CHAPTER XXIV—A MODERN MIRACLE

MRS. DURHAM, the Doctor wants you,” said Charlie when McLeod’s footfall had died away.

“Charlie, dear, why don’t you call me ‘Mama’—surely you love me a little wee bit, don’t you?” she asked, taking the boy’s hand tenderly in hers.

“Yes’m,” he replied hanging his head.

“Then do say Mama. You don’t know how good it would be in my ears.”

“I try to but it chokes me,” he half whispered, glancing timidly up at her. “Let me call you Aunt Margaret, I always wanted an aunt and I think your name Margaret’s so sweet,” he shyly added.

She kissed him and said, “All right, if that’s all you will give me.” She passed on into the library where the Preacher waited her.

“My dear, I’ve just given young McLeod a piece of my mind. I wanted to say to you that you are entirely mistaken in his character. He’s a bad egg. I know all the facts about his treachery. He’s as smooth a liar as I’ve met in years.”

“With all his brute nature, there’s some good in him,” she persisted.

“Well, it will stay in him. He will never let it get out.”

“All right, have your way about it for the time. We’ll see who is right in the long run. Now I’ve a more pressing and tougher problem for your solution.”

“What is it?”

“Dick.”

“What’s he done this time?”

“He steals everything he can get his hands on.”

“He is a puzzle.”

“He’s the greatest liar I ever saw,” she continued. “He simply will not tell the truth if he can think up a lie in time. I’d say run him off the place, but for Charlie. He seems to love the little scoundrel. I’m afraid his influence over Charlie will be vicious, but it would break the child’s heart to drive him away. What shall we do with him?”

The Preacher laughed. “I give it up, my dear, you’ve got beyond my depth now. I don’t know whether he’s got a soul. Certainly the very rudimentary foundations of morals seem lacking. I believe you could take a young ape and teach him quicker. I leave him with you. At present it’s a domestic problem.”

“Thanks, that’s so encouraging.”

Dick was a puzzle and no mistake about it. But to Charlie his rolling mischievous eyes, his cunning fingers and his wayward imagination were unfailing fountains of life. He found every bird’s nest within two miles of town. He could track a rabbit almost as swiftly and surely as a hound. He could work like fury when he had a mind to, and loaf a half day over one row of the garden when he didn’t want to work, which was his chronic condition.

When the revival season set in for the negroes in the summer, the days of sorrow began for householders. Every negro in the community became absolutely worthless and remained so until the emotional insanity attending their meetings wore off.

Aunt Mary, Mrs. Durham’s cook, got salvation over again every summer with increasing power and increasing degeneration in her work. Some nights she got home at two o’clock and breakfast was not ready until nine. Some nights she didn’t get home at all, and Mrs. Durham had to get breakfast herself.

It was a hard time for Dick who had not yet experienced religion, and on whom fell the brunt of the extra work and Mrs. Durham’s fretfulness besides.

“I tell you what less do, Charlie!” he cried one day. “Less go down ter dat nigger chu’ch, en bus’ up de meetin’! I’se gettin’ tired er dis.”

“How’ll you do it?”

“I show you somefin’?” He reached under his shirt next to his skin, and pulled out Dr. Graham’s sun glass.

“Where’d you get that, Dick?”

“Foun’ it whar er man lef’ it.” He walled his eyes solemnly.

“Des watch here when I turns ’im in de sun. I kin set dat pile er straw er fire wid it!”

“You mustn’t set the church afire!” warned Charlie.

“Naw, chile, but I git up in de gallery, en when ole Uncle Josh gins ter holler en bawl en r’ar en charge, I fling dat blaze er light right on his bal’ haid, en I set him afire sho’s you bawn!”

“Dick, I wouldn’t do it,” said Charlie, laughing in spite of himself.

Charlie refused to accompany him. But Dick’s mind was set on the necessity of this work of reform. So in the afternoon he slipped off without leave and quietly made his way into the gallery of the Negro Baptist church.

