Sunny Slopes Part 6

"'Miss Connie,' he said in a friendly, inviting voice, 'you know there are a lot of things in politics that girls can't get to the bottom of.

You know my record, I've been a good Methodist since before you were born. Sure you wouldn't go on the witness stand on circ.u.mstantial evidence to make trouble for a good Methodist, would you?'

"I looked at him with wide and childish eyes. 'Of course not, Mr.

Matters,' I said quickly. He brightened visibly. 'But if I am called on a witness stand I have to tell what I have seen and heard, haven't I, whatever it is?' I asked this very innocently, as one seeking information only.

"'Your father wouldn't let a young girl like you get mixed up in any dirty county scandal,' he protested.

"'If I was--what do you call it--subpoenaed--is that the word?' He forgot that I was working in a lawyer's office. 'If I was subpoenaed as a witness, could father help himself?'

"Mr. Matters went forlornly on his way and that night Kirke came around to say that the sheriff had informed him casually that he thought his services would not be needed on that boot-legging case,--they had plenty of other witnesses,--and out of regard for the family, etc., etc.

"Kirke smiled at him. 'Thank you very much. And, Matters, I have a hundred and fifty nice cold bottles in the bas.e.m.e.nt,--if you get too warm some summer evening come around and I'll help you cool off.'

"Matters thanked him incoherently and went away.

"That day Kirke and I had a confidential conversation. 'Connie Starr, I believe I am half a preacher right now. You marry me, and I will study for the ministry.'

"'Kirke Connor,' I said, 'if any fraction of you is a minister, it isn't on speaking terms with the rest of you. That's certain. And I wouldn't marry you if you were a whole Conference. And I don't want to marry a preacher of all people. And anyhow I am not going to get married at all.'

"At breakfast the next morning father said, 'I believe Kirke Connor is headed straight, for good and all. Now if some nice girl could just marry him he would be safe enough.'

"Aunt Grace looked at him warningly. 'But of course no nice girl could do it, yet,' she interposed quickly. 'It wouldn't be safe. He can't marry until he is sure of himself.'

"'Oh, I don't know,' I said thoughtfully. 'Provided the girl were clever as well as nice, she could handle Kirke easily. Now I may not be the nicest girl in the world, but no one can deny that I am clever.'

"Father swallowed helplessly. Then he rallied. 'By the way, Connie, won't you come down to Burlington with me for a couple of days? I have a lot of work to do there, and we can have a nice little honeymoon all by ourselves. What do you say?'

"'Oh, thank you, father, that is lovely. Let's go on the noon train, shall we? I can be ready.'

"'All right, just fine.' He flashed a triumphant glance at Aunt Grace and she dimpled her approval.

"'Now don't tell any one we are going, father,' I cautioned him. 'I want to surprise Kirke Connor. He is going to Burlington on that train himself, and it will be such a joke on him to find us there ready to be entertained. He is to be there several days, so he can amuse me while you are busy. Isn't it lovely? He really needs a little boosting now, and it is our duty, and--will you press my suit, Auntie? I must fly or I won't be ready.'

"Aunt Grace looked reproachfully at father, and father looked despairingly at Aunt Grace. But we had a splendid time in Burlington, the three of us, for father never did one second's work all the time, he was so deathly afraid to leave me alone with Kirke.

"Isn't it lots of fun to be alive, Carol? So many thrilling and interesting and happy things come up every day,--I love to dig in and work hard, and how I love to drop my work at five thirty and run home and doll up, and play, and flirt--just nice, harmless flirting,--and sing, and talk,--really, it is a darling little old world, isn't it?

"Oh, and by the way, Carol, when you want a divorce just write me about it. Mr. Nesbitt and I specialize on divorces, and I can do the whole thing myself and save you lots of trouble. Just tell me when, and I will furnish your motive.

"Lovingly as always,

"Connie."

CHAPTER VI

THE HEAVY YOKE

The burden of ministering rested very lightly on Carol's slender shoulders. The endless procession of missionary meetings, aid societies, guilds and boards, afforded her a childish delight and did not sap her enthusiasm to the slightest degree. She went out of her little manse each new day, laughing, and returned, wearily perhaps, but still laughing. She sang light-heartedly with the youth of the church, because she was young and happy with them. She sympathized pa.s.sionately with the old and sorry ones, because the richness of her own content, and the blessed perfection of her own life, made her heart tender.

Into her new life she had carried three matchless a.s.sets for a minister's wife,--a supreme confidence in the exaltation of the ministry, a boundless adoration for her husband, and a natural liking for people that made people naturally like her. Thus equipped, she faced the years of aids and missions with profound serenity.

She was sorry they hadn't more time for the honeymoon business, she and David. Honeymooning was such tremendously good fun. But they were so almost unbelievably busy all the time. On Monday David was down-town all day, attending minister's meeting and Presbytery in the morning, and looking up new books in the afternoon. Carol always joined him for lunch and they counted that noon-time hour a little oasis in a week of work. In the evening there were deacons' meetings, or trustees'

meetings, or the men's Bible cla.s.s. On Tuesday evening they had a Bible study cla.s.s. On Wednesday evening was prayer-meeting. Thursday night, they, with several of their devoted workers, walked a mile and a half across country to Happy Hollow where they conducted mad little mission meetings. Friday night Carol met with the young women's club, and on Sat.u.r.day night was a mission study cla.s.s.

