McClure's Magazine/Volume 28/Number 2/The Wages of Salvation

by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

MEIN gracious, how dat wind blow, und dis only de first of September!" exclaimed Mrs. Landvetter, as a cold gust from the snow-covered peaks rattled the narrow windows of her cabin, and the storm beat wildly upon the roof. "Look, how de rain creep under de door, und de lamps flare up," nodding at the thin flames which rose suddenly and then fell in the two oil lamps on the newly scoured deal table.

"he paused before the window of a shop"

 

"THE WAGES OF SALVATION"

BY

MRS. WILSON WOODROW
AUTHOR OF "THE RETURN OF THE GIPSY," "THE LADY PEDDLER AND THE DIPLOMAT," ETC.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY F. WALTER TAYLOR

Against the rough, stone chimney of the bare, clean room leaned a slight, listless girl in the uniform of the Salvation Army. "I wish it would stop," she said, glancing nervously toward an old man who sat huddled on a low stool before the stove, and with restless fingers turned the leaves of the Bible on his knee. "It's sure to bring on one of his spells. I've seen it comin' ever since the wind began to blow."

"Oh, yes; alvays," was the phlegmatic response of Mrs. Landvetter, as she adjusted the pins in the lace pillow in her lap. She was a huge Teuton, clad in spotless, lavender calico confined at the waist by a white apron. Her sleek, scant hair was drawn tightly back and twisted into a knot the size of a hickory-nut, and her whole appearance, as that of her kitchen, suggested an unceasing effort on her part to combine the maximum of specklessness with the minimum of adornment.

As was usual in the evening, the toil-worn hands, that had washed and hoed and scrubbed all day, busied themselves with lace-making, and her face, hard, wooden and shiny, was bent above her task.

But again the wind rose, and so madly that the stout door of the cabin tore at its iron bolt, and the windows rattled until it seemed as if the glass would break.

While the woman stared apprehensively at the growing pool of water under the door, Andrew Campbell suddenly cast his Bible upon the floor, and with wild, strange eyes peering from a mat of gray hair and tangled whiskers, watched the white slant of rain drive against the panes.

On such nights as these, one of those waves of despair which occasionally broke on his partly-eclipsed brain swept over him, and now in an almost incoherent storm of words he began to pour out his grief.

"It was nigh this time o' the year," his speech marked by a strong, Scotch accent and broken with sobs, "and my wife, Ruth, and our son, we were a' up in our cabin on Corona.—Ah but we were happy!—happy!" He lost himself in haggard reverie. "Aye, that was it," with passionate conviction, "we were too happy—we had turned our thoughts from God.—We had forgotten—it had been raining for a week—but the creek had kept its banks.

"Ethel, listen, listen," clutching her arm with tense fingers, as the wind again shrieked about the cabin. "The wind was like that—we paid no heed. Ruth stirred the parritch for our supper—there came a mighty roaring like that of the sea—it was a' dark in a moment. The teembers o' the cabin strained and snapped—and—we were a' oot i' the cold, cold water. Ethel—I—I—" he writhed in the torture of remembrance—"I—was saved, and—they—were lost."

At his first words the girl had flown to him and kneeling by his side had thrown one arm protectingly about him; and now she patted him rhythmically on the back, murmuring, "There, there," as if soothing a baby. Her pale face with its pretty, cleft mouth and big, gray eyes was pressed against the old man's arm, and her ashen fair hair overflowed his shoulder.

Mrs. Landvetter gazed at her two boarders with unsoftened, ruminative eyes as she methodically placed and replaced her lace pins. "Vell, dat is yours," was her deep-voiced, indifferent comment. "Effery body has got deirs comin' to dem. Look at me; I vas forty-nine last Lady's Day, und I ain't neffer had a silk dress." She paused in her work and lost herself in the interest of her narrative.

"Vonce, ven I vork in de onion field und de potato patch pretty steady yet, I beg some money from my mutter und valk two mile to town. I vas goin' to haf a silk vaist like de odder girls. Yust as I got to de store door, Poppy, he caught me. He valk me home und gif me a goot beatin', I tell you; und I ain't neffer got my silk dress yet."

The old man looked at her with a dawning interest in his distraught eyes, sympathy softening the anguish of his gaze. "And you haf suffered. I never thought that," he muttered, shaking his head.

