Part 18

"It is a life worth more than mine. Ask me no more questions, but have Bob saddled for me." Patty spoke as one not to be refused.

The horse was brought out, and Patty mounted, half eagerly and half timidly.

"When will you come back?"

"In time for school, Monday."

"Patty, think again before you start," called the doctor.

"There's no time to think," said Patty, as she rode away.

"I ought to have forbidden it," the doctor muttered to himself half a hundred times in the next forty-eight hours.

When she had ridden a mile on the road that led to the "lower settlement" she turned an acute angle, and came back on the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, if I may speak so geometrically. She thus went more than two miles to strike the main trail toward Jenkinsville, at a point only a mile away from her starting-place. She reached the woods in Long Bottom just as Pinkey told her she would, at dark. She was appalled at the thought of riding sixteen miles through a dense forest of beech trees in the night over a bridle-path. She reined up her horse, folded her hands, and offered a fervent prayer for courage and help, and then rode into the blackness ahead.

There is a local tradition yet lingering in this very valley in Ohio in regard to this dark ride of Patty's. I know it will be thought incredible, but in that day marvelous things were not yet out of date. This legend, which reaches me from the very neighborhood of the occurrence, is that, when Patty had nerved herself for her lonely and perilous ride by prayer, there came to her, out of the darkness of the forest, two beautiful dogs. One of them started ahead of her horse and one of them became her rear-guard. Protected and comforted by her dumb companions, Patty rode all those lonesome hours in that wilderness bridle-path. She came, at midnight, to a settler's house on the farther verge of the unbroken forest and found lodging. The dogs lay in the yard. In the early morning the settler's wife came out and spoke to them but they gave her no recognition at all. Patty came a few moments later, when they arose and greeted her with all the eloquence of dumb friends, and then, having seen her safely through the woods and through the night, the two beautiful dogs, wagging a friendly farewell, plunged again into the forest and went--no man knows whither.

Such is the legend of Patty's Ride as it came to me well avouched. Doubtless Mr. John Fiske or Mr. M. D. Conway could explain it all away and show how there was only one dog, and that he was not beautiful, but a stray bull-dog with a stumpy tail. Or that the whole thing is but a "solar myth." The middle-ages have not a more pleasant story than this of angels sent in the form of dogs to convoy a brave lady on a noble mission through a dangerous forest. At any rate, Patty believed that the dumb guardians were answers to her prayer. She bade them good-by as they disappeared in the mystery whence they came, and rode on, rejoicing in so signal a mark of God's favor to her enterprise. Sometimes her heart was sorely troubled at the thought of Morton's being already the husband of another, and all that Sunday morning she took lessons in that hardest part of Christian living--the uttering of the little petition which gives all the inevitable over into God's hands and submits to the accomplishment of His will.

She reached Jenkinsville at half-past eleven. Meeting had already begun. She knew the Methodist church by its general air of square ugliness, and near it she hitched old Bob.

When she entered the church Morton was preaching. Her long sun-bonnet was a sufficient disguise, and she sat upon the back seat listening to the voice whose music was once all her own. Morton was preaching on self-denial, and he made some allusions to his own trials when he became a Christian which deeply touched the audience, but which moved none so much as Patty.

The congregation was dismissed but the members remained to "class," which was always led by the preacher when he was present. Most of the members sat near the pulpit, but when the "outsiders" had gone Patty sat lonesomely on the back seat, with a large space between her and the rest. Morton asked each one to speak, exhorting each in turn. At last, when all the rest had spoken, he walked back to where Patty sat, with her face hidden in her sun-bonnet, and thus addressed her:

"My strange sister, will you tell us how it is with you to-day? Do you feel that you have an interest in the Savior?"

Very earnestly, simply, and with a tinge of melancholy Patty spoke. There was that in her superior diction and in her delicacy of expression that won upon the listeners, so that, as she ceased, the brethren and sisters uttered cordial ejaculations of "The Lord bless our strange sister," and so on. But Morton? From the first word he was thrilled with the familiar sound of the voice. It could not be Patty, for why should Patty be in Jenkinsville? And above all, why should she be in class-meeting? Of her conversion he had not heard. But though it seemed to him impossible that it could be Patty, there was yet a something in voice and manner and choice of words that had almost overcome him; and though he was noted for the freshness of the counsels that he gave in class-meeting, he was so embarrassed by the sense of having known the speaker, that he could not think of anything to say. He fell hopelessly into that trite exhortation with which the old leaders were wont to cover their inanity.

"Sister," he said, "you know the way--walk in it."

Then the brethren and sisters sang:

"O brethren will you meet me On Canaan's happy shore?"

