The Leatherwood God By WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS Illustrations by Henry Raleigh SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS I-IV In the third decade of the nineteenth century Joseph Dylks, who was to become famous in the history of the region as the Leatherwood God, made his spectacular appearance at a camp-meeting on Leatherwood Creek. In their remoteness from the large cities of the country, the people of the region gave to religion their chief interest, and Dylks was received as one sent by God. He passed his first night with David Gillespie, whose sister he had married. He had left her, and in time, thinking him dead, she had married Laban Billings and had come to Leatherwood Creek. Gillespie knew Dylks as a scoundrel, but though he was assured that Dylks would not now trouble her, on religious grounds he demands that his sister send Billings away. Though she is now happy, after years of unhappiness, she yields to the demand. T V HE emotional frenzies, recurring through the day, were past, and she could speak steadily to the man, in the absence of greeting which often emphasizes the self-forgetfulness of love as well as marks the formlessness of common life: "Your supper 's waitin' for you, Laban; I've had mine; you must be hungry. It 's out in the shed; it 's cooler there. Go round; baby 's asleep." The man obeyed, and she heard him drop the bucket into the well, and lift it by the groaning sweep, and pour the water into the basin, and then splash himself, with murmurs of comfort, presently muffled in the towel. Her hearing followed him through his supper, and she knew he was obediently eating it, and patiently waiting for her to account for whatever was unwonted in her greeting. She loved him most of all for his boylike submission to her will and every caprice of it, but now she hardly knew how to deny his tacit question.as he ventured in from the shed. "Don't come near me, Laban," she said with a stony quiet. "Don't touch me. I ain't your wife any more." He could not speak at first; then it was like him to ask: "Why-why- What have I done, Nancy?" "You, you poor soul?" she answered. "Nothing but good all your days. He's come back." He knew whom she meant, but he had to ask: "Joseph Dylks? Why, I thought he was-" "Don't say it! It 's murder! I don't want you to have his blood on you, too. Oh, if he was only dead! Yes, yes; I have a right to wish it! O God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" "When-when-how did you know it, Nancy?" "Yesterday morning or day beforejust after you left. I reckon he was waitin' for you to go. I 'm glad you went first." The man looked up at the rifle resting on the pegs above the fireplace. "Laban, don't!" she cried. "I looked at Laban shifted his weight, where he feel the way you always do about Joey. stood, from one foot to the other. You 've been a true father to him; I won it when he was walkin' away, and I know what you 're thinkin'." "What is he goin' to do?" the man asked from his daze. "Nothing. He said he would n't do nothing if I didn't. If he had n't said it, I might believe it!" see to-morrow. It seems as if my very soul was tired now. Joey will just think we 've gone over to David's for a minute; he 'll go to bed when he comes; he 'll have had his supper at Peter Hingston's, anyway." As they walked away, she said: "You 're a good man, Laban Billings, to "He passed the night at David's. He's der what his own father 'd have been." passed two nights there." "Was it the snorting man?" "I reckon." "I heard about him at the Cross Roads. Why did n't David tell us yesterday?" he asked. "Maybe he had n't thought it out. David thinks slow. He likes to be sure before he speaks. He was sure enough this morning!" the woman ended bitterly. "What did he say?" "He said it was livin' in sin for us to keep together if he was alive." Laban pondered it. "I reckon, if we come together without knowin' he was alive, it ain't no sin." "Yes it is!" she shrieked. "We was married just like anybody; we did n't make no secret of it; we 've lived together four years. Are you goin' to unlive them years by stoppin' now?" "Don't you s'pose I been over all that a million times? My mind's sore workin' with it; there ain't a thought in me that don't ache from it. But David 's right. We 've got to part. I put your things in this poke here," she said, and she gave him a bag made from an old pillow tick, with a few clothes lumping it half full. "I'll carry the baby, Laban." She pulled back from him with the child in her arms. "Or, no, you can carry her; you 'll have to leave her, too, and you 've got a right to all the good you can get of her now. Don't touch anything. I'll stay at David's to-night, but I'll come back in the morning, and then I'll see what I'll dostay, or go and live with David. Come!" "And what about Joey?" Laban asked, half turning with the child when they were outside. "No truer father to him than I 've been a husband to you, Nancy," the man said, and as they walked along together, so far apart, his speech came to him, and he began to plead their case with her as before an adverse judge. Worn as she was with the arguments for and against them after the long day of iteration, she could not refuse to let him plead. She scarcely answered him, but he knew when they reached Gillespie's cabin that she had seen them in the fierce light of her conscience, where there was no shadow of turning. David was alone; Jane, he said, had gone to the Reverdys, and was going with the woman to the Temple. Nancy did not seem to hear him. She took the sleeping baby from its father's arms. "Laban has come with me to say goodby before you, David. I hope you 'll be satisfied." "I hope your conscience will be satisfied, Nancy. It does n't matter about me. Laban, do you see this thing like I do?" "I see it like Nancy does." "God will bless your effort for rightcousness. Your