Wayside Courtships | Page 7

you won't lay it up against me."
Wallace was too conscientious to say he didn't mind it, but he took
Herman's hand in a quick clasp.
"Let's have a song," proposed Herman. "Music hath charms to soothe
the savage breast, to charm a rock, and split a cabbage."
They went into the best room, where a fire was blazing, and Mattie and
Herman sang hymns and old-fashioned love songs and college glees
wonderfully intermingled. They ended by singing "Lorena," a wailing,
supersentimental love song current in war times, and when they looked
around there was a lofty look on the face of the young preacher--a look
of exaltation, of consecration and resolve.
III.
The next morning, at breakfast, Herman said, as he seized a hot biscuit,
"We'll dispense with grace this morning, and till after the war is over."

But Wallace blessed his bread in a silent prayer, and Mattie thought it
very brave of him to do so.
Herman was full of mockery. "The sun rises just the same, whether it's
'sprinkling' or 'immersion.' It's lucky Nature don't take a hand in these
theological contests--she doesn't even referee the scrap. She never
seems to care whether you are sparring for points or fighting to a finish.
What you theologic middle-weights are really fighting for I can't
see--and I don't care, till you fall over the ropes on to my corns."
Stacey listened in a daze to Herman's tirade. He knew it was addressed
to Allen, and that it deprecated war, and that it was mocking. The fresh
face and smiling lips of the young girl seemed to put Herman's voice
very far away. It was such a beautiful thing to sit at table with a lovely
girl.
After breakfast he put on his cap and coat and went out into the clear,
cold November air. All about him the prairie extended, marked with
farmhouses and lined with leafless hedges. Artificial groves surrounded
each homestead, relieving the desolateness of the fields.
Down the road he saw the spire of a small white church, and he walked
briskly toward it, Herman's description in his mind.
As he came near he saw the ruined sheds, the rotting porch, and the
windows boarded up, and his face grew sad. He tried one of the doors,
and found it open. Some tramp had broken the lock. The inside was
even more desolate than the outside. It was littered with rotting straw
and plum stones and melon seeds. Obscene words were scrawled on the
walls, and even on the pulpit itself.
Taken altogether it was an appalling picture to the young servant of the
Man of Galilee, a blunt reminder of the ferocity and depravity of man.
As he pondered the fire burned, and there rose again the flame of his
resolution. He lifted his face and prayed that he might be the one to
bring these people into the living union of the Church of Christ.

His blood set toward his heart with tremulous action. His eyes glowed
with zeal like that of the Middle Ages. He saw the people united once
more in this desecrated hall. He heard the bells ringing, the sound of
song, the smile of peaceful old faces, and voices of love and fellowship
filling the anterooms where hate now scrawled hideous blasphemy
against woman and against God.
As he sat there Herman came in, his keen eyes seeking out every stain
and evidence of vandalism.
"Cheerful prospect--isn't it?"
Wallace looked up with the blaze of his resolution still in his eyes. His
pale face was sweet and solemn.
"Oh, how these people need Christ!"
Herman turned away. "They need killing--about two dozen of 'em. I'd
like to have the job of indicating which ones; I wouldn't miss the old
man, you bet!" he said, with blasphemous audacity.
Wallace was helpless in the face of such reckless thought, and so sat
looking at the handsome young fellow as he walked about.
"Well, now, Stacey, I guess you'll need to move. I had another session
with the old man, but he won't give in, so I'm off for Chicago. Mother's
brother, George Chapman, who lives about as near the schoolhouse on
the other side, will take you in. I guess we'd better go right down now
and see about it. I've said good-by to the old man--for good this time;
we didn't shake hands either," he said, as they walked down the road
together. He was very stern and hard. Something of the father was
hidden under his laughing exterior.
Stacey regretted deeply the necessity which drove him out of Allen's
house. Mrs. Allen and Mattie had appealed to him very strongly. For
years he had lived far from young women, and there was a magical
power in the intimate home actions of