Elbow-Room Part 8

"Sorry for you, Smith; I am indeed! A n.o.ble woman and a good wife. But bear up under it, bear up! Our loss, you know, is her gain."

"Ah! she was indeed a woman in a thousand," responded Smith; "and now to think that she has gone--gone, left us for ever! But these afflictions must not make us forget the duty we owe to the living. She has pa.s.sed away from toil and suffering, but we still have much to do; and, b.u.t.terwick, I want to borrow your lawn-mower. If you can fix it for Tuesday, I think maybe the worst of my anguish will be over."

"You may have it, of course."

"Thank you; oh, thank you! Our friends are a great comfort to us in the hour of bereavement;" and then Smith gave his arm to his mother-in-law, put his handkerchief to his eyes and joined the procession of mourners.

Upon the following Sunday, Rev. Dr. Dox preached a splendid sermon over in the Free church, and just as he reached "secondly" he paused, looked around upon the congregation for a minute, and then he beckoned Deacon Moody to come up to the pulpit. He whispered something in Moody's ear, and Moody seemed surprised. The congregation was wild with curiosity to know what was the matter. Then the deacon, blus.h.i.+ng scarlet and seeming annoyed, walked down the aisle and whispered in b.u.t.terwick's ear. b.u.t.terwick nodded, and whispered to his wife, who was peris.h.i.+ng to know what it was. She leaned over and communicated it to Mrs. Bunnel, in the pew in front; and when the Bunnels all had it, they sent it on to the people next to them, and so before the doctor reached "thirdly" the whole congregation knew that he wanted to borrow b.u.t.terwick's lawn-mower on Monday morning early.

A day or two later, while b.u.t.terwick was crossing the creek upon a train of cars, the train ran off the track and rolled his car into the water. b.u.t.terwick got out, however, into the stream, and as he emerged, spluttering and blowing, he struck against a stranger who was treading water. The stranger apologized, and said that b.u.t.terwick might not recognize him in his dilapidated condition as Martin Thompson, but while they were together, he would like to put in a word for that lawn-mower when the parson was done with it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TREADING WATER]

At last b.u.t.terwick grew tired of lending, and refused all applicants.

Then the people began to steal it, and six respectable citizens only escaped going to jail because b.u.t.terwick had consideration for their families. Finally he chained it to the pump, and then they sawed off the pump and operated the mower with the log as a roller. b.u.t.terwick at last put it on top of his house, and that night fourteen ladders were seen against the wall. They did say that Ramsey, the lawyer, made one effort with a hot-air balloon, and failed only because he fell out and hurt his leg; but this was never traced to any reliable source.

The following week a man arrived and opened an agency for the sale of the mowers in the village, and gradually the excitement abated.

b.u.t.terwick, however, has cut his gra.s.s with a sickle ever since.

CHAPTER VIII.

_THE MEETING AND ITS MISSIONARY WORK_.

The Methodist church in the village is doing now, as it has always done, a good and n.o.ble work for Christianity and the cause of public morals; but it has not escaped the trials which are permitted sometimes to afflict the Church militant. Years ago, when the congregation was first organized, it erected a small but very pretty frame meeting-house. In the course of time the people became dissatisfied with the location of the house of wors.h.i.+p; and as they had a good offer for the site, they sold it and bought a better one in another quarter. Then they put rollers under the building, and as soon as it was off the ground the purchaser of the lot began to build a dwelling-house on the site. It was slow work pus.h.i.+ng the church along the street, and before they got far somebody discovered that the t.i.tle of the new site was not good, and so the bargain was annulled. The next day the brethren went plunging around town trying to buy another site, but n.o.body had one to sell; and on the following morning the supervisors got an order from the court requiring that meeting-house to be removed from the public street within twenty-four hours.

