Lida Ann: An Adirondack Sketch
IT was seven o’clock P. M. at the little red brick church out on the main road, and it was in the heart of an Adirondack winter. A bell, composed of a cheap patent mixture of pig-iron, pot-metal, and lead, was sending forth its dismal metallic clangor into the dark, sleety, biting evening air. The frosted panes of the churchwindows were of a dull cheesy complexion, indicating that the tallow dips used for illumination were in full flame.
Sleigh-loads of people were arriving, and by half past seven o’clock three hundred and fifty persons had been deposited at the door. When they had all gone inside, the little structure was densely packed and very warm.
Perhaps the heat aided the excitement of the hour. A spiritual agitation like the surging of a flood was sweeping over the people of the neighborhood, and stirring the remote social life of the locality to its depths. There was to be a sermon. As a preliminary to the sermon, a prayercircle was formed.
The pastor exhorted his flock in an agitated manner, urging upon them the importance of earnestness in prayer. He declared that he was himself desperate, and did not care what people thought of him, and that, even although they should take him for a lunatic, he had come to the conclusion “ to get out of the way and let the blessing come down.”
Perhaps there was too much excitement. The brethren of a sister denomination said afterward, that they feared it was excitement only. But the pastor’s zeal was great, and he evidently had no apprehension, except that he might fail to arouse his people from their lethargy. His words brought out in response a tall, spare man, who began praying in a vehement, tone of voice. He continued to pray. Five minutes passed, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, and still he prayed ; and as he went on he increased in power. There seemed not the slightest probability of his ceasing, because he reached new and more exciting themes at every step of his advance. There was a little brief whispering near the pastor, and then the brethren broke out into a hymn.
The praying brother did not cease his petition; on the contrary, he redoubled his earnestness, alluded to the sentiment of the hymn with provoking aptness and felicity, and exhorted the brethren to sing and shout “glory, glory.”
The deacons of the church were finally compelled to take bodily bold of this brother and eject him from the building, as the only possible mode of bringing his protracted devotions to a conclusion. He was passed out into the cold night air, still praying and blessing the brethren, and congratulating himself upon suffering this persecution.
“ Crazy Elkins,” as the boys called him, or “ poor Brother Elkins,” as the church people termed him, having been thus disposed of, a hymn was sung, and the pastor apologized for “ the excessive zeal, without knowledge, of our poor dear, and perhaps unbalanced, brother.” At about this time Mr. Elkins was permitted to return and occupy a seat quietly by the stove.
The pastor announced that the hour for the sermon had arrived. He introduced to the congregation, as an evangelist who had been sent by a guiding Providence to aid them, Elder Hetchel, who was to preach the sermon upon this occasion. The pastor characterized this new-comer as one crying in the wilderness, a young evangelist of great promise.
Elder Hetchel stood up in the pulpit and preached. He was a man of reddish complexion and black curling hair. He was not young, as the pastor’s words had seemed to imply, hut in the meridian of life. His discourse indicated that he was an illiterate person. There was, however, a coarse magnetism about his presence and speech that to some extent attracted the people.
After the sermon came a solemn hour, when the anxious-seats were filled and weird spiritual songs were sung.
The pastor and Elder Hetchel were not reserved in dealing with the young people upon the anxious-seats. They called them out by name as pointedly as possible before the entire congregation, and exhorted them to rise up and speak, and not to be ashamed of the cause.
Some of the young people did rise up and speak, and the prevailing ejaculations were stilled to catch the few faltering words which were uttered by these youths and maidens.
Among the young girls who spoke was little Lida Ann, the daughter of Deacon Fernwell, who was himself engaged with all his heart and soul in the good work.
The neat little figure of Lida Ann caught the eye of Elder Hetchel. She was still a school-girl, and wore short dresses. True she was fifteen, but then she was small of her age. She was so extremely nimble and spry that Logan, a hunter, used to say he could never think of anything but a saucy little red squirrel when he saw her tripping along to school. She was in truth as complete and perfect a mountain daisy as ever bloomed in the chill air of the Northern Adirondacks. Such she was at that evening meeting when Elder Hetchel looked upon her and listened to her little speech.