"Vell," with a wink at the girl. "I ain't neffer had a silk dress. Ain't dat straight, Ethel?"

"Oh, la," said Ethel, a glow of excitement on her face. "Silk dresses. I've had a plenty of them in my time, five and six at once," She gave a final pat to the old man and rose to her feet. "The kind that stand alone, some of 'em; you know. Mis' Landvetter," vivaciously. "Satins, brocades, failles, grosgrains, taffetas, all kinds,—anything I wanted. My," with a reminiscent, vain, little laugh, "I certainly had my share of the vanities of this world, 'fore I give 'em all up for Christ's sake.

"Why, the day of the very night that I was convicted of sin,—that was down to the Springs, y' know, and I thought, poor, blind sinner that I was, that I was havin' the time of my life—Tom, a gentleman friend of mine, had just struck a pocket of free gold, and we was celebratin'. I was keepin' his roll for him. The boys all knew they could trust me to any extent," in a parenthesis of pride.

"Oh, I ain't tryin' to say a good word for myself,—anyone whose sins was as scarlet as mine had better not try that on; but I never stole a cent, and I wouldn't lie to please you.

"Well, that morning Tom give me his roll, he was a awful generous fellow, and he says: 'Ethel, it's as much yours as it's mine, little girl; peel off what you like.'

"Well, 'course I took him up. I peeled off a hundred and fifty then and there, an' blew in every cent of it for lingery. I always was crazy about lingery. Why, Mis' Landvetter, I bought me one petticoat that was nothing but insertion and lace ruffles clean to the waist—lace this wide, y' know," measuring the depth of her fingers. "And I never put it on, neither; for that very night I heard Mr. Campbell here speakin' to a crowd on the street, and every word he said went right home," placing her hand to her heart, "an' I knew I was saved by the blood of the Lamb.

"But, la! Men don't know what temptation is. When the devil gets after me, he keeps whisperin' of pretty things. He tries to get me into the stores, just to see 'em an' finger 'em." She laughed triumphantly. "He had me so tight, he didn't want to give me up, did he, Mr. Campbell?"

But Campbell paid no heed to their talk; his thoughts were occupied with the plaint to which Mrs. Landvetter had given utterance. Having laid bare to her the anguish of his soul, he assumed that her secret despair had risen up and answered it. That her cause for grief was slight to absurdity, he did not pause to analyze—perhaps was incapable of doing so. He simply accepted her words, that "effery body had deirs comin' to dem." He had his sorrow; she had hers. It mattered little what form it took, whether it were the terror by night, or the destruction that wasteth at noon-day. His was the loss of wife, home, and child; hers, the ungratified longing for a silk dress.

Often, in the days which followed, he pondered over this revelation in a nature which he had never suspected of ethical yearnings, and felt himself drawn to the hard, unsympathetic hausfrau by the ties of a common understanding.

Mrs. Landvetter's mind, however, could he have known it, was busy with things far removed from silk dresses, for her shrewd wits were working over a plan by which Campbell's usefulness to herself might be considerably augmented.

It was nearing the time when he started upon a certain annual pilgrimage, included as regularly and unalterably in his routine of the year, as the seasons.

Early in September he adventured forth upon his singular wanderings, for he believed, as did many of his more superstitious neighbors, that he possessed certain occult gifts, among them the ability to locate minerals by means of a strand of twisted wire. This in hand, his habit was to roam over the mountains, led, as he conceived, by a mysterious power to selected spots; pausing there, he would repeat the various formulae of numbers which he considered by some law of correspondence sympathetic to the ore he sought.

If gold lay in the rock under his feet, the wire, upon the repetition of the gold number, would bend from the vertical position in which he held it until it touched the earth.

With a canny, Scotch thrift Campbell took up these claims and made more or less money by the sale of them, although no one was ever able to discover to what uses he put the proceeds. There were rumors of a horde of penniless relatives whom he supported in Scotland; but again, it was stoutly affirmed that the Denver banks held long lists of untouched deposits to his credit, and that Ethel would be the ultimate beneficiary.

As the moment for his departure drew near, and as she saw him making his various preparations, Mrs. Landvetter determined to put her carefully evolved plan into execution.