And the meeting was dismissed.

The members thought themselves bound to speak to the strange sister. She evaded their kindly questions as they each shook hands with her, only answering that she wished to speak with Brother Goodwin. The preacher was eager and curious to converse with her, but one of the old brethren had button-holed him to complain that Brother Hawkins had 'tended a barbecue the week before, and he thought that he had ought to be "read out" if he didn't make confession. When the old brother had finished his complaint and had left the church, Morton was glad to see the strange sister lingering at the door. He offered his hand and said:

"A stranger here, I suppose?"

"Not quite a stranger, Morton."

"Patty, is this you?" Morton exclaimed

Patty for her part was pleased and silent.

"Are you a Methodist then?"

"I am."

"And what brought you to Jenkinsville?" he said, greatly agitated.

"To save your life. I am glad I can make you some amend for the way I treated you the last time I saw you."

"To save my life! How?"

"I came to tell you that if you go to Salt Fork this afternoon you will be killed on the way."

"How do you know?"

"You must not ask any questions. I cannot tell you anything more."

"I am afraid, Patty, you have believed somebody who wanted to scare me."

Patty here remembered the mysterious piece of paper which Pinkey had given her. She handed it to Morton, saying:

"I don't know what is in this, but the person who sent the message said that you would understand."

Morton opened the paper and started. "Where is he?" he asked.

"You must not ask questions," said Patty, smiling faintly.

"And you rode all the way from Hissawachee to tell me?"

"Not at all. When I joined the church Father pulled the latch-string in. I am teaching school at Hickory Ridge."

"Come, Patty, you must have some dinner." Morton led her horse to the house of one of the members, introduced her as an old schoolmate, who had brought him an important warning, and asked that she receive some dinner.

He then asked Patty to let him go back with her or send an escort, both of which she firmly refused. He left the house and in a minute sat on his Dolly before the gate. At sight of Dolly Patty could have wept. He called her to the gate.

"If you won't let me go with you I must go to Salt Fork. These men must understand that I am not afraid. I shall ride ten miles farther round and they will never know how I did it. Dolly can do it, though. How shall I thank you for risking your life for me? Patty, if I can ever serve you let me know, and I'll die for you. I would rather die for you than not."

"Thank you, Morton. You are married, I hear."

"Not married, but I am to be married." He spoke half bitterly, but Patty was too busy suppressing her own emotion to observe his tone.

"I hope you'll be happy." She had determined to say so much.

"Patty, I tell you I am wretched, and will be till I die. I am marrying one I never chose. I am utterly miserable. Why didn't you leave me to be waylaid and killed? My life isn't worth the saving. But God bless you, Patty."

So saying, he touched Dolly with the spurs and was soon gone away around the Wolf Creek road--a long hard ride, with no dinner, and a sermon to preach at three o'clock.

And all the hour that Patty ate and rested in Jenkinsville, her hostess entertained her with accounts of Sister Ann Eliza Meacham, whom Brother Goodwin was to marry. She heard how eloquent was Sister Meacham in prayer, how earnest in Christian labor, and what a model preacher's wife she would be. But the good sister added slyly that she didn't more than half believe Brother Goodwin wanted to marry at all. He'd tried his best to give Ann Eliza up once, but couldn't do it.

When Patty rode out of the village that afternoon she did her best, as a good Christian, to feel sorry that Morton could not love the one he was to marry. In an intellectual way she did regret it, but in her heart she was a woman.

_CHAPTER XXX._

THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE WIDOW.

When Kike had appeared at the camp meeting, as we related, it was not difficult to forecast his fate. Everybody saw that he was going into a consumption. One year, two years at farthest, he might manage to live, but not longer. Nobody knew this so well as Kike himself. He rejoiced in it. He was one of those rare spirits to whom the invisible world is not a dream but a reality, and to whom religious duty is a voice never neglected. That he had sacrificed his own life to his zeal he understood perfectly well, and he had no regrets except that he had not been more zealous. What was life if he could save even one soul?

"But," said Morton to him one day, "you are wrong, Kike. If you had taken care of yourself you might have lived to save so many more."

"Morton, if your eye were fastened on one man drowning," replied Kike, "and you thought you could save him at the risk of your health, you wouldn't stop to calculate that by avoiding that peril you might live long enough to save many others. When God puts a soul before me I save that one if il costs my life. When I am gone God will find others. It is glorious to work for God, but it is awful. What if by some neglect of mine a soul should drop into hell? O! Morton, I am oppressed with responsibility! I will be glad when God shall say, It is enough."