Lida Ann described her feelings, as the custom was, but in a manner more childish than womanly. When she concluded the account of her experience by saying that she never felt “ so sentimental before in all her life,” there was an amused titter among a few young fellows from Whiskey Hollow who occupied back seats. But the people generally understood that Lida Ann was only a child, and pardoned the mistake of a word; and Elder Hetchel, as Lida Ann sat down, pronounced an “ Amen” with so much power and solemnity that it quite hushed the entire congregation. He exhorted the young sister to be faithful, and having once put her hand to the plough not to turn back.
The winter, with its raging storms and evening meetings and wild excitement, had passed away, and the tender woodviolet was springing up in the wilderness solitudes. It was a day of April sunshine, and the sweet, plaintive notes of the first bluebird of the season were heard among the elm-trees in the yard of Farmer Fernwell’s home. Elder Hetchel, with his big red face, white necktie, and suit of sombre black, stood beside little Lida Ann in the parlor. She was dressed in a long white silk robe, and had orange-flowers in her hair. Some of Lida Ann’s little playmates were there, half scared by the pomposity of the big bridegroom ; and a few elderly staid church people were there also.
The Elder and little Lida Ann were married by a justice of the peace, the good pastor having discovered that he had business elsewhere on that particular day. The ceremony was quite imposing. The majestic little ways of the bride, as she endeavored to assume the airs due to that highest of social positions in the country, a minister’s wife, were so exceedingly funny that they amused more than they provoked her playmates and friends.
The neighbors declared that “ it was a burning shame, so indeed it was, — Lida Ann, the sweet little thing, not yet out of short dresses ! ”
“The boys,” as the men of the locality were termed up to about forty years of age, held their special views of the matter also. Sol Davis said: “ As a private opinion, between you and me, it is the wickedest thing ever cloaked over in these ’ere parts. Fernwell is too good to live in this world, but he no need to be a complete fool if he is so good. He no need to be so afraid of that air elder. May I be cat-a-wam-pussed if he won’t swaller all the soap that old coot is a mind to give him ! ”
And so with much gossip Lida Ann’s wedding and the honeymoon were over and gone. The June roses bloomed and July fervors came, and August sultriness, and still Elder Hetchel remained a fixture at the home of Farmer Fernwell. He apparently enjoyed life at the house of his father-in-law ; and it seemed never to have entered his mind that he was not entitled to remain there as long as he chose.
Elder Hetchel possessed one great talent, — the talent for maintaining a masterly inactivity of body. While Farmer Fernwell toiled in the field throughout the summer, the Elder stuck it out in black clothes and white choker in the parlor. His ministerial dignity and sanctity were neither compromised by too great familiarity with common things, nor contaminated by worldly pursuits. Through all the heated term he remained the same fearful object, a sombre column clad in heavy sables.
In the mean time little Lida Ann was as nimble and squirrel-like as of yore, running here and there and everywhere, vibrating in her manners between the pretty, childish ways which nature taught her and a sham dignity, which greatly amused her friends whenever she assumed it.
When the summer was over and gone, and the leaves had ripened to scarlet and yellow, and the Elder still incubated, the thing became very tedious to the fatherin-law, the more so as the Elder was less popular now than in the exciting times when he had made his advent among the people. The polite practice of inviting this sensational evangelist into the pulpit to sit with the pastor on Sundays had somehow fallen into disuse of late. Perhaps this neglect was because the people thought the Elder’s way a little unhappy. The Elder had a way in conference-meeting of curiously watching the proceedings with his eyes half closed, and a smiling expression of countenance; then, when the favorable moment came, he would suddenly spring to his feet and pronounce a few emotional words, with a great gush of tears that quite washed some of the brethren and sisters off their feet, at the first trial of it. There was sobbing all over the house. After the thing had been repeated several times, however, and there had been two or three sad attempts to imitate it, resulting in great discomfort to all concerned, it was generally voted a humbug ; and when the Elder tried it again, those present resisted. It may have been this experience that led the people to speak of the Elder’s style as “ wishwashy.”
