Travelers Five Along Life's Highway Part 9

John went down to the river Jordan!

John went down to the river Jordan To wash his sins away!"

Little did the congregation think, as they lifted their l.u.s.ty voices, that with the thread of that old tune lay the unravelling of Bap Sloan's riddle. For this is the scene it brought back to him, out of one of the earliest years of his childhood. There was a white face lying back among the pillows of a great bed, with carved posts and a valance of flowered chintz that smelled faintly of lavender. Somebody had lifted the big family Bible and laid it open on the edge of the bed, and he saw himself, a sober-faced little fellow in brown dress and ap.r.o.n, standing on tiptoe to look at the pictures. That white face on the pillows was his mother's, and this was the only recollection he had of her. Pointing to a queer old engraving, she had told him the story of John the Baptist, adding, with her thin hand on his curls: "And your name is John, too. Little John Baptist, though we don't call you by all of it. I named you that a purpose. Give you a good name, so 't you'd be a good man. Mebbe it's just a whim of mine, but I've thought a good deal about it while I've been lying here sick. Mebbe some day _you'll_ be able to go to the Holy Land, 'way over the mountains and over the seas, and be baptized in that same river Jordan, where the dove descended. See the pretty dove?"

Even though the baby brain understood but dimly what she said to him, the light in her uplifted eyes filled him with solemn awe, and from that moment the mantle of her ambition rested henceforth on his young shoulders. It was a vague, intangible thing at first, when he used to go back to the old Bible and study the picture in secret. He never understood when it began to fold itself about his life, or how it grew with his years till it completely enveloped him.

He was a man little given to introspection, and with a mind so slow to arrive at a conclusion that it always seemed doubtful if he would ever reach it. Still, when he once settled down on an opinion, his sister Sarah used to say it was with the determination of a snapping-turtle.

"He wouldn't let go then till it thundered." His sister Sarah took charge of him, mind and body, when their mother died, and so thoroughly did she manage him that her will was always his, except in that one matter. He would not join the church of his fathers until he got ready, and he would give no reason for his delay.

He was twenty when he made his first stubborn stand against her, and for thirty years Sarah wept over him both in public and private, and for thirty years Luella Clark's heart battled with her conscience, which would not let her be "unequally yoked together with an unbeliever." And through all that time Baptist Sloan had kept his own counsel, h.o.a.rding every penny he could save, to the refrain of his mother's remembered words: "Over the mountains and over the seas, and be baptized in that same river Jordan, where the dove descended."

He had so firmly made up his mind that after that pilgrimage to his Mecca he would marry Luella that he had never viewed his conduct from her standpoint until Sister Bowles opened his eyes. Her speech about the widower aroused him to an undefined sense of danger. All that next hour his inclination s.h.i.+fted like a weather-vane, first to take Luella into his confidence, then not to. By the time the congregation rose for the last hymn he had made up his mind.

The moon was coming up now, a faint, misty light struggling through the clouds. He waited until most of the congregation had pa.s.sed his gate, and then striking out across the potato-field, waited at the turn of the road on the other side of the cedar-grove. It was here that Luella always parted company with the Robinson girls, and went the remaining way alone. It was only a few steps farther to her mother's brown cottage, and he hurried to overtake her before she should reach the gate.

"Land o' Goshen! Bap Sloan!" she exclaimed, with a startled little cry, as he came puffing along by her side. "Who'd 'a' dreamed of seeing _you_ here? Why wa'n't you at church to-night? Everybody was asking if you were sick, it's been so long since you've missed."

"Stop a minute, Luella," he exclaimed, blocking her way by planting himself directly in her path. "I want to talk to you. I've made up my mind at last to tell you, and I want you to come back and sit down on the stile where n.o.body else can't hear it."

Led by curiosity as much as by the new masterfulness in his tone, Luella turned back a step and seated herself on the stile that led into the apple-orchard. The blossom-laden bough of a gnarly old tree bent over her head and sent a gust of fragrance past her that made her close her eyes an instant and draw a long breath, it was so heavenly sweet. The night was warm, but she drew her shawl around her erect, angular figure with a forbidding air that made it hard for him to begin. "Well?" she said stiffly.

"I don't know just how it's goin' to strike you," he began, hesitating painfully. "That is--well, I don't know--maybe you won't take any interest in it, after all; but I kinder thought--something might happen in the meantime--maybe I'd better--"

He gave a nervous little cough, unable to find the words.

"What air you aiming at, anyhow, Baptist Sloan?" she demanded. "What's got your tongue? Mother'll wonder what's keeping me, so I wish you'd speak up and say what's on your mind, if there's anything a-troubling you."

Then he blurted out his confession in a few short sentences, and waited.

She sat staring at him through such a long silence that he forced an uneasy laugh.

"I was afraid maybe you'd think it was foolish," he said dejectedly.

