The Preacher of Cedar Mountain: A Tale of the Open CountrySeton, Ernest Thompson
General
The Preacher of Cedar Mountain: A Tale of the Open Country
Seton, Ernest Thompson
Clergy -- Fiction; Great Plains -- Fiction; Western stories
All alone, Jim set forth on his three days' journey from Coulter, by way
of Toronto, Detroit, and Chicago, to the West, and seldom has a grown
man had so little knowledge of the world to rely upon. On the train he
met with a painted woman, whose smirks and overtures he did not
understand; and some farmer folk of simple kindness. In the coach, where
all slept on their seats at night, he was like another brother to the
little folks, and when a lumberjack, taking advantage of his size,
sought to monopolize two seats, whereby the old farmer was left
standing, Jim's mild and humorous "Sure, I wouldn't do that; it doesn't
seem neighbourly," as he tapped the ruffian's shoulder, put a new light
on the matter; and the lumberjack, after noting the shoulders of the
speaker, decided that it _wasn't_ neighbourly, and removed his feet.
Most of the passengers said "good-bye" at Chicago, and the rest at
Sidney Junction, where Jim changed cars for the last leg of the journey.
He had no sooner transferred himself and his bag to the waiting train
than there entered his coach five new passengers who at once attracted
his full attention--a Jesuit missionary and four Sioux Indians. The
latter were in the clothes of white men, the Jesuit in his clerical
garb. They settled into the few available places and Jim found himself
sharing his seat with the black-robed missionary.
All his early training had aimed to inspire him with hatred of the
papist, and the climax of popery, he believed, was a Jesuit. He had
never met one before, yet he knew the insignia and he was not at all
disposed to be friendly. But the black-robe was a man of the world,
blessed with culture, experience, and power; and before half an hour, in
spite of himself, Jim found himself chatting amicably with this arch
enemy. The missionary was full of information about the country and the
Indians; and Jim, with the avidity of the boy that he was, listened
eagerly, and learned at every sentence. The experience held a succession
of wholesome shocks for him; for, next to the detested papist, he had
been taught to look down on the "poor, miserable bastes of haythens,"
that knew nothing of God or Church. And here, to his surprise, was a
priest who was not only a kindly, wise, and lovable soul, but who looked
on the heathen not as utterly despicable, but as a human being who
lacked but one essential of true religion, the one that he was there to
offer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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