However it was, Elder Hetchel was no longer in demand anywhere. They did not need him at the brick church, nor at the Sand Creek Road, nor down at The Bush. His only visible occupation, aside from incubating, consisted in leading the family devotions at the farm-house. This inactivity was galling to the farmer and his wife. They kept no “ help,” but, after the manner of this primitive region, performed with their own hands the services of their household. It was not agreeable to them to take care of this idle man thus billeted upon them by his religious tenderness and his sacred black clothes.
As winter came on again, and the Elder remained lethargic, the farmer ventured to expostulate with his son-in-law, and proposed to him a change in the domestic programme, involving another home for the Elder and his wife. The son-in-law was, of course, in tears about it immediately, and proposed to pray with the farmer upon the subject. He explained, moreover, that he had now prepared the arrows in his quiver, and expected a call. He was even then, he said, “in a state of dubiety” whether to rush forth and blow the trumpet of Zion unbidden, drawing the bow at a venture down at Skid Hollow, or to delay until he should be invited into the vineyard to labor.
It was soon midwinter, but the Elder still remained inactive as ever at the farm-house. The father-in-law’s modest hints had grown into a demand that the Elder should leave, and the Elder’s pathos upon the subject bade fair to become a fixed and settled melancholy.
The neighborhood, as a rule, sided with the farmer and his wife against the sonin-law. It was said by the sober-minded church people, that the Elder was acting the part of a sponge ; but there were some who still believed in him. The young men, however, uniformly insisted that the Elder had no right to live upon Farmer Fernwell. About a dozen of them went so far, upon one cold evening in February, as to inveigle the evangelist into the school-house, upon pretence of important business, and then and there gave him a free lecture upon the general subject of his duty as a husband and sonin-law, and citizen in that community. A quartet of the young men, profanely styling themselves “ The Holy Roarers,” interspersed the lecture with songs disrespectful to the Elder. Finally, warning was given to the Elder that he must speedily provide a home for his wife or leave town.
The persecuted man saw fit to leave town soon after this affair. The manner of his going seemed needlessly abrupt. He was incensed and at times peevish and irritable during the three days intervening between the school-house lecture and his departure. He intimated that some of the people of that cold region were likely to go to a warmer country, and pensively alluded to the fate of the cities of the plain, He finally left for parts unknown, very early on Monday morning, and apparently in a pet. Every one thought that he might at least have told his wife where he was going and what he intended to do.
The weeks went by, and it became evident that the Elder had “gone for good.” The people generally accepted his departure quietly and gratefully ; but a few insisted that a good man had shaken off the dust of his feet against the town. Little Lida Ann was as gay and happy as ever. She still maintained at times in her own childish way the dignity of a minister’s wife.
Six months rolled away, and Elder Hetchel was a memory only, unheard of and uncared for. Then came a letter to Farmer Fernwell from his son-in-law. The son-in-law proposed in his letter to return to his wife and home in the beautiful and touching character of the prodigal son; and he expressed the hope and expectation that his “deer father would kil the fated caf,” and make other preparations for welcome which he specified. The “deer father ” did not see it in that light, but he prepared to meet his daughter’s husband and to treat him as the circumstances required.
The prodigal came through the gloaming just as a sultry August day was cooling down into a delicious summer night. He came mounted upon a fine white Canadian charger. Having secured his steed, he entered the house. He was changed somewhat in appearance. His flashy vest and large watch-seal were conspicuous. His own greeting was enthusiastic, but he was repelled by measured terms of speech and coldness of demeanor. His consternation and grief speedily reduced him to a condition of gushing tenderness. It was really trying to see a man cry so much. His tears were not merely copious, they were a vast tidal wave sweeping over his existence, and trickling down upon the hard, unsympathizing kitchen floor. Mrs. Fernwell expressed the apprehension that the Elder would be completely dissolved, so that Lida Ann would have nothing left for a husband except a few pailsful of sweetened water.
