Journeyman Read online

  Semon hovered around the girl, ready to catch her if she should fall. She was having a terrific struggle. She was in painful labor. Most of the others who had been seized had immediately passed into a state of helplessness, falling semi-consciously to the floor to lie there and squirm under the desks in the dust. But Lucy was having a more difficult time of it. She could not quite come through. She beat herself, ripped her skin with her fingernails, screaming each time she drew breath, and all the time her body shook and trembled with jerky muscular contortions.

  One of the women on the bench in front of the platform leaped two feet into the air, pulling at her clothes and screaming at the top of her lungs. She fell on the floor at Semon’s feet, tearing her clothes from her body and jerking her lower limbs as in the death-agony of a knife-stuck hog; no one looked at her after she had fallen.

  Up on the platform Lucy Nixon had been standing for fifteen or twenty minutes, and she still could not make herself come through. Her body trembled all over. She would become motionless for a moment and then her shoulders would begin to shake. The trembling would gradually grow in intensity until her whole body was shaking. Then she would become still again. Soon her stomach would begin to undulate. She would hold herself rigidly stiff, gripping her hands above her head until the veins in her arms looked like lines of black ink; but even then her stomach would move with an undulating motion, backward and forward, up and down.

  A man who had pushed forward until he was on the platform hurled himself against the wall and began squirming against it in a circular motion. His grunts and movements became more frantic each second.

  “Praise God!” Semon shouted. “Bring this girl through!”

  “Amen!” somebody shouted at the top of his voice.

  “Yeeee-yow!” The yell shook the walls of the frame building.

  “Praise God!”

  Lucy’s body was inflamed with exertion. Her skin was hot and damp, and blood ran from her mouth where she had bitten her lips. But she had not come through even then. Her body still trembled, not all at once any longer, but first her shoulders, next her breasts, then her stomach, and finally her thighs. Her hips and buttocks were in violent agitation again. Her thighs moved up and down, to the right and to the left, and then in all directions. The motions she made sent screams and yells ringing through the timbers of the building. Men were prancing up and down like unruly stallions, and women shook themselves in time with her movements. A man who had been watching her for several minutes suddenly grasped the fly of his breeches with his fist and ran yelling into the crowd. Bursting buttons flew into the air like spit-balls. Semon had gone closer to Lucy, almost touching her, and he bent forward to watch her labor.

  “Praise God!”

  “Amen! Amen!”

  “Yeeee-yow!”

  “Praise God!”

  Tom Rhodes was on the floor. He was dirty all over, and his clothes were stuck to his body with perspiration. He rolled into a corner, hitting himself against the wall with clock-like regularity. Just behind him was Dene on the floor. She had just started. She was a long way from coming through, but she was determined.

  Lucy Nixon’s frenzy had slowed down. She was almost too weak to keep it up any longer. She had not come through, and she was as troubled as some of the others who had not yet even been seized with the desire. She had become pale, and her arms hung at her sides; but she continued to labor with her body. Semon expected her to fall at almost any second. He was ready to catch her so she would not be hurt.

  The music had long since died out. Clay remained seated in the chair where he had been playing the harmonica, but there was a look on his face that showed plainly that he would soon be seized. Homer, beside him, continued to pluck the strings of the banjo. He was not playing a tune, however; and the chords he struck were hurled back at him by the upheaval in the room.

  During a lull in the deafening noise, Semon, who had been watching her closely, stepped forward and caught Lucy in his arms. She was completely exhausted, and she could not stand any longer. Even her eyelids did not move. Semon held her limp body in his arms, looking down at her and pushing away with his hips the crowding men who tried to get to her. Finally he succeeded in kicking several so savagely that they kept at a distance.

  Semon laid her on the table and grabbed a palmleaf fan from somebody and began trying to revive her. She had to be revived so she could come through.

  Chapter XVIII

  THERE WERE ONLY FOUR or five persons left standing or sitting by that time. Everyone else was rolling on the floor in the dust and dirt, struggling under a desk, or beating himself with his fists.

  Semon left Lucy in order to help the ones who had not yet been seized with the desire to come through. He went first to Clay.

  “Praise God!” he said.

  “I feel it in my bones,” Clay apologized, “but I can’t get it to act.”

  “Get down on your knees and pray for it, Horey!” Semon ordered him. “Get down and do your damnedest to come through.”

  “Will that help?”

  “Get down and do it, coz. It may be too late next time. Now’s the time to get religion if you’re ever going to get it. Pray, coz!”

  Clay got down on his knees beside the chair, resting his head on his arms, and wondered how he could make himself do it.

  “I’ve got to get religion,” he cried. “Dene’s getting it, and everybody else’s getting it. I’ll be the only sinner left in Rocky Comfort if I don’t get it.”

  Just then Semon thought of Lorene. He had not seen her anywhere since the meeting began.

  He turned around, walking off, and searched for her. She was sitting behind a desk near the center of the room, watching the actions of the people. She showed no sign of coming through. Semon knew by the expression on her face that she was not even trying.

  He ran to her, leaping over prostrate figures on the floor.

  “What’s the matter, Lorene?” he asked her.

