it was the next day on the train on their way to millerstown, to visit hiram's church and his family, that an illuminating little incident occurred in the matter of the gifts they were taking to the children.
"what's that package you have, margaret?" jennie inquired, rather in the tone of a demand, as the four of them sat in two facing seats of a day coach, jennie and sadie having both offered daniel the seat by the window and regarding margaret with evident disapproval because she had not offered hers.
"a book for the children," margaret replied, thinking jennie's question and tone both somewhat surprisingly impertinent. "an illustrated book of bible stories. i found very little to choose from in the new munich shops; this was the best thing i could find. i'm sure your brother hiram will approve of such a proper book, though it's at the same time one that even naughty little boys will love—just full of gruesome pictures. that's why i got it."
"but hiram's boys ain't naughty; they're awful well-behaved," sadie corrected this unjust aspersion.
"i hope not too well-behaved, or i shan't feel at home with them. i like 'the dear, delightful bad ones,' as riley calls them."
"you had no need to buy them a present, margaret," jennie reproved her. "danny gave me a dollar yesterday for you and him, and then i and sadie each put fifty cents at—and i got nice presents for the children from us all together."
"what did you pay for the book, margaret?" asked daniel. "it looks large."
"i forget exactly; three dollars, i believe, or two-fifty."
"tut, tut!" exclaimed daniel hastily. "you're too extravagant!"
"my goodness! two-fifty or three dollars yet!" cried jennie. "money must be a-plenty with you, margaret."
"i'll tell you what," suggested daniel fussily: "keep back the presents you brought along, jennie, and give the book from us all, and then the next time we come to hiram's we can use those other presents."
"yes, well, but," objected jennie, "then i and sadie won't have paid our full share if margaret gave two-fifty or three dollars for the book yet."
"which was it, margaret?" daniel inquired a bit sharply. "surely you know whether you paid two-fifty or three dollars for the book?"
"does it matter? if you require the exact statistics i remember the price of the book was three-fifty, and they offered it to me for three."
"then, jennie," said daniel, "you and sadie each give a quarter more and we'll save back the other things until the next time."
and to margaret's unspeakable astonishment her husband's sisters opened their purses, counted out twenty-five cents each and passed it over to daniel, who serenely received it and dropped it into his own purse.
"if you're playing a game," said margaret, holding out her hand, "i'll take my share, please—two and a quarter."
"but you and i are one," said daniel jocularly, "and what's mine is——"
"your own?" asked margaret as he hesitated.
daniel laughed with appreciation of this witty retort. it was discouraging to margaret that he always laughed when she was fatuous and never when she said a thing she considered rather good.
"and, my dear," he admonished her, "remember after this that we always put together to buy for hiram's children. we can do better that way, not only for the children, but it comes lighter on each one of us."
margaret did not reply. the incident, somehow, struck a chill to her heart.
"it must be," she concluded, "that jennie and sadie have some little income of their own and are not entirely dependent upon daniel."
if this were true, she felt it would exonerate her from some of the forbearance she had been so carefully practising.
as they reached millerstown just in time for the opening of the service at hiram's church, margaret first saw her brother-in-law from the front pew, as he stood before his congregation in his pulpit.
"you take notice," jennie had warned her on their way from the station to the church, "how the folks in hiram's church look when we come in and walk up to the front pew."
"at me?"
"well, at you, mebby, this sunday, because this is the first time they are seeing you. but it's danny they look at mostly, such a way-up lawyer as he is, coming into their church. and every year he gives them a contribution yet."
there actually was a stir in the congregation as the party of four was ushered to the pew reserved for them, and margaret noted curiously the look of satisfaction it brought to the faces of her husband and his sisters.
the village volunteer choir was singing a "selection" as they entered:
"we're going home to glory
in the good old-fashioned way."
in hiram's prayer, which followed, he informed god, whom he addressed in epistolary style as "dear god," that "the good old-fashioned way" was plenty good enough for the members of the millerstown united brethren church.
margaret, unable to keep her mind on the rambling discourse intended to be a prayer, noted that the speaker's accent and diction, while not illiterate, were very crude, that he took a manifest pleasure in the hackneyed religious phrases which rolled stentoriously from his lips, and that he wore an expression, as he prayed, of smug self-satisfaction. she also observed that, like daniel, he was small, slight, and insignificant looking; and she suddenly realized, with a sinking of her heart, that in this uncouth village preacher she really saw her husband as he would assuredly appear if stripped of the veneer which an earlier training and a college education had given him.
as they sat down after the prayer, sadie whispered to her: "that's hiram's lizzie over there with three of the children." and glancing across the aisle, margaret saw in the opposite front pew a buxom, matronly young woman, dressed somewhat elaborately in clothes of village cut and with a rather heavy but honest and wholesome countenance; her three children, shining from soap and water, and dressed also elaborately in village style, were gathered with her in the pew.
in the sermon that hiram preached margaret couldn't help suspecting that he was, this morning, doing some "special stunts" to impress her, so often did his complacent glance wander down to meet her upward, attentive gaze. for indeed she couldn't help listening to him, so astonishing did his so-called sermon seem to her, so colossal his self-approval.
his theme was lot's unfortunate career in sodom, and in his extraordinary paraphrasing of the scriptural story he gave it as his opinion that probably one of the causes leading to lot's downfall was the ambition of mrs. lot and her daughter to get into sodom's four hundred. from the lot family as social climbers in sodom, the preacher launched forth into a denunciation of the idle, dissipated lives of fashionable women (with which he assumed a first-hand intimacy), a denunciation that seemed rather irrelevant as spiritual food for his simple village hearers. he hauled into his discourse, without regard to sequence of ideas, time, space, or logic, martha and mary of the new testament, saying that some one had once asked him which of the two he'd have preferred to marry. "martha before dinner and mary after dinner," had been his response, and his congregation rippled with amusement and almost applauded. a few moments later he was moving them to tears by his deep-toned, solemn references to death and the grave and "the hollow sounds of clods of earth falling upon the coffin lid."
before pronouncing the benediction he asked the congregation to "tarry a moment for social intercourse"; and in the exchange of greetings which followed, margaret could see how daniel, jennie, and sadie revelled in the obsequiousness of most of these shy villagers before their pastor's distinguished brother and his two elaborately arrayed sisters; for jennie and sadie looked very expensive indeed in their near-seal coats which they were sure none but an expert could distinguish from sealskin.
when they presently went over to the parsonage, jennie informed margaret that lizzie's father had "furnished for her." the parlour which they entered was fitted out in heavy old-gold plush sofa and chairs, a marble-topped centre table, a gilt-framed motto over the mantel, "welcome," and a rug in front of the sofa stamped with the words, "sweet home."
at the abundant and well-cooked dinner to which they all gathered immediately after church and which was served without any superfluous ceremony, since "hiram's lizzie" kept but one "hired girl," hiram entirely monopolized the table talk, even daniel being no match in egotism for his clerical brother, and jennie managing with difficulty to wedge in an occasional warning to sadie to refrain from eating certain things that might give her "the indigestion."
as for the children, they sat in awed silence under the double spell of their father's flow of speech and the presence of a stranger, their new aunt. they were all three rather dull, heavy children, from whom margaret's friendly and playful overtures could extract very little response.
hiram boasted about himself so shamelessly that margaret wondered why his wife, sensible woman as she appeared to be, did not blush for him. but lizzie's pennsylvania german sense of deep loyalty to her spouse, her reverence for him as a minister, no less than her natural simplicity and stupidity, blinded her to his painfully obvious weaknesses and made her see in him only those things in which he was her superior. he, on his part, patronized her kindly. she could not have suited him better if she had been made to order.
"yes, i'm often told by folks who hear me preach or lecture that i'm a born orator. that's what they say i am—a born orator. no credit to me—comes natural. you noticed, sister-in-law, my sermon this morning was entirely extemporaneous. only a few notes to guide me. nothing at all but a few notes. and did i pause for a word, sister-in-law, did i?"
"i didn't hear you pause, brother-in-law," responded margaret, adding to herself, "you big wind-bag! if you ever did pause for a word, your words might occasionally mean something."
"you might think i spent a great deal of time in the preparation of my sermons," continued hiram. "any one would think so that heard me. but i can prove it by lizzie that i don't have to. give me a text and get me started and it's like rolling down hill for me. natural gift. couldn't help it if i wanted to. have my people laughing one minute, crying the next—story of mary and martha—clods of earth falling on coffin lid—humour and pathos alternately. that's oratory, sister-in-law. why, they think here in millerstown that they can't have any kind of a celebration without me to speak—fourth of july, memorial day, lincoln's and washington's birthday celebrations, y.m.c.a. meetings, y.w.c.a. rallies, w.c.t.u. gatherings, s.p.c.a. anniversaries. i'm constantly in demand, constantly. nothing quite right unless reverend leitzel's there to speak! ain't it so, lizzie?"
"yes, indeed, it's something wonderful the way they're after him all the time to speak," said lizzie with pride.
"when i take my month's vacation in the summer and they have to listen to a substitute for four sundays, oh, my, but then you hear them growl! 'the substitute may be a good enough preacher' they say to me, 'but he won't be our reverend leitzel.' and when i come back to them again—well, the way they flock to hear me the very first sunday, and the way they tell me, 'that substitute never made us laugh once; he never made us shed a tear. there's no sermons like yours, reverend leitzel!' ain't they always glad to see me back again, lizzie, after my vacation?"
