They Call Me Carpenter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 221 pages of information about They Call Me Carpenter.

They Call Me Carpenter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 221 pages of information about They Call Me Carpenter.

The wagon drove to the city jail; which rather gave me a start, because I had been thinking that the party might be arrested at any minute, on complaint to the police from the church.  But apparently this did not trouble Carpenter.  He wished to visit the strikers who had been arrested in front of Prince’s restaurant.  He and several others stood before the heavy barred doors asking for admission, while a big crowd gathered and stared.  I sat watching the scene, with phrases learned in earliest childhood floating through my mind:  “I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”

But it appeared that Sunday was not visitors’ day at the jail, and the little company was turned away.  As they climbed back into the wagon, I saw two husky fellows come from the jail, a type one learns to know as plain clothes men.  “Why won’t they let him in?” cried some one in the crowd; and one of the detectives looked over his shoulder, with a sneering laugh:  “We’ll let him in before long, don’t you worry!”

The wagon took up its slow march again.  It was a one-horse express-cart, belonging, as I afterwards learned, to a compatriot of Korwsky the tailor.  This man, Simon Karlin, earned a meager living for himself and his family by miscellaneous delivery in his neighborhood; but now he was so fascinated with Carpenter that he had dropped everything in order to carry the prophet about.  I mention it, because next day in the newspapers there was much fun made of this imitation man of God riding about town in a half broken-down express-wagon, hauled by a rickety and spavined old nag.

The company drove to one of the poorer quarters of the city, and stopped before a workingman’s cottage on a street whose name I had never heard before.  I learned that it was the home of James, the striking carpenter, and on the steps were his wife and a brood of half a dozen children, and his old father and mother, and several other people unidentified.  There were many who had walked all the way following the wagon, and others gathered quickly, and besought the prophet to speak to them, and to heal their sick.  Apparently his whole life was to consist of that kind of thing, for he found it hard to refuse any request.  But finally he told them he must be quiet, and went inside, and James mounted guard at the door, and I sat in my car and waited until the crowd had filtered away.  There was no good reason why I should have been admitted, but James apparently was glad to see me, and let me join the little company that was gathered in his home.

There was Everett, who had now washed the blood off his face, but had not been able to put back his lost teeth, nor to heal the swollen mass that had once been his upper lip and nose.  And there was Korwsky, who was now able to sit up and smile feebly, and two other men, whose names I did not learn, nursing battered faces.  Carpenter prayed over them all, and they became more cheerful, and eager to talk about the adventure, each telling over what had happened to him.  I noted that Everett, in spite of what must have been intense pain, was still faithfully taking down every word the prophet uttered.

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They Call Me Carpenter from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.