even Alfaretta was speechless, and her mother put two shaking hands on her arm, and whispered, "Oh, Retta, I wouldn't say no more; it makes your pa angry."

"Yes," continued the elder violently, "that woman is the Jonah of the church, and she's got to be dealt with; to save her soul, she's got to be disciplined, for the sake of every one that heard her false and lying tongue. I'll have her brought before the Session and showed the truth, and she shall be saved. Tom Davis not in h.e.l.l, indeed!"

Mr. Dean stopped for breath. Alfaretta's courage came back with a rush.

"Listen to me," cried the young woman, stamping her foot with excitement, for she was as angry as the elder himself,--"listen to me! How can you say such things about her? A saint and angel, if ever there was one. The Lord don't send no one to h.e.l.l, let alone such as her. An' any way, I'd rather go to the bad place with her than stay with all the golden harps and crowns in the best sort of a heaven with them as would keep her out, so I would!"

Here Alfaretta broke down, and began to cry. Thaddeus could not stand that; he edged up to her, murmuring, "I wouldn't cry, Retta,--I wouldn't cry."

But she only gave the shoulder he touched a vicious shake, and cried harder than ever, saying, "No--I--I bet you wouldn't--you'd never--care."

But Alfaretta's defense changed Mr. Dean's anger at the snub he received from the preacher's wife into real alarm for his child's spiritual welfare. A daughter of his to say the Lord did not send souls to h.e.l.l!

"Alfaretta," he said, with solemn slowness, "you'd better get your bunnet and go home. I'll see Mr. Ward about this; his wife's done harm enough.

You've got to leave her,--I mean it. I won't see her send my child to h.e.l.l before my very eyes."

"Oh, pa," Alfaretta entreated, choking and sobbing, and brushing her tears away with the back of her hand, "don't,--don't say nothin' to Mr.

Ward, nor take me away. 'Twasn't her made me say those things; it was just my own self. Don't take me away."

"Did she ever say anything to you about the Lord not sendin' people to h.e.l.l?" asked her father.

"Oh," said Alfaretta, growing more and more frightened, "'tain't what she talks about; it's her bein' so good, an'"--

"Did she ever," interrupted the elder, with slow emphasis, standing over her, and shaking his stubby forefinger at her,--"did she ever say the Lord didn't send Tom Davis to h.e.l.l, to you?"

Alfaretta cowered in her chair, and Thaddeus began to whimper for sympathy. "I don't know," she answered desperately,--"I don't know anything, except she's good."

"Listen to me," said Mr. Dean, in his harsh, monotonous voice: "did Mrs.

Ward ever say anything to you about h.e.l.l, or the Lord's not sendin'

people there? Answer me that."

Then the loving little servant-maid, truthful as the blood of Scotch ancestors and a Presbyterian training could make her, faced what she knew would bring remorse, and, for all she could tell, unpardonable sin upon her soul, and said boldly, "No, she never did. She never said one single blessed word to me about h.e.l.l."

The wind seemed suddenly to leave the elder's sails, but the collapse was only for a moment; even Alfaretta's offering of her first lie upon the altar of her devotion to her mistress was not to save her.

"Well," he said, opening his mouth slowly and looking about with great dignity, "if she hasn't said it to you, she has to other people, I'll be bound. Fer she said it to Mrs. Davis, and"--the elder inflated his chest, and held his head high--"and me. It is my duty as elder to take notice of it, fer her own soul's sake, and to open her husband's eyes, if he's been too blind to see it. Yes, the Session should deal with her. Prayers ain't no good fer such as her," he said, becoming excited. "Ain't she heard my prayers most all winter, till she give up comin' to prayer-meetin', preferrin' to stay outside,

"'Where sinners meet, and awful scoffers dwell'?

An' I've exhorted; but"--the elder raised his eyes piously to heaven--"Paul may plant and Apollos may water, but it don't do no good."

Alfaretta knew her father's iron will too well to attempt any further protests. She wiped her eyes, and, while she put on a hat adorned with an aggressive white feather, she bade the family good-night in an unsteady voice. Thaddeus, anxious only to escape notice, sidled towards the door, and stood waiting for her, with a deprecating look on his round face.

In spite, however, of the elder's indignation and his really genuine alarm about the influences which surrounded his child, he had a prudent afterthought in the matter of her leaving the service of Mrs. Ward. It was difficult to get anything in Lockhaven for a young woman to do, and times were hard that year.

"You--ah--you needn't give notice to-night, Alfaretta," he said. "I'll speak to the preacher about it, myself. But mind you have as little to say to her as you can, and may the Lord protect you!"

But the elder's plans for cautioning his pastor were doomed to disappointment. He was a prisoner with lumbago for the next fortnight, and even the most sincere interest in some one else's spiritual welfare cannot tempt a man out of the house when he is bent almost double with lumbago. Nor, when John came to see him, could he begin such a conversation as he had planned, for his neck was too stiff to allow him to raise his head and look in Mr. Ward's face. When he recovered, he was delayed still another week, because the preacher had gone away to General a.s.sembly.

But Alfaretta was far too miserable to find in her father's command "not to give notice to-night" any ray of comfort. She choked down her tears as best she might, and started for the parsonage.

Thaddeus had almost to run to keep up with her, such was her troubled and impatient haste, and she scarcely noticed him, though he tramped through the mud to show his contrition, instead of taking his place by her side on the board walk.

It is curious to see how a simple soul inflicts useless punishment upon itself, when the person it has offended refuses to retaliate. Had Alfaretta scolded, Thaddeus would not have walked in the mud.

Her silence was most depressing.

"Retta," he ventured timidly, "don't be mad with me,--now don't."

He came a little nearer, and essayed to put an arm about her waist, a privilege often accorded him on such an occasion. But now she flounced away from him and said sharply, "You needn't be comin' round me, Mr.

Thaddeus Green. Anybody that thinks my Mrs. Ward isn't goin' to heaven had just better keep off from me, fer I'm goin' with her, wherever that is; and I suppose, if you think _that_ of me, you'd better not a.s.sociate with me."

"I didn't say _you_ was goin'," protested Thaddeus tearfully, but she interrupted him with asperity.

"Don't I tell you I'm bound to go where she goes? And if you're so fearful of souls bein' lost, I wonder you don't put all your money in the missionary-box, instead of buying them new boots."

Perhaps it was the thought of the new boots, but Thaddeus stepped on the board walk, and this time, unreproved, slipped his arm about Alfaretta's waist.

"Oh, now Retta," he said, "I didn't mean any harm. I only didn't want the elder thinkin' I wasn't sound, for he'd be sayin' we shouldn't keep company, an' that's all I joined the church for last spring."

"Well, then," said Alfaretta, willing to be reconciled if it brought any comfort, "you do think Mrs. Ward will go to heaven?"

"Yes," Thaddeus answered with great confidence, and added in a burst of gallantry, "She'll have to, Retta, if she goes along with you, for you'll go there sure!"