HOW THE WIDOW WON THE DEACON By William James Lampton ( -1917)

[From Harper's Bazaar, April, 1911; copyright, 1911, by Harper &Brothers; republished by permission.]
Of course the Widow Stimson never tried to win Deacon Hawkins, nor anyother man, for that matter. A widow doesn't have to try to win a man;she wins without trying. Still, the Widow Stimson sometimes wonderedwhy the deacon was so blind as not to see how her fine farm adjoininghis equally fine place on the outskirts of the town might not bebrought under one management with mutual benefit to both parties atinterest. Which one that management might become was a matter offuture detail. The widow knew how to run a farm successfully, and alarge farm is not much more difficult to run than one of half thesize. She had also had one husband, and knew something more thanrunning a farm successfully. Of all of which the deacon was perfectlywell aware, and still he had not been moved by the merging spirit ofthe age to propose consolidation.
This interesting situation was up for discussion at the Wednesdayafternoon meeting of the Sisters' Sewing Society.
"For my part," Sister Susan Spicer, wife of the Methodist minister,remarked as she took another tuck in a fourteen-year-old girl's skirtfor a ten-year-old--"for my part, I can't see why Deacon Hawkins andKate Stimson don't see the error of their ways and depart from them."
"I rather guess _she_ has," smiled Sister Poteet, the grocer's betterhalf, who had taken an afternoon off from the store in order to bepresent.
"Or is willing to," added Sister Maria Cartridge, a spinster stillpossessing faith, hope, and charity, notwithstanding she had been onthe waiting list a long time.
"Really, now," exclaimed little Sister Green, the doctor's wife, "doyou think it is the deacon who needs urging?"
"It looks that way to me," Sister Poteet did not hesitate to affirm.
"Well, I heard Sister Clark say that she had heard him call her'Kitty' one night when they were eating ice-cream at the MiteSociety," Sister Candish, the druggist's wife, added to the fund ofreliable information on hand.
"'Kitty,' indeed!" protested Sister Spicer. "The idea of anybodycalling Kate Stimson 'Kitty'! The deacon will talk that way to 'mostany woman, but if she let him say it to her more than once, she mustbe getting mighty anxious, I think."
"Oh," Sister Candish hastened to explain, "Sister Clark didn't say shehad heard him say it twice.'"
"Well, I don't think she heard him say it once," Sister Spicerasserted with confidence.
"I don't know about that," Sister Poteet argued. "From all I can seeand hear I think Kate Stimson wouldn't object to 'most anything thedeacon would say to her, knowing as she does that he ain't going tosay anything he shouldn't say."
"And isn't saying what he should," added Sister Green, with a slysnicker, which went around the room softly.
"But as I was saying--" Sister Spicer began, when Sister Poteet, whoserocker, near the window, commanded a view of the front gate,interrupted with a warning, "'Sh-'sh."
"Why shouldn't I say what I wanted to when--" Sister Spicer began.
"There she comes now," explained Sister Poteet, "and as I live thedeacon drove her here in his sleigh, and he's waiting while she comesin. I wonder what next," and Sister Poteet, in conjunction with theentire society, gasped and held their eager breaths, awaiting theentrance of the subject of conversation.
Sister Spicer went to the front door to let her in, and she wasgreeted with the greatest cordiality by everybody.
"We were just talking about you and wondering why you were so latecoming," cried Sister Poteet. "Now take off your things and make upfor lost time. There's a pair of pants over there to be cut down tofit that poor little Snithers boy."
The excitement and curiosity of the society were almost more thancould be borne, but never a sister let on that she knew the deacon wasat the gate waiting. Indeed, as far as the widow could discover, therewas not the slightest indication that anybody had ever heard there wassuch a person as the deacon in existence.
"Oh," she chirruped, in the liveliest of humors, "you will have toexcuse me for today. Deacon Hawkins overtook me on the way here, andhere said I had simply got to go sleigh-riding with him. He's waitingout at the gate now."
"Is that so?" exclaimed the society unanimously, and rushed to thewindow to see if it were really true.
"Well, did you ever?" commented Sister Poteet, generally.