The Elder’s pathos finally triumphed. He was again received into favor and welcomed home. His return was speedily made known throughout the neighborhood. On the next sabbath, when he appeared at the brick church, he was greeted with some show of kindness. He was permitted to remain in the town without molestation.
It is not pleasant to record the fact that, by slow degrees and painfully, Lida Ann’s husband settled down into a shoemaker. Hard pressed by his father-inlaw to do something, he acknowledged to a lifelong familiarity with lasts and leather and the cobbler’s trade. After some hesitation and questioning as to what the neighbors would think, a room was set apart for his shop at the farm-house, and tools and leather were procured for him. He proved a skilful workman. His first triumph was a pair of high morocco shoes for Lida Ann. They were noticed a good deal because they were the Elder’s work. They were pronounced by the ladies worthy of that superlative feminine adjective “ splendid.” A friend of Lida Ann’s required a pair immediately, and soon the Elder had all the orders he could take care of.
The neighbors generously overlooked the evangelist’s decline from public honors. They respected his skill and industry. Farmer Eernwell also had the kindness and good sense to commend his sonin-law heartily for his labor. But Mrs. Fernwell and Lida Ann were not at all enthusiastic upon the subject. It was the coming down from a minister’s wife to a shoemaker’s that was humiliating. The Daisy had married not so much Mr. Hetchel as “the Elder.”
Three years rolled away. Life at the farm-house was cool, calm, and homelike, with the variety which country residence and alternating seasons give. The tap-tap of the Elder’s hammer in the little shoproom up stairs had become a very familiar sound. A pair of little feet, too, were just beginning upon the farm-house floor a tap-tap, which as time progressed would become an immense series, constituting the weary march of another life. The Elder was recognized now as a settleddown citizen with a wife and a bright little child recently christened with the name of Ruth. His character had come to be pretty well understood by his neighbors. He was found to be sentimental and “ swashy,” but otherwise a reasonable creature and good-hearted. It was necessary to look out for him at prayermeetings and other gatherings for religious worship. He was always contriving a sensational trap to catch the brethren and sisters, and produce a religious crying-spell.
A new and startling sensation came to the neighborhood. The spirits invaded this remote and bleak region. It was at the beginning of a rigorous winter. Most of the church people piously hoped and expected that the spirits would be frozen out. But “the medium” was unfortunately a native, returning from a visit to a milder climate, and, bringing the spirits home with him, he succeeded in rendering them so comfortable that they remained.
Elder Hetchel “took to the spirits.” He spent many evenings at the houses where the circle gathered, and was a zealous and influential disciple. He could not have table-tippings openly at his fatherin-law’s house, for Deacon Fernwell stoutly declared that he would have no such nonsense upon his premises; but the Elder was suspected of practising alone slyly in his shop-room when he ought to have been pegging shoes. He often pleaded with his father-in-law and mother-in-law not to grieve and neglect “ the dear, dear spirits,” and he quite broke down with sobbing and tears when they finally laughed at him. He went up to his little shoproom, crushed, crying, and subdued, like a little boy who is whipped and abused at school. Mrs. Ferwell’s motherly heart smote her when she saw this, and she went up after him and comforted him. The Elder, was really proud of this. He told one of “ the boys ” (a goat in disguise) in a circle afterward, how he had “ fetched the old lady,” and he recommended it as a thing worth trying.
Lida Ann was between two fires. Her husband praised the spirits, and her father condemned them. To gratify her curiosity, she attended a table-tipping with her husband. From that time Lida Ann also took to the spirits. Her attention was strongly drawn to the doctrine of spiritual affinities, as it was expounded by a spiritualistic preacher who visited the new field to encourage the converts. She had grown towards a woman’s estate since she became a wife, and her woman’s heart was rebellious in regard to its belongings. It speedily became apparent in the circle that the Elder’s little girl of a wife was particularly great upon the doctrine of affinities. It was no secret that “ the dear, sweet angels were smiling upon the affinity of the souls of Sister Hetchel and Brother Skitchpin.” This Skitchpin was the foreign preacher, He was very young, and, if a certain vacant expression was not felt, he was handsome, He had long curls carefully oiled and twisted into corkscrews, and an expression in his eloquent moments that seemed to the circle seraphic.