"That's why I never could bring myself to speak of it all these years. I thought n.o.body'd understand--that they'd laugh at me for spendin' a fortune that way. But honest, Luella, it is sort o' sacred to me, and mother's words come to me so often that it's grown to be like one of the commandments to me." His voice sank almost to a whisper: "'Over the mountains and over the seas, and be baptized in that same river Jordan, where the dove descended.' It's been no small matter to live up to, either. Sometimes it seems to me as if I'd been sent out like the children of Israel, and it was goin' to take the whole forty years of wanderin' to reach my promised land. I've spent thirty of 'em in the wilderness of wantin' _you_, but I begin to see my way clearin' up now toward the end. Only twenty dollars more! I can go after wheat harvest and the thres.h.i.+n'. Good Lord, Luella, why don't you _say_ somethin'! But it's no use; I know you think I'm such an awful fool."

She turned toward him in the dim moonlight, her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh, Bap," she cried, "to think how everybody has misjudged you all this time! It's perfectly _grand_ of you, and I feel like a dawg when I remember all I've said about your not being a believer, when all the time you were better than any of us can ever hope to be. It's like being the martyrs and crusaders all at once, to stick to such an ambition through thick and thin. But oh, Bap, why _didn't_ you tell me long ago!"

"Don't cry, Luella," he urged, awkwardly patting the shawl drawn around her thin shoulders. He was amazed and overwhelmed at this unprecedented revelation of tenderness in what had always been to him the most stony-hearted of natures.

"Then maybe, Luella, after wheat harvest," he ventured, floundering out of an awkward pause, "after I've been and got back, then--will you have me?"

She slipped her hand into his. She would have had him then and there had he asked her, and counted it joy to be allowed to help toil for the funds still needed to carry her saint across the seas. Already she had fitted a halo about the bald spot she had lately ridiculed, and she burned to begin her expiation for that sacrilege.

But in the molding of his plans Baptist Sloan had arranged that marriage was to come after the Mecca, and in the hardening process of the years that idea had become so firmly set in his mind that nothing short of supernatural force could have produced a change. It never occurred to him that it was possible to marry before he went on his pilgrimage.

He held the hand she had given him awkwardly. This was the hour he had dreamed of, but now that it had come, he was ill at ease, uncertain how to proceed. Suddenly a little breeze, swinging through the orchard, stirred the apple-bough above them, and sent a shower of pink-and-white blossoms across their faces. Velvety soft were the petals, cool with the night dew, and unspeakably sweet. She looked up at him, her face grown wonderfully young and fresh again in the moonlight. He stooped and kissed her. The apple-bough swayed again above them, with another fragrant shower of pink and white. It, too, was gnarly and old, but standing glorified, like them, for a little while in the sweetness of belated blossom-time.

It was the talk of the valley--this pilgrimage of Baptist Sloan's.

n.o.body within its borders had ever been out of sight of land, and the congregation divided itself into two factions regarding him. One division called it sinful pride that sent him chasing away to parts unknown on such an errand. Beargra.s.s Creek was good enough for Bap Sloan's immersion, if it had been good enough for his father's and grandfather's before him. The other side agreed with Luella, according him the halo, and she, in the reflected light of such greatness, beamed proudly and importantly on all her little world.

Several weeks after this disclosure he stopped at the cottage one morning in great excitement. He held a letter in his hand, some railroad time-tables, and the itinerary of a "personally conducted" party to Palestine. "I say, Luella," he cried, "look at this! It's clear providence that the Paris Exposition happened to start up just now.

Here's a chance to go to the Jordan on excursion rates, with three days at the Exposition thrown in. I needn't wait till after wheat harvest now, it's so much cheaper than what I had figured on. And the beauty of it is, I can not only kill two birds with one stone,--take in Paris and Palestine both,--but have a guide to look after everything. It's been a mystery to me all along how I was to find my way around in those furrin parts by myself. But this settles everything. I can start to New York next Wednesday, and get there before the s.h.i.+p sails. _Lord_, Luella! To think it's really comin' to pa.s.s after all these years!"

Luella was in a quiver of excitement, but she rose to the occasion with almost motherly solicitude for his well-being. "I'll put up your lunch, Bap," she said. "You needn't worry about a thing; only tell me what you'd like to have cooked. And if you've any clothes that need mending, just you bring 'em right down, and I'll see to 'em. I'll go over to your house after you've gone, too, and fix things ready to be left shut up for the time you're away."

Her prompt decision was so much like his sister Sarah's that he never thought of protesting. It seemed good to be managed once more, and he meekly acquiesced to all she proposed.

Luella had a sharp tongue, but it had lost its sting for him since she had put him on the pedestal of hero and saint. But it had not lost its cutting qualities when turned on other people.

"What's this big empty sarsaparilla bottle doing in your carpet-bag?"

she demanded suddenly on the day of his departure.

"Old Mis' Bates wants that I should take it along and fill it at the Jordan. She's countin' on havin' all the family baptized out of it when I get back."

"Out of one quart bottle!" sniffed Luella, scornfully. "Humph! Just like the Bateses. Much good any one of 'em will get out of such a stingy sprinkling. Why didn't you tell her you couldn't be bothered with it?

You always was the kind to be imposed on, Bap Sloan. If I wasn't so afraid of water that horses couldn't pull me on to a s.h.i.+p, I'd go along to look after you. _Do_ take care of yourself!"

