Michener, James A. (160 page)

the success of Jordan Baptist, and it was largely due to his imagination and drive that his church improved yearly.

Up to now he had not visited the Cobbs, for he had good reason to suspect that Laurel did not accept the stern fundamentalism that he preached, and he wanted no dissidents or infected liberals in his congregation, but word of Cobb's strong support for Elder Fry's revival had caused Teeder to change his mind, and when he discussed the matter with the members of his Council, they agreed that Laurel was a man worth keeping within the body of the church; it was in pursuit of this decision that he drove out to see the Cobbs.

'Brother Laurel,' he said when discussion of the Fry revival ended, 'God has an important mission for you, and I pray you will accept.'

i already tithe. Have for years.'

'It's not money, although God notices and appreciates your generosity. It's you He wants.'

'I have no calling to the ministry,' Laurel said.

'No, that comes to few, and it's as much a burden as it is a glory. I'm speaking of something much simpler.'

'What?'

'I want you to teach Sunday School. Every Sunday. To a group of young boys that I shall assemble.'

'I'd be no good at that.'

'Ah, but you would. Boys fear their minister. They see him only on the pulpit. But if you, a man like themselves, only older, a plantation owner who wrestles with his fields the way their fathers wrestle with theirs . . That could make a great deal of difference.'

The two men talked for more than an hour, with Cobb reminding himself of how lucky their congregation had been to find this devoted minister. He had been on the search committee back in 1918 and had traveled to Mississippi to hear Teeder preach: 'He's a little too intense for my taste, but in the pulpit he glows like a burning ember. I'll vote for him.'

At the end of the hour Cobb found himself ensnared by Teeder's persuasiveness, but the manner of Cobb's submission startled the minister: 'Reverend, if you have a weakness, it's that you always speak of our church as if it were composed only of men. You ignore women.'

'I follow Jesus and St. Paul. They placed their church in the hands of men. There were no women disciples, no women preachers, no women in command of the manifold churches of Asia. A woman's responsibility is to find herself a Christian man, to support him, and to rear children who will follow Christian ways.'

'Well, I won't teach a class of boys. If you want me to help, you must arrange for a class of girls, because I want them to be a part of our church, too.'

That's quite impossible.'

'Then my participation becomes impossible.' At this point Laurel called for his wife to join the discussion, and when Sue Beth understood what her husband was saying, she approved: 'Reverend Teeder, it's really time women were brought more closely into your church.'

'They could not serve on the Council or the Board of Deacons. That's man's work.'

'But—'

'Our church provides joyous opportunities for women. You women are too delicate to make decisions. Yet there's still much important work to be done. Our little church seems twice as holy since you good women have been decorating it with flowers.'

'We're entitled to do much more,' Sue Beth argued, but Reverend Teeder put a stop to such complaint: 'Jesus and St. Paul have decided the character of the church, and you must find your spiritual happiness within the rules they established.'

So the first meeting ended in a stalemate, but as he was leaving, Teeder did make one concession: 'About that girls' Sunday School class, you could be right. Let's both ponder it,' and Cobb knew that what Teeder really meant was: I must discuss this with my councillors and my deacons.

Laurel belonged to neither group, for he was not stern enough to serve on the Council, nor had he the spare time to tend the household chores of a deacon. He was merely another silent member of one of the two major religions in North Texas: Methodist, the majority; Baptists, the more vigorous. But Cobb did take his religion seriously, as he had recently demonstrated during the revival, and he believed that God was a reality who governed the significant parts of his life.

There was nothing spurious in this Texan preoccupation with religion. Citizens like the Cobbs believed in the Bible; they tithed; and they strove to lead lives of Christian observance, if they were allowed to define what that meant. Specifically, they sought a society founded on a universal brotherhood in Christ, so long as the brotherhood did not have to include Indians, blacks or Mexicans.

