All He Knew(@@) by John Habberton (ebooks online reader TXT) 📕

She had heard that there were sometimes "great larks," as the young men called them, at the village hotel, and she wondered how much the underlings of the establishment could know about them, and what stories they could tell. Jane suddenly became to her more interesting than she had yet been. She wondered what further questions to ask, and could not think of any that she could put into words. Finally, she left the room, sought her mother, and exclaimed,--

"Mother, I'm not going to marry Reynolds Bartram. If hotel servants know all about his goings-on evenings, what stories may they not tell if they choose? That sort of people will say anything they can of him. I don't suppose they know the difference between the truth and a lie; at least they never do when we hire them."

The mother looked at the daughter tenderly and shrewdly. Then she smiled, and said,--

"Daughter, I can see but one way for you to relieve your mind on that subject."

"What is that?" asked the daughter.

"It is only this: convert Jane."

As the special meetings at the church went on, Deacon Quickset began to fear that he had made a mistake. He had taken an active part in all previous meetings of the same kind for more than twenty-five years. The results of some of them had been very satisfactory, and the deacon modestly but nevertheless with much self-gratulation had recounted his own services in all of them.

"Whoso converteth a sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins; that is what the good book says," said the deacon to himself one day, as he walked from his house to his place of business; "and considering the number of people that I have helped to snatch as brands from the burning, it does seem to me that I must have covered a good many sins of my own,--such as they are.

I'm only a human being, and a poor, weak, and sinful creature, but there's certainly a good many folks in this town that would not have started in the right way when they did if it hadn't been for what I said to them. Now, here's the biggest movement of the kind going on that ever was known in this town, and I'm out of it. What for? Just because I don't agree with Sam Kimper. I mean, just because Sam Kimper don't agree with me. I don't suppose the thing would have come to anything, anyhow, if it hadn't been for that fool of a young lawyer setting his foot in it in the way he did. Everybody likes excitement, and it's a bigger thing for him to have gone into this protracted meeting than it would be for a circus to come to town with four new elephants. It's rough."

The deacon took a few papers from his pocket, looked them over, his face changing from grave to puzzled and from puzzled to angry and back again through a whole gamut of facial expressions. Finally, he thrust the entire collection back into his pocket, and said to himself,--

"If he keeps on at that work, I may have as much trouble as he let on that I would. I don't see how some of these things are going to be settled unless I have him to help me; and if he's going to be as particular as he makes out, or as he did make out the other day, there's going to be trouble, just as sure as both of us are alive. Of course, the more prominent he is before the public, the less he'll want to be in any case in court that takes hard fighting, particularly when he don't think he's on the popular side. And there's that Mrs. Poynter that's been bothering me to death about the interest on her mortgage: I keep hearing that she's at the meetings every night, and that she never lets an evening pass without speaking to Bartram. Maybe all she's talking about is some sinner or other that she wants to have saved; but if she acts with him as she does with me, I'm awfully afraid that she's consulting him about that interest.

"I didn't think it was the right time of the year to start special meetings, anyhow; and I don't know what our minister did it for without consulting the deacons. He never did such a thing in his life before. It does seem to me that once in a while everything goes crosswise, and it all happens just when I need most of all to have things go along straight and smooth. Gracious! if some of these papers in my pocket don't work the way they ought to, I don't know how things are going to come out."

The deacon had almost reached the business street as this soliloquy went on, but he seemed inclined to carry on his conversation with himself: so he deliberately turned about and slowly paced the way backward towards his home.

"I shouldn't wonder," said he, after a few moments of silence, in which his mind seemed busily occupied,--"I shouldn't wonder if that was the best way out, after all. I do believe I'll do it. Yes, I will do it. I'll go and buy out that shoe-shop of Larry Highgetty's, and I'll let Sam Kimper have it at just what it costs, and trust him for all the purchase-money. I don't believe the good-will of the place and all the stock that is in it will cost over a couple of hundred dollars; and Larry would take my note at six months almost as quick as he'd take anybody else's money. If things go right I can pay the note, and if they don't he can get the property back. But in the meantime folks won't be able to say anything against me. They can't say then that I'm down on Sam, like some of them say now, and if anybody talks about Bartram and the upper-crust folks that have been helping the meetings along, I can just remind them that talk is cheap and that it's money that tells. I'll do it, as sure as my name's Quickset; and the quicker I do it the better it will be for me, if I'm not mistaken."

The deacon hurried off to the shoe-store. As usual, the only occupant of the shop was Sam.

"Where's Larry, Sam?" asked the deacon, briskly.

"I don't know, sir," said Sam, "but I'm afraid he's at Weitz's beer-shop."

"Well, Sam," said the deacon, trying to be pleasant, though his mouth was very severely set, "while you're in the converting line,--which I hear you're doing wonders at, and I'm very glad to hear it,--why don't you begin at home and bring about a change in Larry?"

"Do you know, deacon," said Sam, "I was thinkin' about the same thing? and I'm goin' to see that priest of his about--"

"Oh, Sam!" groaned the deacon. "The idea of going to see a Catholic priest about a fellow-man's salvation, when there's a special meeting running in our own church and you've taken such an interest in it!"

"Every man for his own, deacon," said Sam. "I don't believe Larry cares anythin' about the church that you belong to, an' that I've been goin' to for some little time, an' I know he thinks a good deal of Father Black. I've found out myself, after a good deal of trouble in this world, that it makes a good deal of difference who talks to you about such things. Now, he thinks Father Black is the best man there is in the world. I don't know anythin' about that, though I don't know of anybody in this town I ever talked to that left me feelin' more comfortable an' looked more like a good man himself than that old priest did one day when he come in here an' talked to me very kindly. Why, deacon, he didn't put on any airs at all. He talked just as if he was a good brother of mine, an' he left me feelin' that if I wasn't good I was a brother of his anyhow. That's more than I can say most other folks in this town ever did, deacon."

The deacon was so horrified at this unexpected turn of the conversation that for a little while he entirely forgot the purpose for which he had come. But he was recalled to his senses by the entrance of Reynolds