And that was the chorus shouted after him as he swung himself up the car-steps, stumbling over his carpet-bag and big cotton umbrella. Fully two thirds of the congregation were down at the station to bid him good-bye. In the midst of the general hand-shaking some one started a hymn, and the last words that Bap Sloan heard, as he hung out of the train window to wave his hat, were:

"By the grace of G.o.d we'll meet you On Jordan's happy sh.o.r.e!"

There was one last look at Luella, wildly waving a limp wet handkerchief. The sight so affected him that he had to draw out his bandana and violently blow his nose; but he smiled as the train went leaping down the track. All the weary waiting was over at last, and his face was set toward his Promised Land.

Several days later, in one of the southbound trains pulling out of New York, the conductor noticed a man sitting with his head bowed in his hands. His soft slouch-hat was pulled over his eyes, and an antiquated carpet-bag and big cotton umbrella were piled on the seat beside him.

Except when he showed his ticket, there was no change in his att.i.tude.

Mile after mile he rode, never lifting his head, the hopeless droop of his bowed shoulders seeming to suggest that some burden had been laid upon them too great for a mortal to bear.

Night came, and he slept at intervals. Then his head fell back against the cus.h.i.+on of the seat, and one could see how haggard and worn was the face heretofore hidden. In the gray light of the early morning the conductor pa.s.sed again and turned to give a second glance at the furrowed face with its unshaven chin, unconsciously dropped, and the gray, uncombed hair straggling over the forehead. Even in sleep it wore an expression of abject hopelessness, and looked ten years older than when, only three days before, it smiled good-bye to the singing crowd at Beargra.s.s Valley station. Baptist Sloan was homeward bound, and yet he had not so much as even seen the s.h.i.+p which was to have carried him to his Jordan.

It was only the repet.i.tion of an old story--old as the road going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He had fallen among thieves. In the bewilderment and daze which fell upon him when he found himself alone in a great city, he had been easy prey for confidence men. There had been a pretended arrest. He had been taken into custody by a man who showed his badge and a.s.sumed to be a private detective. Sure that he could prove his innocence, and smiling grimly as he compared himself once more to a harmless sheep in wolf's clothing, he allowed himself, without an outcry, to be bundled into a carriage that was to take him to the police station. When he came to himself it was morning, and he was on the steps of a cellar, with every pocket empty. He had been robbed of his little fortune, stripped bare of his lifelong hope.

How he was at last started homeward with a ticket in his hand could have been explained by a young newspaper reporter who interviewed him exhaustively at the police station, whither he finally found his way.

The reporter made a good story of it, touching up its homely romance with effective sketching; and then because he had come from the same State as Baptist Sloan, because he had once lived on a farm and knew an honest man when he saw one, he loaned him the money that was to take this disabled knight errant home with his mortal wound.

It was on the afternoon of the second day that Baptist Sloan opened his old carpet-bag for the remnants of the lunch that Luella had packed inside. His hand struck against Mrs. Bates's sarsaparilla bottle, and he shut his eyes with a sickening sensation of inward sinking.

"And I've got to take that there thing back to her _empty_," he said, gritting his teeth. "Where am I ever goin' to get the s.p.u.n.k to face 'em all? They'll say it was a judgment on me, for a good many of 'em seemed to think that I was too proud to be baptized in Beargra.s.s. They'll say that maybe it's to save me from fallin' short of heaven that I failed to reach the Jordan."

As he slowly munched the dry remains of his lunch, the cogs of the car-wheels started anew the question that had tormented him all the way.

"What _will_-Lu-_el_-la _say_? What _will_-Lu-_el_-la _say_?" they shrieked over and over.

"She'll say that I'm an awful fool," he told himself. "She never could abide to be laughed at, and if people poke fun at me, she'll never have me in the world." The alternate hope and despair that seized him were like the deadly burning and chill of fever and ague. "If I only knew how _she'd_ take it!" was his inward cry. When he thought of her proverbial sharp tongue he quailed at the ordeal of meeting her. But through every interval of doubt came the fragrance of the moonlighted apple-orchard, the old stile, that one kiss--a remembrance as sweet as the blossom-time itself. Surely Luella must think of that.

Presently he noticed that the brakeman was calling out the names of familiar stations, and he realized that he was almost home. Only a few minutes more to summon his courage and brace himself for his trial. The train rumbled over a trestle, and peering out through the gathering dusk he saw the shallow waters of Beargra.s.s Creek, black with the reflection of the evening shadows. "The only Jordan Bap Sloan will ever see now,"

he said, with a s.h.i.+ver that sent a tremor through his bowed shoulders.

"Beargra.s.s Valley!" he heard the brakeman call. Nervously he clutched his carpet-bag and umbrella, and lurched down the aisle. But when the train stopped and he was half-way down the steps, he paused and clung an instant to the railing. "O Lord!" he groaned once more, involuntarily shrinking back. "If women wa'n't so awfully oncertain! If I just _knew_ what Luella's goin' to say!"