The brethren were nearly wild about it, and they begged old Brindley to let them run the concern in on his vacant lot temporarily until they could look around. But Brindley belonged to another denomination, and he said he felt that it would be wrong for him to do anything to help a church that believed false doctrines. Then they ran the meeting-house out on the turnpike beyond the town, whereupon the turnpike company notified them that its charges would be eight dollars a day for toll. So they hauled it back again; and while going down the hill it broke loose, plunged through the fence of Dr. Mackey's garden and brought up on top of his asparagus-bed. He is an Episcopalian, and he sued the meeting for damages; and the sheriff levied upon the meetinghouse. The brethren paid the bill and dragged the building out again.

They wanted to put it in the court-house yard, but Judge Twiddler, who is a Presbyterian, said that after examining the statutes carefully he could find no law allowing a Methodist meeting-house to be located in that place. In despair, the brethren ran the building down to the river-sh.o.r.e and fitted it on a huge raft of logs, concluding to tie it to the wharf until they could buy a lot. But as the owner of the wharf handed them on the third day a bill of twenty-five dollars for wharf.a.ge, they took the building out and anch.o.r.ed it in the stream.

That night a tug-boat, coming up the river in the dark, ran halfway through the Sunday-school room, and a Dutch brig, coming into collision with it, was drawn out with the pulpit and three of the front pews dangling from the bowsprit. The owners of both vessels sued for damages, and the United States authorities talked of confiscating the meeting-house as an obstruction to navigation. But a few days afterward the ice-gorge sent a flood down the river and broke the building loose from its anchor. It was subsequently washed ash.o.r.e on Keyser's farm; and he said he was willing to let it stay there at four dollars a day rent until he was ready to plough for corn. As the cost of removing it would have been very great, the trustees ultimately sold it to Keyser for a barn, and then, securing a good lot, they built a handsome edifice of stone.

On the first Sunday that the congregation wors.h.i.+ped in the new church Mr. Potts attended; and in accordance with his custom, he placed his silk high hat just outside of the pew in the aisle. In a few moments Mrs. Jones entered, and as she proceeded up the aisle her abounding skirts caught Mr. Potts' hat and rolled it nearly to the pulpit. Mr.

Potts pursued his hat with feelings of indignation; and when Mrs.

Jones took her seat, he walked back, brus.h.i.+ng the hat with his sleeve.

A few moments later Mrs. Hopkins came into church; and as Mr. Potts had again placed his hat in the aisle, Mrs. Hopkins' skirts struck it and swept it along about twenty feet, and left it lying on the carpet in a demoralized condition. Mr. Potts was singing a hymn at the time, and he didn't miss it. But a moment later, when he looked over the end of the pew to see if it was safe, he was furious to perceive that it was gone. He skirmished up the aisle after it again, red in the face, and uttering sentences which were very much out of place in the sanctuary. However, he put the hat down again and determined to keep his eye on it, but just as he turned his head away for a moment Mrs.

Smiley came in, and Potts looked around only in time to watch the hat being gathered in under Mrs. Smiley's skirts and carried away by them.

He started in pursuit, and just as he did so the hat must have rolled against Mrs. Smiley's ankles, for she gave a jump and screamed right out in church. When her husband asked her what was the matter, she said there must be a dog under her dress, and she gave her skirts a twist. Out rolled Mr. Potts' hat, and Mr. Smiley, being very near-sighted, thought it was a dog, and immediately kicked it so savagely that it flew up into the gallery and lodged on top of the organ. Mr. Potts, perfectly frantic with rage, forgot where he was; and holding his clinched fist under Smiley's nose, he shrieked, "I've half a mind to brain you, you scoundrel!" Then he flung down his hymn-book and rushed from the church. He went home bareheaded, and the s.e.xton brought his humiliating hat around after dinner. After that Mr.

Potts expressed a purpose to go habitually to Quaker meeting, where he could say his prayers with his hat on his head, and where the skirts of female wors.h.i.+ppers are smaller.

Upon a subsequent occasion Mrs. Whistler had even a greater occasion for dissatisfaction with the sanctuary.

