With a sneer, the man spread his legs and, a third time, confronted them. Once more, Katie reared, and whinnied in fear. For a moment, boy and mount hung in midair. Stevie twisted and, frantically, commanded the mare to leap straight ahead. But the stranger was nimbler still. With a bold arm, he dared once more to obstruct them. Katie reared a third time, then, trembling, descended. The stranger leered. Seizing the bridle, he tugged with all his might and forced Katie to her knees. It was absurd. Stevie could feel himself toppling. He saw the ground coming up -- and the stranger's head. With incredible ferocity, he brought his fists together and struck. The blow encountered silky hair and hard bone. The man uttered a weird cry, spun about, and collapsed in the sand. Katie scrambled to her feet, Stevie agilely retaining his seat. Again Katie reared, and now, wickedly, he compelled her to bring her hooves down again and again upon the sprawled figure of the stranger. He could feel his own feet, iron-shod, striking repeatedly until the body was limp. He gloated, and his lips slavered. He heard himself chortling. They rode around and around to trample the figure into the sand. Only the top of the head, with a spot bare and white as a clamshell, remained visible. Stevie was shouting triumphantly. A train hooted. Instantly, he chilled. They were pursuing him. He was frightened; his fists clutched so tightly that his knuckles hurt. Then Katie stumbled, and again he was falling, falling! "Stevie! Stevie"! His mother was nudging him, but he was still falling. His head hung over the boards of Katie's stall; before it was sprawled the mangled corpse of the bearded stranger. "Stevie, wake up now! We're nearly there". He had been dreaming. He was safe in his Mama's arms. The train had slowed. Houses winked as the cars rolled beside a little depot. "Po' Chavis"! The trainman called. He came by and repeated, "Po' Chavis"! Chapter 6 Bong! Bong! Startled him awake. The room vibrated as if a giant hand had rocked it. Bong! A dull boom and a throbbing echo. The walls bulged, the floor trembled, the windowpanes rattled. He stared at the far morning, expecting a pendulum to swing across the horizon. Bong! He raced to the window and yanked at the sash. Bong! The wood was old, the paint alligatored. Bong! A fresh breeze saluted him. Six o'clock! He put his head out. There was the slate roof of the church; ivy climbed the red brick walls like a green-scaled monster. The clock which had struck presented an innocent face. In the kitchen Mama was wiping the cupboards. "There's a tower and a steeple on the church a million feet high. And the loudest clock in the whole world"! "I know, Stephen", she smiled. "They say that our steeple is one hundred and sixty-two feet high. The clock you heard strike -- it's really the town clock -- was installed last April by Mrs. Shorter, on her birthday". He dressed, and sped outdoors. He crossed Broome Street to Orange Square. The steeple leaned backward, while the church advanced like a headless creature in a long, shapeless coat. The spire seemed to hold up the sky. Port Jervis, basking in the foothills, was the city of God. The Dutch Reformed Church, with two steeples and its own school was on Main Street; the Episcopal Church was one block down Sussex Street; the Catholic Saint Mary's Church, with an even taller steeple and a cross on top, stood on Ball Street. The Catholics had the largest cemetery, near the Neversink River where Main Street ran south; Stevie whistled when he passed these alien grounds. God was everywhere, in the belfry, in the steeple, in the clouds, in the trees, and in the mountains hulking on the horizon. Somewhere, beyond, where shadows lurked, must be the yawning pit of which Papa preached and the dreadful Lake of Fire. So, walking in awe, he became familiar with God, who resided chiefly in Drew Centennial Church with its high steeple and clock. There was no church like Drew Church, no preacher like Papa, who was intimate with Him, and could consign sinners to hellfire. To know God he must follow in Papa's footsteps. He was fortunate, and proud. The veterans, idling on their benches in the Square, beneath the soldiers' monument, got to their feet when Papa approached: "Morning, Reverend"! His being and His will -- Stevie could not divide God from his Papa -- illumined every parish face, turned the choir into a band of angels, and the pulpit into the tollgate to Heaven. "We have nine hundred and eleven members in our charge", Mama announced, "and three hundred and eighty Sunday-school scholars". When Papa went out to do God's work, Stevie often accompanied him in the buggy, which was drawn by Violet, the new black mare. Although they journeyed westerly as far as Germantown, beyond the Erie roundhouse and the machine shop, and along the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and northward to Brooklyn, below Point Peter, he could see the church spire wherever he looked back. Sometimes they went south and rolled past the tollhouse -- "Afternoon, Reverend"! -- and crossed the suspension bridge to Matamoras; that was Pennsylvania. In the Delaware River, three long islands were overgrown with greening trees and underbrush. South of Laurel Grove Cemetery, and below the junction of the Neversink and the Delaware, was the Tri-State Rock, from which Stevie could spy New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as New York, simply by spinning around on his heel. On these excursions, Papa instructed him on man's chief end, which was his duty to God and his own salvation. However, a boy's lively eyes might rove. Where Cuddleback Brook purled into the Neversink was a magnificent swimming hole. Papa pointed a scornful finger at the splashing youth: "Idle recreation"! Stevie saw no idols; it troubled him that he couldn't always see what Papa saw. He was torn between the