"Hardly ever," laughed the widow, good-naturedly, "and I don't want tolose the chance. You know Deacon Hawkins isn't asking somebody everyday to go sleighing with him. I told him I'd go if he would bring mearound here to let you know what had become of me, and so he did. Now,good-by, and I'll be sure to be present at the next meeting. I have tohurry because he'll get fidgety."
The widow ran away like a lively schoolgirl. All the sisters watchedher get into the sleigh with the deacon, and resumed the previousdiscussion with greatly increased interest.
But little recked the widow and less recked the deacon. He had boughta new horse and he wanted the widow's opinion of it, for the WidowStimson was a competent judge of fine horseflesh. If Deacon Hawkinshad one insatiable ambition it was to own a horse which could flingits heels in the face of the best that Squire Hopkins drove. In hisearly manhood the deacon was no deacon by a great deal. But as theyears gathered in behind him he put off most of the frivolities ofyouth and held now only to the one of driving a fast horse. No otherman in the county drove anything faster except Squire Hopkins, and himthe deacon had not been able to throw the dust over. The deacon wouldget good ones, but somehow never could he find one that the squiredidn't get a better. The squire had also in the early days beaten thedeacon in the race for a certain pretty girl he dreamed about. But thegirl and the squire had lived happily ever after and the deacon, beinga philosopher, might have forgotten the squire's superiority had itbeen manifested in this one regard only. But in horses, too--thatgraveled the deacon.
"How much did you give for him?" was the widow's first query, afterthey had reached a stretch of road that was good going and the deaconhad let him out for a length or two.
"Well, what do you suppose? You're a judge."
"More than I would give, I'll bet a cookie."
"Not if you was as anxious as I am to show Hopkins that he can't driveby everything on the pike."
"I thought you loved a good horse because he was a good horse," saidthe widow, rather disapprovingly.
"I do, but I could love him a good deal harder if he would stay infront of Hopkins's best."
"Does he know you've got this one?"
"Yes, and he's been blowing round town that he is waiting to pick meup on the road some day and make my five hundred dollars look like apewter quarter."
"So you gave five hundred dollars for him, did you?" laughed thewidow.
"Is it too much?"
"Um-er," hesitated the widow, glancing along the graceful lines of thepowerful trotter, "I suppose not if you can beat the squire."
"Right you are," crowed the deacon, "and I'll show him a thing or twoin getting over the ground," he added with swelling pride.
"Well, I hope he won't be out looking for you today, with me in yoursleigh," said the widow, almost apprehensively, "because, you know,deacon, I have always wanted you to beat Squire Hopkins."
The deacon looked at her sharply. There was a softness in her tonesthat appealed to him, even if she had not expressed such agreeablesentiments. Just what the deacon might have said or done after theimpulse had been set going must remain unknown, for at the crucialmoment a sound of militant bells, bells of defiance, jangled up behindthem, disturbing their personal absorption, and they looked aroundsimultaneously. Behind the bells was the squire in his sleigh drawn byhis fastest stepper, and he was alone, as the deacon was not. Thewidow weighed one hundred and sixty pounds, net--which is weighting ahorse in a race rather more than the law allows.
But the deacon never thought of that. Forgetting everything except hischerished ambition, he braced himself for the contest, took a twisthold on the lines, sent a sharp, quick call to his horse, and let himout for all that was in him. The squire followed suit and the deacon.The road was wide and the snow was worn down smooth. The trackcouldn't have been in better condition. The Hopkins colors were notfive rods behind the Hawkins colors as they got away. For half a mileit was nip and tuck, the deacon encouraging his horse and the widowencouraging the deacon, and then the squire began creeping up. Thedeacon's horse was a good one, but he was not accustomed to haulingfreight in a race. A half-mile of it was as much as he could stand,and he weakened under the strain.
Not handicapped, the squire's horse forged ahead, and as his nosepushed up to the dashboard of the deacon's sleigh, that good mangroaned in agonized disappointment and bitterness of spirit. The widowwas mad all over that Squire Hopkins should take such a mean advantageof his rival. Why didn't he wait till another time when the deacon wasalone, as he was? If she had her way she never would, speak to SquireHopkins again, nor to his wife, either. But her resentment was nothelping the deacon's horse to win.