The facts in Mrs. Whistler's case were these: Mrs. Whistler has singular absence of mind, and on the last Sunday she attended church Dr. Dox began to read from the Scriptures the account of the Deluge.

Mrs. Whistler was deeply attentive; and when the doctor came to the story of how it rained for so many days and nights, she was so much absorbed in the narrative and so strongly impressed with it that she involuntarily put up her umbrella and held it over her head as she sat in the pew. It appears that Mrs. Moody, who sits in the next pew in front, frequently brings her lap-dog to church with her; and when Mrs. Whistler raised her umbrella suddenly, the action affected the sensibilities of Mrs. Moody's dog in such a manner that he began to bark furiously.

Of course the s.e.xton came in for the purpose of removing the animal, but it dodged into a vacant pew upon the other side of the aisle and defied him, barking vociferously all the time. Then the s.e.xton became warm and indignant, and he flung a cane at the dog, whereupon the dog flew out and bit his leg. The excitement in the church by this time, of course, was simply dreadful. Not only was the story of the Deluge interrupted, but the unregenerate Sunday-school scholars in the gallery actually hissed the dog at the s.e.xton, and seemed to enjoy the contest exceedingly.

Then Elder McGinn came after the dog with his cane, and as he pursued the animal it dashed toward the pulpit and ran up the steps in such a fierce manner that the doctor quickly mounted a chair and remarked, with anger flas.h.i.+ng through his spectacles, that if this disgraceful scene did not soon come to an end he should dismiss the congregation.

Then the elder crept softly up the stairs, and after a short struggle he succeeded in grasping the dog by one of its hind legs. Then he walked down the aisle with it, the dog meantime yelling with supernatural energy and the Sunday-school boys making facetious remarks.

Mrs. Whistler turned around, with other members of the congregation, to watch the retreating elder, and as she did so she permitted her unconscious umbrella to droop so that the end of one of the ribs caught Mrs. Moody's bonnet. A moment later, when she was straightening up the umbrella, the bonnet was wrenched off, and hung dangling from the umbrella. Mrs. Moody had become exceedingly warm, at any rate, over the onslaught made upon her dog, but when Mrs. Whistler removed her bonnet, she fairly boiled over; and turning around, white with rage, she screamed,

"What'd you grab that bonnet for, you wretch! Haven't you made enough fuss in this church to-day, skeering a poor innocent dog, without s.n.a.t.c.hing off such bonnets as the like of you can't afford to wear, no matter how mean you live at home, you red-headed lunatic, you! You let my bonnet alone, or I'll hit you with this parasol, if it is in meeting, now mind me!"

Then Mrs. Whistler, for the first time, seemed to realize that her umbrella made her conspicuous; so she furled it and concluded to escape from an embarra.s.sing position by going home. As she stepped into the aisle her enemy gave her a parting salute:

"Sneaking off before the collection, too! You'd better spend less for breastpins and give more to the poor heathen if you don't want to ketch it hereafter!"

Then she began to fan herself furiously, and as Mrs. Whistler emerged from the front door and things became calmer the doctor resumed the story of the Flood. But Mrs. Whistler has given up her pew and gone over to the Presbyterians, and there are rumors that Mrs. Moody is going to secede also because Elder McGinn insists that she shall leave her dog at home.

The Dorcas and missionary societies of the church are particularly active, but they were somewhat discouraged a year or two ago by certain unforeseen occurrences. The ladies of the Dorcas Society made up a large quant.i.ty of s.h.i.+rts, trousers and socks, and boxed them up and sent them to a missionary station on the west coast of Africa.

