CHAPTER V

A MINISTER'S SON

"Centerville, Iowa.

"Dear Carol and David:

"I am getting very, exceptionally wise. I am really appalled at myself. It seems so unnecessary in one so young. You will remember, Carol, that I used to say it was unfair that ministers' children should be denied so much of the worldly experience that other ordinary humans fall heir to by the natural sequence of things. I resented the deprivation. I coveted one taste of every species of sweet, satanic or otherwise.

"I have changed my mind. I have been convinced that ordinaries may dabble in forbidden fires, and a little cold ointment will banish every trace of the flame, but ministers' children stay scarred and charred forever. I have decided to keep far from the worldly blazes and let others supply the fanning breezes. For you know, Carol, that the wickedest fires in the world would die out if there were not some willing hands to fan them.

"There is the effect. The cause--Kirke Connor.

"Carol, has David ever explained to you what fatal fascination a semi-satanic man has for nice, white women? I have been at father many times on the subject, and he says, 'Connie, be reasonable, what do I know about semi-satanics?' Then he goes down-town. See if you can get anything out of David on the subject and let me know.

"Kirke is a semi-satanic. Also a minister's son. He has been in trouble of one kind or another ever since I first met him, when he was fourteen years old. He fairly seethed his way through college. Mr.

Connor has resigned from the active ministry now and lives in Mount Mark, and Kirke bought a partnership in Mr. Ives' furniture store and goes his troubled, riotous way as heretofore. That is, he did until recently.

"A few weeks ago I missed my railway connections and had to lay over for three hours in Fairfield. I checked my suit-case and started out to look up some of my friends. As I went out one door, I glimpsed the vanishing point of a man's coat exiting in the opposite direction. I started to cut across the corner, but a backward glance revealed a man's hat and one eye peering around the corner of the station. Was I being detected? I stopped in my tracks, my literary instinct on the alert. The hat slowly pivoted a head into view. It was Kirke Connor.

He shuffled toward me, glancing back and forth in a curious, furtive way. His face was harrowed, his eyes blood-shot. He clutched my hand breathlessly and clung to me as to the proverbial straw.

"'Have you seen Matters?' he asked.

"'Matters?'

"'You know Matters,--the sheriff at Mount Mark.'

"I looked at him in a way which I trust became the daughter of a district superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

"He mopped his fevered brow.

"'He has been on my trail for two days.' Then he twinkled, more like himself. 'It has been a hot trail, too, if I do say it who shouldn't.

If he has had a full breath for the last forty-eight hours, I am ashamed of myself.'

"'But what in the world--'

"'Let's duck into the station a minute. I know the freight agent and he will hide me in a trunk if need be. I will tell you about it. It is enough to make your blood run cold.'

"Honestly, it was running cold already. Here was literature for the asking. Kirke's wild appearance, his furtive manner, the searching sheriff--a plot made to order. So I tried to forget the M. E.

Universal, and we slipped into the station and seated ourselves comfortably on some egg boxes in a shadowy corner where he told his sad, sad tale.

"'Connie, you keep a wary eye on the world, the flesh and the devil. I know whereof I speak. Other earth-born creatures may flirt with sin and escape unscathed. But the Lord is after the minister's son.'

"'I thought it was the sheriff after you?' I interrupted.

"'Well, so it is, technically. And the devil is after the sheriff, but I think the Lord is touching them both up a little to get even with me.

Anyhow, between the Lord and the devil, with the sheriff thrown in, this world is no place for a minister's son. And the rule works on daughters, too.

"'You know, Connie, I have received the world with open hands, a loving heart, a receptive soul. And I got gloriously filled up, too, let me tell you. Connie, shun the little gay-backed cards that bear diamonds and hearts and spades. Connie, flee from the ice-cold bottles that bubble to meet your lips. Connie, turn a cold shoulder to the gilded youths who sing when the night is old.'

"'For goodness' sake, Kirke, tell me the story before the sheriff gets you.'

"'Well, it is a story of bottles on ice.'

"'Mount Mark is dry.'

"'Yes, like other towns, Mount Mark is dry for those who want it dry, but it is wet enough to drown any misguided soul who loves the damp. I loved it,--but, with the raven, nevermore. Connie, there is one thing even more fatal to a minister's son than bottles of beer. That thing is politics. If I had taken my beer straight I might have escaped.

But I tried to dilute it with politics, and behold the result. My father walking the floor in anguish, my mother in tears, my future blasted, my hopes shattered.'

"'Kirke, tell me the story.'

"'Matters is running for reelection. I do not approve of Matters. He is a booze fighter and a card shark and a lot of other unscriptural things. As a Methodist and a minister's son I felt called to battle his return to office. So I went out electioneering for my friend and ally, Joe Smithson. You know, Connie, that in spite of my wandering ways, I have friends in the county and I am a born talker. I took my faithful steed and I spent many hours, which should have been devoted to selling furniture, decrying the vices of Matters, extolling the virtues of Smithson. Matters got his eye on me.