Slowly the squire pulled closer to the front; the deacon's horse,realizing what it meant to his master and to him, spurted bravely,but, struggle as gamely as he might, the odds were too many for him,and he dropped to the rear. The squire shouted in triumph as he drewpast the deacon, and the dejected Hawkins shrivelled into a heap onthe seat, with only his hands sufficiently alive to hold the lines. Hehad been beaten again, humiliated before a woman, and that, too, withthe best horse that he could hope to put against the ever-conqueringsquire. Here sank his fondest hopes, here ended his ambition. Fromthis on he would drive a mule or an automobile. The fruit of hisdesire had turned to ashes in his mouth.
But no. What of the widow? She realized, if the deacon did not, thatshe, not the squire's horse, had beaten the deacon's, and she wasready to make what atonement she could. As the squire passed ahead ofthe deacon she was stirred by a noble resolve. A deep bed of driftedsnow lay close by the side of the road not far in front. It was softand safe and she smiled as she looked at it as though waiting for her.Without a hint of her purpose, or a sign to disturb the deacon in hisfinal throes, she rose as the sleigh ran near its edge, and with aspring which had many a time sent her lightly from the ground to thebare back of a horse in the meadow, she cleared the robes and litplump in the drift. The deacon's horse knew before the deacon did thatsomething had happened in his favor, and was quick to respond. Withhis first jump of relief the deacon suddenly revived, his hopes camefast again, his blood retingled, he gathered himself, and, crackinghis lines, he shot forward, and three minutes later he had passed thesquire as though he were hitched to the fence. For a quarter of a milethe squire made heroic efforts to recover his vanished prestige, buteffort was useless, and finally concluding that he was practicallyleft standing, he veered off from the main road down a farm lane tofind some spot in which to hide the humiliation of his defeat. Thedeacon, still going at a clipping gait, had one eye over his shoulderas wary drivers always have on such occasions, and when he saw thesquire was off the track he slowed down and jogged along with theapparent intention of continuing indefinitely. Presently an ideastruck him, and he looked around for the widow. She was not where hehad seen her last. Where was she? In the enthusiasm of victory he hadforgotten her. He was so dejected at the moment she had leaped that hedid not realize what she had done, and two minutes later he was soelated that, shame on him! he did not care. With her, all was lost;without her, all was won, and the deacon's greatest ambition was towin. But now, with victory perched on his horse-collar, success his atlast, he thought of the widow, and he did care. He cared so much thathe almost threw his horse off his feet by the abrupt turn he gave him,and back down the pike he flew as if a legion of squires were afterhim.
He did not know what injury she might have sustained; She might havebeen seriously hurt, if not actually killed. And why? Simply to makeit possible for him to win. The deacon shivered as he thought of it,and urged his horse to greater speed. The squire, down the lane, sawhim whizzing along and accepted it profanely as an exhibition for hisespecial benefit. The deacon now had forgotten the squire as he hadonly so shortly before forgotten the widow. Two hundred yards from thedrift into which she had jumped there was a turn in the road, wheresome trees shut off the sight, and the deacon's anxiety increasedmomentarily until he reached this point. From here he could see ahead,and down there in the middle of the road stood the widow waving hershawl as a banner of triumph, though she could only guess at results.The deacon came on with a rush, and pulled up alongside of her in acondition of nervousness he didn't think possible to him.
"Hooray! hooray!" shouted the widow, tossing her shawl into the air."You beat him. I know you did. Didn't you? I saw you pulling ahead atthe turn yonder. Where is he and his old plug?"
"Oh, bother take him and his horse and the race and everything. Areyou hurt?" gasped the deacon, jumping out, but mindful to keep thelines in his hand. "Are you hurt?" he repeated, anxiously, though shelooked anything but a hurt woman.
"If I am," she chirped, cheerily, "I'm not hurt half as bad as I wouldhave been if the squire had beat you, deacon. Now don't you worryabout me. Let's hurry back to town so the squire won't get anotherchance, with no place for me to jump."
And the deacon? Well, well, with the lines in the crook of his elbowthe deacon held out his arms to the widow and----. The sisters at thenext meeting of the Sewing Society were unanimously of the opinionthat any woman who would risk her life like that for a husband wasmighty anxious.