Lida Ann would have been shocked at any immorality, but there was something about “the twining of the blushing red rose with the golden bells of the lily ” as described by Skitchpin that fixed the doctrine of spiritual affinities as firmly upon her young heart as if it had been fastened there by an adhesive plaster. It should he remembered that Lida Ann was only about twenty years of age, and the romance of her nature was drawing towards its prime.
it was a day of consternation and surprise when suddenly Lida Ann and the Rev. Skitchpin were found to be missing. The occurrence fell with a painful shock upon all the people. They had “ such confidence in Lida Ann ! ” Logan stood up for her fiercely even yet. “No business to have married her to her great-grandfather if they didn’t want her to cut up,” he would say.
Ten days of suspense and great sorrow were passed at the farm-house. Then came a letter; it was signed by Slick and Spavin, attorneys, dating from Chicago. They “ begged to inform Hezekiah Fernwell, Esq., that, as per previous arrangement, Rev. A. Z. Skitchpin had arrived on Friday last, and the previous affidavits of residence, etc., having been satisfactory, there was no delay in obtaining the divorce, and the couple were married on Saturday, and this letter sent as per request of the same.” They enclosed with the'letter a printed circular asking for patronage, and intimating that they had peculiar facilities for procuring divorces upon the shortest notice that could be desired.
This letter was a relief. Soon a letter came from Lida Ann to her mother. It was a curious mixture of romance, love, and wonder. It was apparent that the Daisy, who had never before slept away from her own father’s roof-tree, and had always believed in the red brick church as paramount in architecture, was transported, dazed, and bewildered at sight of the great world.
Her elation at the fact that she would be “ a minister’s wife, after all, dear mother,” would have been funny and childish if it had not been so sad.
Life at the farm-house after this was mournful and lonely. Three long, weary years and six months passed away, as slowly as time usually passes in lonely homes. Farmer Fernwell and his wife were becoming very gray. People were sorry for them, and they pitied the Elder, who continued to make shoes. Elder Hetchel was more sad and sober, and much less tearful and “ swashy,” than in former times. The boys said that the Elder was becoming “ more elderly ” every day. In all this time they heard nothing from the Daisy. Summers and winters came and went, and it was now summer again.
It was a very warm July evening, just like that when, seven years before, the Elder with his Canadian charger had played his little farce of the returning prodigal. The sharp yip-yip, and at intervals the brassy whirring jar, of a nighthawk high up in the dark air, out over the meadow, broke the stillness of the hour. The trio that now sat at the farmhouse door enjoying the descending coolness and fragrance of the summer night had taken deeply to heart life’s lessons of sorrow, and they were patient and forgiving towards each other. Little Ruthie was tucked away, fast asleep. It was quiet all through the house, except the ticking of the clock and the chirp of a cricket.
“ I think it was wrong for me to marry her though; arter all,” said the Elder, with a sigh.
“No, it was not all your fault, Elder, you must not say that; and I think she loved you,” said Mrs. Femwell, kindly.
It; was a familiar theme with the trio.
“ There comes lame Libby,” said Farmer Fernwell, peering out toward the road.
The latch of the door-yard gate clicked, and the form of a woman, limping and unsteady, with a little bundle in her hand, was dimly seen coming to the door through the evening shadows. Half-way from the gate to the door she hesitated, stopped and stood crying, and then sank down.
“ O my God, it is Lida Ann! ” said Mrs. Fernwell.
It was true. For three hitter years, the poor, deserted, crushed, but proud Daisy had fought the fearful battle which an ignorant, lone, girlish little woman has to fight to hold on even to life in the wilderness of a great city. Here she was at last, footsore, sick, emaciated, ashamed, crying, and almost swooning before her own father’s door. Her weak battle in a great town had brought her to this.