On Saturday, Cobb told his wife: 'I have a feeling the men are going to approve the class for girls. They must know it's long overdue.' And on Sunday, at the conclusion of the worship services, Reverend Teeder, accompanied by Willis Wilbarger, the

dour head of the Council, stopped him at the exit from the church: 'Cobb, the men have approved your idea of a class for girls, and from their group alone they've enrolled eleven young ladies for next Sunday."

The class became a great success—eleven at the first session, then nineteen, then more than thirty. Cobb was a stern taskmaster, requiring his pupils to memorize crucial verses and to study entire chapters for later discussion. Always he drew the moral of the assignment back to life in Waxahachie, and especially to the region contiguous to Jordan Baptist. This caused jane Ellen Wilbarger to complain to her father that 'Mr. Cobb always talks about Waxahachie and never about heaven,' a complaint which the sour-visaged man reported to the other members of the Council.

A deputation led by Reverend Teeder and Councillor Wilbarger visited Cobb, advising him that the Baptist religion concerned itself principally with spiritual matters, not temporal, and Laurel became aware that young Miss jane Ellen Wilbarger was taking careful note of every word he said.

The real trouble arose that spring when the Waxahachie newspaper, goaded by Councillor Wilbarger, who used reports provided by his daughter, printed a list of forty-two boys and girls from Jordan Baptist who had brazenly attended a dance at the country club, where they were seen by many reliable witnesses to be doing the 'bunny hug, the fox trot, the grizzly bear, the tango and other immoral African extravaganzas.' Of the nineteen girls listed, fifteen were members of Laurel Cobb's Sunday School class, a fact that was noted in the report.

The newspaper appeared on Wednesday afternoon, and long before prayer meeting convened that night, outraged members of the church were telephoning one another and scurrying about the countryside in their new Fords and old buggies. During the service, attended by almost every member of Jordan Baptist, no allusion was made to the scandal, but during the long prayer Reverend Teeder's voice broke several times when he sought guidance for the perilous tasks which lay ahead, and at the conclusion of the prayer meeting he asked both the deacons and the councillors to remain behind to face the infamy which had stained their community and which threatened the foundations of their church.

Cobb, of course, was not allowed to attend this somber meeting, but by Thursday noon he was aware of what had transpired: 'Laurel, they're going to throw all your girls who attended that dance out of the church, and they're going to censure you as the cause of their sin.'

'That's downright preposterous. Those girls

On Friday a general meeting was held, and he was powerless to prevent it from passing a resolution ousting the girls from the church, but before a confirming vote could be taken, he demanded the floor. This was denied, but he ignored the rebuke, rose to his feet, and in quiet, forceful words defended his girls:

"They danced 1 Did not the guests attending at Cana dance 7 Do little children not dance with joy when they receive a goody? Dues your heart not dance at the coming of spring 7

'To throw these Christian girls out of their church for such a trivial offense would be an error of enormous magnitude Do not make either the church or the men who command it appear ridiculous by inflicting such a harsh penalty

'I oppose your verdict for three reasons. Dancing is not a mortal sin Young children of high spirit must not be denied the rights of their church because of an infraction of a man-made rule. And as their teacher, I know the goodness in their hearts You must nut do this wrong thing.'

Reverend Teeder did not want a public debate over what was essentially a matter of church discipline, but he could not allow a layman to question his authority. 'Dancing is forbidden by church law,' he thundered, whereupon Cobb thundered back: it shouldn't be.' From his place in the congregation Councillor Wilbarger shouted: That's apostasy! Repent! Repent!' What had begun as a sedate meeting ended in wild recrimination.

On Sunday, Reverend Teeder preached for ninety minutes, a passionate, well-reasoned defense of church discipline. Never raising his voice, never condemning any individual, but always defending the right of the church to set its own rules, he took as his text that powerful proclamation of St. Paul as delivered in Second Thessalonians, Chapter 3, Verse 6:

'Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.'