Carol used to sigh over the impossibility of having a beau night. She said that she had often heard that husbands couldn't be sweethearts, but she had never believed it before. Pinned down to facts, however, she admitted she preferred the husband.

Mornings Carol was busy with housework, talking to herself without intermission as she worked. And David spent long hours in his study, poring over enormous books that Carol insisted made her head ache from the outside and would probably give her infantile paralysis if she dared to peep between the covers. Afternoons were the aid societies, missionary societies, and all the rest of them, and then the endless calls,--calls on the sick, calls on the healthy, calls on the pillars, calls on the backsliders, calls on the very sad, calls on the very happy,--every varying phase of life in a church community merits a call from the minister and his wife.

The heavy yoke,--the yoke of dead routine,--dogs the footsteps of every minister, and even more, of every minister's wife. But Carol thought of the folks that fitted into the cogs of the routine to drive it round and round,--the teachers, the doctors' wives, the free-thinkers, the mothers, the professional women, the cynics, the pillars of the church,--and thinking of the folks, she forgot the routine. And so to her, routine could never prove a clog, stagnation. Every meeting brought her a fresh revelation, they amused her, those people, they puzzled her, sometimes they made her sad and frightened her, as they taught her facts of life they had gleaned from wide experience and often in bitter tears. Still, they were folks, and Carol had always had a pa.s.sion for people.

David worked too hard. It was positively wicked for any human being to work as he did, and she scolded him roundly, and even went so far as to shake him, and then kissed him a dozen times to prove how very angry she was at him for abusing himself so shamefully.

David did work hard, as hard as every young minister must work to get things going right, to make his labor count. His face, always thin, was leaner, more intense than ever. His eyes were clear, far-seeing.

The whiteness of his skin, amounting almost to pallor, gave him that suggestion of spirituality not infrequently seen in men of pa.s.sionate consecration to a high ideal. The few graying hairs at his temples, and even the half-droop of his shoulders, added to his scholarly appearance, and Carol was firmly convinced that he was the finest-looking man in all St. Louis, and every place else for that matter.

The mad little mission, so-called because of the riotous nature of the meetings held there, was in a most flouris.h.i.+ng condition. Everything was going beautifully for the little church in the Heights, and in their grat.i.tude, and their happiness, Carol and David worked harder than ever,--and mutually scolded each other for the folly of it.

"I tell you this, David Arnold Duke," Carol told him sternly, "if you don't do something to that cold so you can preach without coughing, I shall do the preaching myself, and then where would you be?"

"Without a job, of course," he answered. "But you wouldn't do it. The wind has chafed your darling complexion, and you wouldn't go into the pulpit with a rough face. Your devotion to your beauty saves me."

"All very well, but maybe you think a cold-sermon is effective."

Carol stood up and lifted her hand impressively. "My dear brothers and sisters,--hem-ah-hem-h-hh-em,--let us unite in reading the--ah-huh-huh-huh. Let us sing--h-h-h-h-hem--well, let us unite in prayer then--ah-chooo! ah-choooooo!"

"Where did you put those cough-drops?" he demanded. "But even at that it is better than you would do. 'Just as soon as I powder my face we will unite in singing hymn one hundred thirty-six. Oh, excuse me a minute,--I believe I feel a cold-sore coming,--I have a mirror right here, and it won't take a minute. Now, I am ready. Let us arise and sing,--but since I can not sing I will just polish my nails while the rest of you do it. Ready, go!'"

Carol laughed at the picture, but marched off for the bottle of cough medicine and the powder box, and while he carefully measured out a teaspoonful of the one for himself, she applied the other with gay devotion.

"But I truly think you should not go to Happy Hollow to-night," she said. "Mr. Baldwin will go with me, bless his faithful old pillary heart. And you ought to stay in. It is very stormy, and that long walk--"

"Oh, nonsense, a little cough like this! You are dead tired yourself; you stay at home to-night, and Baldwin and I will go. You really ought to, Carol, you are on the jump every minute. Won't you?"

"Most certainly not. I haven't a cold, have I? Maybe you want to keep me away so you can flirt with some of the Hollowers while I am out of sight. Absolutely vetoed. I go."

"Please, Carol,--won't you? Because I ask it?"

She snuggled up to him at that and said: "It's too lonesome, Davie, and I have to go to remind you of your rubbers, and to m.u.f.fle up your throat. But--"

The ring of the telephone disturbed them, and she ran to answer.

"Mr. Baldwin?--Yes--Oh, that is nice of you. I've been trying to coax him to stay home myself. David, Mr. Baldwin thinks you should not go out to-night, with such a cold, and he will take the meeting, and--oh, please, honey."

David took the receiver from her hand.

"Thanks very much, Mr. Baldwin, that is mighty kind of you, but I feel fine to-night.--Oh, sure, just a little cold. Yes, of course. Come and go with us, won't you? Yes, be here about seven. Better make it a quarter earlier, it's bad walking to-night."