Elmer Gantry (39 page)

Consciousness returned waveringly as dawn crawled over the cornfield and the birds were derisive. Frank’s only clear
emotion was a longing to escape from this agony by death. His whole face reeked with pain. He could not understand why he
could scarce see. When he fumblingly raised his hand, he discovered that his right eye was a pulp of blind flesh, and along
his jaw he could feel the exposed bone.

He staggered along the path through the cornfield, stumbling over hummocks, lying there sobbing, muttering, “Bess—oh,
come—BESS!”

His strength lasted him just to the highroad, and he sloped to earth, lay by the road like a drunken beggar. A motor was
coming, but when the driver saw Frank’s feebly uplifted arm he sped on. Pretending to be hurt was a device of holdup
men.

“Oh, God, won’t anybody help me?” Frank whimpered, and suddenly he was laughing, a choking twisted laughter. “Yes, I said
it, Philip— ‘God’ I said—I suppose it proves I’m a good Christian!”

He rocked and crawled along the road to a cottage. There was a light—a farmer at early breakfast. “At last!” Frank wept.
When the farmer answered the knock, holding up a lamp, he looked once at Frank, then screamed and slammed the door.

An hour later a motorcycle policeman found Frank in the ditch, in half delirium.

“Another drunk!” said the policeman, most cheerfully, snapping the support in place on his cycle. But as he stooped and
saw Frank’s half-hidden face, he whispered, “Good God Almighty!”

The doctors told him that though the right eye was gone completely, he might not entirely lose the sight of the other for
perhaps a year.

Bess did not shriek when she saw him; she only stood with her hands shaky at her breast.

She seemed to hesitate before kissing what had been his mouth. But she spoke cheerfully:

“Don’t you worry about a single thing. I’ll get a job that’ll keep us going. I’ve already seen the general secretary at
the C. O. S. And isn’t it nice that the kiddies are old enough now to read aloud to you.”

To be read aloud to, the rest of his life . . .

Elmer called and raged, “This is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard of in my life, Frank! Believe me, I’m going to
give the fellows that did this to you the most horrible beating they ever got, right from my pulpit! Even though it may
hinder me in getting money for my new church—say, we’re going to have a bang-up plant there, right up to date, cost over
half a million dollars, seat over two thousand. But nobody can shut ME up! I’m going to denounce those fiends in a way
THEY’LL never forget!”

And that was the last Elmer is known ever to have said on the subject, privately or publicly.

The Reverend Elmer Gantry was in his oak and Spanish leather study at the great new Wellspring Church.

The building was of cheerful brick, trimmed with limestone. It had Gothic windows, a carillon in the square stone tower,
dozens of Sunday School rooms, a gymnasium, a social room with a stage and a motion-picture booth, an electric range in the
kitchen, and over it all a revolving electric cross and a debt.

But the debt was being attacked. Elmer had kept on the professional church-money-raiser whom he had employed during the
campaign for the building fund. This financial crusader was named Emmanuel Navitsky; he was said to be the descendant of a
noble Polish Catholic family converted to Protestantism; and certainly he was a most enthusiastic Christian—except possibly
on Passover Eve. He had raised money for Presbyterian Churches, Y. M. C. A. buildings, Congregational Colleges, and dozens
of other holy purposes. He did miracles with card indices of rich people; and he is said to have been the first
ecclesiastical go-getter to think of inviting Jews to contribute to Christian temples.

Yes, Emmanuel would take care of the debt, and Elmer could give himself to purely spiritual matters.

He sat now in his study, dictating to Miss Bundle. He was happy in the matter of that dowdy lady, because her brother, a
steward in the church, had recently died, and he could presently get rid of her without too much discord.

To him was brought the card of Loren Larimer Dodd, M. A., D. D., LL. D., president of Abernathy College, an institution
of Methodist learning.

