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THE MINISTER'S CHARGE

OR, THE APPRENTICESHIP OF LEMUEL BARKER


By William Dean Howells


Author Of "The Rise Of Silas Lapham," "A Modern Instance," "Indian
Summer," Etc.





THE MINISTER'S CHARGE;

OR, THE APPRENTICESHIP OF LEMUEL BARKER.




I.


On their way back to the farm-house where they were boarding, Sewell's
wife reproached him for what she called his recklessness. "You had no
right," she said, "to give the poor boy false hopes. You ought to have
discouraged him--that would have been the most merciful way--if you knew
the poetry was bad. Now, he will go on building all sorts of castles
in the air on your praise, and sooner or later they will come tumbling
about his ears--just to gratify your passion for saying pleasant things
to people."

"I wish you had a passion for saying pleasant things to me, my dear,"
suggested her husband evasively.

"Oh, a nice time I should have!"

"I don't know about _your_ nice time, but I feel pretty certain of my
own. How do you know--Oh, _do_ get up, you implacable <DW36>!" he broke
off to the lame mare he was driving, and pulled at the reins.

"Don't saw her mouth!" cried Mrs. Sewell.

"Well, let her get up, then, and I won't. I don't like to saw her
mouth; but I have to do something when you come down on me with your
interminable consequences. I dare say the boy will never think of my
praise again. And besides, as I was saying when this animal interrupted
me with her ill-timed attempts at grazing, how do you know that I knew
the poetry was bad?"

"How? By the sound of your voice. I could tell you were dishonest in the
dark, David."

"Perhaps the boy knew that I was dishonest too," suggested Sewell.

"Oh no, he didn't. I could see that he pinned his faith to every
syllable."

"He used a quantity of pins, then; for I was particularly profuse of
syllables. I find that it requires no end of them to make the worse
appear the better reason to a poet who reads his own verses to you. But
come, now, Lucy, let me off a syllable or two. I--I have a conscience,
you know well enough, and if I thought--But pshaw! I've merely cheered a
lonely hour for the boy, and he'll go back to hoeing potatoes to-morrow,
and that will be the end of it."

"I _hope_ that will be the end of it," said Mrs. Sewell, with the
darkling reserve of ladies intimate with the designs of Providence.

"Well," argued her husband, who was trying to keep the matter from being
serious, "perhaps he may turn out a poet yet. You never can tell where
the lightning is going to strike. He has some idea of rhyme, and some
perception of reason, and--yes, some of the lines _were_ musical. His
general attitude reminded me of Piers Plowman. Didn't he recall Piers
Plowman to you?"

"I'm glad you can console yourself in that way, David," said his wife
relentlessly.

The mare stopped again, and Sewell looked over his shoulder at the
house, now black in the twilight, on the crest of the low hill across
the hollow behind them. "I declare," he said, "the loneliness of that
place almost broke my heart. There!" he added, as the faint sickle
gleamed in the sky above the roof, "I've got the new moon right over my
left shoulder for my pains. That's what comes of having a sympathetic
nature."

       *       *       *       *       *

The boy was looking at the new moon, across the broken gate which
stopped the largest gap in the tumbled stone wall. He still gripped in
his hand the manuscript which he had been reading to the minister.

"There, Lem," called his mother's voice from the house, "I guess you've
seen the last of 'em for one while. I'm 'fraid you'll take cold out
there 'n the dew. Come in, child."

The boy obeyed. "I was looking at the new moon, mother. I saw it over my
right shoulder. Did you hear--hear him," he asked, in a broken and husky
voice,--"hear how he praised my poetry, mother?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Oh, _do_ make her get up, David!" cried Mrs. Sewell. "These mosquitoes
are eating me alive!"

"I will saw her mouth all to the