Few of the preachers remonstrated with Kike. He was but fulfilling the Methodist ideal; they admired him while most of them could not quite emulate him. Read the minutes of the old conferences and you will see everywhere among the brief obituaries, headstones in memory of young men who laid down their lives as Kike was doing. Men were nothing--the work was everything. Methodism let the dead bury their dead; it could hardly stop to plant a spear of grass over the grave of one of its own heroes.

But Pottawottomie Creek circuit was poor and wild, and it had paid Kike only five dollars for his whole nine months' work. Two of this he had spent for horse-shoes, and two he had given away. The other one had gone for quinine. Now he had no clothes that would long hold together. He would ride to Hissawachee and get what his mother had carded and spun, and woven, and cut, and sewed for the son whom she loved all the more that he seemed no longer to be entirely hers. He could come back in three days. Two days more would suffice to reach Peterborough circuit. So he sent on to the circuit, in advance, his appointments to preach, and rode off to Hissawachee. But he did not get back to camp-meeting. An attack of fever held him at home for several weeks.

At last he was better and had set the day for his departure from home. His mother saw what everybody saw, that if Kike ever lived to return to his home it would only be to die. And as this was, perhaps, his last visit, Mrs. Lumsden felt in duty bound to tell him of her intention to marry Brady. While Brady thought to do the handsome thing by secretly getting a marriage license, intending, whenever the widow should mention the subject to Kike, to immediately propose that Kike should perform the ceremony of marriage. It was quite contrary to the custom of that day for a minister to officiate at a wedding of one of his own family; Brady defied custom, however. But whenever Mrs. Lumsden tried to approach Kike on the subject, her heart failed her. He was so wrapped up in heavenly subjects, so full of exhortations and aspirations, that she despaired beforehand of making him understand her feelings. Once she began by alluding to her loneliness, upon which Kike assured her that if she put her trust in the Lord he would be with her. What was she to do? How make a rapt seer like Kike understand the wants of ordinary mortals? And that, too, when he was already bidding adieu to this world?

The last morning had come, and Brady was urging on the weeping widow that she must go into the room where Kike was stuffing his small wardrobe into his saddle-bags, and tell him what was in their hearts.

"Oh, I can't bear to," said she. "I won't never see him any more and I might hurt him, and----"

"Will," said Brady, "thin I'll hev to do it mesilf."

"If you only would!" said she, imploringly.

"But it's so much more appropriate for you to do it, Mrs. Lumsden. If I do it, it'll same jist loike axin' the b'y's consint to marry his mother."

"But I can't noways do it," said the widow. "If you love me you might take that load offen me."

"I'll do it if it kills me, sthraight," and Brady marched into the sitting-room, where Kike, exhausted by his slight exertion, was resting in the shuck-bottom rocking-chair. Brady took a seat opposite to him on a chair made out of a transformed barrel, and reached up his iron gray hair uneasily. To his surprise Kike began the conversation.

"Mr. Brady, you and mother a'n't acting very wisely, I think," said Kike.

"Ye've noticed us, thin," said Brady, in terror.

"To be sure I have."

"Will, now, Koike, I'll till you fwat I'm thinkin'. Ye're pecooliar loike; ye don't know how to sympathoize with other folks because ye're livin' roight up in hiven all the toime."

"Why don't you live more in heaven?"

"Will, I think I'd throy if I had somebody to help me," said Brady, adroitly. "But I'm one of the koind that's lonesome, and in doire nade of company. I was jilted whin I was young, and I thought I'd niver be a fool agin. But ye see ye ain't niver been in love in all yer loife, and how kin ye fale fer others?"

"Maybe I have been in love, too," said Kike, a strange softness coming into his voice.

"Did ye iver! Who'd a thought it?" And Brady made large eyes at him. "Thin ye ought to fale fer the infarmities of others," he added with some exultation.

"I do. That's why I said you and mother were very foolish."

"Fwy, now; there it is agin. Fwat do ye mane?"

"Why this. When I was here before I saw that you and mother had taken a liking to each other. I thought by this time you'd have been married. And I didn't see any reason why you shouldn't. But you're as far away as ever. Here's mother's land that needs somebody to take care of it. I am going away never to come back. If I could see you married the only earthly care I have would be gone, and I could die in peace, whenever and wherever the Lord calls me."

"God bliss ye, Koike," said Brady, wiping his eyes. "Fwy didn't you say that before? Ye're a prophet and a angel, I belave. I wish I was half as good, or a quarther. God bliss ye, me boy. I wish--I wish ye would thry to live afwoile, I've been athrying' and your mother's been athryin' to muster up courage to spake to ye about this, and ye samed so hivenly we thought ye would be displased. Now, will ye marry us before ye go?"

"I haven't got any license."

