The Church with an Overshot-Wheel Page #4

"The Church with an Overshot-Wheel" is a short story by O. Henry that explores themes of love, sacrifice, and redemption. Set in a small town, the narrative centers around the character of a young woman who faces a moral dilemma regarding her family and her own desires. As the story unfolds, O. Henry's trademark twist reveals the complexities of human relationships and the impact of choices made in the name of love. Through his signature wit and keen observations, the author captures the essence of small-town life and the struggles of its inhabitants, ultimately delivering a poignant message about the nature of true devotion.

• Short story

								

climbed the steep stairway to the organ loft.

In the gathering shadows below, Father Abram and Miss Chester lingered.
They were silent; and it is likely that they were busy with their
memories. Miss Chester sat, leaning her head on her hand, with her eyes
fixed far away. Father Abram stood in the next pew, looking
thoughtfully out of the door at the road and the ruined cottage.

Suddenly the scene was transformed for him back almost a score of years
into the past. For, as Tommy pumped away, Miss Phœbe struck a low bass
note on the organ and held it to test the volume of air that it
contained. The church ceased to exist, so far as Father Abram was
concerned. The deep, booming vibration that shook the little frame
building was no note from an organ, but the humming of the mill
machinery. He felt sure that the old overshot-wheel was turning; that
he was back again, a dusty, merry miller in the old mountain mill. And
now evening was come, and soon would come Aglaia with flying colours,
toddling across the road to take him home to supper. Father Abram’s
eyes were fixed upon the broken door of the cottage.

And then came another wonder. In the gallery overhead the sacks of
flour were stacked in long rows. Perhaps a mouse had been at one of
them; anyway the jar of the deep organ note shook down between the
cracks of the gallery floor a stream of flour, covering Father Abram
from head to foot with the white dust. And then the old miller stepped
into the aisle, and waved his arms and began to sing the miller’s song:

“The wheel goes round,
The grist is ground,
    The dusty miller’s merry.”

—and then the rest of the miracle happened. Miss Chester was leaning
forward from her pew, as pale as the flour itself, her wide-open eyes
staring at Father Abram like one in a waking dream. When he began the
song she stretched out her arms to him; her lips moved; she called to
him in dreamy tones: “Da-da, come take Dums home!”

Miss Phœbe released the low key of the organ. But her work had been
well done. The note that she struck had beaten down the doors of a
closed memory; and Father Abram held his lost Aglaia close in his arms.

When you visit Lakelands they will tell you more of this story. They
will tell you how the lines of it were afterward traced, and the
history of the miller’s daughter revealed after the gipsy wanderers had
stolen her on that September day, attracted by her childish beauty. But
you should wait until you sit comfortably on the shaded porch of the
Eagle House, and then you can have the story at your ease. It seems
best that our part of it should close while Miss Phœbe’s deep bass note
was yet reverberating softly.

And yet, to my mind, the finest thing of it all happened while Father
Abram and his daughter were walking back to the Eagle House in the long
twilight, almost too glad to speak.

“Father,” she said, somewhat timidly and doubtfully, “have you a great
deal of money?”

“A great deal?” said the miller. “Well, that depends. There is plenty
unless you want to buy the moon or something equally expensive.”

“Would it cost very, very much,” asked Aglaia, who had always counted
her dimes so carefully, “to send a telegram to Atlanta?”

“Ah,” said Father Abram, with a little sigh, “I see. You want to ask
Ralph to come.”

Aglaia looked up at him with a tender smile.

“I want to ask him to wait,” she said. “I have just found my father,
and I want it to be just we two for a while. I want to tell him he will
have to wait.”
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