Free Peter Loon by Van Reid Page A

of the evening came hard on the heels of this meal, which lasted through a thicket of conversation and debate over the recent events in New Milford. Nathan Barrow and Nora Tillage were not on view, but Mr. Tillage–a widower, as it happened–put his younger children to work serving the crowd.
    Peter was not used to eating so royally, and though he had slept in the middle of the day, he felt himself growing drowsy again. The glimmer of firelight conquered the room as the sun set and the few windows dimmed, and pipe smoke filled the air till there was a blue haze tumbling against the low beams. Parson Leach himself smoked and with his lanky legs stretched out before him, he drew on his long clay pipe whether he remembered to keep it lit or not.
    The room grew crowded as evening drew on; Peter didn’t know when he’d seen so many people; many of them were from outlying farms, come in to get the truth of recent events in New Milford. Land agents had been in the vicinity, some said, and while news was bandied about and rumor spread thickly, the ale and the sharp cider and rum flowed, and the warlike opinions of many in the assemblage grew apparent. Peter heard the name of Nathan Barrow on several lips, as if that man might appear at any moment to lead them against their oppressors.
    As the belligerence of the crowd increased, Parson Leach became quiet and even watchful from behind the smoke of his long pipe. Others tended to listen more than talk, and one of these–Mr. Flint–turned to Zachariah Leach, during a lull in the general discourse, and asked if the parson had any words to inspire them. There was a chorus of assent and several slurred exhortations to the clergyman to stand and speak.
    Parson Leach looked at his pipe and he looked at the tankard before him. The latter he pushed to one side and the former he lay down upon the table before he rose. Peter, sitting next to the parson, craned his head back to watch him.
    Through those clear gray eyes and over that large nose, Parson Leach regarded the gathering before him. “ ‘Letyour moderation be known unto all men,’ ” he said quietly.
    Several men peered skeptically into their tankards, one or two croaked their disregard for such wisdom, and one in particular fired a hard gaze at the parson. There was only the briefest lapse, however, before several voices called out “Philippians,” and “Philippians, four, five.”
    The preacher raised his head a little higher, as if enlargened by these remembrances. “And I say,” he continued, “Moderation in all things save these: Love for God, love for your neighbor, and love for yourself. This last may sound strange to you, when so often we are counseled to accept discomfort and denial as the hallmarks of religious increase; but the human heart is the temple of God, and you would not invite such a Guest into an unkempt house. Therefore you must care for yourself as you would your Master’s quarters.
    â€œSo, moderation in all things save these; and the love for God is love for the father, and the love for your neighbor is love for Christ, and the love for yourself is love for the Holy Ghost. In all other things, let even your enemy understand your temperance.”
    This last statement generated a fairly particular silence. Peter had never heard Parson Leach preach, and this taste of it and this sight of the man standing before the tavern crowd moved him to wonder if he had, until this moment, been looking at the wrong person.
    Parson Leach did not fill the room as might an overwhelming personality, but drew all eyes and ears, and even hearts in his direction with a force of magnetism that had hitherto in Peter’s experience lain not entirely dormant, but had rested beneath a deceiving and amiable surface. Peter could never look at his new friend so simply again.
    â€œHow shall we prove moderate,” said someone nearby, “when men of force covet so