The excitement was running high. Uncle Josh had preached one sermon an hour in length, and had called up the mourners. At least fifty had come forward. The benches had been cleared for five rows back from the pulpit to give plenty of room for the mourners to crawl over the floor, walk back and forth and shout when they “came through,” and for their friends to fan them.

This open place was covered with wheat straw to keep the mourners off the bare floor, and afford some sort of comfort for those far advanced in mourning, who went into trances and sometimes lay motionless for hours on their backs or flat on their faces.

The mourners had kicked and shuffled this straw out to the edges and the floor was bare. Uncle Josh had sent two deacons out for more straw.

In the meantime he was working himself up to another mighty climax of exhortation to move sinners to come forward.

“Come on ter glory you po, po sinners, en flee ter de Lamb er God befo de flames er hell swaller you whole! At de last great day de Sperit ’ll flash de light er his shinin’ face on dis ole parch up sinful worl’, en hit ’ll ketch er fire in er minute, an de yearth ’ll melt wid furvient heat! Whar ’ll you be den po tremblin’ sinner? Whar ’ll you be when de flame er de Sperit smites de moon and de stars wid fire, en dey gin ter drap outen de sky en knock big holes in de burnin’ yearth? Whar ’ll you be when de rocks melt wid dat heat, en de sun hide his face in de black smoke dat rise fum de pit?”

Moans and groans and shrieks, louder and louder filled the air. Uncle Josh paused a moment and looked for his deacons with the straw. They were just coming up the steps with a great armful over their heads.

“What’s de matter wid you breddern! Fetch on dat wheat straw! Here’s dese tremblin’ souls gwine down inter de flames er hell des fur de lak er wheat straw!”

The brethren hurried forward with the wheat straw, and just as they reached Uncle Josh standing perspiring in the midst of his groaning mourners, Dick flashed from the gallery a stream of dazzling light on the old man’s face and held it steadily on his bald head. Josh was too astonished to move at first. He was simply paralysed with fear. It was all right to talk about the flame of the Spirit, but he wasn’t exactly ready to run into it. Suddenly he clapped his hands on the top of his head and sprang straight up in the air yelling in a plain everyday profane voice, “God-der-mighty! What’s dat?”

The brethren holding the straw saw it and stood dumb with terror. The light disappeared from Uncle Josh’s head and lit the straw in splendour on one of the deacon’s shoulders. Aunt Mary’s voice was heard above the mourners’ din, clear, shrill and soul piercing.

“G-l-o-r-y! G-l-o-r-y ter God! De flame er de Sperit! De judgment day! Yas Lawd, I’se here! Glory! Halleluyah!”

Suddenly the straw on the deacon’s back burst into flames! And pandemonium broke loose. A weak-minded sinner screamed, “De flames er Hell!”

The mourners smelled the smoke and sprang from the floor with white staring eyes. When they saw the fire and got their bearings they made for the open,—they jumped on each others’ back and made for the door like madmen. Those nearest the windows sprang through, and when the lower part of the window was jammed, big buck negroes jumped on the backs of the lower crowd and plunged through the two upper sashes with a crash that added new terror to the panic.

In two minutes the church was empty, and the yard full of crazy, shouting negroes.

Dick stepped from the gallery into the crowd as the last ones emerged, ran up to the pulpit and stamped out the fire in the straw with his bare feet. He looked around to see if they had left anything valuable behind in the stampede, and sauntered leisurely out of the church.

“Now dog-gone ’em let ’em yell!” he muttered to himself.

When Uncle Josh sufficiently recovered his senses to think, and saw the church still standing, with not even a whiff of smoke to be seen, instead of the roaring furnace he had expected, he was amazed. He called his scattered deacons together and they went cautiously back to investigate.

“Hit’s no use in talkin’ Bre’r Josh, dey sho wuz er fire!” cried one of the deacons.

“Sho’s de Lawd’s in heaben. I feel it gittin’ on my fingers fo I drap dat straw!” said another.

“Hit smite me fust right on top er my haid!” whispered Uncle Josh in awe.

They cautiously approached the pulpit and there in front of it lay the charred fragments of the burned straw pile.

They gathered around it in awe-struck wonder. One of them touched it with his foot.

