Old Ebenezer Part 1

Old Ebenezer.

by Opie Read.

CHAPTER I.

SAM LYMAN.

In more than one of the sleepy neighborhoods that lay about the drowsy town of Old Ebenezer, Sam Lyman had lolled and dreamed. He had come out of the keen air of Vermont, and for a time he was looked upon as a marvel of energy, but the soft atmosphere of a southwestern state soothed the Yankee worry out of his walk, and made him content to sit in the shade, to wait for the other man to come; and, as the other man was doing the same thing, rude hurry was not a feature of any business transaction. Of course the smoothing of Lyman's Yankee ruffles had taken some time. He had served as cross-tie purchaser for a new railway, had kept books and split slabs for kindling wood at a saw mill; then, as an a.s.sistant to the proprietor of a cross-roads store, he had counted eggs and bargained for chickens, with a smile for a gingham miss and a word of religious philosophy for the dame in home-spun. But he was now less active, and already he had begun to long for easier employment; so he "took up" school at forty dollars a month. In the Ebenezer country, the school teacher is regarded as a supremely wise and hopelessly lazy mortal. He is expected to know all of earth, as the preacher is believed to know all of heaven, and when he has once been installed into this position, a disposition to get out of it is branded as a sacrilege. He has taken the pedagogic veil and must wear it. But Lyman was not satisfied with the respect given to this calling; he longed for something else, not of a more active nature, it is true, but something that might embrace a broader swing.

The soft atmosphere had turned the edge of his physical energy, but his mind was eager and grasping. His history was that dear fallacy, that silken toga which many of us have wrapped about ourselves--the belief that a good score at college means immediate success out in the world. And he had worked desperately to finish his education, had taken care of horses and waited upon table at a summer resort in the White Mountains. His first great and cynical shock was to find that his "accomplishment" certificate was one of an enormous edition; that it meant comparatively nothing in the great brutal world of trade; that modesty was a drawback, and that gentleness was as weak as timidity. And repeated failures drove him from New England to a community where, it had been said, the people were less sharp, less cold, and far less exacting. He was getting along in years when he took up the school--past thirty-five. He was tall, lean, and inclined toward angularity. He had never been handsome, but about his honest face there was something so manly, so wholesome, so engaging, that it took but one touch of sentiment to light it almost to fascinating attractiveness. Children, oftener than grown persons, were struck with his kindly eyes; and his voice had been compared with church music, so deep and so sacred in tone; and yet it was full of a whimsical humor, for the eyes splashed warm mischief and the mouth was a silent, half sad laugh.

It was observed one evening that Lyman pa.s.sed the post-office with two sheep-covered books under his arm, and when he had gone beyond hearing, old Buckley Lightfoot, the oracle, turned to Jimmie Bledsoe, who was weighing out s.h.i.+ngle nails, and said:

"Jimmie, hold on there a moment with your clatter."

"Can't just now, Uncle Buckley. Lige, here, is in a hurry for his nails."

"But didn't I tell you to hold on a moment? Look here, Lige," he added, clearing his throat with a warning rasp, "are you in such a powerful swivit after you've heard what I said? I ask, are you?"

"Well," Lige began to drawl, "I want to finish coverin' my roof before night, for it looks mighty like rain. And I told him I was in a hurry."

"You told him," said the old man. "You did. I have been living here sixty odd year, and so far as I can recollect this is about the first insult flung in upon something I was going to say. Weigh out his nails for him, Jimmie, and let him go. But I don't know what can be expected of a neighborhood that wants to go at such a rip-snort of a rush.

Weigh out his nails, Jimmie, and let him go."

"Oh, no!" Lige cried, and Jimmie dropped the nail grabs into the keg.

"Oh, yes," Uncle Buckley insisted. "Just go on with your headlong rush. Go on and don't pay any attention to me."

"Jimmie," said Lige, "don't weigh out them nails now, for if you do I won't take 'em at all."

"Now, Lige," the old man spoke up, "you are talking like a wise and considerate citizen. And now, Jimmie, after this well merited rebuke, are you ready to listen to what I was going to say?"

"I am anxious and waiting," Jimmie answered.

"All right," the old oracle replied. He cleared his throat, looked about, nodded his head in the direction taken by Sam Lyman, and thus proceeded: "Observation, during a long stretch of years, has taught me a great deal that you younger fellows don't know. Do you understand that?"

"We do," they a.s.sented.

"Well and good," the old man declared, nodding his head. "I say well and good, for well and good is exactly what I mean. You know that's what I mean, don't you, Jimmie?"