At the eighty-fifth minute of his exhortation he entered upon a most remarkable display, for without warning he stepped aside from the pulpit and extended his left leg toward the audience, and holding his extremity in this position, he concluded his sermon:

Nine years ago when my church in Mississippi faced a scandal far less severe than the one we face here in Texas, I preached for ninety minutes with my leg upraised like this, where none could see it, because it was so inflamed by an abscess that I almost fainted with pain. But I carried on because it was my duty to explain to my congregation why we must expel one of our deacons who had transgressed our law. And tonight 1 charge this congregation with the task of expelling one of its members. Let God's will be done.'

After the elders met in secret on Monday night, it became common knowledge that Laurel Cobb was to be haled before a public meeting, where he would be tried for 'destroying the morals of the young women of this congregation in that he encouraged them in the lewd and lascivious exhibition of dancing, and that he further defended them against the due strictures of this church.'

The trial would be Thursday night, which meant that Cobb had only two days for preparation, and this distressed him, for as he told his wife: 'I love the church, but I cannot stand silent if it makes a horrendous mistake. Have you seen the law they propose passing the minute I've been expelled?' He showed her the startling document which Councillor Wilbarger and his fellows, in their Monday night meeting, had concocted as the basis for Baptist faith:

We, as Christians and brethren in full fellowship with one another, pledge ourselves not to drink, play cards, gamble, dance or look at others dancing, or attend card parties, theaters, music halls, moving picture shows or any other worldly and debasing amusement. And we shall expel from church membership any who do participate in the behavior we have forbidden.

The Cobbs agreed that this was extremism of the worst sort; they had seen certain theater performances, especially by Walter Hampden and Fritz Leiber, which were ennobling, and they could not agree that all moving picture shows entailed damnation, although some might, but when they tried to enlist support for Laurel's defense and for a more sensible church discipline, they were met with silence, and by Tuesday night it looked as if Cobb would be expelled at the huge public assembly.

However, early Wednesday they were awakened by an extraordinary member of their church, a man to whom they had never spoken. He was five feet two, about a hundred and fifteen pounds, with a lower jaw that protruded inches as if its owner were constantly seeking a fight. His snow-white hair was cropped close, and his beady blue eyes challenged anyone to whom he spoke to refute

even one comma on pain of getting his head hashed He was Adolf Lakarz, son of Czech emigres, and he made his living caning chairs and doing odd jobs of carpentry. He was not an easy man to do business with, for when a job was proposed, he studied it, made calculations on a note pad, and quoted a price, with his jaw so far forward that the customer was terrified to comment.

This was deceiving, for one day when he told a church member, an elderly lady, that it would cost her three dollars and twenty-five cents for him to rebuild her favorite rocker, she snapped: 'Far too much,' so he recalculated and said: 'You're right. Two dollars and seventy-five cents.' and she said: 'That's more like it' She said later: 'Mr. Lakarz always looks at you as if you were evil and about to do him in, and I suppose that in politics he's right.'

His visit to the Cobb plantation had a clear purpose: 'Cobb, what they're doing to you is wrong. My parents came to Texas to escape that kind of tyranny. We've got to stop them '

'How?'

The two men, with the sun coming up behind them, stood by an old pump and discussed strategies, and the more Lakarz talked the more Cobb realized that he now had a supporter who was going to fight this battle through, even though the end might be bloody: 'You know, Lakarz, if you do this, it could hurt your business.'

This is why we came to America.'

When nine struck in the kitchen, they had still decided upon nothing, but then Sue Beth happened to show the carpenter the proposals for the new discipline, and as he read its prohibitions against theater and motion pictures and entertainment generally, he became furious, but in his rage he kept a cool head, and Mrs. Cobb saw his eyes flash when he studied more carefully the other details of the new regime.

'By God, Cobb, we've got them!' And without explaining his intentions, he dashed to his third-hand car and sped toward the county courthouse in Waxahachie.

At two o'clock that afternoon the community was staggered by a scandal much worse than the dancing of Laurel Cobb's girl students. Two policemen strode into the office of Councillor Willis Wilbarger and arrested him for playing high-stakes poker in a shebang north of town.