Thaddeus Lewis Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Janet Kellough
at one end of the field under the shade of hickory trees that had been left along the fence line; the penitent’s bench in front; the entire area enclosed by a stout fence with a gate at the far end. The rest of the pasture was littered with slabs of wood that would serve as benches. Some of the older attendees brought chairs, but not many. It was, after all, an enterprise of the soul. Comforts of the body were something that was not supposed to be considered. Farther back in the field the tents were going up. The meeting could well last several days, and families were taking the opportunity to stake their claims on patches of pasture that would accommodate their housekeeping needs.
The Varneys were there, setting up their campfire, and Lewis nodded to them as he passed. Beside the Varneys were two fine-looking young men — the Caddick brothers he presumed — who looked to have brought samples of their wares and were doing a brisk business selling miniatures and small landscape scenes. The most popular and least expensive items seemed to be the little dressmaking pins with the Lord’s Prayer painted on the head.
The taller of the two, Benjamin, had a small magnifying glass, which he handed to Lewis so that he could inspect the handiwork. “I have to carry one with me,” he confided, laughing. “Otherwise people are suspicious that there’s not really anything there.”
Lewis held the glass over the pin and could just make out the minute script. I’m getting old, he thought. Even magnified I can barely see it.
“Very nice,” he said, and handed it back to the boy. He didn’t know what else to say about a prayer he couldn’t even see.
“Wouldn’t you like to buy one? Maybe for the Missus?” Benjamin asked.
“That’s all right,” he said. “We both already know the prayer by heart.”
“A miniature portrait then, perhaps?” said the other brother, whose name Lewis later remembered was Willet. “I can do one in a few minutes. We even have lockets to put them in.”
“No, thank you.” He was a little rankled that the sales were going on so blatantly at what was supposed to be a religious meeting, but then many other people were making good coin selling pocket-size bibles, and there were any number who had shown up with food and water for sale, among them the peddler, Isaac Simms. Some enterprising women had set up huge vats and were preparing stews and soups for sale to those who were too busy praying, or too idle to feed their own families.
Just then, Minta Jessup and her sister-in-law Rachel strolled up to admire the lockets, a group of young men following along behind them — admiring Rachel, Lewis figured. He tipped his hat to them in greeting.
“It’s the preacher from Demorestville! Good day to you, sir. I thought we might meet again.”
“I’m pleased it’s under such pleasant circumstances.”
Minta smiled too, but he thought she looked pale and even more tired than when he had last seen her. “Are you preaching today, Mr. Lewis?”
“No, not today. It’s Mr. Case’s meeting today.”
“Now I’m disappointed,” Rachel said. “Minta told me how much she enjoyed your sermon, both the one in the church and the one in the yard. I was looking forward to hearing you.” He could see the twinkle in her grey eyes. “If you expect to convert me to a Methodist, you’re going to have to let me hear you preach, you know. Otherwise, I may go off with the Presbyterians, or even the Anglicans.”
“Now you’ve given me a real challenge. I must make a note to myself that I need to preach to Rachel Jessup, otherwise she may wander into false creeds.”
They had been walking as they talked, but now Minta objected. “I need to sit for a moment, if you don’t mind.”
Rachel was immediately solicitous. “Of course, I’m sorry. Here’s a vacant piece of log in the shade.” She helped her down, and fussed about her for a moment.
Lewis was about to go on his way and leave the two women, when Minta said, “I’m fine, really. There’s no reason for you to sit around. Go on with Mr. Lewis and see what there is to see.”
Rachel hesitated for a moment. “All right, but I won’t be long, and then I’ll come back and keep you company.”
“Minta’s expecting her first child,” she confided when they were out of earshot. “She’s sick most of the time, but tries to keep going. That’s why Seth asked me to come and live with them, to give her a hand.”
“This child-bearing business is hard on some women,” Lewis said. “It wears them out, even the strong ones, and I don’t think your Minta was too robust to begin with.” So Betsy was right, he thought. He might have known.
“Do you have children, sir?”
“Yes, three boys. I had girls, but I’ve lost them all.”
His grief must have shown in his face. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Rachel said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“It’s all right. It’s just that one of the losses is recent. I can’t help but believe that they’ve all gone to a better place, but I admit that I miss them sorely.”
Whatever she might have said in return was lost in the hubbub of the start of the meeting. William Case mounted the platform and gazed out over the crowd theatrically before he uttered his first words.
“Brothers and Sisters …” he began.
Lewis rather disliked William Case. He found him pompous and intolerant, failings that he knew are often ascribed to men of God, but in Case they were refined to an unbearable degree. He also had a reputation as a ladies’ man of sorts, but his specialty seemed to be marrying up lady preachers so as to shut them up. At least that was Lewis’s theory.
His first wife had been Hetty Hubbard, a local preacher who had had some success. But after Case married her, she mounted the pulpit no more. When she died a short time later, he took as his second wife the well-known preacher Eliza Barnes. She had been a popular speaker who had laboured hard among the Indian Missions. Case had professed on more than one occasion to detest her, and during her preaching days he even refused to sit on the same platform with her if she were scheduled to speak. Now that he’d married her, of course, he refused to allow her to say anything, much less profess the Word of God.
Lewis had heard Barnes preach on several occasions, and had admired her eloquence and the force of her voice, which carried easily to the farthest-flung of the congregation.
In the new order of Methodism, however, women were no longer encouraged to profess their faith in public, instead being relegated to the home on account of their “fragility.” Lewis knew this was nonsense, given the lives they led. Take Betsy, for example. For most of her life she had been about as frail as a draught horse, had given birth to ten children and raised them virtually alone, had suffered fevers and accidents and sorrows by the score, and yet was still able, on the days when her ague didn’t plague her, to work the average man into the ground. If Betsy had ever been inclined to take up the travelling connection and give public vent to her faith, Lewis would have encouraged and applauded her.
She had laughed when he said this to her at one time. “I declare, Thaddeus, that’s the last thing I would want to do. One of us on the road is enough.”
“But if you wanted to, I’d do my best to help you, you know.”
“No, Thaddeus. The only thing I ever wanted was you and the babies.”
And then her voice had softened. “I do thank you for saying it, though.”
Not so Case. And not so with most of the other Methodists, in spite of the fact that they had for years relied on women to supervise class meetings, to carry the gospel to the Indian Missions, and yes, even to preach wherever there was someone to listen. His church was falling into line with the Wesleyans, who had gone so far as to pass a resolution forbidding women from taking the pulpit, and men like William Case had agreed to it.
Lewis had seen how effective women