Fran.

by John Breckenridge Ellis.

CHAPTER I

A KNOCK AT THE DOOR

Fran knocked at the front door. It was too dark for her to find the bell; however, had she found it, she would have knocked just the same.

At first, no one answered. That was not surprising, since everybody was supposed to be at the Union Camp-meeting that had been advertised for the last two months. Of course it was not beyond possibility that some one might have stayed at home to invite his soul instead of getting it saved; but that any one in Littleburg should go visiting at half-past eight, and especially that any one should come knocking at the door of this particular house, was almost incredible.

No doubt that is why the young woman who finally opened the door-- after Fran had subjected it to a second and more prolonged visitation of her small fist--looked at the stranger with surprise which was, in itself, reproof. Standing in the dim light that reached the porch from the hall, Fran's appearance was not above suspicion. She looked very dark, sharp-faced, and small. Her att.i.tude suggested one who wanted something and had come to ask for it. The lady in the doorway believed herself confronted by a "camper"--one of those flitting birds of outer darkness who have no religion of their own, but who are always putting that of others to the proof.

The voice from the doorway was cool, impersonal, as if, by its very aloofness, it would push the wanderer away: "What do you want?"

"I want Hamilton Gregory," Fran answered promptly, without the slightest trace of embarra.s.sment. "I'm told he lives here."

"_Mr._ Gregory"--offering the name with its t.i.tle as a palpable rebuke--"lives here, but is not at home. What do you want, little girl?"

"Where is he?" Fran asked, undaunted.

At first the young woman was tempted to close the door upon the impudent gaze that never faltered in watching her, but those bright unwavering eyes, gleaming out of the gloom of straw hat and overshadowing hair, compelled recognition of some sort.

"He is at the camp-meeting," she answered reluctantly, irritated at opposition, and displeased with herself for being irritated. "What do you want with him? I will attend to whatever it is. I am acquainted with all of his affairs--I am his secretary."

"Where is that camp-meeting? How can I find the place?" was Fran's quick rejoinder. She could not explain the dislike rising within her.

She was too young, herself, to consider the other's youth an advantage, but the beauty of the imperious woman in the doorway--why did it not stir her admiration?

Mr. Gregory's secretary reflected that, despite its seeming improbability, it might be important for him to see this queer creature who came to strange doors at night-time.

"If you will go straight down that road"--she pointed--"and keep on for about a mile and a half, you will come to the big tent. Mr.

Gregory will be in the tent, leading the choir."

"All right." And turning her back on the door, Fran swiftly gained the front steps. Half-way down, she paused, and glanced over her thin shoulder. Standing thus, nothing was to be seen of her but a blurred outline, and the shining of her eyes.

"I guess," said Fran inscrutably, "you're not Mrs. Gregory."

"No," came the answer, with an almost imperceptible change of manner-- a change as of gradual petrifaction, "I am not Mrs. Gregory." And with that the lady, who was not Mrs. Gregory, quietly but forcibly closed the door.

It was as if, with the closing of that door, she would have shut Fran out of her life.

CHAPTER II

A DISTURBING LAUGH

A long stretch of wooden sidewalks with here and there a leprous breaking out of granitoid; a succession of dwellings, each in its yard of bluegra.s.s, maple trees, and whitewashed palings, with several residences fine enough to excite wonder--for modest cottages set the architectural pace in the village; a stretch of open country beyond the corporate limits, with a footbridge to span the deep ravine--and then, at last, a sudden glow in the darkness not caused by the moon, with a circle of stamping and neighing horses encompa.s.sing the glow.

The sermon was ended, the exhortation was at the point of loudest voice and most impa.s.sioned earnestness. A number of men, most of them young, thronged the footpath leading from the stiles to the tent. A few were smoking; all were waiting for the pretty girls to come forth from the Christian camp. Fran pushed her way among the idlers with admirable nonchalance, her sharp elbow ready for the first resistive pair of ribs.

The crowd outside did not argue a scarcity of seats under the canvas.

Fran found a plank without a back, loosely disposed, and entirely unoccupied. She seated herself, straight as an Indian, and with the air of being very much at ease.

The scene was new to her. More than a thousand villagers, ranged along a natural declivity, looked down upon the platform of undressed pine.

In front of the platform men and women were kneeling on the ground.