In a moment the trio got to her. Farmer Fernwell gathered her up in his arms and sobbed, “ Poor child, poor child! ” as he Carried her tenderly into the house. Pur a long time she had no word to say, hut clung to her father’s neck and hid her face upon his shoulder while she wept. The Elder stood sympathizing and trembling near by. A few honest tears trickled down his face, without his seeming to be aware of it. Mrs. Fernwell, after dinging for a while to her husband and her child as they were together, found herself weak and tottering. She had some difficulty in getting the lamps lighted, and when she had succeeded and gained a glimpse of Lida Ann’s face, all shrunken and pinched and seamed with sickness and the scars of life’s stern warfare, she, for the first time in her quiet career, fainted.
Lida Ann’s return was an important item of news in the little neighborhood. The comments of the men revealed, for the most part, a manly generosity in judging of her conduct. The women declared that they would say nothing against Lida Ann; but they were somehow particularly struck with “ the noble conduct of the Elder in taking her back so readily.” He was really bespattered with feminine praises, and came as near to being generally popular as is possible to a sentimental mountebank recently reformed. A half-dozen or more little incidents, showing the romance and sentiment of his devotion to Lida Ann, were detailed with exquisite relish. He was very much surprised one morning, about a fortnight after Lida Ann’s return, at finding in his room upon a table a long white cylindrical object, which proved to he a cane wrapped in white paper. It had a real gold knob for a head, and on it was engraved, “To the Rev. Walter Hetchel.” A little card attached to it by a scarlet ribbon informed the Elder that the ladies had presented it.
The Elder did evince a disposition “to slop over ” that morning at breakfast when discussing the cane, and began a premonitory snuffle, after the manner of his preaching days ; but a hint from the deacon corrected him, and he restrained himself.
The Elder’s second courtship was not very protracted. A little Chicago arrangement was speedily effected, and Mrs. Skitchpin, who had heard nothing from her spiritualistic and slightly rickety husband for about three years, was again, legally, an unmarried woman. A sabbath day about five weeks after her return was fixed upon as the time for the wedding. The people felt that they all had a right to take an interest in a romance that had now become so public, and the wedding was to be at the brick church.
It was a golden day, the first of September ; the earth was rich with fruitage, the pulses of the air at rest. At ten o’clock in the morning the little wedding party left the house, and started on foot for the church. The Elder, with a glossy black coat and white waistcoat, a new beaver and his presentation cane, was a very presentable bridegroom. The little woman beside him in a muslin dress was hollow-cheeked and hollow-eyed. Little Ruthie, after a childish protest of more than a week, had learned to call the little woman “mamma,” and now clung lovingly to her hand, and prattled and trotted along at her side.
Farmer Fernwell and his wife came close on behind. The group of five trod the little dusty highway so familiar to their feet. In the bright sunshine through the crystal air, as they walked to church, they saw with familiar eyes to the northward the declivity of the mountains, — a vast descending wooded plain, stretching downward to the great St. Lawrence Valley, and still beyond a dim horizon vanishing away at a measureless distance into the sky. Lida Ann, having seen this from a child, Lad never noticed it before ; but now its surpassing grandeur amazed and thrilled her.
At the church there was first the usual sabbath sermon, by the pastor, and then the marriage ceremony.
Lida Ann had been secluded since her return. Few of the people had seen her. After the formal words were said, and the Elder and Lida Ann were man and wife again, and the pastor had dismissed the congregation, the kind, simple-hearted women gathered around to welcome and kiss the bride; some of “the boys” too lingered to speak a good word to the Daisy. There were many tears. They could hardly recognize at first “ little Lida ” in the stern eyes and pallid face that would not flinch nor quiver. But human hearts are wondrous kind in rustic bosoms. The mothers in Israel saw how it was. Good Mother Marshton took the little bride right into her kind arms, whether the Daisy would permit it or not, and cried over her as resolutely as though she had been at home in her own kitchen. This was hard to resist. Lida Ann’s bosom began to heave painfully, the frost softened and trickled down upon the wan face, and soon the fountains were opened and she was a child again.
P. Deming.