University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
MR. BRADY PROPHESIES.

THE Methodists had actually made a break in the
settlement. Dancing had not availed to keep them
out. It was no longer a question of getting “shet”
of Wheeler and his Methodist wife, thus extirpating
the contagion. There would now be a “class” formed,
a leader appointed, a regular preaching place established;
Hissawachee would become part of that
great wheel called a circuit; there would be revivals
and conversions; the peace of the settlement would be
destroyed. For now one might never again dance at
a “hoe-down,” drink whiskey at a shuckin', or race
“hosses” on Sunday, without a lecture from somebody.
It might be your own wife, too. Once let the
Methodists in, and there was no knowin'.

Lumsden, for his part, saw more serious consequences.
By his opposition, he had unfortunately spoken
for the enmity of the Methodists in advance. The
preacher had openly defied him. Kike would join the
class, and the Methodists would naturally resist his ascendancy.
No concession on his part short of absolute
surrender would avail. He resolved therefore
that the Methodists should find out “who they were
fighting.”

Brady was pleased. Gossips are always delighted
to have something happen out of the usual course. It

gives them a theme, something to exercise their wits
upon. Let us not be too hard upon gossip. It is one
form of communicative intellectual activity. Brady,
under different conditions, might have been a journalist,
writing relishful leaders on “topics of the time.”
For what is journalism but elevated and organized
gossip? The greatest benefactor of an out-of-the-way
neighborhood is the man or woman with a talent for
good-natured gossip. Such an one averts absolute mental
stagnation, diffuses intelligence, and keeps alive a
healthful public opinion on local questions.

Brady wanted to taste some of Mrs. Goodwin's
“ry-al hoe-cake.” That was the reason he assigned for
his visit on the evening after the meeting. He was
always hungry for hoe-cake when anything had happened
about which he wanted to talk. But on this
evening Job Goodwin got the lead in conversation at
first.

“Mr. Brady,” said he, “what's going to happen to
us all? These Methodis' sets people crazy with the
jerks, I've hearn tell. Hey? I hear dreadful things
about 'em. Oh dear, it seems like as if everything
come upon folks at once. Hey? The fever's spreadin'
at Chilicothe, they tell me. And then, if we should
git into a war with England, you know, and the Indians
should come and skelp us, they'd be precious
few left, betwixt them that went crazy and them that
got skelped. Precious few, I tell you. Hey?”

Here Mr. Goodwin knocked the ashes out of his
pipe and laid it away, and punched the fire meditatively,
endeavoring to discover in his imagination some

[ILLUSTRATION]

JOB GOODWIN.

[Description: 554EAF. Page 112. In-line engraving of a man seated by a fireplace holding a pipe and poking the fire.] new and darker pigment for his picture of the future.
But failing to think of anything more lugubrious than
Methodists, Indians,
and fever, he
set the tongs in the
corner, heaved a
sigh of discouragement,
and looked at
Brady inquiringly.

“Ye're loike the
hootin' owl, Misther
Goodwin; it's
the black side ye're
afther lookin' at all
the toime. Where's
Moirton? He aint
been to school yet
since this quarter
took up.”

“Morton? He's
got to stay out, I
expect. My rheumatiz is mighty bad, and I'm powerful
weak. I don't think craps 'll be good next year, and
I expect we'll have a hard row to hoe, partic'lar if we
all have the fever, and the Methodis' keep up their
excitement and driving people crazy with jerks, and
war breaks out with England, and the Indians come on
us. But here's Mort now.”

“Ha! Moirton, and ye wasn't at matin' last noight?
Ye heerd fwat a toime we had. Most iverybody got
struck harmless, excipt mesilf and a few other hardened

sinners. Ye heerd about Koike? I reckon the
Captain's good and glad he's got the blissin'; it's a
warrantee on the Captain's skull, maybe. Fwat would
ye do for a crony now, Moirton, if Koike come to be
a praycher?”

“He aint such a fool, I guess,” said Morton, with
whom Kike's “getting religion” was an unpleasant
topic. “It'll all wear off with Kike soon enough.”

