I will ask Mr. Corwin to pray.
At that Ashby Corwin stood up in his place and threw back his prematurely whitened head, and he lifted his face that was all scarified with the blighting flames of dissipation, and he shut his eyes that long since had wearied of looking upon a trivial world, and Ashby Corwin prayed. There are prayers that seem to circle round and round in futile rings, going nowhere; and then again there are prayers that are like sparks struck off from the wheels of the prophets chariot of fire, coursing their way upward in spiritual splendour to blaze on the sills of the Judgment Seat. This prayer was one of those prayers.
After that Judge Priest bowed his head again and spoke the benediction.
It turns out that I was right a while back when I predicted this chapter of this book might end with Judge Priest sitting at his desk in his room at the old courthouse. On the morning of the day following the day of this funeral he sat there, putting the last words to his decision touching upon the merits of the existing controversy in the congregation of the True Believers Afro-American Church of Zion. The door opened and in walked Beck Giltner, saloon keeper, sure-thing gambler, handy-man-with-a-gun, and, according to the language of a resolution unanimously adopted at a mass meeting of the Law and Order League, force-for-evil.
Beck Giltner was dressed in his best. He wore his wide-brimmed, black soft hat, with its tall crown carefully dented in, north, east, south and west; his long black coat; his white turn-down collar; his white lawn tie; and in the bosom of his plaited shirt of fine white linen his big diamond pin, that was shaped like an inverted banjo. This was Beck Giltners attire for the street and for occasions of ceremony. Indoors it was the same, except that sometimes he took the coat off and turned back his shirt cuffs.
Good mornin, Beck, said the judge. Well?
Judge Priest, said Giltner, as a rule I dont come to this courthouse except when I have to come. But to-day Ive come to tell you something. You made a mistake yesterday!
A mistake, suh? The judges tone was sharp and quick.
Yes, suh, thats what you did, returned the tall gambler. I dont mean in regards to that funeral you held for that dead girl. You probably dont care what I think one way or the other, but I want to tell you I was strong for that, all the way through. But you made a mistake just the same, Judge; you didnt take up a collection.
It had been a good many years since I was inside of a church, until I walked with you and the others to that little nigger meetin-house yesterday forty-odd years I reckon; not since I was a kid, anyway. But to the best of my early recollections they always took a collection for something or other every time I did go to church. And yesterday you overlooked that part altogether.
So last night I took it on myself to get up a collection for you. I started it with a bill or so off my own roll. Then I passed the hat round at several places where you wouldnt scarcely care to go yourself. And I didnt run across a single fellow that failed to contribute. Some of em dont move in the best society, and theres some more of em that youd only know of by reputation. But every last one of em put in something. There was one man that didnt have only seven cents to his name he put that in. So here it is four hundred and seventy-five dollars and forty-two cents, accordin to my count.
From one pocket he fetched forth a rumpled packet of paper money and from the other a small cloth sack, which gave off metallic clinking sounds. He put them down together on the desk in front of Judge Priest.
I appreciate this, ef I am right in my assumption of the motives which actuated you and the purposes to which you natchally assumed this here money would be Applied, said Judge Priest as the other man waited for his response. But, son, I cant take your money. It aint needed. Why, I wouldnt know whut to do with it. There aint no out-standin bills connected with that there funeral.
All the expense entailed was met privately. So you see
Wait just a minute before you say no! interrupted Giltner. Heres my idea and its the idea of all the others that contributed: We-all want you to take this money and keep it keep it in a safe, or in your pocket, or in the bank to your credit, or anywheres you please, but just keep it. And if any girl thats gone wrong should die and not have any friends to help bury her, they can come to you and get the cash out of this fund to pay for puttin her away. And if any other girl should want to go back to her people and start in all over again and try to lead a better life, why you can advance her the railroad fare out of that money too. You see, Judge, we are aimin to make a kind of a trust fund out of it, with you as the trustee. And when the four seventy-five forty-two is all used up, if youll just let me know Ill guarantee to rustle up a fresh bank roll so youll always have enough on hand to meet the demands. Now then, Judge, will you take it?
Judge Priest took it. He stretched out and scooped in currency and coin sack, using therefor his left hand only. The right was engaged in reaching for Beck Giltners right hand, the purpose being to shake it.
II. A BLENDING OF THE PARABLES
NEARLY every week weather permitting the old judge went to dinner somewhere. To a considerable extent he kept up his political fences going to dinners. Usually it was of a Sunday that he went.
By ten oclock almost any fair Sunday morning spring, summer or early fall Judge Priests Jeff would have the venerable side-bar buggy washed down, and would be leading forth from her stall the ancient white lady-sheep, with the unmowed fetlocks and the intermittent mane, which the judge, from a spirit of prideful affection and in the face of all visual testimony to the contrary, persisted in regarding as an authentic member of the equine kingdom.
Presently, in their proper combination and alignment, the trio would be stationed at the front gate, thus: Jeff in front, bracing the forward section of the mare-creature; and the buggy behind, its shafts performing a similar office for the other end of this unique quadruped. Down the gravelled walk that led from the house, under the water maples and silver-leaf poplars, which arched over to make a shady green tunnel of it, the judge would come, immaculate but rumply in white linens. The judges linens had a way of getting themselves all rumpled even before he put them on. You might say they were born rumpled.
Beholding his waddlesome approach out of the tail of her eye, the white animal would whinny a dignified and conservative welcome. She knew her owner almost as well as he knew her. Then, while Jeff held her head that is to say, held it up the old man would heave his frame ponderously in and upward between the dished wheels and settle back into the deep nest of the buggy, with a wheeze to which the agonised rear springs wheezed back an anthem like refrain.
All right, Jeff! the judge would say, bestowing his cotton umbrella and his palm-leaf fan in their proper places, and working a pair of wrinkled buckskin gloves on over his chubby hands. I wont be back, I reckin, till goin on six oclock this evenin, and I probably wont want nothin then fur supper except a cold snack. So if you and Aunt Dilsey both put out from the house fur the day be shore to leave the front-door key under the front-door mat, where I kin find it in case I should git back soonern I expect. And you be here in due time yoursef, to unhitch. Hear me, boy?
Yas, suh, Jeff would respond. I hears you.
All right, then! his employer would command as he gathered up the lines. Let loose of Mittie May.
Conforming with the accepted ritual of the occasion, Jeff would let loose of Mittie May and step ceremoniously yet briskly aside, as though fearing instant annihilation in the first resistless surge of a desperate, untamable beast. Judge Priest would slap the leathers down on Mittie Mays fat back; and Mittie May, sensing the master touch on those reins, would gather her four shaggy legs together with apparent intent of bursting into a mad gallop, and then, ungathering them, step out in her characteristic gentle amble, a gait she never varied under any circumstances. Away they would go, then, with the dust splashing up from under Mittie Mays flat and deliberative feet, and the loose rear curtain of the buggy flapping and slapping behind like a slatting sail.
Jeff would stand there watching them until they had faded away in the deeper dust where Clay Street merged, without abrupt transition, into a winding country road; and, knowing the judge was definitely on his way, Jeff would be on his way, too, but in a different direction. Of his own volition Jeff never fared countryward on Sundays. Green fields and running brooks laid no spell of allurement on his nimble fancy. He infinitely preferred metropolitan haunts and pastimes such, for instance, as promenades along the broken sidewalks of the Plunketts Hill section and crap games behind the coloured undertakers shop on Locust Street.
The judges way would be a pleasant way a peaceful, easy way, marked only by small disputes at each crossroads junction, Mittie May desiring always to take the turn that would bring them back home by the shortest route, and the judge stubborn in his intention of pushing further on. The superior powers of human obstinacy having triumphed over four-legged instinct, they would proceed. Now they would clatter across a wooden bridge spanning a sluggish amber-coloured stream, where that impertinent bird, the kingfisher, cackled derisive imitations of the sound given off by the warped axles of the buggy, and the yonkerpins which Yankees, in their ignorance, have called water lilies spread their wide green pads and their white-and-yellow cusps of bloom on the face of the creek water.
Now they would come to cornfields and tobacco patches that steamed in the sunshine, conceding the season to be summer; or else old, abandoned clearings, grown up rankly in shoe-make bushes and pawpaw and persimmon and sassafras. And the pungent scent of the wayside pennyroyal would rise like an incense, saluting their nostrils as they passed, and the grassy furrows of long-harvested grain crops were like the lines of graves on old battlegrounds.
Now they would come into the deep woods; and here the sunlight sifted down through the tree tops, making cathedral aisles among the trunks and dim green cloisters of the thickets; and in small open spaces the yellowing double prongs of the mullein stalks stood up stiff and straightly like two-tined altar candles. Then out of the woods again and along a stretch of blinding hot road, with little grey lizards racing on the decayed fence rails as outriders, and maybe a pair of those old red-head peckerwoods flickering on from snag to snag just ahead, keeping company with the judge, but never quite permitting him to catch up with them.
So, at length, after five miles, or maybe ten, he would come to his destination, which might be a red-brick house set among apple trees on a low hill, or a whitewashed double cabin of logs in a bare place down in the bottoms. Here, at their journeys end, they would halt, with Mittie May heaving her rotund sides in and out in creditable simulation of a thoroughbred finishing a hard race; and Judge Priest would poke his head out from under the buggy hood and utter the customary hail of Hello the house! At that, nine times out of ten from under the house and from round behind it would boil a black-and-tan ground swell of flap-eared, bugle-voiced hound dogs, all tearing for the gate, with every apparent intention of devouring horse and harness, buggy and driver, without a moments delay. And behind them, in turn, a shirt-sleeved man would emerge from the shelter of the gallery and hurry down the path toward the fence, berating the belling pack at every step he took:
You Sounder, you Ring, you Queen consam your mangy pelts! Go on back yonder where you belong! You Saucer come on back here and behave yoursef! I bet I take a chunk some of these days and knock your fool head off!
As the living wave of dogs parted before his advance and his threats, and broke up and turned about and vanished with protesting yelps, the shirt-sleeved one, recognising Mittie May and the shape of the buggy, would speak a greeting something after this fashion:
Well, suh ef it aint Jedge Priest! Jedge, suh, I certainly am proud to see you out this way. We was beginnin to think youd furgot us we was, fur a fact!
Over his shoulder he would single out one of a cluster of children who magically appeared on the gallery steps, and bid Tennessee or Virgil or Dora-Virginia or Albert-Sidney, as the name of the chosen youngster might be, to run and tell their ma that Judge Priest had come to stay for dinner. For the judge never sent any advance notice of his intention to pay a Sunday visit; neither did he wait for a formal invitation. He just dropped in, being assured of a welcome under any rooftree, great or humble, in his entire judicial district.
Shortly thereafter the judge, having been welcomed in due state, and provision made for Mittie Mays stabling and sustenance, would be established on the gallery in the rocking-chair of honour, which was fetched out from the parlour for his better comfort. First, a brimming gourd of fresh spring water would be brought, that he might take the edge off his thirst and flush the dust out of his throat and moisten up his palate; and then would follow a certain elaborated rite in conjunction with sundry sprigs of young mint and some powdered sugar and outpourings of the red-brown contents of a wicker demijohn.
Very possibly a barefooted and embarrassed namesake would be propelled forward, by parental direction, to shake hands with the guest; for, except old Doctor Saunders, Judge Priest had more children named for him than anybody in our county. And very probably there would come to his ears from somewhere rearward the frenzied clamour of a mighty barnyard commotion squawkings and cacklings and flutterings closely followed by the poignant wails of a pair of doomed pullets, which grew fainter and fainter as the captives were borne to the sacrificial block behind the woodpile certain signs, all these, that if fried chicken had not been included in the scope and plan of Sunday dinner, fried chicken would now be, most assuredly.
When dinner was over, small messengers would be sent up the road and down to spread the word; and various oldsters of the vicinity would leave their own places to foregather in the dooryard of the present host and pass the time of day with Judge Priest. Sooner or later, somehow, the talk would work backward to war times. Overhearing what passed to and fro, a stranger might have been pardoned for supposing that it was only the year before, or at most two years before, when the Yankees came through under Grant; while Forrests Raid was spoken of as though it had taken place within the current month.
Anchored among the ancients the old judge would sit, doing his share of the talking and more than his share of the listening; and late in the afternoon, when the official watermelon, all dripping and cool, had been brought forth from the springhouse, and the shadows were beginning to stretch themselves slantwise across the road, as though tired out completely by a hard days work in the broiling sun, he and Mittie May would jog back toward town, meeting many an acquaintance on the road, but rarely passing one. And the upshot would be that at the next Democratic primary the opposing candidate for circuit judge if there was any opposing candidate got powerfully few votes out of that neighbourhood.