path is dark before you now, but His light will shine upon it." The old man paused helplessly, and Nancy asked: "Does Jane know?" "Not yet. And I will confess I 'm not certain what to do about her and about the neighbors. This is a cross to me, too, Nancy. I have lived a proud life here; there has never been talk about me or mine. Now, when you and Laban are parted, there will be talk." "There's no need to be," Laban said; "not at once. They want me back at the "I declare, I forgot about Joey! I'll Cross Roads, the Wilkinses do. I can go "Oh, no, I ain't tired. Mr. Hingston is real good to me; he lets me rest plenty; and he says I 'll make a first-rate miller. I helped to dress the burs this morning"But perhaps-perhaps there 'll be light the millstones, you know," the boy ex-that light you said-by and by-" now as well as in the morning. I forgot to tell you," he added to his wife. "It was drove out of my mind." "Oh, I don't blame you," she answered. "I can have work there all the fall." David Gillespie rubbed his forehead, and said tremulously: "I don't know what to say. I suppose I am weak. It 'll be one kind of a lie. But, Laban-I thank you-” "I can come back here Sundays and see Nancy and the baby," Laban suggested. The old man's voice shook. was almost singing them herself, she startled by the presence of a boy who had come silently round the cabin in his bare feet and stood beside her. "Oh!" she cried out. "Why, did I scare you, Mom?" he asked tenderly. "I did n't mean to." "No, Joey. I did n't know any one was there; that 's all. I did n't expect you. Why ain't you at home in bed? You must be tired enough, poor boy." "You 'll be making it harder for yourself," was all he could say. "Let us pray that there 'll be no light from the Pit. I am a sinful man, Laban, to let you do this thing. I ought to have strength for all of us. But I am older now; I'm not what I was the day has tried me, Nancy." "Good-by, then, Laban," the woman said. "And don't you think hard of David. I don't. And I'm not sure I 'll ever let you come. Say good-by as if it was for life." She turned to her brother. "We can kiss, I reckon?" "Oh, I reckon," he lamented, and went indoors. Laban opened his arms as if to take her in them; but she interposed the baby. "Kiss her first. Me last. Just once. Now go! I won't be weak with you like David is. And don't you be afraid for me. I can get along. I'm not a man!" She went into the cabin, with her baby over her shoulder; but in a little while she came back without it, and stared after the figure of Laban losing itself in the night. Then she sat down on the doorstep and cried: it seemed as if she never could stop: but the tears helped her. When she lifted her head she caught the sounds of singing from the village below the upland where the cabin stood. It was the tune that carried, not the words, but she knew them from the tune; as well as if she were in the Temple with them she knew what the people were singing. While she followed the lines helplessly, plained, proud of the technicality. "Oh, I tell you, I just like it there!" he said, and he laughed out his joy in it. "You always was a glad boy, Joey," his mother said ruefully. "Well, you would n't thought so if you seen me over at our house. It seemed like there was somebody dead; I das n't hardly go in, it was so dark and still. Why n't you there? Did n't pop come home?" "Yes, but he had to go back to the Cross Roads; he's got work there all the fall." "Well! We do seem to be gittin' along!" He laughed again. "I reckon you come over here because it seemed kind o' lonesome. Goin' to stay all night with uncle?" "Yes. You won't mind being there alone?" "Oh, no! Not much, I reckon." "You can stay here, too, if you want to-" "Oh, no! Mom," he confessed shyly, "I brung Benny Hingston with me. I thought you 'd let him stay all night with me." "Why, certainly, Joey-" "He 's just behind the house; I wanted to ask first-" "You know you can always bring Benny. There's plenty of room for both of you in your bed. But now when you go back with him be careful of the lamp. I put a fresh piece of rag in, and there 's plenty of grease. You can blow up a coal on the hearth. I covered the fire; only be careful." "Oh, we 'll be careful. Benny's about the carefullest boy the' is in Leatherwood. Oh, I do like being in the mill with Mr. Hingston!" He laughed out his joy again, and then he asked doubtfully, "Mom?" "Yes, Joey?" "Benny and me was wonderin'-we 'd go straight back home, and not light any lamp at all-if you 'd let us go to the Temple. There's a big meetin' there tonight." The mother hesitated, and the boy urged: "They say that strange manwell, some calls him the Snorter and some the Exhorter is goin' to preach." The mother was still silent, and the boy faltered on, "He dresses like the people do Over-the-Mountains, and he wears his hair down his back-" The mother gasped. "I don't like your being out late, Joey. I 'd feel better if you and Benny was safe in bed." "Oh, well." The boy's voice sank to the level of his disappointment; but after a silent interval he caught it up again cheerily. "Oh, well, I reckon Benny won't care much. We'll go right back home. We can have a piece before we go to bed?" "Yes" "Benny thinks our apple-butter is the best the' is. Can we have some on bread, with sugar on top?" His mother did not answer at once, and he said again, as if relinquishing another ideal: "Oh, well." Nancy rose up and kissed him. went into the cabin. "What a day, what a day! It seems a thousand years," she said aloud. "Are you talking to me, Nancy?" her brother asked from somewhere in the dark. "No, no; only to myself, David. Where did I put the baby? Oh, I know. I've let Joey go to the Temple to hear his father preach. Lord have mercy!" VI THE discourse of Dylks the second night was a chain of biblical passages, as it had been the first night; but an apparent