excitement in the sun-inflamed waters and a little engine chugging northward on the Monticello Branch. "Where you been today"? Ludie inquired every evening, pretending that he did not care. "He'll make a preacher out of you"! "No, he won't"! Stevie flared. "Not me"! "Somebody's got to be a preacher in the family. He made a will and last testament before we left Paterson. I heard them! Uncle and Aunt Howe were the witnesses". "Will he die"? "Everybody does". Ludie could be hateful. To speak of Papa dying was a sin. It could never happen as long as God was alert and the Drew steeple stood guard with its peaked lance. Stevie was constantly slipping into the church. He pulled with all his strength at the heavy, brass-bound door, and shuffled along the wainscoted wall. The cold, mysterious presence of God was all around him. At the end of a shaft of light, the pews appeared to be broad stairs in a long dungeon. Far away, standing before a curtained window in the study room, was his father, hands tucked under his coattails, and staring into the dark church. The figure was wreathed in an extraordinary luminescence. The boy shuddered at the deathly pale countenance with its wrinkles and gray hair. Would Papa really die? The mouth was thin-lipped and wide, the long cleft in the upper lip like a slide. When Papa's slender fingers removed the spectacles, there were red indentations on the bridge of the strong nose. "It's time you began to think on God, Stephen. Perhaps one day He will choose you as He chose me, long ago. Therefore, give Him your affection and store up His love for you. Open your heart to Him and pray, Stephen, pray! For His mercy and His guidance to spare you from evil and eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire". Stevie had heard these words many times, yet on each occasion they caused him to tremble. For he feared the Lake of Fire. He strove to think of God and His eternal wrath; he must pray to be spared. Papa was disappointed that none of the brothers had heard the Call. Not George, Townley, or Ted, certainly not Ludie. Burt was at Hackettstown and Will at Albany Law School, where they surely could not hear it. Someday God would choose him. He would hear the Call and would run to tell Papa. The stern face would relax, the black-clad arms would embrace him, "My son"! Yet how might he know the Call when it came? Probably, as in Scriptures, a still, small voice would whisper. It would summon him once; if he missed it, never again. What if it came when he was playing, or was asleep and dreaming? He must not fail to hear it. He was Papa's chosen; therefore, nothing but good could happen to him, even in God's wrathful storms. When the skies grew dark and thunder rolled across the valley, he was unafraid. Aggie might fly into a closet, shut the door and bury her head in the clothes; he dared to wait for the lightning. Lightning could strike you blind if you were a sinner! But he was good. He clenched his fists and faced the terror. Thunder crashed; barrels tumbled down the mountainsides, and bounced and bounced till their own fury split them open. Lightning might strike the steeples of the other churches; not of Drew Church. A flash illumined the trees as a crooked bolt twigged in several directions. Violet whinnied from the stable. He ran out into the downpour, sped across the yard and into the buggy room. "Don't be afraid, Violet"! He shouted, and was aghast at the echoes. "Don't you be afraid"! He would save her. If there was a fire or a flood he would save Mama first and Violet next. Drenched and shaking, he stood near the sweet-smelling stall and dared to pat her muzzle. "Don't you be afraid, Violet"! After the storm, the sky cleared blue and cool, and fragrant air swept the hills. When the sun came out, Stevie strode proudly into Orange Square, smiling like a landlord on industrious tenants. The fountain had brimmed over, the cannon were wet, the soldiers' monument glistened. Even before the benches had dried, the Civil War veterans were straggling back to their places. The great spire shone as if the lightning had polished it. He jumped. The pointed shadow had nearly touched him. He trailed Ludie to the baseball game in the lot on Kingston Street near the Dutch Reformed. "Go on home"! Ludie screeched at him. "Someone'll tell Papa"! No one told on Ludie, not even when he slipped live grasshoppers into the mite-box. Ludie did as he pleased. Ludie took his slingshot and climbed to the rooftop to shoot at crows. Ludie chewed roofer's tar. Ludie had a cigar box full of marbles and shooters, and a Roman candle from last Fourth of July. Ludie hopped rides on freight cars, and was chased by Mr. Yankton, the railroad guard. He came home overheated, ran straight to the ice-chest, and gulped shivery cold water. Stevie envied him. That Ludie! He, too, cocked his cap at a jaunty angle, jingled marbles in his pocket, and swaggered down Main Street. On the Christophers' lawn, little girls in white pinafores were playing grownups at a tea party. A Newfoundland sat solemnly beside a doghouse half his size. Stevie yearned for a dog. He wondered whether God had a dog in the sky. He meandered down Pike Street, past the First National Bank with its green window shades. He crossed the tracks to Delaware House, where ladies in gay dresses and men in straw boaters and waxed mustaches crowded the verandah. A tall lady, with a ruffled collar very low on her bosom, turned insolent green eyes upon him. She was taller than Aggie. She was so beautiful with her rosy mouth and haughty air that she had to be wicked. Fiddles screeched; a piano tinkled. "P. J." -- as Ludie called the town -- was crowded with summer people who came to the mountains to escape the heat in the big cities. They stayed at hotels and boardinghouses, or at private homes. Rich people went to Delaware House, Opera House, American House or Fowler House.