"Campbell's a-takin' his old wire und his pack, und he tracks out pretty soon now," she remarked to Ethel one morning as she hung her freshly-washed clothes on the line. The temptation of all out-of-doors was in the air, and the Salvation Army girl had lingered before walking four miles over the mountains to headquarters. "I got a scheme for him, und I vant you to kind of coax him into it, Ethel."

"What scheme you tryin' to work off on him now?" asked the girl sharply.

Mrs. Landvetter took a clothes-pin from between her teeth and pinned up a sheet to the line. "Vell," she began slowly, "I don't see no reason v'y, instead of sellin' my laces to dose agents dat takes deir money out 'fore I gets mine, I shouldn't get dat old Campbell to peddle 'em ven he goes over de mountains, hein?"

"'I'LL PAY YOU YOUR OLD MONEY NOW'"

"He won't like it," replied Ethel, "and he won't do it. Oh, I know," as the German woman was about to interrupt her, "you think anything's good enough for him. You just see a little half-cracked, withered stump of a man, don't you, like most folks does around here? But, if he'd wrestled for your soul like he done for mine, you'd see Christ's messenger same as I do. And he shan't go for to peddle." She turned toward the gate.

"But, Ethel, yet," exclaimed her landlady, snatching at her gown. "T'ink how goot it vould be for him. Dose vimmens dat he shows de laces to, dey look after him some. Dey gif him a bed und a meal now und den. He can't look after hisself."

"That is so," admitted Ethel with reluctance, "an' maybe I will ask him to help you out. Mind, I ain't promisin', though; I got to think it over."

"I haf so mooch laces," continued Mrs. Landvetter, although her listener had departed, "ten yards in de pineapple pattern, und twelve in de roses point, und eight in de flur de lisses, und mooch odders. I t'ink I make dat old man sell dem, all right," with an emphatic nod of the head.

But Campbell rebelled vigorously, when notified of her project for making him useful. He shook his shaggy head and thrust out an obstinate lower jaw.

"Am I to peddle laces, woman? I gang to the mountains for meditation on the meesteries and for the finding of ore by means of my gift. And I will not peddle laces."

For a day or two he remained obdurate, in defiance of her rough pleading, and consequently she deemed it wise to defer further discussion of the subject until Ethel came home.

On the afternoon of the Salvation Army girl's return, she found Mr. Campbell on his usual stool by the kitchen stove, bent over the great Bible on his knee.

"Oh, Ethel," he cried as she entered, "I have great news for you. You know I have puzzled long over the vairse, 'There shall be no more sea.' I have wondered, and I have wondered. For many months it has lain on my mind; but last night," with exaltation in his eyes, and yet glancing about to see that Mrs. Landvetter was not within hearing, "last night, my Ruth came to me and expounded it. Ye ken that being out of the flesh, she has progressed greatly, and she said it meant this: That the sea divided the land and is ever a barrier to be crossed, and so it stands as a sign of separation; but at last Love shall blot it out, and there shall be no more parting."

The girl looked at him with the tenderest, most awed admiration. "Ain't that grand?" with a catch in her voice. "You certainly are right in the Kingdom of Heaven, Mr. Campbell."

"I have studied and studied over it," he went on earnestly, "and waited for Ruth, but it was long before she came. It is sometimes very long before she comes," with a kind of patient pathos. "I tried also to discuss it with Mrs. Landvetter; but the meesteries are withheld from her. Still, what can you expect?" shaking his head commiseratingly; "she has had her sorrows, and they have made her hard." He gazed fixedly at the stove for a moment and coughed once or twice. "She has asked me to peddle her laces through the mountains," with shamefaced apology, looking eagerly at Ethel to see how she would take the news.

"I know. She spoke to me about it too, Mr. Campbell; and it don't seem right, indeed it don't. For my part, I don't think you ought to do a thing but stand up in the pulpit and preach. Still, I'd feel a sight easier about you if you would take her laces. It wouldn't be peddlin' really, Mr. Campbell. It would just be accommodatin' a friend."

He considered this presentation of the matter, and with a brightening face finally accepted it. "Ah, well," with resignation, "I will do it. Say no more about it."