“Hm,” Elmer mused. “I bet he’s out raising money. Nothing doing! What the devil does he think we are!” and aloud: “Go out
and bring Dr. Dodd right in, Miss Bundle. A great man! A wonderful educator! You know—president of Abernathy College!”

Looking her admiration at a boss who had such distinguished callers, Miss Bundle bundled out.

Dr. Dodd was a florid man with a voice, a Kiwanis pin, and a handshake.

“Well, well, well, Brother Gantry, I’ve heard so much of your magnificent work here that I ventured to drop in and bother
you for a minute. What a magnificent church you have created! It must be a satisfaction, a pride! It’s—magnificent!”

“Thanks, Doctor. Mighty pleased to meet you. Uh. Uh. Uh. Visiting Zenith?”

“Well, I’m, as it were, on my rounds.”

(“Not a cent, you old pirate!”) “Visiting the alumni, I presume.”

“In a way. The fact is I—”

(“Not one damn’ cent. My salary gets raised next!”)

“—was wondering if you would consent to my taking a little time at your service Sunday evening to call to the attention
of your magnificent congregation the great work and dire needs of Abernathy. We have such a group of earnest young men and
women— and no few of the boys going into the Methodist ministry. But our endowment is so low, and what with the cost of the
new athletic field—though I am delighted to be able to say our friends have made it possible to create a really magnificent
field, with a fine cement stadium—but it has left us up against a heart-breaking deficit. Why, the entire chemistry
department is housed in two rooms in what was a cowshed! And—

“Can’t do it, Doctor. Impossible. We haven’t begun to pay for this church. Be as much as my life is worth to go to my
people with a plea for one extra cent. But possibly in two years from now—Though frankly,” and Elmer laughed brightly, “I
don’t know why the people of Wellspring should contribute to a college which hasn’t thought enough of Wellspring’s pastor to
give him a Doctor of Divinity degree!”

The two holy clerks looked squarely at each other, with poker faces.

“Of course, Doctor,” said Elmer, “I’ve been offered the degree a number of times, but by small, unimportant colleges, and
I haven’t cared to accept it. So you can see that this is in no way a hint that I would LIKE such a degree. Heaven forbid!
But I do know it might please my congregation, make them feel Abernathy was their own college, in a way.”

Dr. Dodd remarked serenely, “Pardon me if I smile! You see I had a double mission in coming to you. The second part was
to ask you if you would honor Abernathy by accepting a D. D.!”

They did not wink at each other.

Elmer gloated to himself, “And I’ve heard it cost old Mahlon Potts six hundred bucks for his D. D.! Oh, yes, Prexy, we’ll
begin to raise money for Abernathy in two years—we’ll BEGIN!”

The chapel of Abernathy College was full. In front were the gowned seniors, looking singularly like a row of arm-chairs
covered with dust-cloths. On the platform, with the president and the senior members of the faculty, were the celebrities
whose achievements were to be acknowledged by honorary degrees.

Besides the Reverend Elmer Gantry, these distinguished guests were the Governor of the state—who had started as a divorce
lawyer but had reformed and enabled the public service corporations to steal all the water-power in the state; Mr. B. D.
Swenson, the automobile manufacturer, who had given most of the money for the Abernathy football stadium; and the renowned
Eva Evaline Murphy, author, lecturer, painter, musician, and authority on floriculture, who was receiving a Litt. D. for
having written (gratis) the new Abernathy College Song:

President Dodd was facing Elmer, and shouting: “—and now we have the privilege of conferring the degree of Doctor of
Divinity upon one than whom no man in our honored neighboring state of Winnemac has done more to inculcate sound religious
doctrine, increase the power of the church, uphold high standards of eloquence and scholarship, and in his own life give
such an example of earnestness as is an inspiration to all of us!”

They cheered—and Elmer had become the Reverend Dr. Gantry.

It was a great relief at the Rotary Club. They had long felt uncomfortable in calling so weighty a presence “Elmer,” and
now, with a pride of their own in his new dignity, they called him “Doc.”

