Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

  CHAPTER VIII.

  _THE MEETING AND ITS MISSIONARY WORK_.

  The Methodist church in the village is doing now, as it has alwaysdone, a good and noble work for Christianity and the cause of publicmorals; but it has not escaped the trials which are permittedsometimes to afflict the Church militant. Years ago, when thecongregation was first organized, it erected a small but verypretty frame meeting-house. In the course of time the people becamedissatisfied with the location of the house of worship; and as theyhad a good offer for the site, they sold it and bought a better one inanother quarter. Then they put rollers under the building, and as soonas it was off the ground the purchaser of the lot began to build adwelling-house on the site. It was slow work pushing the church alongthe street, and before they got far somebody discovered that the titleof the new site was not good, and so the bargain was annulled. Thenext day the brethren went plunging around town trying to buy anothersite, but nobody had one to sell; and on the following morning thesupervisors got an order from the court requiring that meeting-houseto be removed from the public street within twenty-four hours.

  The brethren were nearly wild about it, and they begged old Brindleyto let them run the concern in on his vacant lot temporarily untilthey could look around. But Brindley belonged to another denomination,and he said he felt that it would be wrong for him to do anythingto help a church that believed false doctrines. Then they ran themeeting-house out on the turnpike beyond the town, whereupon theturnpike company notified them that its charges would be eight dollarsa day for toll. So they hauled it back again; and while going down thehill it broke loose, plunged through the fence of Dr. Mackey's gardenand brought up on top of his asparagus-bed. He is an Episcopalian,and he sued the meeting for damages; and the sheriff levied upon themeetinghouse. The brethren paid the bill and dragged the building outagain.

  They wanted to put it in the court-house yard, but Judge Twiddler, whois a Presbyterian, said that after examining the statutes carefully hecould find no law allowing a Methodist meeting-house to be locatedin that place. In despair, the brethren ran the building down to theriver-shore and fitted it on a huge raft of logs, concluding to tie itto the wharf until they could buy a lot. But as the owner of thewharf handed them on the third day a bill of twenty-five dollars forwharfage, they took the building out and anchored it in the stream.That night a tug-boat, coming up the river in the dark, ran halfwaythrough the Sunday-school room, and a Dutch brig, coming intocollision with it, was drawn out with the pulpit and three of thefront pews dangling from the bowsprit. The owners of both vessels suedfor damages, and the United States authorities talked of confiscatingthe meeting-house as an obstruction to navigation. But a few daysafterward the ice-gorge sent a flood down the river and broke thebuilding loose from its anchor. It was subsequently washed ashore onKeyser's farm; and he said he was willing to let it stay there at fourdollars a day rent until he was ready to plough for corn. As the costof removing it would have been very great, the trustees ultimatelysold it to Keyser for a barn, and then, securing a good lot, theybuilt a handsome edifice of stone.

  On the first Sunday that the congregation worshiped in the new churchMr. Potts attended; and in accordance with his custom, he placed hissilk high hat just outside of the pew in the aisle. In a few momentsMrs. Jones entered, and as she proceeded up the aisle her aboundingskirts caught Mr. Potts' hat and rolled it nearly to the pulpit. Mr.Potts pursued his hat with feelings of indignation; and when Mrs.Jones took her seat, he walked back, brushing the hat with his sleeve.A few moments later Mrs. Hopkins came into church; and as Mr. Pottshad again placed his hat in the aisle, Mrs. Hopkins' skirts struck itand swept it along about twenty feet, and left it lying on the carpetin a demoralized condition. Mr. Potts was singing a hymn at the time,and he didn't miss it. But a moment later, when he looked over the endof the pew to see if it was safe, he was furious to perceive that itwas gone. He skirmished up the aisle after it again, red in the face,and uttering sentences which were very much out of place in thesanctuary. However, he put the hat down again and determined to keephis eye on it, but just as he turned his head away for a moment Mrs.Smiley came in, and Potts looked around only in time to watch the hatbeing gathered in under Mrs. Smiley's skirts and carried away by them.He started in pursuit, and just as he did so the hat must have rolledagainst Mrs. Smiley's ankles, for she gave a jump and screamed rightout in church. When her husband asked her what was the matter, shesaid there must be a dog under her dress, and she gave her skirtsa twist. Out rolled Mr. Potts' hat, and Mr. Smiley, being verynear-sighted, thought it was a dog, and immediately kicked it sosavagely that it flew up into the gallery and lodged on top of theorgan. Mr. Potts, perfectly frantic with rage, forgot where he was;and holding his clinched fist under Smiley's nose, he shrieked, "I'vehalf a mind to brain you, you scoundrel!" Then he flung down hishymn-book and rushed from the church. He went home bareheaded, and thesexton brought his humiliating hat around after dinner. After that Mr.Potts expressed a purpose to go habitually to Quaker meeting, where hecould say his prayers with his hat on his head, and where the skirtsof female worshippers are smaller.

  * * * * *

  Upon a subsequent occasion Mrs. Whistler had even a greater occasionfor dissatisfaction with the sanctuary.

  The facts in Mrs. Whistler's case were these: Mrs. Whistler hassingular absence of mind, and on the last Sunday she attended churchDr. Dox began to read from the Scriptures the account of the Deluge.Mrs. Whistler was deeply attentive; and when the doctor came to thestory of how it rained for so many days and nights, she was so muchabsorbed in the narrative and so strongly impressed with it that sheinvoluntarily put up her umbrella and held it over her head as she satin the pew. It appears that Mrs. Moody, who sits in the next pew infront, frequently brings her lap-dog to church with her; and whenMrs. Whistler raised her umbrella suddenly, the action affected thesensibilities of Mrs. Moody's dog in such a manner that he began tobark furiously.

