Free Caddie Woodlawn's Family by Carol Ryrie Brink Page B

preacher smiled at his hostess.
    “Ma’am,” he said, “that’s the very best kind of childhood for a traveling preacher to have. It conditions him early. There’s only one way in which I differ from my father—I’ve never asked a woman to share my wandering life with me, and I’ll never have a child of my own to run in the cold woods without shoes.”
    “But now that the country’s getting settled so that permanentchurches can be built, why don’t you settle down with it?”
    “Me?” said Mr. Tanner. “No, I’ll leave the settling to Mr. Ward.”
    He laughed his big comfortable laugh, and in his eyes they saw the look of forest places farther West where trails were just beginning to be blazed.
    But the children wanted to return to the story.
    Hetty pulled at Mr. Tanner’s sleeve and asked, “What was the yellow thing he took out of his pouch that clinked?”
    “A five-dollar gold piece,” said Mr. Tanner. “Five dollars went a long way in those days. It bought us meal and sorghum and salt pork to tide us over until spring.”
    “How did an Indian happen onto a five-dollar gold piece?” wondered Tom,
    “I don’t know,” said Mr. Tanner. “We accepted it. We weren’t in a mood to question. Besides, you know, there’s an old saying:
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”
    “Especially when it’s from the Lord,” said Warren reverently.

EIGHT

“Go, My Son, into the Forest” or What Warren Did About It
    I T WAS NOT EASY to forget Mr. Tanner’s story. It made the children realize the difficulties of a frontier preacher’s life, and it lent a kind of glamour of adventurous sanctity even to young Mr. Jedediah Ward, who had come to be the pastor at Dunnville.
    Mr. Ward was a nice young man and a very pleasant preacher. If he did not roar and rave against the sins of the earth in a mighty voice as Mr. Tanner did, he made the golden streets and harps of heaven seem sweeter; and his fine tenor voice added much to the singing of the hymns.
    He stayed for a few days with the Woodlawns until the ladies of the congregation had furnished out the little cabin in Dunnville which had been built for him by the men. When it was finished he moved into it, and spread his books and papers all about, and began to cook his own meals. Then the men who had built his cabin started the mightier building of his church.
    Mr. Ward was still young enough to arouse Mrs. Woodlawn’s motherly kindness.
    She saw his paleness and his thinness and she said aloud.with a great sigh of sympathy, “That poor, dear young man. I declare to goodness he looks half starved!”
    “He just hasn’t filled out yet,” Father said. “He’s like a young tree; he’s been too busy shooting up to send out branches.”
    “No,” Mother said firmly. “I am sure he’s but half fed. We’ll have him here to dinner of a Sunday, anyway. It’s the least that we can do for him.”
    The least that they could do!
The children thought this over as they walked to school. Hetty and Minnie had run on ahead; but Tom, Caddie, and Warren walked more slowly, discussing weighty matters.
    “Mr. Tanner is so big and healthy and brown,” Caddie said, “and look what
he
suffered when
he
was young. Mr. Ward’s childhood days must have been sumpin terrible.”
    “What worries me,” Tom said, “Father doesn’t seem to take it very seriously. I wonder if he’s doing all he should for Mr. Ward?”
    “How do you mean?” asked Warren, his face puckered with anxiety.
    “Well, you know what Mr. Tanner said about folks up the river leaving it to the folks down-river to take care of the preacher; and the folks down-river saying that the ones up-river would take care of him, so why should they worry—”
    “But Dunnville folks have turned out to build and furnish him a house,” said Caddie. “Mother and Father gave a bedstead and two chairs, and Father loaned them his team to pull stumps and grade for the new church.”
    “Sure,” Tom said. “I