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  “Can’t you get it?”

  “Get what?”

  “Religion, Lorene!”

  “I don’t want it,” she said.

  “Praise God!” Semon cried. His face was flushed, his eyes were ablaze, and his body was tense with excitement.

  She looked upon him with no concern.

  “Praise God!” he said again, louder. He was too excited to speak. He could not believe that Lorene had not caught the desire to come through that had gripped everybody else in the building.

  He dropped to his knees beside her, holding one of her hands in his, and began praying aloud for her.

  After several sentences he looked up to see if his efforts had had any effect on her. She looked at him a little queerly for a moment.

  “What do you want me to do?” she said. “I don’t know how to do it.”

  “Praise God!” he shouted, jumping to his feet. “Come through, Lorene! Praise God, come through!”

  “How do you do it?”

  “Give yourself to God, Lorene. Praise God! Just give yourself to God!”

  Semon began jumping up and down in front of her. He made unintelligible sounds in his throat. He pulled at her arms.

  “Unga-unga! Praise God!”

  Clay ran up and down the room, jumping and leaping over writhing bodies on the floor. His shirt had been torn off, and his pants were held in place by only one suspender strap.

  “I’ve got it!” he yelled. “I’ve got it!”

  Semon dropped Lorene’s hand and ran to be near Clay.

  “Got what, Horey?”

  “Got religion, man!”

  “How much have you got it?”

  “I’m coming through!”

  “Praise God!” Semon yelled.

  Clay ran around the room leaping over the prostrate bodies on the floor. He narrowly missed jumping on to the heads of several people. He ran up and down, waving his arms over his head.

  “I’ve got it!”

&nb
sp; “What’s the matter, Clay?” somebody yelled, clutching at his arm as he ran past. He jerked free and did not stop to see who it was.

  “I’ve got it!”

  “Praise God!” Semon cried, running after him.

  “I’m coming through!”

  Over in a corner alone Dene was laboring in the first pain of coming through. She did not take up as much space as some of the others, and she did not get in other people’s way. She stayed by herself, rolling and hitting her head against the wall occasionally.

  Clay tore around the room as though a wild-cat were after him.

  “I’ve got it!” he yelled again, leaping over desks and jumping over bodies.

  “Got what, Horey?” Semon said, catching his arm and trying his best to hold him.

  “I’ve got religion! I’ve got it!”

  Clay fell headlong on the floor, kicking and yelling. Semon turned away to give his attention to someone else who needed his help to come through.

  He thought of Lorene sitting stiffly upright at her desk. He ran back to where she was.

  When he dropped on his knees at her side, she looked at him as though she thought he was completely crazy.

  “Lorene,” he begged, “try to come through for me now, won’t you? Nearly everybody else in the school-house has come through except you. I don’t want to see a single sinner left unsaved tonight. This might be the last chance for Rocky Comfort.”

  Lorene looked at him without answering.

  “Praise God!” he said.

  Catching her hand, he again began making unintelligible sounds in his throat. The perspiration broke out on his forehead and face, and ran down in streams to his shirt. His hands were gripped tightly around hers, and his face was twisted and contorted.

  “Praise God!” he said again.

  Lorene watched him on his knees beside the desk where she sat. She felt sorry for him at one moment; the next moment she could not help laughing at him. His body was swaying, and grunts and groans broke from his tightly compressed lips. He was doing his best to make her come through, but she remained unmoved.

  Semon’s face was red and wet.

  “Unga-unga!” she thought he said.

  A woman had rolled against him and was struggling at his side. He paid no attention to her. He continued to exhort Lorene, making sounds in his throat that she could not understand.

  “Unga-unga!”

  She felt like telling Semon he was wasting his time but she hated to disturb him. He looked then as if he were happy. His face was losing its expression of pain, and a beatific smile spread over his face. A moment later he was sprawling on the floor, writhing and kicking and tearing his hair and clothes. He lay on the floor in the dirt and dust at her feet, kicking his lower limbs as though each successive movement would be his last on earth.

  Some of the others crowded around Semon, and Lorene had to raise her feet and sit on them in order to keep her legs from being broken. The men and women wrenching on the floor under her muttered meaningless sounds that beat against her ears like the memory of a screaming nightmare.

  After a while Semon became still. A woman raised his head and held it on her lap while she fanned him with a splintered palmleaf. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Lorene sitting above him, scoffing.

  He was on his feet in a second. He stood looking down at Lorene while perspiration once more rolled from his face and forehead. He could say nothing for a while.

  It was then that he realized that he had failed to bring Lorene through. He had never failed before in all his life. That was what troubled him.

  “Praise God!” he said weakly.

  He had tried so hard to make Lorene come through that he had come through himself. Lorene, the woman whom he thought the worst sinner in the schoolhouse, had ridiculed his efforts and had laughed at him. He had failed utterly.

  Even though he realized his failure, he felt that he could not let himself down then. He was determined to bring the meeting to a successful close. He ran to the platform where Lucy Nixon lay on the table.

  “Praise God!”

  “Amen!” somebody said.