intention, which had been wanting before, ran through the incoherent texts, leaping as it were from one to another, and there binding them in an intimation of a divine mission. He did not say that he had been sent of God, but he made the texts, which he gave swiftly and unerringly, say something like that for him to such as were prepared to believe it. Not all were prepared; many denied; the most doubted: but those who accepted that meaning of the inspired words were of the principal people, respected for their higher intelligence and their greater wealth. He had come to the Temple with Peter Hingston and he went with him from it. Hingston was the owner of a quarter section of the richest farmland in the Bottom; it bordered his mill privilege, with barns and corn-cribs and tobacco-sheds, and his brick house, behind the mill, was the largest and finest dwelling in the place. His flocks and herds abounded; his state was patriarchal; but he ruled less by will than by good-will in his family, and the neighborhood loved and honored him for some "Yes, go to the Temple. You might favor and kindness done nearly every man as well." there: for money when the crops failed; "Truly, Mom? O Benny, hurrah! for the storage of their wheat and corn in She 's let me! Come along!" He ran round the cabin to his comrade, and she heard them shouting and laughing together, and then the muted scamper of their bare feet on the soft mud road toward the settlement. The mother said to herself: "He 'd get to see him sooner or later." She drew her breath in a long sigh, and the deep bins of his mill when the yield was too great for their barns; for the use of his sheds in drying their tobacco before their own were ready. His growing sons and daughters, until they were grown men and women, obeyed his counsel as they had obeyed his will while children. But he was severe with no one; since his wife had died his natural gentleness was his manner as it had always been his make, and it tempered the piety, which in many was forbidding and compelling, to a wistful kindness. His faith admitted no misgiving for himself, but his toleration of doubts and differences in others extended to the worst of skeptics. He believed that revelation had never ceased; he was of those who looked for a sign, because if God had ever given Himself in communion with His creatures, it was not reasonable that He should afterward always withhold Himself. A friendly humor looked from his dull eyes, and, in never quite coming to a formulated joke, stayed his utterance as if he were hopeful of some such event in time. He stood large in bulk as well as height, and drew his breath in slow, audible respirations. The first people of the community tacitly recognized him as the first man in it, though none would have compared him in education with his nearest friend, Richard Enraghty, who had been the schoolmaster and was now the foremost of the United Brethren. He led their services in the Temple, and sometimes preached for them when it came their turn to occupy the house which they shared with the other sects. Hingston was a Methodist, but perhaps because their sects were so akin in doctrine and polity their difference made no division between the friends: Enraghty little and fierce and restless, Hingston large and kind and calm. What they joined in saying prevailed in questions of public interest; those who yielded to their wisdom liked to believe that Enraghty's opinion ruled with Hingston. Matthew Braile alone had the courage to disable their judgment, which he liked to say was no more infallible than so much Scripture; but the hardy infidel, who knew so much law and was inexpugnable in his office, owned that he could not make head against their gospel. He could darken their counsel with citations from "Common Sense" and "The Age of Reason," but the piety of the community remained safe from his mockery. The large charity of Hingston covered the multitude of the squire's sins; he would have argued that he had not been understood perhaps in the worst things he said: but the fiercer godliness of Enraghty was proof against the walk of a man whose conversation was an exhalation from the Pit. He had bitterly opposed Matthew Braile's successive elections; he had made the pulpit of the Temple an engine of political warfare, and had launched its terrors against the invulnerable heathen. He was like Hingston in looking for a sign; in that day of remoteness from any greater world the people of the backwoods longed to feel themselves near the greatest world of all, and well within the radius of its mysteries. They talked mostly of these when they met together, and in the solitude of their fields they dwelt upon them; on their week-days and workdays they turned over the threats and promises of the Sabbath, and expected a light or a voice from on high which should burst their darkness and silence. To most of them there was nothing sacrilegious in the pretensions which could be read into the closely scriptured discourse of Dylks when he preached the second time in the Temple. The affability which he used in descending from the pulpit among them, and shaking hands and hailing them brother and sister, and personally bidding each come to the mercyseat, convinced them of his authority; no common man would so fearlessly trust his dignity among those who had little of their They thronged upon him gladly, and the women, old and young alike, trembled before him with a strange joy. own. "Where is your father, Sister Gillespie?" he demanded of the girl who wavered in his strong voice like a plant in the wind. "I don't know. He's at home," she said. "See that he comes another time. I send him my peace, and tell him that it will not return to me. Say that I said he needs me." He went out between Enraghty and Hingston, and as they walked away he sank his voice back in words of Scripture; farther away he began his hymn: |