So, one morning when the sun lay mellowly over the aspens, whose leaves were turning to bright gold under the sharp touch of discipline administered by the early frost, and the maples were hung with thousands of serrated, scarlet banners which floated and gleamed through the pines, austerely dark, permanently green, old Andrew Campbell trudged up the road toward the shining, snow-clad peaks, his wire in his hand and Mrs. Landvetter's laces snugly stowed away in his pack.

These he drew forth from time to time with wonderful results, for the women on whose hearthstones he sat regarded him with an almost superstitious awe and prized his wares above their value. By day, he prospected with his wire and his cabalistic figures; at nightfall, in the isolated cabins, he expounded what he called "the meesteries," and casually and somewhat reluctantly exhibited Mrs. Landvetter's laces.

His very indifference induced the eagerness of his purchasers. They recognized in him a different type of peddler from the usual brisk, businesslike, anxious-to-sell variety. He drifted into their cabins and spoke to them prophet-wise of things alien to their intelligence, but which roused in them their latent veneration for the seer.

"IT WASN'T YOUR RUTH WHO GOT HIT, IT WAS ME—JUST ONLY ETHEL"

And in the different villages where he sojourned briefly, he wandered into the gambling-houses, as naïvely sure of his welcome as in the cabins. In fact, these constituted his market-places, for this unworldly old man to whom life's realities were its mysteries was well known among the worshipers of the blind madonna of chance.

But the season was a bad one. Mr. Campbell found it difficult to arouse interest even in the few claims he took up. The wire, too, proved singularly capricious; and although the old man stood patiently on the rocks for hours at a time repeating his magical numbers, his divining rod seldom trembled in his hand.

Then, too, the days, although still golden, were growing shorter, and there was a nipping touch in the air which warned the old prospector that the snow would soon drift over his trails, and that to turn his face homeward was the part of discretion; when suddenly, by one of those sardonic jests of Fate which sometimes lead one to believe oneself but a pawn on the chessboard in a match game between the powers of good and evil, his progress was unexpectedly delayed.

Longer than was his wont, Campbell had tarried in one camp where he hoped the ore might prove responsive to his quest; and there, in the garishly decorated saloons, he impartially gave the people the benefit of his mysticism and the opportunity of purchasing his claims—opportunities in the main neglected or ignored.

But this sordid, squalid little mining village, with its magnificent environment of snow-capped summits, whispering pines, and mellow sunlight, was experiencing a long-anticipated, infrequent excitement. There came a fair or festival week, and Mr. Campbell, dazed but interested, found himself jostled, hurried along in a tide of men and women, hailed by name, the center of laughing groups. The village, for the nonce, had become the magnetic lodestone of those effervescent spirits from neighboring camps on whom the hills had for months laid their repressive spell.

It was all so strange and disturbing that Campbell lost what little sense he had of life's every-day proportions. For hours during the day, and until long after midnight, he wandered about, possessed by the spirit of excitement and restlessness in the air.

At last, during one of his peregrinations, he paused before the window of a shop, his attention arrested by the sumptuous display behind the glass.

"Man, man," he murmured, "that is silk, and Mrs. Landvetter has never had a silk dress. Why," with brightening eyes, "I will take her one; it will be a surprise for her. But," his face falling, "it will doubtless be very costly."

He drew out an old wallet from an inner pocket and, untying the string which bound it, carefully examined its contents. It held but a little silver, and he shook his head sadly as he wound the string about it once more and thrust it back. "The pity of it! The pity of it! But," he considered, his face suddenly alight, "I have money from the sale of her foolish lace-work, this miserable money that she will hoard away in a stocking because she does not know there are silk dresses so near her."

Finally, under the spur of this suggestion, he drifted within and asked to look at silk pieces. Bolt after bolt was unrolled for his inspection and held up to catch the light.

"Beautiful selection, sir," said the clerk, genially.

"Aye," agreed Campbell. "I was thinking of a lady," he continued slowly and impressively, "who has never had a silk dress."

"Well, judging from the standpoint of women, that lady has never really lived," remarked the clerk. "You ought to set that straight, right off. Now, just because we're selling at closing out prices, I'm going to let you have your choice of anything here."

"I do not know what color she would prefer," demurred Campbell. "Whether the blue, the green, the yellow, or the red."

"How old's the lady?" asked the clerk, leaning across the counter.

