University of Virginia Library

39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
MAUDE AND EDNA VISIT UNCLE PHIL.

UNCLE PHIL had invited Maude and Edna to come
up to the “old hut,” and, two weeks after their return
from New York, they went for a few days to
Rocky Point.

They found the old man not much changed from what he
had been when they saw him last. A little stouter, perhaps,

and a little grayer he looked, as, whip in hand, he stood waiting
the arrival of the train, his face all aglow with delight,
when the two young girls appeared upon the platform,
looking so pretty and stylish in their new spring dresses, that
he involuntarily gave a kind of low whistle, and said under
his breath:

“Guy, ain't they stunners? They beat Ruth Gardner
all hollow. And look at that gal's ankles, will you; it's
enough to make a chap older than I am crawl, to see such
things,” he continued, as the tops of Maude's boots became
visible in her descent from the car.

In a moment both the girls had caught him round the
neck, making him very red in the face, and “awful ticklish
at the pit of his stomach,” as they kissed him more than
once, and then kept hold of his hands while they asked him
scores of questions.

“There,—there; yes, yes; let me be now, can't you; yes,
yes,” he said. “I'm about stranged with your hugs and
kisses, and I not used to it, and the folks in the car lookin'
on. It'll give a feller the dyspepsia to have his digester so
riled up. These your traps, hey? Look like little housen;
shall have to come back for 'em sure, for Bobtail can't carry
all creation” he continued, as Maude pointed out her own
and Edna's baggage.

Uncle Phil was very proud of his guests and very desirous
to show them off, and making an excuse to see a man about
re-setting a light of stained glass which some “tarnal boy had
broken in one of the windows of his synagogue,” he drove
the entire length of the street on which 'Squire Gardner lived,
and felt repaid for his trouble when he saw Miss Ruth looking
at them from her chamber window. He did not find his
man, but “Ruth saw the gals and the gals' hats, which he
was so glad were not such all-fired lookin' things as she wore
and tried to make folks think was the fashion. Maybe 'twas

with a certain class, but needn't tell him that fust cut, who
knew what was what, wore such 'bominable things. Why,
Ruth's hat looks jest like a tunnel with a ribbon tied 'round
it,” he said to the young ladies, who accused him of having
set up as a critic in dress, Maude promising to show him
some fashions, “which would make him stare more than
Ruth Gardner's tunnel had done.”

They found the nicest, cosiest tea waiting for them, and
Aunt Becky was quite as much pleased to see them as
Uncle Phil had been. The front chamber was in perfect
order, and Uncle Phil had tried his hand at a bouquet, made
from daffodils and evergreens, and arranged in a broken
pitcher.

They had come to spend a week, and the days flew rapidly,
each one seeming to Uncle Phil shorter and happier than the
preceding one. He had a great deal to tell them about his
church, which was nearly completed, and would be ready for
consecration in August, when the bishop had promised to be
there.

“But I tell you what 'tis, gals,” he said, as he sat with them
inside the church, which he had been showing them, “if
there's anything makes a chap feel like cussin', it's buildin' a
meetin' house, and seein' to it yourself; not that I do swear
right out loud,” he added, as he saw Edna's look of surprise.
“I hold on till I git the hiccups, and feel at my stomach some,
as I do when you two are haulin' me over, only not quite
so—so—tural-lural, you know; first, thar's the Orthodox
pitchin' into me, and the Unitarians, who kind of claim me,
you know; and then, if you'll b'leeve it, the Second Adventists
held some meetin's in the school-house, and pitched right
and left into my poor little chapel; called it one of the ten
horns, and a ritual, and the Lord knows what; but the wust
of all was the divinity chap from New York, who came out
here, and preached a spell last winter; sort of a candidate,

