They Call Me Carpenter | Page 5

I looked at him
twice, and then I looked at the window. Where the figure had been was
a great big hole with the sun shining through!
We know the power of suggestion, and especially when one taps the
deeps of the unconscious, where our childhood memories are buried. I
had been brought up in a religious family, and so it seemed quite
natural to me that while that hand lay on my head, the throbbing and
whirling should cease, and likewise the fear. I became perfectly quiet,
and content to sit under the friendly spell. "Why were you crying?"
asked the voice, at last.
I answered, hesitatingly, "I think it was humiliation."
"Is it something you have done?"
"No. Something that was done to me."
"But how can a man be humiliated by the act of another?"
I saw what he meant; and I was not humiliated any more.
The stranger spoke again. "A mob," he said, "is a blind thing, worse
than madness. It is the beast in man running away with his master."
I thought to myself: how can he know what has happened to me? But
then I reflected, perhaps he saw them drive me into the church! I found
myself with a sudden, queer impulse to apologize for those soldier boys.
"We had some terrible fighting," I cried. "And you know what wars

do--to the minds of the people, I mean."
"Yes," said the stranger, "I know, only too well."
I had meant to explain this mob; but somehow, I decided that I could
not. How could I make him understand moving picture shows, and
German competition, and ex-service men out of jobs? There was a
pause, and he asked, "Can you stand up?"
I tried and found that I could. I felt the side of my jaw, and it hurt, but
somehow the pain seemed apart from myself. I could see clearly and
steadily; there were only two things wrong that I could find--first, this
stranger standing by my side, and second, that hole in the window,
where I had seen him standing so many Sunday mornings!
"Are you going out now?" he asked. As I hesitated, he added, tactfully,
"Perhaps you would let me go with you?"
Here was indeed a startling proposition! His costume, his long
hair--there were many things about him not adapted to Broadway at
five o'clock in the afternoon! But what could I say? It would be rude to
call attention to his peculiarities. All I could manage was to stammer: "I
thought you belonged in the church."
"Do I?" he replied, with a puzzled look. "I'm not sure. I have been
wondering--am I really needed here? And am I not more needed in the
world?"
"Well," said I, "there's one thing certain." I pointed up to the window.
"That hole is conspicuous."
"Yes, that is true."
"And if it should rain, the altar would be ruined. The Reverend Dr.
Lettuce-Spray would be dreadfully distressed. That altar cloth was left
to the church in the will of Mrs. Elvina de Wiggs, and God knows how
many thousands of dollars it cost."
"I suppose that wouldn't do," said the stranger. "Let us see if we can't
find something to put there."
He started up the aisle, and through the chancel. I followed, and we
came into the vestry-room, and there on the wall I noticed a full length,
life-sized portrait of old Algernon de Wiggs, president of the Empire
National Bank, and of the Western City Chamber of Commerce. "Let
us see if he would fill the place," said the stranger; and to my
amazement he drew up a chair, and took down the huge picture, and
carried it, seemingly without effort, into the church.

He stepped upon the altar, and lifted the portrait in front of the window.
How he got it to stay there I am not sure--I was too much taken aback
by the procedure to notice such details. There the picture was; it
seemed to fit the window exactly, and the effect was simply colossal.
You'd have to know old de Wiggs to appreciate it--those round, puffy
cheeks, with the afternoon sun behind them, making them shine like
two enormous Jonathan apples! Our leading banker was clad in
decorous black, as always on Sunday mornings, but in one place the
sun penetrated his form--at one side of his chest. My curiosity got the
better of me; I could not restrain the question, "What is that golden
light?"
Said the stranger: "I think that is his heart."
"But that can't be!" I argued. "The light is on his right side; and it seems
to have an oblong shape--exactly as if it were his wallet."
Said the other: "Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also."

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