Mr. Campbell considered. "Forty-nine, the last Lady's Day," he said carefully; "whatever Papist's festival that might be."

"Then she'll want black." The clerk spoke with decisive finality. "I bet all these years she's had her heart set on a black silk dress."

His arguments were more than convincing; but, although visibly wavering, Mr. Campbell held to his original intention of prudence. "This is a sair important matter to decide," he said with dignity. "I maun discuss it with my wife."

But Ruth, mythical and complaisant counsellor, evidently viewed the matter in the same light as himself. There seemed to arise in neither mind any misgivings as to his ethical right to spend Mrs. Landvetter's money for a silk dress.

Campbell, in his scrupulous delicacy, would have starved to death before he would have taken a penny of the sum to buy himself a crust of bread; but in the instance before him, he saw only the opportunity of granting to a fellow-being a long-cherished heart's desire. Therefore he returned to the store the following day, and for the sum of twenty-five dollars purchased the silk dress with accompanying buttons, thread, linings, etc. which, the clerk assured him, were necessary for the proper making of a gown.

A day or two later he stood in the doorway of Mrs. Landvetter's cabin. The first snowflakes were blowing from a gray sky, and the air was raw and cold. Ethel knelt before the stove, warming her hands, and as she sprang to meet him, bubbling with a voluble welcome, she caught an immediate impression of something new in his expression, something responsive, almost buoyant. It was as if the blight which had so long overfallen him had been partly erased. There he stood, smiling, mysterious, alert.

"Oh, I am so glad to see you back," she cried. "I'll call Mrs. Landvetter, and we'll have your breakfast ready for you in a jiffy. It's cold this morning. Oh, I tell you, I've missed you; but the change has done you good. You do look well."

"Aye, and I have some surprises tor you all," with a certain sly glee, as he placed the long, narrow package on the table. "I hae a vairse that will take me the winter to ponder oot, and I hae something for Mrs. Landvetter—something she has wished for a' her life!"

"For pity's sake! Ain't you the kindest, little man!" said Ethel tenderly. "To remember her after the way she—But, still now, that ain't Christian. There she is now," Mrs. Landvetter passed the window and threw open the door, a billet of wood in her hard, red arms. When she saw Campbell, a smile widened the corners of her mouth, and avarice showed in her eves.

"Vell, Mr. Campbell, how you vas? Fxcoose me v'ile I puts down dis vood, und den I can gif you a hand. Vell, vell. So, so. You didn't git lost, nor nuttin', hein? Sit down v'ile I makes you a cup of coffee."

With a sly glance at Ethel, Campbell took his old seat on the stool, his cherished package laid carefully across his knees.

Mrs. Landvetter was aware that there were certain formalities prescribed by etiquette to be observed before she could put the one paramount question; but she determined to make these as brief as possible. Consequently, a generous piece of wood was thrust into the stove, and the coffee-pot filled and put on to boil with an obvious bustle.

And now for the formalities. "Vell, wie gehts in de mountains? De wire done goot, I guess?"

Her boarder thrust out his lower jaw. "No," he returned. "It was not good. "

"Dat vas too bad. But de vetter; he vas nice, vasn't he?"

"Beautiful," assented Mr. Campbell.

Mrs. Landvetter sighed with relief. She had paid her mint and anise and cummin to Mrs. Grundy. "Und," leaning eagerly forward and speaking with an almost tremulous jocularity, "und haf you brought all mein laces back, or haf you lost dem?"

"I hae sold them a'."

"Effery piece?" she screamed incredulously. "Effery piece?"

"Every piece," he answered.

"Vell, you vas a goot, liddle man. Und how mooch did dey bring; how mooch?"

"Twenty-five dollars."

"Twenty-five dollars? Mein Gott, you vas de best effer!" hugging herself and rocking back and forth in her glee. "Twenty-five dollars! Und, now," with outstretched, visibly itching fingers, "v'ere is de money?"

"It is a' in this package." He slowly unrolled the paper from the silk. "There it is!"

The huge German woman looked at him for a moment in astonishment. "Vat you givin' me, Campbell?" she asked roughly.

He still smiled, "You hae never had a silk dress in your life"; his words tumbled over each other at the thought of the magnitude of the joy he was conferring; "and I hae brought you one with the money I got from the sale of your laces."