“Doan do dat!” cried Uncle Josh, lifting his hand with authority.

They drew back, Uncle Josh saw the immense power in that heap of charred straw. Some of it was a little damp and it had been only partly burned.

“Dar’s de mericle er de Sperit!” he solemnly declared.

“Yas Lawd!” echoed a deacon.

“Fetch de hammer, en de saw, en de nails, en de boards en build right dar en altar ter de Sperit!” were his prophetic commands.

And they did. They got an old show case of glass, put the charred straw in it, and built an open box work around it just where it fell in front of the pulpit.

Then a revival broke out that completely paralysed the industries of Campbell county. Every negro stopped work and went to that church. Uncle Josh didn’t have to preach or to plead. They came in troops towards the magic altar, whose fame and mystery had thrilled every superstitious soul with its power. The benches were all moved out and the whole church floor given up to mourners. Uncle Josh had an easy time walking around just adding a few terrifying hints to trembling sinners, or helping to hold some strong sister when she had “come through,” with so much glory in her bones that there was danger she would hurt somebody.

After a week the matter became so serious that the white people set in motion an investigation of the affair. Dick had thrown out a mysterious hint that he knew some things that were very funny.

“Doan you tell nobody!” he would solemnly say to Charlie.

And then he would lie down on the grass and roll and laugh. At length by dint of perseverance, and a bribe of a quarter, the Preacher induced Dick to explain the mystery. He did, and it broke up the meeting.

Uncle Josh’s fury knew no bounds. He was heartbroken at the sudden collapse of his revival, chagrined at the recollection of his own terror at the fire, and fearful of an avalanche of backsliders from the meeting among those who had professed even with the greatest glory.

He demanded that the Preacher should turn Dick over to him for correction. The Preacher took a few hours to consider whether he should whip him himself or turn him over to Uncle Josh. Dick heard Uncle Josh’s demand. Out behind the stable he and Charlie held a council of war.

“You go see Miss Mar’get fur me, en git up close to her, en tell her taint right ter ’low no low down black nigger ter whip me!”

“All right Dick, I will,” agreed Charlie.

“Case ef ole Josh beats me I gwine ter run away. I nebber git ober dat.”

Dick had threatened to run away often before when he wanted to force Charlie to do something for him. Once he had gone a mile out of town with his clothes tied in a bundle, and Charlie trudging after him begging him not to leave.

The boy did his best to save Dick the humiliation of a whipping at the hands of Uncle Josh, but in vain.

When Uncle Josh led him out to the stable lot, his face was not pleasant to look upon. There was a dangerous gleam in Dick’s eye that boded no good to his enemy.

“You imp er de debbil!” exclaimed Uncle Josh shaking his switch with unction.

“I fool you good enough, you ole bal’ headed ape!” answered Dick gritting his teeth defiantly.

“I make you sing enudder chune fo I’se done wid you.”

“En if you does, nigger, you know what I gwine do fur you?” cried Dick rolling his eyes up at his enemy.

“What kin you do, honey? asked Uncle Josh, humouring his victim now with the evident relish of a cat before his meal on a mouse.

“Ef you hits me hard, I gwine ter burn you house down on you haid some night, en run erway des es sho es I kin stick er match to it,” said Dick.

“You is, is you?” thundered Josh with wrath.

“Dat I is. En I burn yo ole chu’ch de same night.”

Uncle Josh was silent a moment. Dick’s words had chilled his heart. He was afraid of him, but he was afraid to back down from what was now evidently his duty. So without further words he whipped him. Yet to save his life he could not hit him as hard as he thought he deserved.

That night Dick disappeared from Hambright, and for weeks every evening at dusk the wistful face of Charlie Gaston could be seen on the big hill to the south of town vainly watching for somebody. He would always take something to eat in his pockets, and when he gave up his vigil he would place the food under a big shelving rock where they had often played together. But the birds and ground squirrels ate it. He would slip back the next day hoping to see Dick jump out of the cave and surprise him.

And then at last he gave it up, sat down under the rock and cried. He knew Dick would grow to be a man somewhere out in the big world and never come back.