"'He had the other eye on that office. He saw he must make a strong bid for county favor. The easiest way to do that in Mount Mark is to get after a boot-legger. There was Snippy Brown, a poor old harmless n.i.g.g.e.r, trying to earn an honest living by selling a surrept.i.tious bottle from a hole in the ground to a thirsting neighbor in the dead of night. Plainly Snippy Brown was fairly crying to be raided. Matters raided him. And he got a couple of hundred of bottles on ice.'

"'Served him right,' I said, in a Sabbatical voice.

"'To be sure it did. And Matters put him in jail and made a great fuss getting ready for his trial. I had a friend at court and he tipped me off that Matters was going to disgrace the Methodist Church in general and the Connors in particular by calling me in as a witness, making me tell where I bought sundry bottles known to have been in my possession.

Picture it to yourself, sweet Connie,--my white-haired mother, my sad-eyed father, the condemning deacons, the sneering Sunday-school teachers, the prim-lipped Epworth Leaguers,--it could not be. I left town. Matters left also,--coming my way. For two days we have been at it, hot foot, cold foot. We have covered most of southeastern Iowa in forty-eight hours. He has the papers to serve on me, but he's got to go some yet.'

"Kirke stood up and peered about among the trunks. All serene.

"'I am nearly starved,' he said plaintively. 'Do you suppose we could sneak into some quiet joint and grab a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee?'

"I was willing to risk it, so we sashayed across the Street, I swirling my skirts as much as possible to help conceal unlucky Kirke.

"But alas! Kirke had taken just one ravenous gulp at his sandwich when he stopped abruptly, leaning forward, his coffee cup upraised. I followed his wide-eyed stare. There outside the window stood Matters, grinning diabolically. He pushed open the door, Kirke leaped across the counter and vaulted through the side window, crashing the screen.

Matters dashed around the house in hot pursuit, and I--well, consider that I was a reporter, seeking a scoop. They did not beat me by six inches. Only I wish I had dropped the sandwich. I must have looked funny.

"Kirke flashed behind a shed, Matters after him, I after Matters.

Kirke zigzagged across a lawn dodging from tree to tree,--Matters and I. Kirke turned into an alley,--Matters and I. Woe to the erring son of a minister! It was a blind alley. It ended in a garage and the garage was locked.

"Matters pulled out a revolver and yelled, 'Now stop, you fool; stop, Kirke!' Kirke looked back; I think he was just ready to shin up the lightning rod but he saw the revolver and stopped. Matters walked up, laughing, and handed him a paper. Kirke shoved it in his pocket. I clasped my sandwich in both hands and looked at them tragically,--sob element. Then Matters turned away and said, 'See you later, Kirke. I congratulate the county on securing your services. Just the kind of witness we like, nice, respectable, good family, and all. Makes it size up big, you know. Be sure and invite your friends.'

"For a second I thought Kirke would strike him. I shook the sandwich at him warningly and he answered with a wave of his own,--yes, he had his sandwich, too. Then he said in a low voice, 'All right, Matters.

But you call me in that trial and I'll get you.'

"'Oh, oh, Sonny, you must not threaten an officer of the law,' said Matters, in a hateful, chiding voice. He turned and sauntered away.

Kirke and I watched him silently until he was out of sight. Then we turned to each other sympathetically.

"'Let's go back after that coffee,' said Kirke bravely.

"He took a bite of his sandwich thoughtfully, and I did of mine, trying to eat the lump in my throat with it. An hour later we went our separate ways.

"I heard nothing further for two weeks, then Mr. Nesbitt was called East on business and said I might go home if I liked. Imagine my ecstasy. I found the family, as well as all Methodists in general, quite uplifted over the strange case of Kirke Connor. From a semi-satanic, he had suddenly evoluted into a regular pillar, as became the son of his saintly mother and his orthodox father. He attended church, he sang in the choir, he went to Sunday-school, he was prominent at prayer-meeting. Every one was full of pious satisfaction and called him 'dear old Kirke,' and gave him the glad hand and invited him to help at ice-cream socials. No one could explain it, they thought he was a Mount Mark edition of Twice Born Men in the flesh.

"So the first afternoon when he drove around with his speedy little brown horse and his rubber tired buggy and asked me to go for a drive, father smiled, and Aunt Grace demurred not. Maybe I could give him a little more light. I watched him pretty closely the first mile or so.

He had nothing to say until we were a mile out of town. He is a good-looking fellow, Carol,--you remember, of course, because you never forget the boys, especially the good-looking ones. His eyes were clear and slightly humorous, as if he knew a host of funny things if he only chose to tell. Finally in answer to my reproachful gaze, he said: