Leatherwood God

Dean Howells William

Description

Set in Ohio in the early 1800s, William Dean Howells' final novel The Leatherwood God is a dramatic look at religious fervor. It tells the story of Joseph Dylks, a charismatic character who builds a following among his fellow churchgoers and eventually begins his own schismatic sect.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776676019
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE LEATHERWOOD GOD
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WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
 
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The Leatherwood God First published in 1916 Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-601-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-602-6 © 2015 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Publisher's Note The Leatherwood God Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Chapter XXII Chapter XXIII
Publisher's Note
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The author thinks it well to apprise the reader that the historicaloutline of this story is largely taken from the admirable narrative ofJudge Taneyhill in the Ohio Valley Series , Robert Clarke Co.,Cincinnati. The details are often invented, and the characters are allinvented as to their psychological evolution, though some are based uponthose of real persons easily identifiable in that narrative. The drama isthat of the actual events in its main development; but the vitalincidents, or the vital uses of them, are the author's. At times he hasenlarged them; at times he has paraphrased the accounts of the witnesses;in one instance he has frankly reproduced the words of the imposter asreported by one who heard Dylks's last address in the Temple atLeatherwood and as given in the Taneyhill narrative. Otherwise the storyis effectively fiction.
The Leatherwood God
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Already, in the third decade of the nineteenth century, the settlers inthe valley of Leatherwood Creek had opened the primeval forest to theirfields of corn and tobacco on the fertile slopes and rich bottom-lands.The stream had its name from the bush growing on its banks, which with itstough and pliable bark served many uses of leather among the pioneers;they made parts of their harness with it, and the thongs which liftedtheir door-latches, or tied their shoes, or held their working clothestogether. The name passed to the settlement, and then it passed to theman, who came and went there in mystery and obloquy, and remainedlastingly famed in the annals of the region as the Leatherwood God.
At the time he appeared the community had become a center of influence,spiritual as well as material, after a manner unknown to later conditions.It was still housed, for the most part, in the log cabins which thefarmers built when they ceased to be pioneers, but in the older clearings,and along the creek a good many frame dwellings stood, and even some ofbrick. The population, woven of the varied strains from the North, Eastand South which have mixed to form the Mid-Western people, enjoyed an easeof circumstance not so great as to tempt their thoughts from the otherworld and fix them on this. In their remoteness from the political centersof the young republic, they seldom spoke of the civic questions stirringthe towns of the East; the commercial and industrial problems which vexmodern society were unknown to them. Religion was their chief interest andthe seriousness which they had inherited from their Presbyterian,Methodist, Lutheran, and Moravian ancestry was expressed in their orderlyand diligent lives; but the general prosperity had so far relaxed thestringency of their several creeds that their distinctive public rite hadcome to express a mutual toleration. The different sects had theirdifferent services; their ceremonies of public baptism, their revivals,their camp-meetings; but they gathered as one Christian people under theroof of the log-built edifice, thrice the size of their largest dwelling,which they called the Temple.
Chapter I
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A storm of the afternoon before had cleared the mid-August air. The earlysun was hot, but the wind had carried away the sultry mists, and infusedfresh life into the day. Where Matthew Braile sat smoking his corncob pipein the covered porchway between the rooms of his double-log cabin heinsensibly shared the common exhilaration, and waited comfortably for thebreakfast of bacon and coffee which his wife was getting within. As hesmoked on he inhaled with the odors from her cooking the dense rich smellof the ripening corn that stirred in the morning breeze on three sides ofthe cabin, and the fumes of the yellow tobacco which he had grown, andcured, and was now burning. His serenity was a somewhat hawklike repose,but the light that came into his narrowed eyes was of rather amusedliking, as a man on a claybank horse rode up before the cabin in the spacewhere alone it was not hidden by the ranks of the tall corn. The man satastride a sack with a grist of corn in one end balanced by a large stonein the other, and he made as if he were going on to the mill withoutstopping; but he yielded apparently to a temptation from within, sincenone had come from without. "Whoa!" he shouted at the claybank, which theslightest whisper would have stayed; and then he called to the old man onthe porch, "Fine mornun', Squire!"
