Christian fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Ozark Mountains -- Fiction
The big fellow in so closely analyzing the woman's thoughts and feelings,
and in taking so completely her point of view, neglected himself. He
could not realize how true to _himself_ he had been that afternoon, or
how truly the impulse that had prompted him to deny his calling was an
instinct of his own strong manhood--the instinct to be accepted or
rejected for what he was within himself, rather than for the mere
accident of his calling and position in life.
One thing was clear, he must see Miss Farwell again. She must listen to
his explanation and apology. She must somehow understand. For apart from
his interest in the young woman herself, there was that purpose of the
minister to win her to the church. It was a monstrous thought that he
himself should be the means of strengthening her feeling against the
cause to which he had given his life. So he had gone to Judge Strong's
home early that evening determined to see her. But at the gate, when he
saw Dr. Harry turning in as if to stop, he had passed on in the dusk.
Later at prayer meeting his thoughts were far from the subject under
discussion. His own public petition was so faltering and uncertain that
Elder Jordan watched him suspiciously.
It would be interesting to know just how much the interest of the man in
the woman colored and strengthened the purpose of the preacher to win
this soul so antagonistic to his church.
The next day, Dan was putting the finishing touches to his sermon on
"The Christian Ministry" when his landlady interrupted him with the news
of the attempted suicide in Old Town. Upon hearing that the girl had at
one time been a member of his congregation, he went at once to learn
more of the particulars from Dr. Oldham. He found his old friend who
had returned from Old Town a half hour before, sitting in his big chair
on the front porch gazing at the cast-iron monument across the way. To
the young man's questions the Doctor returned only monosyllables or
grunts and growls that might mean anything or nothing at all. Plainly
the Doctor did not wish to talk. His face was dark and forbidding, and
under his scowling brows, his eyes--when Dan caught a glimpse of
them--were hard and fierce. The young man had never seen his friend in
such a mood and he could not understand.
Dan did not know that the kind-hearted old physician had just learned
from his wife that the girl with the bad reputation had called at the
house to see him a few hours before she had made the attempt to end her
life, and that she had been sent away by the careful Martha with the
excuse that the doctor was too busy to see her. Neither could the boy
know how the old man's love for him was keeping him silent lest, in his
present frame of mind, he say things that would strengthen that something
which they each felt had come between them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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