Hawaii - James Michener [86]
"Your case is different," Thorn replied.
"Why?" Abner demanded.
Reverend Thorn wanted to blurt out the truth: "Because you're an offensive, undernourished, sallow-faced little prig, the kind that wrecks any mission to which he is attached. There's not a man on my committee that really thinks you ought to be sent overseas, but I have a niece who has got to get married one of these days. And maybe if I can talk to her before she sees you, possibly I can force her into marrying you. That, young man, is what requires two weeks." Instead, with the self-control he had acquired in Africa, the sagacious minister recovered quickly and offered what he considered a rather clever explanation: "You see, Mr. Hale, Dr. Whipple will be going to Owhyhee as missionary doctor. If we accept you, and if you can find a bride, you will be going as an ordained minister. That's why your case requires more careful investigation." The answer was so reasonable that Abner accepted it at once, and when John Whipple received his letter of acceptance and immediately dispatched both an acknowledgment to-the Board in Boston and a proposal of marriage to his cousin in Hartford, Abner smugly smiled at his roommate's excitement, repeating over and over to himself the reassuring thought: "Anyone can be a missionary doctor. But to be a fully ordained minister requires careful investigation." But whenever he indulged in this vanity he invariably recalled his Biblical antidote and he recited this, too: "Every one that is proud in heart is an abornination to the Lord," after which he recalled the powerful word from Job: "Behold every one that is proud, and abase him. Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low." Thus his two natures warred.
REVEREND THORN, as soon as his interrogations at Yale College were completed, hurried back to Boston and caught the stage running out to Marlboro, Massachusetts, to make inquiries as to the character and prospects of Abner Hale. Even as the coach neared Marlboro, he felt his old distaste for the village returning. The smug white barns in the smug spring landscape bespoke generations of thrifty, cautious people, proud of their possessions and deaf to the teachings of the Lord. His earlier impressions were fortified when he found the townspeople as smug as the outlying barns.
The school principal reported, airily: "Abner Hale! Ah, yes! There are so many Hale children it's rather difficult to keep them separated in one's mind. Abner, stringy hair, no good in games, worse in math, but rather gifted in the verbal processes that mark the cultivated mind. An austere young man who never pared his nails. Had good teeth, though."
"Was he pious?" Thorn pressed.
"To a fault," the airy schoolteacher replied. Then, sensing that this could be construed by his visitor to be a slur against piety, he quickly added, "By that I mean he was inclined toward priggishness, which I hold to be a fault, for does not the Bible counsel us: 'Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor'?" And he held his hands up and smiled ingratiatingly.
"Would he make a good missionary?" Thorn asked in some anger, for he had been unable to follow the Biblical citation.
"Ah, yes!” the teacher cried. "To plunge into the unknown. To carry the good Word to the heathen. Yes, I think Abner Hale . . . Do I have the right boy? He was Gideon Hale's oldest? Bad complexion . . . really, an unlovely child? Yes, that's the one. Oh, yesl He'd make a fine missionary. Likes odd places and being alone."
The local minister was no better, and Reverend Thorn, schooled in the hard fields of Africa, could quickly spot where Abner had learned to weep. The doddering old man wheezed: "Little Abner Hale! I remember the year he found the Lord. It was in his father's meadow, and he stood transfixed . . ."
"Would he make a good missionary?" Thorn interrupted.
"Missionary!" the old man snapped. "Why