Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

The next day brought a typical northeast gale and rain. At such times the clouds seemed to come right down into the valley, like fog, and sensible people stayed indoors. My aunts had no desire to use the car, so I decided I would use it myself. I went for the mail in the forenoon and then drove out to the revival and, as I might have foreseen, found that the weather had been too much for most of Mr. Boody’s audience. Only a half-dozen vehicles stood in the muddy field, and from the tent, though the wind was blowing toward me, I couldn’t hear a sound. However, I got out and crossed the field and entered the tent through a flap-door. At first when I entered my entire attention was taken up by the tent itself, which seemed to be on the point of collapse. It rocked like a tree in a storm. I had no sooner got in and seen the sawdust trail before me than a violent gust almost lifted the whole structure. With a series of sharp reports like cannon-shots, the segments of canvas on the lee side bellied outward, and then, as the pressure relaxed, clapped inward again. The ropes creaked, a damp wind assailed me across the sawdust, and in the roof of the tent there was a continuous low whistling. And, uplifted against the elements, I could hear the shrill voice of the Reverend Boody.

“Who’s a-goin’ to discountenance the Lord?” he cried. And then after a moment he answered himself, “ No one!”

And just as I sneaked into a bench at the back, the rest of the tiny audience stood up and chanted:

“Amen!”

I rose hastily and sat down when they did.

“ Who’s a-goin’ to flout the King of Justice?” he cried—and I saw him now, a small, knock-kneed, plump fellow, with a frock coat and moist eyes. And again he answered himself sternly, “ No one!” And again the small audience rose and sang, “Amen,” drawling it out interminably.… “ Who’s a-goin’ to fool the Lord of Hosts?… No one.”

“A-a-a-a-a … me-n-n-n-n!”

I was just beginning to think that this business of standing up and sitting down might soon become a nuisance, when Mr. Boody launched himself into what seemed to be a kind of sermon. He walked to and fro on his little muslin-draped platform, with his pudgy hands clasped behind his back, and began shouting disjointed phrases.

“Abraham! Abraham and Isaac on the mountain!… And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and went unto the place of which God had told him!”

He paused, glowering at his audience, and it was in that moment that I saw, for the first time, the Willards, Mrs. Willard and Lydia. They were at the extreme left-hand end of the second row, all by themselves, so that I could see them in profile. They were both in white, with black hats, and leaning intently forward. Their noses were exactly, preposterously, alike.

“And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife !…”

A series of loud reports from the flapping canvas interrupted him, and with hand uplifted he waited for quiet. In that instant Lydia Willard turned round, and, by accident, looked straight at me. She had her mother’s fierce black eyes, the same thin-lipped intensity and whiteness; but what most struck me about her face was its extraordinary smallness: it was almost a doll’s face, or a monkey’s, small, hard, and concentrated. It seemed to me there was nothing human in it whatever.

“And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.… My brothers and sisters in Christ”—Mr. Boody paused again for effect, and glared from one to another of his audience—“what does this mean for us? What does this grand story tell us? Two things … two things! … The first, that we must trust in God. His will is our will. The second—” Again he paused dramatically. And then suddenly, pointing a quivering finger directly at Mrs. Willard, who gave a start and then sat rigid, “What is the second? That we must be prepared to offer up to God in holy sacrifice even those things that are dearest to us. What He asks, we must give. If He asks us for our children, we must give them to Him.… Why, is God less dear to us than our children? Is His word less than our law? Do we understand Him? Do we dare … do we dare to say that we know what His purpose is? No!”

He was beginning to work himself up. He paced rapidly to and fro on his little wooden platform, now and then stopping for a moment to thump his fist on the deal table. But I thought I had had enough; and a little later, seizing the opportunity afforded by another shuddering series of explosions from the tent, I sneaked out to the car and drove home. It seemed to me a pretty poor show.

The wind blew all afternoon, with sudden squalls of hard rain. At one time it was so dark that we had to light the lamp in the sitting room. Looking out of the front windows, we could at such moments see hardly farther than the red-covered bridge; Hateful Mountain had been engulfed in cloud. Then would come a sudden lifting of the flying rain, and a quick shaft of mild sunlight would show us the swollen river, brown with mud, rushing westward through the drenched valley. The dirt road was a solid sheet of water.

It was a little after five when the telephone rang. I heard Captain Phippen’s voice.

“That you, Bill?”

“Yes.”

“Hello, Bill?… There’s something queer down at the Willards’.”

His voice suddenly faded away.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Can you hear me?… I say, there’s something queer down at the Willard farm. Think you could come up here quick in your Ford, and fetch me?”

“Why, sure.… Sure, I’ll be right up!”

Aunt Jenny put down her magazine and looked at me sharply.

“What’s the Captain want?” she said.

“Oh, just company, I guess.”

“Well, bring him back to supper—he owes us a visit. And tell him there’s popovers.”

“I will, Aunt Jenny.”

I grabbed my hat and raincoat and ran to the barn for the car. It had almost stopped raining—there was a hole in the clouds overhead—but the northeast still looked black.

What on earth was happening?

I learned soon enough. Captain Phippen was waiting for me on his porch, in his oilskins. He had his spyglass in his hand.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, Bill,” he said, “but just take a look. It don’t look right.”

I ran up the wooden steps, took the glass from his hand, and directed it toward the Willard farm. I could see the house very clearly at that moment. A shaft of watery sunlight illuminated it brilliantly against the somber rain-colored country beyond. And it looked exactly as it always did. But when I swung the glass to the right, toward the cow-yard, what I saw amazed me. Above the fragment of board fence which still remained (where years before we used to watch the horns of cattle tossing) I could distinctly see the heads and shoulders of the two women. There was nothing so remarkable in that. What was remarkable was the way the heads and shoulders were behaving. They glided to and fro rapidly, now to the right and now to the left—and now and then it seemed to me that their arms were raised—but they always came back to the same spot. At this spot, the heads and shoulders would sometimes disappear entirely, only, the next instant, to leap high into the air again, exactly like puppets. It looked as if the two women were doing some idiotic sort of dance. In fact, it was so absurd that I laughed.

“It’s damned funny!” I said.

Captain Phippen made no answer. He took the glass from me and leveled it westward.

“What do you say we go down there, Bill?” He put the brass telescope on the porch-rail.