The End of the World: A Love Story
CHAPTER XL.
SELLING OUT.
The flight of the Hawk did not long dampen the ardor of those who werelooking for signs in the heaven above and the earth beneath. I haveknown a school-master to stand, switch in hand, and give a stubborn boya definite number of minutes to yield. The boy who would not havesubmitted on account of any amount of punishment, was subdued by theawful waiting. We have all read the old school-book story of theprison-warden who brought a mob of criminals to subjection by the sameprocess. Millerism produced some such effect as this. The assured beliefof the believers had a great effect on others; the dreadful drawing onof the set time day by day produced an effect in some regions absolutelyawful. An eminent divine, at that time a pastor in Boston, has told methat the leaven of Adventism permeated all religious bodies, and that hehimself could not avoid the fearful sense of waiting for somecatastrophe--the impression that all this expectation of people musthave some significance. If this was the effect in Boston, imagine theeffect in a country neighborhood like Clark township. Andrew, skepticalas he was visionary, was almost the only man that escaped theinfection. Jonas would have been as frankly irreverent if the day ofdoom had come as he was at all times; but even Jonas had come to theconclusion that "somethin' would happen, or else somethin' else."August, with a young man's impressibility, was awe-stricken withthoughts of the nearing end of the world, and Julia accepted itas settled.
It is a good thing that the invisible world is so thoroughly shut outfrom this. The effect of too vivid a conception of it is neverwholesome. It was pernicious in the middle age, and clairvoyance andspirit-rapping would be great evils to the world, if it were not thatthe spirits, even of-the ablest men, in losing their bodies seem to losetheir wits. It is well that it is so, for if Washington Irving dictatedto a medium accounts of the other world in a style such as that of his"Little Britain," for instance, we should lose all interest in theaffairs of this sphere, and nobody would buy our novels.
This fever of excitement kept alive Samuel Anderson's determination tosell his farms for a trifle as a testimony to unbelievers. He found thatfifty dollars would meet his expenses until the eleventh of August, andso the price was set at that.
As soon as Andrew heard of this, he privately arranged with Jonas to buyit; but Mrs. Anderson utterly refused. She said she could see through itall. Jonas was one of Andrew's fingers. Andrew had got to be a sort of aking in Clark township, and Jonas was--was the king's fool. She did notmean that any of her property should go into the hands of the cliquethat were trying to rob her of her property and her daughter. Even fortwo weeks they should not own her house!
Before this speech was ended, Bob Walker entered the door.
Bob was tall, stooped, good-natured, and desperately poor. With tonchildren under twelve years of age, with an incorrigible fondness forloafing and telling funny stories, Bob saw no chance to improve hiscondition. A man may be either honest or lazy and got rich; but a manwho Is both honest and indolent is doomed. Bob lived in a cabin on theAnderson farm, and when not hired by Samuel Anderson he did days' workhere and there, riding to and from his labor on a raw-boned mare, thatwas the laughing-stock of the county. Bob pathetically called herSplinter-shin, and he always rode bareback, for the very good reasonthat he had neither saddle nor sheepskin.
"I WANT TO BUY YOUR PLACE."]
"Mr. Anderson," said Bob, standing in the door and trying to straightenthe chronic stoop out of his shoulders, "I want to buy your place."
If Bob had said that he wanted to be elected president Samuel Andersoncould not have been more surprised.
"You look astonished; but folks don't know everything. I 'low I know howto lay by a little. But I never could git enough to buy a decent kind ofa tater-patch. So I says to my ole woman this mornin', 'Jane,' says I,'let's git some ground. Let's buy out Mr. Anderson, and see how it'llfeel to be rich fer a few days. If she all burns up, let her burn, Isay. We've had a plaguey hard time of it, let's see how it goes to owntwo farms fer awhile.' And so we thought we'd ruther hev the farms fertwo weeks than a little money in a ole stocking. What d'ye say?"
Jonas here put in that he didn't see why they mightn't sell to him aswell as to Bob Walker. Cynthy Ann had worked fer Mrs. Anderson feryears, and him and Cynthy was a-goin' to be one man soon. Why notsell to them?
"Because selling to you is selling to Andrew," said Mrs. Abigail, in aconclusive way.
And so Bob got the farms, possession to be given after the fourteenth ofAugust, thus giving the day of doom three days of grace. And Bob roderound the county boasting that he was as rich a man as there was inClark Township. And Jonas declared that ef the eend did come in themonth of August, Abigail would find some onsettled bills agin her fercheatin' the brother outen the inheritance. And Clark Townshipagreed with him.
August was secretly pleased that one obstacle to his marriage was gone.If Andrew should prove right, and the world should outlast the middle ofAugust, there would be nothing dishonorable in his marrying a girl thatwould have nothing to sacrifice.
Andrew, for his part, gave vent to his feelings, as usual, by two orthree bitter remarks leveled at the whole human race, though nowadays hewas inclined to make exceptions in favor of several people, of whomJulia stood first. She was a woman of the old-fashioned kind, he said,fit to go alongside Heloise or Chaucer's Grisilde.