"Mighty well, Uncle Buckley."

"All right; and how about you, Lige?"

"I know it as well as I ever did anything," Lige agreed.

"Well and good again," said the old man. "And this leads up properly to the subject. You boys have just seen Sam Lyman pa.s.s here. But did you notice that he had law books under his arm?"

"I saw something under his arm," Jimmie answered.

"Ah," said the old man, tapping his forehead. "Ah, observation, what a rare jewel! Yes, sir, he had law books, and what is the meaning of this extraordinary proceedin'? It means that Sam Lyman is studying law, and that his next move will be to break away from the school-teaching business."

"Impossible," Lige cried.

The old man shook his head. "It might seem so to the un.o.bservant," he replied, "but in these days of stew, rush and fret, there is no telling what men may attempt to do. Yes, gentlemen, he is studying law, and the first thing we know he will leave Fox Grove and try to break into the town of Old Ebenezer. And it is not necessary for me to point out the danger of leaving this quiet neighborhood for the turmoil and unG.o.dly hurry of that town. Now you can weigh out the nails, Jimmie."

CHAPTER II.

THE NOTED ADVOCATE.

Lyman must long have indulged his secret study before the observation of old Buckley Lightfoot fell upon it, for, at the close of the school term a few weeks later, the teacher announced that he had formed a co-partners.h.i.+p with John Caruthers, the noted advocate of Old Ebenezer, and that together they would practice law in the county seat. He offered to the people no opportunity to bid him good-bye, for that evening, with his law library under his arm, he set out for the town, twenty miles away. Old Uncle Buckley, Jimmie and Lige followed him, but he had chosen a trackless path, and thus escaped their reproaches.

The noted advocate, John Caruthers, had an office in the third story of a brick building, which was surely a distinction, being so high from the ground and in a brick house, too. There he spent his time smoking a cob pipe and waiting for clients. His office was a small room at the rear end of the building. The front room, the remainder of the suite, was a long and narrow apartment, occupied by the Weekly _Sentinel_, the county newspaper, published by J. Warren, not edited at all, and written by lawyers and doctors about town. The great advocate paid his rent with political contributions to the newspaper, and the editor discharged his rental obligations by supporting the landlord for congress, a very convenient and comforting arrangement, as Caruthers explained to Lyman.

"I don't see how we could be more fortunately situated," said he, the first night after the co-partners.h.i.+p had been effected. "What do you think of it?"

"I don't know that I could improve on an arrangement that doesn't cost any money," Lyman answered. He sat looking about the room, at the meager furniture and the thin array of books. "We've got a start, anyway, and I don't think Webster could have done anything without a start. Are all these our books?"

"Yes," said Caruthers, shaking his sandy head. "That is, they are ours as long as they are here. Once in awhile a man may come in and take one; but the next day, or the next minute, for that matter, we can go out and get another. The Old Ebenezer bar has a circulating library."

He yawned and continued: "I think we ought to do well here, with my experience and your learning. They tell me you can read Greek as well as some people can read English."

"Yes, some people can't read English."

"I guess you are right," Caruthers laughed. "But they say you can read Greek like sh.e.l.ling corn, and that will have a big effect with a jury.

Just tell them that the New Testament was written in Greek, and then give them a few spurts of it, and they've got to come. I had a little Latin and I did very well with it, but a fellow came along who knew more of it than I did and crowded me out of my place."

Just then the editor came in. He looked about, nodded at Lyman, whom he had met earlier in the day, and then sat down, with a sigh.

"Well, I have got a good send off for you fellows--already in type, but I lack eighty cents of having money enough to get my paper out of the express office."

No one said anything, for this was sad news. Warren continued: "Yes, I lack just eighty cents. It's about as good a notice as I ever read, and it's a pity to let it lie there and rust. Of course I wouldn't ask either of you for the money: That wouldn't look very well. Eighty cents, two forties. I could go to some of the advertisers, but an advertiser loses respect for a paper that needs eighty cents."

"Warren," said Caruthers, "I'd like to see your paper come out, for I want to read my roast on the last legislature, but I haven't eighty cents."

Lyman sat looking about with a dozing laugh on his lips: "Are you sure you'll not need eighty cents every week?" he asked.

The editor's eyes danced a jig of delight. "I may never need it again," he declared.

"Well, but how often are you going to print a notice of the firm?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Well, I didn't know but your paper might get stuck in the express office every time you have something about us. It's likely to go that way, you know. I've got a few dollars--"