Terry | Page 5

to hold one of his nature."
"There's--Deane," she said, hopefully.
"Sue, don't be so sure of that, either. You know that you and I hold different theories about that. Don't bank too heavily on yours." He drummed the polished table a moment before continuing: "He received another telegram from Washington yesterday--I thought he might have mentioned it to you."
"No," she quavered.
"Nor to me. Guess he doesn't want to worry you."
She was close to tears again: "I wish he had never met that young Bronner in college--he gave Dick all these crazy ideas about going to those horrid islands where his brother is!"
"Well, Sue, he made me feel the same way--and I'm a fat married man! I enjoyed his stories of his brother's experiences with the wild people over there. It must be an interesting life."
"You don't talk like that to Dick, do you?" she implored.
"Of course not. But I think you've been too sure that he would stay on here indefinitely--I think it will take very little to tip the scales the other way."
He yawned prodigiously, rousing Susan to an ire that stemmed the flow of tears which had threatened to overflow her blue eyes. Then, content with his tactics, he went upstairs for his traditional nap.
* * * * *
Later, Terry came into the big living room and stood in front of the fireplace a long time, his lean face grave and thoughtful. Decision made, he wrote a note of sincere apology to Doctor Mather, his pastor. He also wrote Deane that he would not be over in the evening but would see her during the week, and made the delivery of the notes an excuse to get the faithful Fanny out into the crisp December afternoon.
The light in the Terry library burned long after Crampville's other lights had winked out. He had been picked up by Stevenson and carried by that pathetic master into the far places of the earth.
* * * * *
The next morning he was in the barn, his gay mood revealed by the running talk addressed to the pelt on which he worked.
"Well, old boy, only four days to get you into shape for your dedication, but the book says it can be done. So you might as well soften up now--"he vigorously rubbed the dried bare side with some oily preparation--"as later."
"What a destiny, old chap! Surely no other fox ever born to lady-fox can be as happy as you're going to be!" He rubbed industriously. "You're not for me, you know. No, sir! I wouldn't bring you out of the hills into this burg--where they kill ambition by preaching content with your lot, where the hoarders of pennies are venerated and the pluggers canonized--I wouldn't bring you here just for me. For I'm not worthy of you. No, sir-ree! Don't you know I'm no good--didn't you see that yesterday? Why, Old Samuel Terwilliger said I'm an atheist because I quoted Ingersoll's graveside oration--said no Christian would repeat anything that man ever said, even if his watch is a bargain at a dollar!... Samuel likes bargains."
Working rapidly, with no lost motions, he rambled on, congratulatory, reproachful, whimsical. Having carried the curing to a point where a twenty-four-hour time process was the next essential factor, he carefully pegged the skin to the barn door.
* * * * *
That evening Susan came running home excitedly, having learned that one of the elders had asked that a meeting be called to consider Dick's case, and that the young pastor had very promptly and very emphatically vetoed the proceeding. It seemed that Bruce had heard of the move and persuaded his father not to support it, after a stormy scene in which he had threatened to resign his own membership if they moved against Terry.
Ellis looked long at Terry: "Nothing small about Bruce, Dick. Some fellows, under the circumstances--all the circumstances--might have let you have it to the hilt."
Terry smiled gravely. "Good old Bruce," he said.
He left the room, slowly, and sat alone in the library. It had struck deep, that even one God-fearing but not God-loving old man should think him unfit to sit in the church in which his father and mother had been married, from which they had been carried side by side for their long rest. It was midnight when he went up the broad staircase to his room.
The following afternoon he dropped in to see Father Jennings, the gentle little priest who had been beloved by two generations of all denominations--and those of none. Terry loved the old study, which in forty years had taken on something of the priest's character. It was a comfortable room; cheerful in its wide windows, warm with a bright hearthfire, and well worn with long years of service.
Terry had found friendship and counsel here since his boyhood, had