"There's something going on I don't like, Mr. Gridley. They tell me that Minister Stoker is following round after Myrtle Hazard, talking religion at her jest about the same way he'd have liked to with our Susan, I calculate. If he wants to talk religion to me or Silence Withers,--well, no, I don't feel sure about Silence,--she ain't as young as she used to be, but then ag'in she ain't so fur gone as some, and she's got money,--but if he wants to talk religion with me, he may come and welcome. But as for Myrtle Hazard, she's been sick, and it's left her a little flighty by what they say, and to have a minister round her all the time ravin' about the next world as if he had a latch-key to the front door of it, is no way to make her come to herself again. I 've seen more than one young girl sent off to the asylum by that sort of work, when, if I'd only had 'em, I'd have made 'em sweep the stairs, and mix the puddin's, and tend the babies, and milk the cow, and keep 'em too busy all day to be thinkin' about themselves, and have 'em dress up nice evenin's and see some young folks and have a good time, and go to meetin' Sundays, and then have done with the minister, unless it was old Father Pemberton. He knows forty times as much about heaven as that Stoker man does, or ever 's like to,--why don't they run after him, I should like to know?
Ministers are men, come now; and I don't want to say anything against women, Mr. Gridley, but women are women, that's the fact of it, and half of 'em are hystericky when they're young; and I've heard old Dr.
Hurlbut say many a time that he had to lay in an extra stock of valerian and assafaetida whenever there was a young minister round,--for there's plenty of religious ravin', says he, that's nothin' but hysterics."[Mr. Fronde thinks that was the trouble with Bloody Queen Mary, but the old physician did not get the idea from him.]
"Well, and what do you propose to do about the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker and his young proselyte, Miss Myrtle Hazard?" said Mr.
Gridley, when Mrs. Hopkins at last gave him a chance to speak.
"Mr. Gridley,"--Mrs. Hopkins looked full upon him as she spoke,--"people used to say that you was a good man and a great man and one of the learnedest men alive, but that you didn't know much nor care for much except books. I know you used to live pretty much to yourself when you first came to board in this house. But you've been very good to my son; ...and if Gifted lives till you ...till you are in ...your grave, ...he will write a poem--I know he will--that will tell your goodness to babes unborn."[Here Master Gridley groaned, and repeated to himself silently, "Scindentur vestes gemmae frangentur et aurum, Carmina quam tribuent fama perennis erit."All this inwardly, and without interrupting the worthy woman's talk.]
"And if ever Gifted makes a book,--don't say anything about it, Mr.
Gridley, for goodness' sake, for he wouldn't have anybody know it, only I can't help thinking that some time or other he will print a book,--and if he does, I know whose name he'll put at the head of it,--'Dedicated to B. G., with the gratitude and respect--' There, now, I had n't any business to say a word about it, and it's only jest in case he does, you know. I'm sure you deserve it all. You've helped him with the best of advice. And you've been kind to me when I was in trouble. And you've been like a grandfather" [Master Gridley winced,--why could n't the woman have said father?--that grand struck his ear like a spade going into the gravel] "to those babes, poor little souls! left on my door-step like a couple of breakfast rolls,--only you know it's the baker left then. I believe in you, Mr. Gridley, as I believe in my Maker and in Father Pemberton,--but, poor man, he's old, and you won't be old these twenty years yet."[Master Gridley shook his head as if to say that was n't so, but felt comforted and refreshed.]
"You've got to help Myrtle Hazard again. You brought her home when she come so nigh drowning. You got the old doctor to go and see her when she come so nigh being bewitched with the magnetism and nonsense, whatever they call it, and the young doctor was so nigh bein' crazy, too. I know, for Nurse Byloe told me all about it. And now Myrtle's gettin' run away with by that pesky Minister Stoker.
Cynthy Badlam was here yesterday crying and sobbing as if her heart would break about it. For my part, I did n't think Cynthy cared so much for the girl as all that, but I saw her takin' on dreadfully with my own eyes. That man's like a hen-hawk among the chickens, first he picks up one, and then he picks up another. I should like to know if nobody but young folks has souls to be saved, and specially young women!""Tell me all you know about Myrtle Hazard and Joseph Bellamy Stoker,"said Master Gridley.
Thereupon that good lady related all that Miss Badlam had imparted to her, of which the reader knows the worst, being the interview of which the keen spinster had been a witness, having followed them for the express purpose of knowing, in her own phrase, what the minister was up to.
