Free Elmer Gantry by 1885-1951 Sinclair Lewis Page A

You’ve made your
old mother so happy! All my life I’ve sorrowed, I’ve waited, I’ve prayed and now I shan’t ever sorrow again! Oh, you will
stay true?”
    He threw the last of his emotional reserve into a ringing, “You bet I will, Ma!” and kissed her good-night.
    He had no emotion left with which to face walking alone, in a cold and realistic night, down a street not of shining
columns but of cottages dumpy amid the bleak snow and unfriendly under the bitter stars.
    His plan of saving Jim Lefferts, his vision of Jim with reverent and beatific eyes, turned into a vision of Jim with
extremely irate eyes and a lot to say. With that vanishment his own glory vanished.
    “Was I,” he wondered, “just a plain damn’ fool?
    “Jim warned me they’d nab me if I lost my head.
    “Now I suppose I can’t ever even smoke again without going to hell.”
    But he wanted a smoke. Right now!
    He had a smoke.
    It comforted him but little as he fretted on:
    “There WASN’T any fake about it! I really did repent all these darn’ fool sins. Even smoking—I’m going to cut it out. I
did feel the—the peace of God.
    “But can I keep up this speed? Christ! I can’t DO it! Never take a drink or anything—
    “I wonder if the Holy Ghost really was there and getting after me? I did feel different! I did! Or was it just because
Judson and Ma and all those Christers were there whooping it up—
    “Jud Roberts kidded me into it. With all his Big Brother stuff. Prob’ly pulls it everywhere he goes. Jim’ll claim I—Oh,
damn Jim, too! I got some rights! None of his business if I come out and do the fair square thing! And they DID look up to
me when I gave them the invitation! It went off fine and dandy! And that kid coming right up and getting saved. Mighty few
fellows ever’ve pulled off a conversion as soon after their own conversion as I did! Moody or none of ’em. I’ll bet it busts
the records! Yes, sir, maybe they’re right. Maybe the Lord has got some great use for me, even if I ain’t always been all I
might of been . . . someways . . . but I was never mean or tough or anything like that . . . just had a good time.
    “Jim—what right’s he got telling me where I head in? Trouble with him is, he thinks he knows it all. I guess these wise
old coots that’ve written all these books about the Bible, I guess they know more’n one smart-aleck Kansas agnostic!
    “Yes, sir! The whole crowd! Turned to me like I was an All–American preacher!
    “Wouldn’t be so bad to be a preacher if you had a big church and— Lot easier than digging out law-cases and having to put
it over a jury and another lawyer maybe smarter’n you are.
    “The crowd have to swallow what you tell ’em in a pulpit, and no back-talk or cross-examination allowed!”
    For a second he snickered, but:
    “Not nice to talk that way. Even if a fellow don’t do what’s right himself, no excuse for his sneering at fellows that
do, like preachers. . . . There’s where Jim makes his mistake.
    “Not worthy to be a preacher. But if Jim Lefferts thinks for one single solitary second that I’m afraid to be a preacher
because HE pulls a lot of gaff—I guess
I
know how I felt when I stood up and had all them folks hollering and
rejoicing—I guess
I
know whether I experienced salvation or not! And I don’t require any James Blaine Lefferts to
tell me, neither!”
    Thus for an hour of dizzy tramping; now colder with doubt than with the prairie wind, now winning back some of the
exaltation of his spiritual adventure, but always knowing that he had to confess to an inexorable Jim.
    4
    It was after one. Surely Jim would be asleep, and by next day there might be a miracle. Morning always promises
miracles.
    He eased the door open, holding it with a restraining hand. There was a light on the washstand beside Jim’s bed, but it
was a small kerosene lamp turned low. He tiptoed in, his tremendous feet squeaking.
    Jim suddenly sat up, turned up the wick. He was