The church gave him a reception and raised his salary to seventy-five hundred dollars.

The Rev. Dr. Gantry was the first clergyman in the state of Winnemac, almost the first in the country, to have his
services broadcast by radio. He suggested it himself. At that time, the one broadcasting station in Zenith, that of the
Celebes Gum and Chicle Company, presented only jazz orchestras and retired sopranos, to advertise the renowned Jolly Jack
Gum. For fifty dollars a week Wellspring Church was able to use the radio Sunday mornings from eleven to twelve-thirty. Thus
Elmer increased the number of his hearers from two thousand to ten thousand—and in another pair of years it would be a
hundred thousand.

Eight thousand radio-owners listening to Elmer Gantry—

A bootlegger in his flat, coat off, exposing his pink silk shirt, his feet up on the table. . . . The house of a
small-town doctor, with the neighbors come in to listen—the drug-store man, his fat wife, the bearded superintendent of
schools. . . . Mrs. Sherman Reeves of Royal Ridge, wife of one of the richest young men in Zenith, listening in a
black-and-gold dressing-gown, while she smoked a cigarette. . . . The captain of a schooner, out on Lake Michigan, hundreds
of miles away, listening in his cabin. . . . The wife of a farmer in an Indiana valley, listening while her husband read the
Sears–Roebuck catalogue and sniffed. . . . A retired railway conductor, very feeble, very religious. . . . A Catholic
priest, in a hospital, chuckling a little. . . . A spinster school-teacher, mad with loneliness, worshiping Dr. Gantry’s
virile voice. . . . Forty people gathered in a country church too poor to have a pastor. . . . A stock actor in his
dressing-room, fagged with an all-night rehearsal.

All of them listening to the Rev. Dr. Elmer Gantry as he shouted:

“—and I want to tell you that the fellow who is eaten by ambition is putting the glories of this world before the glories
of Heaven! Oh, if I could only help you to understand that it is humility, that it is simple loving kindness, that it is
tender loyalty, which alone make the heart glad! Now, if you’ll let me tell a story: It reminds me of two Irishmen named
Mike and Pat—”

For years Elmer had had a waking nightmare of seeing Jim Lefferts sitting before him in the audience, scoffing. It would
be a dramatic encounter and terrible; he wasn’t sure but that Jim would speak up and by some magic kick him out of the
pulpit.

But when, that Sunday morning, he saw Jim in the third row, he considered only, “Oh, Lord, there’s Jim Lefferts! He’s
pretty gray. I suppose I’ll have to be nice to him.”

Jim came up afterward to shake hands. He did not look cynical; he looked tired; and when he spoke, in a flat prairie
voice, Elmer felt urban and urbane and superior.

“Hello, Hell-cat,” said Jim.

“Well, well, well! Old Jim Lefferts! Well, by golly! Say, it certainly is a mighty great pleasure to see you, my boy!
What you doing in this neck of the woods?”

“Looking up a claim for a client.”

“What you doing now, Jim?”

“I’m practising law in Topeka.”

“Doing pretty well?”

“Oh, I can’t complain. Oh, nothing extra special. I was in the state senate for a term though.”

“That’s fine! That’s fine! Say, how long gonna be in town?”

“Oh, ‘bout three days.”

“Say, want to have you up to the house for dinner; but doggone it, Cleo—that’s my wife—I’m married now—she’s gone and got
me all sewed up with a lot of dates—you know how these women are—me, I’d rather sit home and read. But sure got to see you
again. Say, gimme a ring, will you?—at the house (find it in the tel’phone book) or at my study here in the church.”

“Yuh, sure, you bet. Well, glad to seen you.”

“You bet. Tickled t’ death seen you, old Jim!”

Elmer watched Jim plod away, shoulders depressed, a man discouraged.