Some were bathed in tears; some were praying aloud; some were talking to those who stood, or knelt beside them; some were clasping convulsive hands; all were oblivious of surroundings.

Occasionally one heard above the stentorian voice of the exhorter, above the prayers and exclamations of the "seekers", a sudden shout of exultation--"Bless the Lord!" or a rapturous "_A-a_-MEN!" Then a kneeling figure would rise, and the exhorter would break off his plea to cry, "Our brother has found the Lord!"

From the hundred members of the choir, Fran singled out the man she had been seeking for so many years. It was easy enough to distinguish him from the singers who crowded the platform, not only by his baton which proclaimed the choir-leader, but by his resemblance to the picture she had discovered in a New York Sunday Supplement.

Hamilton Gregory was clean-shaved except for a silken reddish mustache; his complexion was fair, his hair a shade between red and brown, his eyes blue. His finely marked face and striking bearing were stamped with distinction and grace.

It was strange to Fran that he did not once glance in her direction.

True, there was nothing in her appearance to excite especial attention, but she had looked forward to meeting him ever since she could remember. Now that her eyes were fastened on his face, now that they were so near, sheltered by a common roof, how could he help feeling her presence?

The choir-leader rose and lifted his baton. At his back the hundred men and women obeyed the signal, while hymn-books fluttered open throughout the congregation. Suddenly the leader of the choir started into galvanic life. He led the song with his sweet voice, his swaying body, his frantic baton, his wild arms, his imperious feet. With all that there was of him, he conducted the melodious charge up the ramparts of sin and indifference. If in repose, Fran had thought him singularly handsome and attractive, she now found him inspiring. His blue eyes burned with exaltation while his magic voice seemed to thrill with more than human ecstasy. The strong, slim, white hand tensely grasping the baton, was the hand of a powerful chieftain wielded in behalf of the G.o.d of Battles.

On the left, the heavy ba.s.s was singing,

"One thing we know, Wherever we go-- We reap what we sow, We reap what we sow."

While these words were being doled out at long and impressive intervals, like the tolling of a heavy bell, more than half a hundred soprano voices were hastily getting in their requisite number of half notes, thus--

"So scatter little, scatter little, scatter little, scatter little, Scatter little seeds of kindness."

In spite of the vast volume of sound produced by these voices, as well as by the accompaniment of two pianos and a snare-drum, the voice of Hamilton Gregory, soaring flute-like toward heaven, seemed to dart through the interstices of "rests", to thread its slender way along infinitesimal crevices of silence. One might have supposed that the booming ba.s.s, the eager chattering soprano, the tenor with its thin crust of upper layers, and the throaty fillings of the alto, could have left no vantage points for an obligato. Yet it was Hamilton Gregory's voice that bound all together in divine unity. As one listened, it was the inspired truth as uttered by Hamilton Gregory that brought the message home to conscience. As if one had never before been told that one reaps what one sows, uneasy memory started out of hidden places with its whisper of seed sown amiss. Tears rose to many eyes, and smothered sobs betrayed intense emotion.

Of those who were not in the least affected, Fran was one. She saw and heard Hamilton Gregory's impa.s.sioned earnestness, and divined his yearning to touch many hearts; nor did she doubt that he would then and there have given his life to press home upon the erring that they must ultimately reap what they were sowing. Nevertheless she was altogether unmoved. It would have been easier for her to laugh than to cry.

Although the preacher had ceased his exhortations for the singing of the evangelistic hymn, he was by no means at the end of his resources.

Standing at the margin of the platform, looking out on the congregation, he slowly moved back and forth his magnetic arms in parallel lines. Without turning his body, it was as if he were cautiously sweeping aside the invisible curtain of doubt that swung between the unsaved and the altar. "This way," he seemed to say.

"Follow my hands."

Not one word did he speak. Even between the verses, when he might have striven against the pianos and the snare-drum, he maintained his terrible silence. But as he fixed his ardent eyes upon s.p.a.ce, as he moved those impelling arms, a man would rise here, a woman start up there--reluctantly, or eagerly, the unsaved would press their way to the group kneeling at the front. Prayers and groans rose louder.

Jubilant shouts of religious victory were more frequent. One could, now hardly hear the choir as it insisted--

"We reap what we sow, We reap what we sow."

Suddenly the evangelist smote his hands together, a signal for song and prayer to cease.