“Don't be too shore, Moirton. Things wear off
with you, sometoimes. Ye swear ye'll niver swear no
more, and ye're willin' to bet that ye'll niver bet agin,
and ye're always a-talkin' about a brave loife; but the
flesh is ferninst ye. When Koike's bad, he's bad all
over; lickin' won't take it out of him; I've throid it
mesilf. Now he's got good, the divil 'll have as hard
a toime makin' him bad as I had makin' him good.
I'm roight glad it's the divil now, and not his school-masther,
as has got to throy to handle the lad. Got
ivery lisson to-day, and didn't break a single rule of
the school! What do you say to that, Moirton? The
divil's got his hands full thair. Hey, Moirton?”

“Yes, but he'll never be a preacher. He wants to
get rich just to spite the Captain.”

“But the spoite's clean gone with the rist, Moirton.
And he'll be a praycher yit. Didn't he give me a
talkin' to this mornin', at breakfast? Think of the impudent
little scoundrel a-venturin' to tell his ould masther
that he ought to repint of his sins! He talked
to his mother, too, till she croid. He'll make her belave
she is a great sinner whin she aint wicked a bit,
excipt in her grammar, which couldn't be worse. I've

talked to her about that mesilf. Now, Moirton, I'll
tell ye the symptoms of a praycher among the Mithodists.
Those that take it aisy, and don't bother a
body, you needn't be afeard of. But those that git it
bad, and are throublesome, and middlesome, and aggravatin',
ten to one 'll turn out praychers. The lad
that'll tackle his masther and his mother at breakfast
the very mornin' afther he's got the blissin, while he's
yit a babe, so to spake, and prayche to 'em single-handed,
two to one, is a-takin' the short cut acrost the
faild to be a praycher of the worst sort; one of the
kind that's as thorny as a honey-locust.”

“Well, why can't they be peaceable, and let other
people alone? That meddling is just what I don't
like,” growled Morton.

“Bedad, Moirton, that's jist fwat Ahab and Jizebel
thought about ould Elijy! We don't any of us loike to
have our wickedness or laziness middled with. 'Twas
middlin', sure, that the Pharisays objicted to; and if
the blissed Jaysus hadn't been so throublesome, he
wouldn't niver a been crucified.”

“Why, Brady, you'll be a Methodist yourself,” said
Mr. Job Goodwin.

“Niver a bit of it, Mr. Goodwin. I'm rale lazy.
This lookin' at the state of me moind's insoides, and
this chasin' afther me sins up hill and down dale all
the toime, would niver agray with me frail constitootion.
This havin' me spiritooal pulse examined ivery
wake in class-matin', and this watchin' and prayin',
aren't for sich oidlers as me. I'm too good-natered to
trate mesilf that way, sure. Didn't you iver notice

that the highest vartoos ain't possible to a rale good-nater'd
man?”

Here Mrs. Goodwin looked at the cake on the hoe
in front of the fire, and found it well browned. Supper
was ready, and the conversation drifted to Morton's
prospective arrangement with Captain Lumsden
to cultivate his hill farm on the “sheers.” Morton's
father shook his head ominously. Didn't believe the
Captain was in 'arnest. Ef he was, Mort mout git the
fever in the winter, or die, or be laid up. 'Twouldn't
do to depend on no sech promises, no way.

But, notwithstanding his father's croaking, Morton
did hold to the Captain's promise, and to the hope
of Patty. To the Captain's plans for mobbing Wheeler
he offered a strong resistance. But he was ready
enough to engage in making sport of the despised
religionists, and even organized a party to interrupt
Magruder with tin horns when he should preach
again. But all this time Morton was uneasy in himself.
What had become of his dreams of being a
hero? Here was Kike bearing all manner of persecution
with patience, devoting himself to the welfare of
others, while all his own purposes of noble and knightly
living were hopelessly sunk in a morass of adverse
circumstances. One of Morton's temperament must
either grow better or worse, and, chafing under these
embarassments, he played and drank more freely than
ever.