“And that,” he rejoiced, “is the poor fish that tried to keep me from going into the ministry!” He looked about his
auditorium, with the organ pipes a vast golden pyramid, with the Chubbuck memorial window vivid in ruby and gold and
amethyst. “And become a lawyer like him, in a dirty stinking little office! Huh! And he actually made fun of me and tried to
hold me back when I got a clear and definite Call of God! Oh, I’ll be good and busy when he calls up, you can bet on
that!”

Jim did not telephone.

On the third day Elmer had a longing to see him, a longing to regain his friendship. But he did not know where Jim was
staying; he could not reach him at the principal hotels.

He never saw Jim Lefferts again, and within a week he had forgotten him, except as it was a relief to have lost his
embarrassment before Jim’s sneering—the last bar between him and confident greatness.

It was in the summer of 1924 that Elmer was granted a three-months leave, and for the first time Cleo and he visited
Europe.

He had heard the Rev. Dr. G. Prosper Edwards say, “I divide American clergymen into just two classes—those who could be
invited to preach in a London church, and those who couldn’t.” Dr. Edwards was of the first honorable caste, and Elmer had
seen him pick up great glory from having sermonized in the City Temple. The Zenith papers, even the national religious
periodicals, hinted that when Dr. Edwards was in London, the entire population from king to navvies had galloped to worship
under him, and the conclusion was that Zenith and New York would be sensible to do likewise.

Elmer thoughtfully saw to it that he should be invited also. He had Bishop Toomis write to his Wesleyan colleagues, he
had Rigg and William Dollinger Styles write to their Nonconformist business acquaintances in London, and a month before he
sailed he was bidden to address the celebrated Brompton Road Chapel, so that he went off in a glow not only of adventure but
of message-bearing.

Dr. Elmer Gantry was walking the deck of the Scythia, a bright, confident, manly figure in a blue suit, a yachting cap,
and white canvas shoes, swinging his arms and beaming pastorally on his fellow athletic maniacs.

He stopped at the deck chairs of a little old couple—a delicate blue-veined old lady, and her husband, with thin hands
and a thin white beard.

“Well, you folks seem to be standing the trip pretty good—for old folks!” he roared.

“Yes, thank you very much,” said the old lady.

He patted her knee, and boomed, “If there’s anything I can do to make things nice and comfy for you, mother, you just
holler! Don’t be afraid to call on me. I haven’t advertised the fact—kind of fun to travel what they call incognito—but fact
is, I’m a minister of the gospel, even if I am a husky guy, and it’s my pleasure as well as my duty to help folks anyway I
can. Say, don’t you think it’s just about the loveliest thing about this ocean traveling, the way folks have the leisure to
get together and exchange ideas? Have you crossed before?”

“Oh, yes, but I don’t think I ever shall again,” said the old lady.

“That’s right—that’s right! Tell you how I feel about it, mother.” Elmer patted her hand. “We’re Americans, and while
it’s a fine thing to go abroad maybe once or twice—there’s nothing so broadening as travel, is there!—still, in America
we’ve got a standard of decency and efficiency that these poor old European countries don’t know anything about, and in the
long run the good old U. S. A. is the place where you’ll find your greatest happiness—especially for folks like us, that
aren’t any blooming millionaires that can grab off a lot of castles and those kind of things and have a raft of butlers. You
bet! Well, just holler when I can be of any service to you. So long, folks! Got to do my three miles!”

When he was gone, the little, delicate old lady said to her husband:

“Fabian, if that swine ever speaks to me again, I shall jump overboard! He’s almost the most offensive object I have ever
encountered! Dear—How many times have we crossed now?”

“Oh, I’ve lost track. It was a hundred and ten two years ago.”

“Not more?”

“Darling, don’t be so snooty.”

“But isn’t there a law that permits one to kill people who call you ‘Mother’?”

“Darling, the Duke calls you that!”

“I know. He does. That’s what I hate about him! Sweet, do you think fresh air is worth the penalty of being called
‘Mother’? The next time this animal stops, he’ll call you ‘Father’!”

“Only once, my dear!”