"Here 'tis, in me pocket."

"Where's a witness or two?"

"I hear some women-folks come to say good-bye to ye in the other room."

"I'd like to marry you now," said Kike. "I must get away in an hour."

And he married them. They wept over him, and he made no concealment that he was going away for the last time. He rode out from Hissawachee never to come back. Not sad, but exultant, that he had sacrificed everything for Christ and was soon to enter into the life everlasting. For, faithless as we are in this day, let us never hide from ourselves the fact that the faith of a martyr is indeed a hundred fold more a source of joy than houses and lands, and wife and children.

_CHAPTER XXXI._

KIKE.

To reach Peterborough Kike had to go through Morton's great diocese of Jenkinsville Circuit. He could not ride far. Even so intemperate a zealot as Kike admitted so much economy of force into his calculations. He must save his strength in journeying or he could not reach his circuit, much less preach when he got there. At the close of his second day he inquired for a Methodist house at which to stop, and was directed to the double-cabin of a "located" preacher--one who had been a "travelling" preacher, but, having married, was under the necessity of entangling himself with the things of this world that he might get bread for his children. As he rode up to the house Kike gladly noted the horses hitched to the fence as an evidence that there must be a meeting in progress. He was in Morton's circuit; who could tell that he should not meet him here?

When Kike entered the house, Morton stood in the door between the two rooms preaching, with the back of a "split-bottomed" chair for a pulpit. For a moment the pale face of Kike, so evidently smitten with death, appalled him; then it inspired him, and Morton never spoke better on that favorite theme of the early Methodist evangelist--the rest in heaven--than while drawing his inspiration from the pallid countenance of his comrade.

"Ah! Kike!" he said, when the meeting was dismissed, "I wish you had my body."

"What do you want to keep me out of heaven for, Mort? Let God have his way," said Kike, smiling contentedly.

But long after Kike slept that night Morton lay awake. He could not let the poor fellow go off alone. So in the morning he arranged with the located brother to take his appointments for awhile and let him ride one day with Kike.

"Ride ten or twenty if you want to," said the ex-preacher. "The corn's laid by and I've got nothing to do, and I'm spoiling for a preach."

Peterborough circuit lay off to the southeast of Hickory Ridge, and Morton, persuaded that Kike was unfit to preach, endeavored to induce him to turn aside and rest at Dr. Morgan's, only ten miles out of his road.

"I tell you, Morton, I've got very little strength left. I cannot spend it better than in trying to save souls. There's Peterborough vacant three months since Brother Jones was first taken sick. I want to make one or two rounds at least, preaching with all the heart I have. Then I'll cease at once to work and live, and who knows but that I may slay more in my death than in my life?"

But Morton feared that he would not be able to make one round. He thought he had an overestimate of his strength, and that the final break-down might come at any moment. So, on the morning of the second day he refused to yield to Kike's entreaties to return. He would see him safe among the members on Peterborough circuit, anyhow.

Now it happened that they missed the trail and wandered far out of their way. It rained all the afternoon, and Kike got drenched in crossing a stream. Then a chill came on, and Morton sought shelter. He stopped at a cabin.

"Come in, come in, brethren," said the settler, as soon as he saw them. "I 'low ye're preachers. Brother Goodwin I know. Heerd him down at camp-meetin' last fall,--time conference met on the Ridge. And this brother looks mis'rable. Got the shakes, I 'low? Your name, brother, is--"

"Brother Lumsden," said Morton.

"Lumsden? Wy, that air's the very name of our school-miss, and she's stayin' here jes' now. I kinder recolleck that you was sick up at Dr. Morgan's, conference time. Hey?"

Morton looked bewildered.

"How far is Dr. Morgan's from here?"

"Nigh onto three quarter 'round the road, I 'low. Ain't it, Sister Lumsden?" This last to Patty, who at that moment appeared from the bedroom, and without answering the question, greeted Morton and Kike with a cry of joy. Patty was "boarding round," and it was her time to stay here.

"How did we get here? We aimed at Lanham's Ferry," said Morton, bewildered.

"Tuck the wrong trail ten mile back, I 'low. You should've gone by Hanks's Mills."

[Illustration: THE REUNION.]

Despite all protestations from the Methodist brother, Morton was determined to take Kike to Dr. Morgan's. Kike was just sick enough to be passive, and he suffered himself to be put back into the saddle to ride to the doctor's. Patty, meanwhile, ran across the fields and gave warning, so that Kike was summarily stowed away in the bed he had occupied before. Thus do men try to run away from fate, and rush into her arms in spite of themselves.

It did not require very great medical skill to understand what must be the result of Kike's sickness.