I
Early in January was the Annual College Y.M.C.A. Week of Prayer. It was a countrywide event, but in Terwillinger College it was of especial power that year because they were privileged to have with them for three days none other than Judson Roberts, State Secretary of the Y.M.C.A., and a man great personally as well as officially.
He was young, Mr. Roberts, only thirty-four, but already known throughout the land. He had always been known. He had been a member of a star University of Chicago football team, he had played varsity baseball, he had been captain of the debating team, and at the same time he had commanded the Y.M.C.A. He had been known as the Praying Fullback. He still kept up his exercise—he was said to have boxed privily with Jim Jefferies—and he had mightily increased his praying. A very friendly leader he was, and helpful; hundreds of college men throughout Kansas called him “Old Jud.”
Between prayer-meetings at Terwillinger, Judson Roberts sat in the Bible History seminar-room, at a long table, under a bilious map of the Holy Land, and had private conferences with the men students. A surprising number of them came edging in, trembling, with averted eyes, to ask advice about a secret practice, and Old Jud seemed amazingly able to guess their trouble before they got going.
“Well, now, old boy, I’ll tell you. Terrible thing, all right, but I’ve met quite a few cases, and you just want to buck up and take it to the Lord in prayer. Remember that he is able to help unto the uttermost. Now the first thing you want to do is to get rid of—I’m afraid that you have some pretty nasty pictures and maybe a juicy book hidden away, now haven’t you, old boy?”
How could Old Jud have guessed? What a corker!
“That’s right. I’ve got a swell plan, old boy. Make a study of missions, and think how clean and pure and manly you’d want to be if you were going to carry the joys of Christianity to a lot of poor gazebos that are under the evil spell of Buddhism and a lot of these heathen religions. Wouldn’t you want to be able to look ’em in the eye, and shame ’em? Next thing to do is to get a lot of exercise. Get out and run like hell! And then cold baths. Darn cold. There now!” Rising, with ever so manly a handshake: “Now, skip along and remember”—with a tremendous and fetching and virile laugh—“just run like hell!”
Jim and Elmer heard Old Jud in chapel. He was tremendous. He told them a jolly joke about a man who kissed a girl, yet he rose to feathered heights when he described the beatitude of real ungrudging prayer, in which a man was big enough to be as a child. He made them tearful over the gentleness with which he described the Christchild, wandering lost by his parents, yet the next moment he had them stretching with admiration as he arched his big shoulder-muscles and observed that he would knock the block off any sneering, sneaking, lying, beer-bloated bully who should dare to come up to him in a meeting and try to throw a monkey-wrench into the machinery by dragging out a lot of contemptible, quibbling, atheistic, smart-aleck doubts! (He really did, the young men glowed, use the terms “knock the block off,” and “throw a monkey-wrench.” Oh, he was a lulu, a real red-blooded regular fellow!)
Jim was coming down with the grippe. He was unable to pump up even one good sneer. He sat folded up, his chin near his knees, and Elmer was allowed to swell with hero-worship. Golly! He’d thought he had some muscle, but that guy Judson Roberts—zowie, he could put Elmer on the mat seven falls out of five! What a football player he must have been! Wee!
This Homeric worship he tried to explain to Jim, back in their room, but Jim sneezed and went to bed. The rude bard was left without audience and he was practically glad when Eddie Fislinger scratched at the door and edged in.
“Don’t want to bother you fellows, but noticed you were at Old Jud’s meeting this afternoon and, say, you gotta come out and hear him again tomorrow evening. Big evening of the week. Say, honest, Hellcat, don’t you think Jud’s a real humdinger?”
“Yes, I gotta admit, he’s a dandy fellow.”
“Say, he certainly is, isn’t he! He certainly is a dandy fellow, isn’t he! Isn’t he a peach!”
“Yes, he certainly is a peach—for a religious crank!”
“Aw now, Hellcat, don’t go calling him names! You’ll admit he looks like some football shark.”
“Yes, I guess he does, at that. I’d liked to of played with him.”
“Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”
“Well—”
At this moment of danger, Jim raised his dizzy head to protest, “He’s a holy strikebreaker! One of these thick-necks that was born husky and tries to make you think he made himself husky by prayer and fasting. I’d hate to take a chance on any poor little orphan nip of bourbon wandering into Old Jud’s presence! Yeh! Chest-pounder! ‘Why can’t you hundred-pound shrimps be a big manly Christian like me!’ ”
Together they protested against this defilement of the hero, and Eddie admitted that he had ventured to praise Elmer to Old Jud; that Old Jud had seemed enthralled; that Old Jud was more than likely—so friendly a Great Man was he—to run in on Elmer this afternoon.
Before Elmer could decide whether to be pleased or indignant, before the enfeebled Jim could get up strength to decide for him, the door was hit a mighty and heroic wallop, and in strode Judson Roberts, big as a grizzly, jolly as a spaniel pup, radiant as ten suns.
He set upon Elmer immediately. He had six other doubting Thomases or suspected smokers to dispose of before six o’clock.
He was a fair young giant with curly hair and a grin and with a voice like the Bulls of Bashan whenever the strategy called for manliness. But with erring sisters, unless they were too erring, he could be as lulling as woodland violets shaken in the perfumed breeze.
“Hello, Hellcat!” he boomed. “Shake hands!”
Elmer had a playful custom of squeezing people’s hands till they cracked. For the first time in his life his own paw felt limp and burning. He rubbed it and looked simple.