A man named Ridley went out with the boxes and stayed in Africa for several months. When he returned, the Dorcas Society, of course, was anxious to hear how its donation was received, and Ridley one evening met the members and told them about it in a little speech. He said,

"Well, you know, we got the clothes out there all right, and after a while we distributed them among some of the natives in the neighborhood. We thought maybe it would attract them to the mission, but it didn't; and after some time had elapsed and not a native came to church with the clothes on, I went out on an exploring expedition to find out about it. It seems that on the first day after the goods were distributed one of the chiefs attempted to dress himself in a s.h.i.+rt. He didn't exactly understand it, and he pushed his legs through the arms and gathered the tail up around his waist. He couldn't make it stay up, however, and they say he went around inquiring in his native tongue what kind of an idiot it was that constructed a garment that wouldn't hang on, and swearing some of the most awful heathen oaths. At last he let it drag, and that night he got his legs tangled in it somehow and fell over a precipice and was killed.

"Another chief who got one on properly went paddling around in the dark, and the people, imagining that he was a ghost, sacrificed four babies to keep off the evil spirit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HEATHEN CLOTHE THEMSELVES]

"And then, you know, those trousers you sent out? Well, they fitted one pair on an idol, and then they stuffed most of the rest with leaves and set them up as kind of new-fangled idols and began to wors.h.i.+p them. They say that the services were very impressive. Some of the women split a few pairs in half, and after sewing up the legs used them to carry yams in; and I saw one chief with a corduroy leg on his head as a kind of helmet.

"I think, though, the socks were most popular. All the fighting-men went for them the first thing. They filled them with sand and used them as boomerangs and war-clubs. I learned that they were so much pleased with the efficiency of those socks that they made a raid on a neighboring tribe on purpose to try them; and they say they knocked about eighty women and children on the head before they came home.

They asked me if I wouldn't speak to you and get you to send out a few barrels more, and to make them a little stronger, so's they'd last longer; and I said I would.

"This society's doing a power of good to those heathen, and I've no doubt if you keep right along with the work you will inaugurate a general war all over the continent of Africa and give everybody an idol of his own. All they want is enough socks and trousers. I'll take them when I go out again."

Then the Dorcas pa.s.sed a resolution declaring that it would, perhaps, be better to let the heathen go naked and give the clothes to the poor at home. Maybe that is the better way.

CHAPTER IX.

_JUDGE TWIDDLER'S COW_.

For several months previous to last summer Judge Twiddler's family obtained milk from Mr. Biles, the most prominent milk-dealer in the village. The prevailing impression among the Twiddlers was that Mr.

Biles supplied an exceedingly thin and watery fluid; and one day when the judge stepped over to pay his quarterly bill he determined to make complaint. He found Mr. Biles in the yard mending the valve of his pump; and when the judge made a jocular remark to the effect that the dairy must be in a bad way when the pump was out of order, Mr. Biles, rising with his hammer in his hand, said,

"Oh, I ain't going to deny that we water the milk. I don't mind the joking about it. But all I say is that when people say we do it from mercenary motives they slander the profession. No, sir; when I put water in the milk, I do it out of kindness for the people who drink it. I do it because I'm philanthropic--because I'm sensitive and can't bear to see folks suffer. Now, s'pos'n a cow is bilious or something, and it makes her milk unwholesome. I give it a dash or two of water, and up it comes to the usual level. Water's the only thing that'll do it. Or s'pos'n that cow eats a pison vine in the woods; am I going to let my innocent customers be killed by it for the sake of saving a little labor at the pump? No, sir; I slush in a few quarts of water, neutralize the pison, and there she is as right as a trivet.

"But you take the best milk that ever was, and it ain't fit for the human stomach as it comes from the cow. It has too much caseine in it.

Prof. Huxley says that millions of poor ignorant men and women are murdered every year by loading down weak stomachs with caseine. It sucks up the gastric juice, he says, and gets daubed all around over the membranes until the pores are choked, and then the first thing you know the man suddenly curls all up and dies. He says that out yer in Asia, where the milkmen are not as conscientious as we are, there are whole cemeteries chock full of people that have died of caseine, and that before long all that country will be one vast burying-ground if they don't ameliorate the milk. When I think of the responsibility resting on me, is it singular that I look at this old pump and wonder that people don't come and silver plate it and put my statue on it? I tell you, sir, that that humble pump with the cast-iron handle is the only thing that stands betwixt you and sudden death.