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Peter, the Parson
by
“Why don’t yer jest come right out now, and be a rale Catholic,” said Mrs. Malone, with a touch of sympathy.”You’re next door to it, and it’s aisy to see yer aint happy in yer mind. If yer was a rale praste, now, with the coat and all, ‘stead of being a make-believe, the boys ‘ud respect yer more, and wouldn’t notice yer soize so much. So yer might go back to the cities (for I don’t deny they do loike a big fist up here), and loikely enough yer could find aisy work there that ‘ud suit yer.”
“I like hard work, Mrs. Malone,” said the little parson.
“But you’re not fit for it, sir. You’ll niver get on here if yer stay till judgment day. Why, yer aint got ten people, all told, belongin’ to yer chapel, and you’re here a year already!”
The Reverend Herman sighed again, but made no answer. He signed now as he left his cold room and stepped out into the cold street. The wind blew as he made his way along between the stumps, carefully going round the pigs, who had selected the best places for their siestas. He held down his comforter with one bare hand; the other clutched the end of a row of books, which filled his thin arm from the shoulder down. He limped as he walked. An ankle had been cruelly injured some months previously; the wound had healed, but he was left permanently and awkwardly lame. At the time, the dastardly injury had roused a deep bitterness in the parson’s heart, for grace and activity had been his one poor little bodily gift, his one small pride. The activity had returned, not the grace. But he had learned to limp bravely along, and the bitterness had passed away.
Lights shone comfortably from the Pine-Cone Saloon as he passed.
“Hallo! Here’s Peter the Parson,” sang out a miner, standing at the door; and forth streamed all the loungers to look at him.
“Say, Peter, come in and have a drop to warm yer,” said one.
“Look at his poor little ribs, will yer?” said another, as his cloak blew out like a sail.
“Let him alone! He’s going to have his preaching all to himself, as usual,” said a third.”Them books is all the congregation he can get, poor little chap!”
The parson’s sensitive ears heard every word. He quickened his steps, and, with his usual nervous awkwardness, stumbled and fell, dropping all the books, amid the jeering applause of the bystanders. Silently he rose and began collecting his load, the wind every now and then blowing his cloak over his head as he stooped, and his difficulties increased by the occasional gift of a potato full in the breast, and a flood of witty commentaries from the laughing group at the saloon door. As he picked up the last volume and turned away, a missile, deftly aimed, took off his hat, and sent it over a fence into a neighboring field. The parson hesitated, but as a small boy had already given chase, not to bring it back, but to send it further away, he abandoned the hat,–his only one,–and walked on among the stumps bare-headed, his thin hair blown about by the raw wind, and his blue eyes reddened with cold and grief.
The Episcopal Church of St. John and St. James was a rough little building, with recess-chancel, ill-set Gothic windows, and a half-finished tower. It owed its existence to the zeal of a director’s wife, who herself embroidered its altar-cloth and bookmarks, and sent thither the artificial flowers and candles which she dared not suggest at home; the poor Indians, at least, should not be deprived of them! The director’s wife died, but left by will a pittance of two hundred dollars per annum towards the rector’s salary. In her fancy she saw Algonquin, a thriving town, whose inhabitants believed in the Anglican succession, and sent their children to Sunday-school. In reality, Algonquin remained a lawless mining settlement, whose inhabitants believed in nothing, and whose children hardly knew what Sunday meant, unless it was more whisky than usual. The two hundred dollars and the chapel, however, remained fixed facts, and the Eastern directors, therefore, ordered a picturesque church to be delineated on their circulars, and themselves constituted a non-resident vestry. One or two young missionaries had already tried the field, failed, and gone away, but the present incumbent, who had equally tried and equally failed, remained.