Ralph said yes, that he thought that was just it. At least, he guessed if there was something more, the man that was putting in his best licks would be sure to find it out.
“Do you think he’d help a feller? Seems to me it would be number one to have God help you. Not to help you fight other folks, but to help you when it comes to fighting the devil inside. But you see I don’t belong to no church.”
“Well, let’s you and me have one right off. Two people that help one another to serve God make a church.”
I am afraid this ecclesiastical theory will not be considered orthodox. It was Ralph’s, and I write it down at the risk of bringing him into condemnation.
But other people before the days of Bud and Ralph have discussed church organization when they should have been doing Christian work. For both of them had forgotten the danger that hung over the old basket-maker, until Shocky burst into the schoolhouse, weeping. Indeed, the poor, nervous little frame was ready to go into convulsions.
“Miss Hawkins—”
Bud started at mention of the name.
“Miss Hawkins has just been over to say that a crowd is going to tar and feather Mr. Pearson tonight. And—” here Shocky wept again. “And he won’t run, but he’s took up the old flintlock, and he’ll die in his tracks.”
XVI
The Church Militant
Bud was doubly enlisted on the side of John Pearson, the basket-maker. In the first place, he knew that this persecution of the unpopular old man was only a blind to save somebody else; that they were thieves who cried, “Stop thief!” And he felt consequently that this was a chance to put his newly-formed resolutions into practice. The Old Testament religious life, which consists in fighting the Lord’s enemies, suited Bud’s temper and education. It might lead to something better. It was the best possible to him, now. But I am afraid I shall have to acknowledge that there was a second motive that moved Bud to this championship. The good heart of Martha Hawkins having espoused the cause of the basket-maker, the heart of Bud Means could not help feeling warmly on the same side. Blessed is that man in whose life the driving of duty and the drawing of love impel the same way! But why speak of the driving of duty? For already Bud was learning the better lesson of serving God for the love of God.
The old basket-maker was the most unpopular man in Flat Creek district. He had two great vices. He would go to Clifty and have a “spree” once in three months. And he would tell the truth in a most unscrupulous manner. A man given to plain speaking was quite as objectionable in Flat Creek as he would have been in France under the Empire, the Commune, or the Republic, and almost as objectionable as he would be in any refined community in America. People who live in glass houses have a horror of people who throw stones. And the old basket-maker, having no friends, was a good scapegoat. In driving him off, Pete Jones would get rid of a dangerous neighbor and divert attention from himself. The immediate crime of the basket-maker was that he had happened to see too much.
“Mr. Hartsook,” said Bud, when they got out into the road, “you’d better go straight home to the Squire’s. Bekase ef this lightnin’ strikes a second time it’ll strike awful closte to you. You hadn’t better be seen with us. Which way did you come, Shocky?”
“Why, I tried to come down the holler, but I met Jones right by the big road, and he sweared at me and said he’d kill me ef I didn’t go back and stay. And so I went back to the house and then slipped out through the graveyard. You see I was bound to come ef I got skinned. For Mr. Pearson’s, stuck to me and I mean to stick to him, you see.”
Bud led Shocky through the graveyard. But when they reached the forest path from the graveyard he thought that perhaps it was not best to “show his hand,” as he expressed it, too soon.
“Now, Shocky,” he said, “do you run ahead and tell the ole man that I want to see him right off down by the Spring-in-rock. I’ll keep closte behind you, and ef anybody offers to trouble you, do you let off a yell and I’ll be thar in no time.”
When Ralph left the schoolhouse he felt mean. There were Bud and Shocky gone on an errand of mercy, and he, the truant member of the Church of the Best Licks, was not with them. The more he thought of it the more he seemed to be a coward, and the more he despised himself; so, yielding as usual to the first brave impulse, he leaped nimbly over the fence and started briskly through the forest in a direction intersecting the path on which were Bud and Shocky. He came in sight just in time to see the first conflict of the Church in the Wilderness with her foes.
For Shocky’s little feet went more swiftly on their eager errand than Bud had anticipated. He got farther out of Bud’s reach than the latter intended he should, and
