CHAPTER XXV.
A CHAPTER OF BETWEENS.
Did you ever move? And, in moving, did you ever happen to notice howmany little things there are to be picked up? Now that I am about toshift the scene of my story from Clark township, the narrow stage uponwhich it has progressed through two dozen chapters, I find a greatnumber of little things to be picked up.
One of the little things to be picked up is Norman Anderson. Verylittle, if measured soul-wise. When his father had read the proclamationof Andrew and divined that Norman was interested in the riot, he becamethoroughly indignant; the more so, that he felt his own lack of power todo anything in the premises against his wife. But when Mrs. Abigailheard of the case she was in genuine distress. It showed Andrew'svindictiveness. He would follow her forever with his resentments, justbecause she could not love him. It was not her fault that she did notlove him. Poor Norman had to suffer all the persecutions that usuallyfall to such innocent creatures. She must send him away from home,though it broke her mother's heart to do it; for if Andrew didn't havehim took up, the old Dutchman would, just because his son had turned outa burglar. She said burglar rather emphatically, with a look at Julia.
And so Samuel Anderson took his son to Louisville, and got him a placein a commission and produce house on the levee, with which Mr. Andersonhad business influence. And Samuel warned him that he must do his best,for he could not come back home now without danger of arrest, and Normanmade many promises of amendment; so many, that his future seemed to himbarren of all delight. And, by way of encouraging himself in the austerelife upon which he had resolved to enter, he attended the leastreputable place of amusement in the city, the first night after hisfather's departure.
In Clark township the Millerite excitement was at white heat. Some ofthe preachers in other parts of the country had set one day, someanother. I believe that Mr. Miller, the founder, never had the temerityto set a day. But his followers figured the thing more closely, andElder Hankins had put a fine point on the matter. He was certain, forhis part, that the time was at midnight on the eleventh of August. Hisfollowers became very zealous, and such is the nature of an infectionthat scarcely anybody was able to resist it. Mrs. Anderson, true to herexcitable temper, became fanatic--dreaming dreams, seeing visions,hearing voices, praying twenty times a day[2], wearing a sourly piousface, and making all around her more unhappy than ever. Jonas declaredthat ef the noo airth and the noo heaven was to be chockful of sech asshe, 'most any other place in the univarse would be better, akordin' tohis way of thinkin'. He said she repented more of other folkses' sinsthan anybody he ever seed.
[Footnote 2: Mrs. Anderson was less devout than some of herco-religionists; the wife of a well-known steamboat-clerk was accustomedto pray in private fifty times a day, hoping by means of this prayingwithout ceasing to be found ready when the trumpet should sound.]
As summer came on, Samuel Anderson, borne away on the tide of his ownand his wife's fanatical fever of sublimated devotion, discharged Jonasand all his other _employes_, threw up business, and gave his wholeattention to the straightening of his accounts for the coming day ofjudgment. Before Jonas left to seek a new place he told Cynthy Ann ashow as ef he'd met her alrlier 'twould a-settled his coffee fer life. Hewas gittin' along into the middle of the week now, but he'd come to feellike a boy since he'd been a livin' where he could have a few sweet andpleasant words--ahem!--he thought December'd be as pleasant as May allthe year round ef he could live in the aurora borealis of hercountenance. And Cynthy Ann enjoyed his words so much that she prayedfor forgiveness for the next week and confessed in class-meeting thatshe had yielded to temptation and sot her heart on the things of thisperishin' world. She was afeared she hadn't always remembered as how asshe was a poor unworthy dyin' worm of the dust, and that all thebeautiful things in this world perished with the usin'.
And Brother Goshorn, the class-leader at Harden's Cross-Roads, exhortedher to tear every idol from her heart. And still the sweet woman'snature, God's divine law revealed in her heart, did assert itself alittle. She planted some pretty-by-nights in an old crackedblue-and-white tea-pot and set it on her window-sill. Somehow thepretty-by-nights would remind her of Jonas, and while she tried toforget him with one half of her nature, the other and better part (thedepraved part, she would have told you) cherished the memory of hissmallest act and word. In fact, the flowers had no association withJonas except that along with the awakening of her love came this littlesentiment for flowers into the dry desert of her life. But one day Mrs.Anderson discovered the old blue broken tea-pot with its young plants.
"Why, Cynthy Ann!" she cried, "a body'd think you'd have more sense thanto do such a soft thing as to be raisin' posies at _your_ time of life!And that when the world is drawing to a close, too! You'll be one of thefoolish virgins with no oil to your lamp, as sure as you see that day."
As for Julia's flowers, Mrs. Anderson had rudely thrown them into theroad by way of removing temptation from her and turning her thoughtstoward the awful realities of the close of time.
But Cynthy Ann blushed and repented, and kept her broken tea-pot, with afearful sense of sin in doing so. She never watered the pretty-by-nightswithout the feeling that she was offering sacrifice to an idol.