  Of course the sexton came in for the purpose of removing the animal,but it dodged into a vacant pew upon the other side of the aisle anddefied him, barking vociferously all the time. Then the sexton becamewarm and indignant, and he flung a cane at the dog, whereupon the dogflew out and bit his leg. The excitement in the church by this time,of course, was simply dreadful. Not only was the story of the Delugeinterrupted, but the unregenerate Sunday-school scholars in thegallery actually hissed the dog at the sexton, and seemed to enjoy thecontest exceedingly.

  Then Elder McGinn came after the dog with his cane, and as he pursuedthe animal it dashed toward the pulpit and ran up the steps in such afierce manner that the doctor quickly mounted a chair and remarked,with anger flashing through his spectacles, that if this disgracefulscene did not soon come to an end he should dismiss the congregation.Then the elder crept softly up the stairs, and after a short strugglehe succeeded in grasping the dog by one of its hind legs. Thenhe walked down the aisle with it, the dog meantime yelling withsupernatural energy and the Sunday-school boys making facetiousremarks.

  Mrs. Whistler turned around, with other members of the congregation,to watch the retreating elder, and as she did so she permitted herunconscious umbrella to droop so that the end of one of the ribscaught Mrs. Moody's bonnet. A moment later, when she was straighteningup the umbrella, the bonnet was wrenched off, and hung dangling fromthe umbrella. Mrs. Moody had become exceedingly warm, at any rate,over the onslaught made upon her dog, but when Mrs. Whistler removedher bonnet, she fairly boiled over; and turning around, white withrage, she screamed,

  "What'd you grab that bonnet for, you wretch! Haven't you made enoughfuss in this church to-day, skeering a poor innocent dog, withoutsnatching off such bonnets as the like of you can't afford to wear, nomatter how mean you live at home, you red-headed lunatic, you! Youlet my bonnet alone, or I'll hit you with this parasol, if it is inmeeting, now mind me!"

  Then Mrs. Whistler, for the first time, seemed to realize that herumbrella made her conspicuous; so
she furled it and concluded toescape from an embarrassing position by going home. As she steppedinto the aisle her enemy gave her a parting salute:

  "Sneaking off before the collection, too! You'd better spend less forbreastpins and give more to the poor heathen if you don't want toketch it hereafter!"

  Then she began to fan herself furiously, and as Mrs. Whistler emergedfrom the front door and things became calmer the doctor resumed thestory of the Flood. But Mrs. Whistler has given up her pew and goneover to the Presbyterians, and there are rumors that Mrs. Moody isgoing to secede also because Elder McGinn insists that she shall leaveher dog at home.

  * * * * *

  The Dorcas and missionary societies of the church are particularlyactive, but they were somewhat discouraged a year or two ago bycertain unforeseen occurrences. The ladies of the Dorcas Society madeup a large quantity of shirts, trousers and socks, and boxed them upand sent them to a missionary station on the west coast of Africa.A man named Ridley went out with the boxes and stayed in Africa forseveral months. When he returned, the Dorcas Society, of course, wasanxious to hear how its donation was received, and Ridley one eveningmet the members and told them about it in a little speech. He said,

  "Well, you know, we got the clothes out there all right, and aftera while we distributed them among some of the natives in theneighborhood. We thought maybe it would attract them to the mission,but it didn't; and after some time had elapsed and not a native cameto church with the clothes on, I went out on an exploring expeditionto find out about it. It seems that on the first day after the goodswere distributed one of the chiefs attempted to dress himself in ashirt. He didn't exactly understand it, and he pushed his legs throughthe arms and gathered the tail up around his waist. He couldn't makeit stay up, however, and they say he went around inquiring in hisnative tongue what kind of an idiot it was that constructed a garmentthat wouldn't hang on, and swearing some of the most awful heathenoaths. At last he let it drag, and that night he got his legs tangledin it somehow and fell over a precipice and was killed.

  "Another chief who got one on properly went paddling around in thedark, and the people, imagining that he was a ghost, sacrificed fourbabies to keep off the evil spirit.

  THE HEATHEN CLOTHE THEMSELVES]

  "And then, you know, those trousers you sent out? Well, they fittedone pair on an idol, and then they stuffed most of the rest withleaves and set them up as kind of new-fangled idols and began toworship them. They say that the services were very impressive. Some ofthe women split a few pairs in half, and after sewing up the legs usedthem to carry yams in; and I saw one chief with a corduroy leg on hishead as a kind of helmet.

  "I think, though, the socks were most popular. All the fighting-menwent for them the first thing. They filled them with sand and usedthem as boomerangs and war-clubs. I learned that they were so muchpleased with the efficiency of those socks that they made a raid on aneighboring tribe on purpose to try them; and they say they knockedabout eighty women and children on the head before they came home.They asked me if I wouldn't speak to you and get you to send out a fewbarrels more, and to make them a little stronger, so's they'd lastlonger; and I said I would.

  "This society's doing a power of good to those heathen, and I've nodoubt if you keep right along with the work you will inaugurate ageneral war all over the continent of Africa and give everybody anidol of his own. All they want is enough socks and trousers. I'll takethem when I go out again."

  Then the Dorcas passed a resolution declaring that it would, perhaps,be better to let the heathen go naked and give the clothes to the poorat home. Maybe that is the better way.