Mrs. Landvetter looked at him a moment with a purpling face. Then she sprang at him. "You bought dat silk mit my money? Den, by Gott, I break your head!" She rushed toward the pile of wood on the hearth and, seizing a thick stick, struck blindly in the air.

But Ethel, lithe and quick, had sprung from her seat by the table, picking up something as she ran—something that gleamed long and shining in her hand.

"Don't you touch him, or I'll kill you!" she threatened, catching the larger woman by the arm. Her face was dead white, her narrowed eyes glittered like a cat's, her gasping voice was scarcely audible. "You — — —, it ain't the first time I've used a knife! The jury has let me off twice, an' they would again, you bet. Drop that stick, I tell you! Drop it!" Then, as Mrs. Landvetter wavered but still held her ground, she bent the long, thin blade almost double and let it snap back in the older woman's face.

That mighty Hun recoiled, but still snarling and showing her fangs. "I vant my money," she muttered stubbornly; "und, by Gott, I get it out of him."

"Yes, I know you, you dirty coward. You'll wait till I'm gone and then take it out of him, and rattle him so he won't never get straight again. Well, you won't get the chance; for I'll pay you your old money now. I'll take the silk off your hands. It ain't the first time I've wore silk, by a long sight!"

She tore open her gown and drew a chamois bag from her bosom. Unfastening it, she counted out some crumpled bills and loose silver. "There's your money," contemptuously; "twenty-five dollars. Put it down in your stocking now. Get it safe, do."

"V'ere you get it, Ethel?" Mrs. Landvetter clutched the money, fawned over it, and yet feared to hold it.

"None of your damn' business where I got it. You drop that wood and go on out to your wash-tubs." She stamped her foot and then, seeing the other hesitate, motioned with her knife toward the door. "Go on, I say."

As Mrs. Landvetter closed the door behind her, Ethel threw her weapon on the table and ran to old Andrew Campbell, who crouched upon the floor close to the wall, holding his gray head with his hands.

"Come, come," she crooned brokenly. "Come with Ethel."

He said no word, but at the sound of her voice rose feebly, and passively let her lead him to his dark, little room off the kitchen. She had almost to lift him upon his bunk, and then she knelt beside him, spent with her fury, shaken with hysterical tears.

At last he turned his haggard face with its wild, miserable eyes to hers. "I do not care if she shook me," he muttered hoarsely. "I do not care if she did not like the silk. But I cannot forgive her, and I can never pray again, and I cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. "

"But," Ethel checked her sobs to soothe him. "if you don't care that she shook you, and you don't care that she didn't like the silk, what makes you feel so bad?"

"Because," he answered with solemn anguish, "she lifted a great stick and struck my Ruth; and I can never forgive her." His words trailed as he lapsed into despair

Ethel was bewildered for a moment, and then, with a dawning comprehension of his trouble, she looked about her helplessly. There seemed no way in which she could minister to this mind diseased.

But again she turned her perplexed, despairing glance toward the bed where Campbell lay; and as she gazed at that waif—conquered, overwhelmed, beaten by life—the light of love shone in her eyes and in her sad, pitying smile.

"Listen, Mr. Campbell," bending above him and speaking with imperative, tender distinctness. "It wasn't your Ruth who got hit. It was me—just only Ethel. She give me a whack across the arm, and you've got us mixed up. How could you? Why, your Ruth stood beside you all the time."

He half raised himself in the bed, new hope dawning in his eyes. But they clouded again with suspicion. His trembling hands plucked at her sleeve. "Let me see," he said, "where she struck you?"

Her lips paled; then she lifted her head with a reckless laugh. "It don't show yet, dear; but it'll be all black and blue by to-morrow. You'll see." Smiling tenderly at him, she rose to her feet and walked to the small, narrow window. Leaning her head against the rough sash, she looked out upon the gray of the hills now blurred in snow. Her fair hair fell about her white face, her scarlet mouth drooped forlornly.

"I ain't never lied nor stole till to-day," she whispered. "No matter what else I done, I've always been a lady that way. But I guess if I could fall so low as to steal what I collected for the Army, I needn't let a little thing like a lie stick in my throat." She dropped her face in her hands. "I've tried to raise myself, I've tried to be somebody; but what's the use? It seems like even God was against me."