“Been hearing a lot about you, Hellcat, and you, Jim. Laid out, Jim? Want me to trot out and get a doc?” Old Jud was sitting easily on the edge of Jim’s bed, and in the light of that grin, even Jim Lefferts could not be very sour as he tried to sneer, “No, thanks.”
Roberts turned to Elmer again, and gloated:
“Well, old son, I’ve been hearing a lot about you. Gee whillikins, that must have been a great game you played against Thorvilsen College! They tell me when you hit that line, it gave like a sponge, and when you tackled that big long Swede, he went down like he’d been hit by lightning.”
“Well, it was—it was a good game.”
“Course I read about it at the time—”
“Did you, honest?”
“—and course I wanted to hear more about it, and meet you, Hellcat, so I been asking the boys about you, and say, they certainly do give you a great hand! Wish I could’ve had you with me on my team at U of Chi—we needed a tackle like you.”
Elmer basked.
“Yes, sir, the boys all been telling me what a dandy fine fellow you are, and what a corking athlete, and what an A-1 gentleman. They all say there’s just one trouble with you, Elmer lad.”
“Eh?”
“They say you’re a coward.”
“Heh? Who says I’m a coward?”
Judson Roberts swaggered across from the bed, stood with his hand on Elmer’s shoulder. “They all say it, Hellcat! You see it takes a sure-enough dyed-in-the-wool brave man to be big enough to give Jesus a shot at him, and admit he’s licked when he tries to fight God! It takes a man with guts to kneel down and admit his worthlessness when all the world is jeering at him! And you haven’t got that kind of courage, Elmer. Oh, you think you’re such a big cuss—”
Old Jud swung him around; Old Jud’s hand was crushing his shoulder. “You think you’re too husky, too good, to associate with the poor little sniveling gospel-mongers, don’t you! You could knock out any of ’em, couldn’t you! Well, I’m one of ’em. Want to knock me out?”
With one swift jerk Roberts had his coat off, stood with a striped silk shirt revealing his hogshead torso.
“You bet, Hellcat! I’m willing to fight you for the glory of God! God needs you! Can you think of anything finer for a big husky like you than to spend his life bringing poor, weak, sick, scared folks to happiness? Can’t you see how the poor little skinny guys and all the kiddies would follow you and praise you and admire you, you old son of a gun? Am I a sneaking Christian? Can you lick me? Want to fight it out?”
“No, gee, Mr. Roberts—”
“Judson, you big hunk of cheese, Old Jud!”
“No, gee, Judson, I guess you got me trimmed! I pack a pretty good wallop, but I’m not going to take any chance on you!”
“All right, old son. Still think that all religious folks are crabs?”
“No.”
“And weaklings and pikers?”
“No.”
“And liars?”
“Oh, no.”
“All right, old boy. Going to allow me to be a friend of yours, if I don’t butt in on your business?”
“Oh, gee, sure.”
“Then there’s just one favor I want to ask. Will you come to our big meeting tomorrow night? You don’t have to do a thing. If you think we’re four-flushers—all right; that’s your privilege. Only will you come and not decide we’re all wrong beforehand, but really use that big fine incisive brain of yours and study us as we are? Will you come?”
“Oh, yes, sure, you bet.”
“Fine, old boy. Mighty proud to have you let me come butting in here in this informal way. Remember: if you honestly feel I’m using any undue influence on the boys, you come right after me and say so, and I’ll be mighty proud of your trusting me to stand the gaff. So long, old Elm! So long, Jim. God bless you!”
“So long, Jud.”
He was gone, a whirlwind that whisked the inconspicuous herb Eddie Fislinger out after it. And then Jim Lefferts spoke.
For a time after Judson Roberts’ curtain, Elmer stood glowing, tasting praise. He was conscious of Jim’s eyes on his back, and he turned toward the bed, defiantly.
They stared, in a tug of war. Elmer gave in with a furious:
“Well, then, why didn’t you say something while he was here?”
“To him? Talk to a curly wolf when he smells meat? Besides, he’s intelligent, that fellow.”
“Well, say, I’m glad to hear you say that, because—well, you see—I’ll explain how I feel.”
“Oh, no, you won’t, sweetheart! You haven’t got to the miracle-pulling stage yet. Sure he’s intelligent. I never heard a better exhibition of bunco-steering in my life. Sure! He’s just crazy to have you come up and kick him in the ear and tell him you’ve decided you can’t give your imprimatur—”
“My what?”
“—to his show, and he’s to quit and go back to hod-carrying. Sure. He read all about your great game with Thorvilsen. Sent off to New York to get the Review of Reviews and read more about it. Eddie Fislinger never told him a word. He read about your tackling in the London Times. You bet. Didn’t he say so? And he’s a saved soul—he couldn’t lie. And he just couldn’t stand it if he didn’t become a friend of yours. He can’t know more than a couple of thousand collidge boys to spring that stuff on! … You bet I believe in the old bearded Jew God! Nobody but him could have made all the idiots there are in the world!”
“Gee, Jim, honest, you don’t understand Jud.”
“No. I don’t. When he could be a decent prizefighter, and not have to go around with angleworms like Eddie Fislinger day after day!”
And thus till midnight, for all Jim’s fevers.
But Elmer was at Judson Roberts’ meeting next evening, unprotected by Jim, who remained at home in so vile a temper that Elmer had sent in a doctor and sneaked away from the room for the afternoon.