Braile took out his pipe, and spat over the edge of the porch, before hecalled back, "Won't you light and have some breakfast?"
"Well, no, thank you, Squire," the man said, and at the same time heroused the claybank from an instant repose, and pushed her to the cabinsteps. "I'm just on my way down to Brother Hingston's mill, and I reckonSally don't want me to have any breakfast till I bring back the meal forher to git it with; anyway that's what she said when I left." Braileanswered nothing, and the rider of the claybank added, with a certainuneasiness as if for the effect of what he was going to say, "I was upputty late last night, and I reckon I overslep'," he parleyed. Then, asBraile remained silent, he went on briskly, "I was wonderin' if you hearnabout the curious doun's last night at the camp-meetun'."
Braile, said, without ceasing to smoke, "You're the first one I've seenthis morning, except my wife. She wasn't at the camp-meeting." Hisaquiline profile, which met close at the lips from the loss of his teeth,compressed itself further in leaving the whole burden of the affair to theman on the claybank, and his narrowed eyes were a line of mocking underthe thick gray brows that stuck out like feathers above them.
"Well, sir, it was great doun's," the other said, wincing a little underthe old man's indifference. Braile relented so far as to ask, "Who was atthe bellows?"
The other answered with a certain inward deprecation of the grin thatspread over his face, and the responsive levity of his phrase, "There wasa change of hands, but the one that kep' the fire goun' the hardes' andthe hottes' was Elder Grove."
Braile made "Hoonck!" in the scornful guttural which no English spellingcan represent.
"Yes, sir," the man on the claybank went on, carried forward by his owninterest, but helpless to deny himself the guilty pleasure of falling inwith Braile's humor, "he had 'em goun' lively, about midnight, now I tellyou: whoopun' and yellun', and rippun' and stavun', and fallun' down withthe jerks, and pullun' and haulun' at the sinners, to git 'em up to themourners' bench, and hurrahun' over 'em, as fast as they was knocked downand drug out. I never seen the beat of it in all my born days."
"You don't make out anything very strange, Abel Reverdy," Braile said,putting his pipe back into his mouth and beginning to smoke it again intoa lost activity.
"Well, I hain't come to it yit," Reverdy apologized. "I reckon therenever was a bigger meetun' in Leatherwood Bottom, anywhere. Folks therefrom twenty mile round, just slathers; I reckon there was a thousand ifthere was one."
"Hoonch!" Braile would not trouble to take out his pipe in making thesound now; the smoke got into his lungs, and he coughed.
Reverdy gained courage to go on, but he went on in the same strain,whether in spite of himself or not. "There was as many as four exhorterskeepun' her up at once to diff'rent tunes, and prayun' and singun'everywhere, so you couldn't hear yourself think. Every exhorter had amourners' bench in front of him, and I counted as many as eighty mournerson 'em at one time. The most of 'em was settun' under Elder Grove, and hewas poundun' the kingdom into 'em good and strong. When the Spirit tookhim he roared so that he had the Hounds just flaxed out; you couldn'tketch a yelp from 'em."
"Many Hounds?" Braile asked, in a sort of cold sympathy with the riotousoutlaws known to the religious by that name.
"Mought been 'fore I got there. But by that time I reckon they was mostof 'em on the mourners' benches. They ought to tar and feather some ofthem fellers, or ride 'em on a rail anyway, comun' round, and makun'trouble on the edge of camp-meetun's. I didn't hear but one toot fromtheir horns, last night, and either because the elder had shamed 'em backinto the shadder of the woods, or brought 'em forwards into the light,there wasn't a Hound, not to call a Hound, anywheres. I tell you itwas a sight, Squire; you ought to 'a' been there yourself." Reverdygrinned at his notion. "They had eight camp-fires goun' instead o' four,on top of the highest stageun's yit, so the whole place was lit up asbright as day; and when the elder stopped short and sudden, and the otherexhorters held back their tommyhawks, and all the saints and sinners leftoff their groanun' and jerkun' to see what was comun', now it was a greatsight, I tell you, Squire. The elder he put up his hand and says he, 'Letus pray!' and the blaze from all them stageun's seemed to turn itselfright onto him,