Joyce of the North Woods Part 13

It was such a day as only the mountains know. A hushed, golden day with a mysterious softness of outline on the distant hills.

The little crumbling church was open to the beauty of the morning, and John Gaston had decked it within with every flowering thing he could gather from wood and meadow.

Jock came early and stood in one of the narrow doors of the church, opening upon the highway. His hands were plunged in his pockets, and a look of concentration was on his handsome face.

He was going to "set," so he thought, his baby parson on to Jude. There was excitement in the idea. While he stood there Gaston came and took his stand at the other narrow door. The architect of the St. Ange church had had ideas of propriety in regard to established rules.

"Looks--some! don't it?" Jock asked.

"Yes," Gaston replied; "I was bound to have it look as wedding-like as possible."

"You did the decorating?" Jock asked, and a curious frown settled between his eyes. "I thought it was the women."

"They're thinking of themselves. Is your parson on to the game, Filmer?"

"He's all right. Gone off to commune with Nater. There he is now."

Drew had entered the rear door, and went at once to the small bare pulpit.

"Umph!" whispered Gaston. "Looks like a picture of John the Baptist."

"He don't act like it." Jock was in arms at once against any suspected criticism. "He's got more sand than many a blasted heavyweight. You ought to hear his gab--it's the newest thing in soul-saving. Sort o'

homeopathic doctrine. Tastes good, but bitter as pisen under the coating. Real stuff inside, and all that. Get's working after it's taken, and the sweet taste lasts in your mouth while your innards are acting like--"

The people were gathering. They pa.s.sed by Jock and Gaston without recognition. Social functions in St. Ange ignored all familiar intimacies.

Jude and Joyce came through the rear door, and sat in the front pew.

The girl moved with the absorption of a sleepwalker beside Jude whose shufflings bespoke nervous tension. Every now and then he glanced sheepishly at Joyce. Even to his senses, accustomed as they were to the girl's beauty, there was a slight shock of surprise.

The little round hat was gracefully wound with frost flowers until it looked like a wreath upon the pale gold of the glorious hair. The face was white and luminous, and the eyes looked as if they were expecting a vision to appear.

The white dress, home-made and cheap, had the unfailing touch that innate taste always gives, and it fell in soft lines about the slim, girlish figure. The little work-worn hands were folded loosely. They were resting a moment before taking up the labour of the new, untried life.

Drew glanced down as the two came in, and when he saw Joyce he started, and leaned forward.

He tried to take his eyes from that pale, exquisite face, but could not.

It moved him powerfully not only by its beauty, but by its expression of entranced expectation.

Could the crude fellow at her side inspire such emotion? It was puzzling and baffling, but it roused Drew's sympathy, and held him captive. The rough faces of the men, the pitiable, worn faces of the women, the sprinkling of freckled, childish faces were blotted out for him. Like a star in blank s.p.a.ce shone that one sweet, waiting face with its wreath of fairy-like flowers.

She was waiting for something she expected him to give. Drew became obsessed with this thought. Not the consecration of marriage--No! but something she--the soul of her--wanted.

Out among the pines in the early morning Drew had made a few notes, these he clutched in his feverish right hand. When the hour fixed upon arrived, he arose and stood beside the rickety pulpit stand. He made a short prayer; he knew it was feeble and rambling.

"Scared to death," thought Gaston, and he heard Filmer breathe heavily.

Then Drew lifted his notes to the desk; tried to fix his eyes and attention upon them, failed and gazed helplessly at that one face in the appalling vacancy. Presently the bits of paper fell from his nerveless hand and fluttered to the floor.

Back in his college days he had had his dream of the vital word he would say to his people--_his_ people--on that first day when he was to come to his own. Strangely enough he felt that his time had arrived. Called only by G.o.d, to a people who would never think of desiring him, he must say his word though only that pale, wonderful face thrilled to his meaning. If only he could make _her_ understand, he would take it as a sign from on high that his mission was not to be an unworthy one.

Drew always had the power, even in his weakest moments, to utilize his panic to more intense concentration. It was the faculty that had made his college president point to him on more than one occasion as a success. Now, with the anchor of his notes fluttering in the September breeze, he put out to sea.

"We brought nothing into this world, and it's certain we can carry nothing out."

"He's mistaking this for a funeral," thought Gaston, and he struggled to conquer his inclination to laugh.

But what was happening? The boy up aloft was refuting the statement. His voice had a power wholly out of proportion to the frail body. He was getting hold of the people, too, Peggy Falstar was crying openly, and slow, hard-brought tears were dimming many eyes.

They were being told, those plain, dull people, and by a mere boy, too, that they had brought something into the world. A heritage of strength and weakness; of good and evil, bequeathed to them by those who had gone on. From these fragments their souls must weave what is to be taken with them when Death comes. The effort, the struggle, the success or failure, will be the part that they leave behind for them who remain, or who are to come later. In words strangely adapted to his listeners, that frail boy, with glorified face, was beseeching them, as they valued their future hope, as they desired to make better the ones who must live later, to gain a victory over their heritage of weakness and sin by the G.o.d-given elements of strength and goodness, and to blaze the trail for themselves, and to leave it so free behind them that weak, stumbling feet might easier find the way.

He was speaking to fathers and mothers for the sakes of their children.

He was urging the two about to marry to see to it that they prepare by their own consecration, the _path on before_.

A silence filled the little church. The boy, pale and exhausted, was asking Jude and Joyce to come forward.

Gaston saw them go, side by side, Jude shambling as usual, Joyce stepping as if hastening to receive something long-desired.

It was the briefest of services. Simple, unadorned, but dignified and solemn.

Amen!

It was over. Jude and Joyce were married! The people were stirring; were moving about. The sodden, familiar life was awaiting every one of them.

No; something had happened in St. Ange. Gaston knew it. Filmer knew it.

Peggy Falstar had hold of her little Billy's hand, and Peter followed with his little daughter Maggie drawn close to him.

Leon Tate was red in the face, and Isa looked stern and thoughtful. Yes; something had happened in St. Ange. It would never be the same.

Drew went outside the church and joined Filmer. He had seen the uplifted expression on Joyce's face. He had had his answer from on high; and he was strangely moved.

He stood beside Filmer, motionless and flushed. Jock contemplated him from his greater height as if he were a new and startling enigma.

"Say, kid," he drawled presently, striving to hide the excitement that was causing the perspiration to stand on his forehead; "what got into you?"

"I reckon it was something getting out of me," Drew replied with the short cough.

"I don't know as them few words you spoke are capable of holding Jude and Joyce eternally. What you think?"

"If they cannot, no others could." Again the quick, harsh cough.

"But that sermon!" Jock shrugged his shoulders nervously; "that's what's shook the foundations of this here town. Leaving out the fact of you being _you_, standing up there handling folks's feelings as you did, I want to know if you stand by them ideas you pa.s.sed out?"

"With all my mind!"

"Not elocuting and acting?"

"Surely not."