"well, i guess!" replied lizzie, holding a large slice of bread on her palm and spreading it with butter for zwingli.
"i'm even invited to new munich sometimes to give an address and to lebanon and even to reading yet, and that's a big place. you see they know i have the power to hold an audience. i never fail to hold my audience. did you ever see me fail to hold my audiences, lizzie?"
"no, indeed, they're always sorry when he stops preaching!" affirmed lizzie.
"i was once approached by some men who offered to finance me as an evangelist, and if i had consented i'd be as rich a man to-day as brother daniel is, for there ain't a more money-making profession to-day than evangelism, every one knows that. look at billy sunday's rake-offs! but i had to refuse them because they wanted me to do a certain thing that my conscience wouldn't leave me do: they said a feature of my evangelistic campaign would have to be addresses to audiences of women only, on eugenics; that you couldn't have a swell, up-to-date evangelistic campaign without that big drawing card. well, i said i could easy do that; so that part was all right. but when they told me that in order to make it a go, i'd have to interduce into my talk to women only, one or two sudgestive remarks, i refused!" said hiram heroically. "not one sudgestive remark will i make, i told them. 'take me or leave me, but i won't make one sudgestive remark to an audience of women only!' so," he concluded grandly, "by standing up for my principles, you see, i lost a fortune!"
margaret glanced, now and then, at daniel and his sisters to learn from their faces whether they considered hiram sane; but they, far from looking alarmed or disgusted, seemed to regard the bouquets he flung at himself as a personal tribute to themselves, his near relatives, who could at least inhale their fragrance.
"yes, hiram's a born preacher, that i will say," remarked jennie.
"yes, from a little boy, yet, he always wanted to be a preacher," added sadie.
"he's got the gift all right," affirmed daniel emphatically.
an expectant pause, just here, made margaret realize that they were waiting for her to cast her bouquet at hiram's feet. she was an amiable creature and would have been perfectly willing to oblige them if her wits had been more agile; but for the life of her she could think of nothing to say that would not too deeply perjure her soul.
her silence, however, in no way daunted hiram.
"how did you like my sermon this morning, sister-in-law?" he frankly inquired.
"it was the best—of its kind—i ever heard," responded margaret, looking at him without blinking.
"thank you," he bowed. "i'm sure you are perfectly sincere, too, in your complimentary opinion."
"perfectly sincere," said margaret.
"in what church were you raised?"
"my family has a perpetual life ownership of a pew in the oldest episcopal church in charleston, but i must admit that it isn't often occupied."
"you are a christian, i trust?" said hiram gravely.
margaret did not think a reply necessary, or perhaps advisable. so she made none.
"are you a christian, sister-in-law?" hiram solemnly repeated.
"i'm a democrat, a suffragist, a southerner—i don't know what all!" said margaret flippantly.
"do you mean to tell me, sister-in-law, that you ain't a christian?"
"i consider that a very personal question, and if you call me 'sister-in-law' again, i'll—i'll steal your little girl here," she added, slipping her arm about the unresponsive child at her side, "and take her home with me. do you want to come to new munich with your new aunt, my dear?" she asked the child.
"yes, ma'am."
this digression diverted the talk for a time from the all-engrossing topic of hiram's oratorical prowess, and as there now ensued the distracting clatter of clearing the laden table for dessert, the respite continued a bit longer.
but after dinner, when they were again gathered in the parlour, hiram continued his monologue with unabated relish, pacing the length of the room as he talked, his well-disciplined, or utterly phlegmatic, children sitting in silence among their elders, daniel fondly holding on his knee christian, the youngest of the three (there was a rather new baby upstairs), and letting him play with his big gold watch.
having got the impression that margaret was an "unbeliever," hiram entered upon a polemic in defence of "the faith once delivered to the saints," sweeping from the earth with one fell stroke all the results of german scholarship in biblical criticism, refuting in three sentences the arguments (as he understood them) of darwin, spencer, and huxley, putting matthew arnold severely in his place as "a back number," rating emerson as "a gross materialist," and himself as a godly and spiritually minded favourite of almighty god.
margaret soon began to feel very restive under this continued deluge. she would have liked a chance to cultivate the children, or to talk to lizzie and try to discover whether that good, sensible face had anything behind it besides an evidently doting belief in her husband.
"probably not," she mused, while hiram continued to blow his trumpet. "a merciful providence, foreseeing her marriage to this unspeakable ass, made her brainless. oh! what would uncle osmond have done with a creature like this hiram? what would happen, i wonder, if i said 'damn' before him? if it weren't for the feelings of daniel and his sisters, i'd certainly try it on him. if i find myself alone with him, i'm going to swear! i'll swear at him! i'll say, 'you little damn fool!'"