  Almost all the people had already come through, and those who were on their feet crowded around Semon. Semon noticed that Tom Rhodes was still struggling on the floor. He prodded Tom with his foot.

  “Yeeee-yow!” Tom yelled. His voice, like a hoarse bullfrog’s, could be recognized in any crowd.

  Semon laid his hand on Lucy’s wrist to feel her pulse. He began fanning her again with the palmleaf fan, and murmuring unintelligibly to himself.

  “Praise God!”

  Semon looked down on the floor in front of the platform and saw several men and women, torn and dirty, struggling in a mass. They were moaning and kicking, and every once in a while one of them gave a gigantic jerk that looked as if it could wrench a body apart.

  Lucy was breathing more deeply by then, and Semon continued to fan her. As far as he knew, she was the only person in the schoolhouse, except Lorene, who had not come through.

  “Praise God!” he said, looking at her closely. She had opened her eyes.

  Fully two thirds of the men and women had become silent and still, though most of them still lay on the floor. All of them were dust-covered and damp, but on their faces were smiles of contented pleasure.

  “Praise God!” Semon shouted at Lucy.

  She moved her arm and tried to get up. Semon lifted her to a sitting position on the table. All at once she became alive again. It was as if her strength had held itself back in anticipation of that moment. She leaped from the table to the platform and ran leaping up and down from one wall to the other. Semon ran after her, never catching up with her, but trying to help her come through this time.

  Her screams seemed to have awakened everyone else in the room. For, a moment later, the people who had been either lying still or jerking feebly, at the sound of her voice squirmed and wriggled like a nest of snakes in a dry well.

  Lucy stopped at last and stood still. Her head was thrown back and her hands gripped tightly across her stomach. Her body shook, swiftly and convulsively, and she began shaking herself again.

  “Praise the Lord!” Semon shouted.

  “Yeeee-yow!” a man under a desk yelled. It sounded like Tom Rhodes.

  Lucy Nixon began to scream with each expulsion of her breath. It was a sound that sent shivers up backbones that were almost too worn and tired to respond to further stimulation. The thrusting forward, backward, and sideways of her thighs made her breath come short. Her screams came at shorter intervals, but they were louder than they had ever been before.

  Semon could see the women in the mass in front of the platform squirm with renewed vigor. Most of them had their legs locked around the legs of the desks, and the men lay flat on their stomachs moving and twisting.

  He watched Lucy in her frantic struggle to come through.

  The others around them were trying to help her. They pushed closer to her, yelling and screaming with her, and rubbing against each other. Some of them stood apart and began going through a duplication of her motions, trying in that way to help her.

  When it seemed as if the arteries in her body would burst through her skin, Lucy’s face became less distorted and her motions more intense. She began to smile a little, and the tension of her muscles drew knots to her legs and arms. After that she gradually relaxed, slowly, in jerking rapture.

  “Praise God!” somebody shouted.

  There was then an expression of bliss on Lucy’s face that grew with the passing of each second. At last, with a final effort, she did come through; and the evidence was there to show that she had. While everybody stared, someone covered her thighs with a coat; but by that time everyone had seen what had happened.

  While the men crowded closer to see, her emotions became slower and slower, and finally she lay perfectly still. Not even an eyelid moved.

  When it was all over, Semon sank exhausted in a heap on the floor. He
felt his legs giving away under him, and he could not stop himself. When he realized that he had fallen on the floor, he made no immediate effort to rise. The people who were close to him thought he was coming through for the second time, and they turned away to allow him to be alone. He was tired to the core of his body.

  Everyone had become quiet, and there was only the sound of people walking on the floor. When anything was said, it was spoken in low whispers.

  Lucy’s family had come forward and carried her out of the schoolhouse. She was laid in the wagon-bed and covered with those pieces of her clothing that could be found. She lay in the wagon-bed staring at the heavens through the waving branches of the pines while her mother and father and brothers were getting ready to leave.

  No one spoke coming out of the schoolhouse. People walked silently on the thick carpet of pine needles towards their wagons and cars.

  Clay got into the automobile alone. Soon Dene came and sat down beside him, and Lorene followed. They waited for Semon in silence.

  Back in the schoolhouse Semon got up and took several steps. He found that he was too exhausted to move. He sat down at a desk, holding his head in his hands. He felt sick and discouraged. He had saved perhaps forty people that night; but the most hardened sinner he could not help. Lorene had sat through the meeting unmoved and, in the end, unsaved.

  Semon got up and started blowing out the smoking lamps. It was then, when he was ready to leave the building, that he remembered that he had forgotten to take up the collection. He left the darkened building with dragging feet.

  On the way home they passed several wagons of people, and two or three men walking, and several on mule-back. The horn was not sounded, and the only thing that could be heard was the hum of the motor and the clanking of trace-chains on the wagons. They passed on ahead and were soon out of sight.

  Chapter XIX

  CLAY WAS UNACCUSTOMED to being up late at night, and the sun was two hours high when he opened his eyes. He lay on his side, batting his eyes bewilderedly, and wondered why he had overslept. Springing to the floor, he remembered that it had been after midnight when they got home from the schoolhouse.