O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 21

"Not a priest. A minister of the gospel."

"_Quoi_?" said the carpenter.

Simpson saw that he must explain. It was difficult. He had on the one hand to avoid suggesting that the Roman Church was insufficient--that denunciation he intended to arrive at when he had gained firmer ground with the people--and on the other to refrain from hinting that Haytian civilization stood in crying need of uplift. That also could come later. He wallowed a little in his explanation, and then put the whole matter on a personal basis.

"I think I have a message--something new to say to you about Christ.

But I have been here a week now and have found none to listen to me."

"Something new?" the carpenter rejoined. "But that is easy if it is something new. In Hayti we like new things."

"No one will listen to me," Simpson repeated.

The carpenter reflected for a moment, or seemed to be doing so.

"Many men come here about sunset," he said. "We sit and drink a little rum before dark; it is good against the fever."

"I will come also," said Simpson, rising. "It is every evening?"

"Every evening." The carpenter's right hand rose to the pouch which was not a scapular and he caressed it.

"Au revoir," said Simpson suddenly.

"'_Voir_," the carpenter replied, still immobile in his chair by the door.

Up to now a walk through the streets had been a night-mare to Simpson, for the squalor of them excited to protest every New England nerve in his body, and the evident hostility of the people constantly threatened his success with them. He had felt very small and lonely, like a man who has undertaken to combat a natural force; he did not like to feel small and lonely, and he did not want to believe in natural forces. Chosen vessel as he believed himself to be, thus far the island had successfully defied him, and he had feared more than once that it would do so to the end. He had compelled himself to frequent the markets, hoping always that he would find in them the key to the door that was closed against him; he had not found it, and, although he recognized that three weeks was but a fractional moment of eternity, and comforted himself by quoting things about the "mills of G.o.d," he could not approach satisfaction with what he had accomplished so far.

His interview with the carpenter had changed all that, and on his way home he trod the Grand Rue more lightly than he had ever done. Even the cathedral, even the company of half-starved conscripts that straggled past him in the tail of three generals, dismayed him no longer, for the cathedral was but the symbol of a frozen Christianity which he need no longer fear, and the conscripts were his people--his--or soon would be. All that he had wanted was a start; he had it now, though he deplored the rum which would be drunk at his first meeting with the natives. One must begin where one could.

Witherbee, sitting in the window of the consulate, called twice before Simpson heard him.

"You look pretty cheerful," he said. "Things going well?"

"They've just begun to, I think--I think I've found the way to reach these people."

"Ah?" The monosyllable was incredulous though polite. "How's that?"

"I've just been ordering some furniture from a carpenter," Simpson answered. It was the first time since the day of his arrival that he had seen Witherbee to speak to, and he found it a relief to speak in his own language and without calculating the result of his words.

"A carpenter? Vieux Michaud, I suppose?"

"That's his name. You know him?"

"Very well." The consul tipped back his chair and tapped his lips with a pencil. "Very well. He's a clever workman. He'll follow any design you give him, and the woods, of course, are excellent."

"Yes. He showed me some. But he's more than a carpenter to me. He's more--receptive--than most of the natives, and it seems that his shop is a gathering place--a centre. He asked me to come in the evenings."

"And drink rum?" Witherbee could not resist that.

"Ye-es. He said they drank rum. I sha'n't do that, of course, but one must begin where one can."

"I suppose so," Witherbee answered slowly. The office was darkened to just above reading-light, and the consul's face was in the shadow.

Evidently he had more to say, but he allowed a long silence to intervene before he went on. Simpson, imaging wholesale conversions, sat quietly; he was hardly aware of his surroundings.

"Don't misunderstand what I'm going to say," the consul began at length. Simpson straightened, on his guard at once. "It may be of use to you--in your work," he added quickly. "It's this. Somehow--by chance perhaps, though I don't think so--you've fallen into strange company--stranger than any white man I've ever known."

"I am not afraid of voodoo," said Simpson rather scornfully.

"It would be better if you were a little afraid of it. I am--and I know what I'm talking about. Look what's happened to you. There's the Picard woman--she's the one who had President Simon Sam under her thumb. Did you know he carried the symbols of voodoo next his heart?

And now Michaud, who's her right hand and has been for years. Looks like deep water to me."

"I must not fear for my own body."

"That's not what I mean exactly, though I wish you were a little more afraid for it. It might save me trouble--possibly save our government trouble--in the end. But the consequences of letting voodoo acquire any more power than it has may be far-reaching."

"I am not here to give it more power." Simpson, thoroughly angry, rose to go. "It is my business to defeat it--to root it out."

"G.o.dspeed to you in that"--Witherbee's voice was ironical. "But remember what I tell you. The Picard woman is subtle, and Michaud is subtle." Simpson had crossed the threshold, and only half heard the consul's next remark. "Voodoo is more subtle than both of them together. Look out for it."

Witherbee's warning did no more than make Simpson angry; he attributed it to wrong motives--to jealousy perhaps to hostility certainly, and neither jealousy nor hostility could speak true words. In spite of all that he had heard he could not believe that voodoo was so powerful in the island; this was the twentieth century, he insisted, and the most enlightened country in the world was less than fifteen hundred miles away; he forgot that opinions and not figures number the centuries, and refused to see that distance had nothing to do with the case.

These were a people groping through the dark; when they saw the light they could not help but welcome it, he thought. The idea that they preferred their own way of life and their own religion, that they would not embrace civilization till they were forced to do so at the point of benevolent bayonets, never entered his head. His own way of life was so obviously superior. He resolved to have nothing more to do with Witherbee.

When he returned to the carpenter's house at about six that evening he entered the council of elders that he found there with the determination to place himself on an equality with them. It was to his credit that he accomplished this feat, but it was not surprising for the humility of his mind at least was genuine. He joined in their conversation, somewhat stiffly at first, but perhaps no more so than became a stranger. Presently, because he saw that he could not refuse without offending his host, he conquered prejudice and took a little rum and sugar and water. It went to his head without his knowing it, as rum has a habit of doing; he became cheerfully familiar with the old men and made long strides into their friendship--or thought he did. He did not once mention religion to them at that first meeting, though he had to exercise considerable self-restraint to prevent himself from doing so.

On his way home he met Father Antoine not far from Michaud's door. The priest would have pa.s.sed with his usual surly look if Simpson had not stopped him.

"Well?" Antoine demanded.

"Why should we quarrel--you and I?" Simpson asked. "Can we not work together for these people of yours?"

"Your friends are not my people, heretic!" Father Antoine retorted."

Rot in h.e.l.l with them!"

He plunged past Simpson and was gone down the darkling alley.

"You are late, m'sieu'," remarked Madame Picard as he came into the kitchen and sat down in a chair near the cripple. Her manner was less rough than usual.

"I've been at Michaud's," he answered.

"Ah? But you were there this morning."

"He asked me to come this evening, when his friends came, madame.

There were several there."

"They are often there," she answered. There was nothing significant in her tone, but Simpson had an uneasy feeling that she had known all the time of his visit to the carpenter.

"I met Father Antoine on the way home," he said.

"A bad man!" She flamed into sudden violence. "A bad man!"