THE LEATHERWOOD GOD. William Dean Howells

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СКАЧАТЬ them, and when he could pull himself from the crowd he went away into the night between them.

      When Matthew Braile made his escape with his wife from the crowd and began to walk home through the dim, hot night, he said, "Is Jane Gillespie any particular hand at fried chicken?"

      "Now you stop, Matthew!" his wife said.

      "Because that would account for it. I reckon it was fried chicken the ravens brought to Elijah. All men of God are fond of fried chicken."

      His wife would not dispute directly with his perversity; she knew that in this mood of his it would be useless trying to make him partake the wonder she shared with her neighbors that the stranger had chosen David Gillespie again for his host out of the many leading men who had pressed their hospitality upon him, and that he should have preferred his apathy to their eagerness.

      "I wish he had worn his yellow beaver hat in the pulpit," Braile went on. "It must have been a disappointment to Abe Reverdy, but perhaps he consoled himself with a full sight of the fellow's long hair. He ought to part it in the middle, like Thomas Jefferson, and do it up in a knot like a woman. Well, we can't have everything, even in a man of God; but maybe he isn't really a man of God. That would account for a good many things. But I think he shows taste in preferring old Gillespie to Peter Hingston; next to Abe Reverdy he's the biggest fool in Leatherwood. Maybe the prophet knew by instinct that there would be better fried chicken at Gillespie's."

      His wife disdained to make a direct answer. "You may be sure they give him of their best, whatever it is. And the Gillespies may be poor, but when it comes to respectability and good works they've got a right to hold their heads up with the best in this settlement. That girl has done all the work of the house since her mother died, when she wasn't a little thing half grown; and old David has slaved off his mortgage till his farm's free and clear; and he don't owe anybody a cent."

      "Oh, I don't say anything against Gillespie; all I say is that Brother

       Dylks knows which side his bread is buttered on; inspired, probably."

      "What makes you so bitter, to-night, Matthew?" his wife halted him a little, with her question.

      "Well, the Temple always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I hate to see brethren agreeing together in unity. You oughtn't to have taken me, Martha."

      "I'll never take you again!" she said.

      "And that man's a rascal, if ever there was one. Real men of God don't wear their hair down to their waists and come snorting and shouting in black broadcloth to a settlement like this for the good of folks' souls."

      "You've got no right to say that, Matthew. And if you go round talking that way you'll make yourself more unpopular than you are already."

      "Oh, I'll be careful, Martha. I'll just think it, and perhaps put two or three of the leading intellects like Abe and Sally on their guard. But come, come, Martha! You know as well as I do, he's a rascal. Don't you believe it?"

      "I believe in giving everybody a chance. Don't your own law books say a man's innocent till he's proved guilty?"

      "Something like that. And I'm not trying Brother Dylks in open court at present. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt if he's ever brought before my judgment seat. But you've got to allow that his long hair and black broadcloth and his snort and shout are against him."

      "I don't believe in them any more than you do," she owned. "But don't you persecute him because he's religious, Matthew."

      "Oh, I don't object to him because he's religious, though I think there's more religion in Leatherwood already than any ten towns would know what to do with. He's got to do more than preach his brand of religion before I'd want to trouble him."

      They were at the hewn log which formed the step to the porch between the rooms of their cabin. A lank hound rose from the floor, and pulled himself back from his forward-planted paws, and whimpered a welcome to them; a captive coon rattled his chain from his corner under the porch roof.

      "Why don't you let that poor thing go, Matthew?" Mrs. Braile asked.

      "Well, I will, some day. But the little chap that brought it to me was like our—"

      He stopped; both were thinking the same thing and knew they were. "I saw the likeness from the first, too," the wife said.

      Chapter 3

       Table of Contents

      The Gillespies arrived at their simpler log cabin half an hour later than the Brailes at theirs. It was on the border of the settlement, and beyond it for a mile there was nothing but woods, walnut and chestnut and hickory, not growing thickly as the primeval forest grew to the northward along the lake, but standing openly about in the pleasant park-like freedom of the woods-pastures of that gentler latitude. Beyond the wide stretch of trees and meadow lands, the cornfields and tobacco patches opened to the sky again. On their farther border stood a new log cabin, defined by its fresh barked logs in the hovering dark.

      Gillespie pulled the leatherwood latch-string which lifted the catch of his door, and pushed it open. "Go in, Jane," he said to his daughter, and the girl vanished slimly through, with a glance over her shoulder at Dylks where he stood aloof a few steps from her father.

      Gillespie turned to his guest. "Did you see her?" he asked.

      "Yes, I walked over to her house this morning."

      "Did any one see you?"

      "No. Her man was away."

      Gillespie turned with an effect of helplessness, and looked down at the wood-pile where he stood. "I don't know," he said, "what keeps me from spliting your head open with that ax."

      "I do," Dylks said.

      "Man!" the old man threatened, "Don't go too far."

      "It wasn't the fear of God which you pretend is in your heart, but the fear of man." Dylks added with a vulgar drop from the solemn words, "You would hang for it. I haven't put myself in your power without counting all the costs to both of us."

      Gillespie waved his answer off with an impatient hand.

      "Did she know you?"

      "Why not? It hasn't been so long. I haven't changed so much. I wear my hair differently, and I dress better since I've been in Philadelphia. She knew me in a minute as well as I knew her. I didn't ask for her present husband; I thought one at a time was enough."

      "What are you going to do?"

      "Nothing—first. I might have told her she had been in a hurry. But if she don't bother me, I won't her. We got as far as that. And I reckon she won't, but I thought we'd better have a clear understanding, and she knows now it's bigamy in her case, and bigamy's a penitentiary offense. I made that clear. And now see here, David: I'm going to stay here in this settlement, and I don't want any trouble from you, no matter what you think of my doings, past, present, or future. I don't want you to say anything, or look anything. Don't you let on, even to that girl of yours, that you ever saw me before in your life. If you do, you'll wish you had split my head open with that ax. But I'm not afraid; I've got you safe, and I've got your sister safe."

      Gillespie СКАЧАТЬ