though he sniffed high at the idee, and said he'd never stoop
to that. He preached in the Town Hall, and Ruth Gardner
came up from New York, where she spent a month, with
her head fuller of jimcracks than brains, and she jined the
Episcopals, and helped run the machine, and rolled her eyes
up till you could see nothin' but the whites, and got after the
minister, and set to callin' him `Father,' when, bless my soul,
he wasn't a half-a-dozen years older than she! And between
'em they raised the very old Harry with their processions,
and boys dressed like girls, and flags, and crossin's, and
curtcheys, which they called Jenny-something, and the land
knows what they didn't do or would have done if I hadn't
raised a row, and said they could do what they liked in the
Town Hall, and go to the old driver with their flummeries,
but in my synagogue I'd have no such carryin's on. I was
a miserable enough sinner, and was willin' to own it, and had
done a lot of things I didn't orto have done, and when I
went to meetin, I wanted to hear now an' then a word about
that Man who died over on Calvary a good many years ago,
and not all about the church, the church, and the fathers, and
the medival age. You orto have seen how the priest and
Ruth Gardner looked at me when I got right up in meetin'
and spoke my piece, for, I vum, I couldn't stan it when they
give the bread and wine first to widder Jones's two little
boys, the wust scamps in town, who rob gardens, and orchards,
and birds'-nests in the summer, and who, only the
day before, had broke my gate, and denied it up hill and
down. I couldn't keep still no how, and freed my mind and
quit, and the next day the priest and Ruth called on me,—
he in his long frock coat, and she with a chain and cross as
long as my arm, I'll bet. They as't me what I did believe,
and I said I believed the Creed, word for word; and the
Bible, and the Prayer-Book; and more than all the rest, I
believed in the Man that died; and I knew He never had
any such goin's on in that upper chamber, nor on the deck
of the ship, nor up on the mountain, nor in that house in
Bethany where He loved to stay. Everything with Him was
simple and plain as A B C. When the folks was tired, and
sick, and sorry, He said, `Come to me and rest,' and He
didn't drive 'em crazy with forty-'leven ceremonies. `Come
to me; believe on me, that I can save you; that is all,' and
He will. I'm just as certain as that my name is Philip.
I'm a wicked old rat, but I do mean to be better; and I've
took to readin' my Bible some, and I say the Lord's Prayer
every night when I ain't too sleepy.”

He was talking more to himself now than to the girls at
his side, but they both felt that though there was still much
of poor sinful nature clinging to the old man, he was making
an effort to do better, and was drawing nearer to Him whom
he so touchingly spoke of as the “Man who died.”

The building of the church had evidently been a great
trouble to him, but that was nearly over now.

The priest from New York had, soon after Uncle Phil's
“piece spoken in meetin',” given up Rocky Point in disgust,
and returned to the city, leaving the field clear for another
man. That man Uncle Phil was anxiously looking out for,
as he said he meant to have things in running order as soon
as the house was consecrated.

It was a very pretty little edifice, and did credit to the
good taste of Uncle Phil, or his architect, or both. As yet
he had no name for it. Neither St. Maude nor St. Edna
would do, and St. Philip, which both girls proposed, sounded
too egotistical.

“He wasn't a saint,” he said, “and never should be, perhaps,
and they must try again.”

Then he asked, in a kind of indifferent way, the name of
the church at Allen's Hill, where Edna had formerly attended.
St. Paul's suited him better, and he guessed “he'd

have it christened after that curis chap who had that thorn
in the flesh.”

The next day when alone with Edna, he said to her:

“I kind o' hoped at one time that you or Maude might
be married first in my new church, but she tells me there's
to be great doin's at Oakwood for her and that girl, George,
who, it seems, is to marry Roy, when I'd picked him for you.”

“For me?” and Edna's cheeks were scarlet. “Roy
would never think of me, and, Uncle Phil, I want to tell you
I can't stay there after Miss Burton comes. I made up my
mind to that a long time ago.”

“Of course not,” Uncle Phil replied. “One house can't
hold three wimmen, so come back to the old hut as soon as
you please; there's always a place for you here. I shall be
down to the weddin', I s'pose; I promised Maude I would,
only you mustn't try to put gloves on me, nor stick me into
a swallow-tail.”

Edna laughingly promised to let him have his own way in
dress, and two days after this conversation she said good-by
to the old man, and, with Maude, went back to Summerville,
where the preparations for the great event had commenced
in earnest.