"'I can't—she would throw me over,' he explained. 'The girls expect those things. They like to show and talk about them—don't you know? It's the fashion. Our best young men do it, sir.'

"'Well, if you are willing to give up your honor for a lady's smile you won't do for me,' I said. 'You must not only tell the truth, but live it. You must be just what you are—a poor boy working for twenty dollars a week. If the girl doesn't like it she's unfit to associate with honest men. If you don't like it I don't like you.'

"Perspiration had begun to dampen the brow of Cub.

"'I—I hadn't seen it in that light, sir,' he said. 'But what am I to do, sir? I am heavily indebted to my tailor.'

"'What! Haven't you paid for those lovely garments?'

"'I had them charged, sir,' Cub sadly answered. 'My mother sent me a hundred dollars to pay for them, but I loaned it to Roger Daniels. I should be much obliged, sir, if you would collect it for me.'

"I went to Roger and made him pay the debt. He paid it in a curious way—by going to his tailor and buying a hundred dollars' worth of clothes for Cub and having them charged. It was compounding a felony, but my client was satisfied and Roger was grateful. He began to have some regard for me. Not every lawyer had been able to make him pay. Within a day or so he came to consult me about a mortgage on his patrimony.

"Roger had married and settled down immediately after his remarkable cruise. He had kept his party in ignorance of his financial troubles and returned with his reputation as an aristocrat firmly established. The gay young Bessie Runnymede had accepted him at once. He had become junior partner in a firm of brokers and had rented a handsome residence in Pointview.

"So they began their little play with ladies, lords, and gentlemen in the cast, and with a country-house, a tandem, a crested limousine, and a racing launch for scenery. But Roger had what is known as a bad season. Well, you know, the moving-picture shows had got such a hold on the public.

"At first we concluded that he must have made another lucky play in the market. Then, after six months or so, bills against Roger began to arrive for collection from sundry department stores in the city. He was a good fellow and had plausible excuses, and I declined to press payment and returned the bills.

"One day, some eight months after the wedding, an urgent telegram from Roger brought me to New York. I found the young man in his office, with his wife at his side. They were both in tears. I sat down with them, and he told me this story:

"'The fact is, I'm a thief,' he began. 'I have confessed the truth to my partners. Since my marriage I have taken about twenty thousand dollars—needed every cent of it to keep going. The fact is, I expected to make a killing in the market and return the money—had inside information—but everything went wrong. Yesterday I was cleaned out.

"'I went home late in the evening. I hoped that my wife would be in bed, but she was waiting for me. She said that I looked sick, and wanted to know what was the matter. I told her that I had a headache, and got into bed as soon as possible; but I couldn't sleep. Long after midnight my wife rose and turned on the light and came to my bed and said that she knew I was troubled about something—that she had seen it in my face for weeks. She begged that I would let her help me bear it. Then I told her the truth, and discovered—for I didn't know her before—one of the noblest women in the world. She hid her face in the pillow, and then I had a bad moment.

"'"Why did you do it?" she asked as soon as she could speak.

"'And I said: "We've been foolish—trying to keep up with Harry and the rest of them. It was my fault. I ought to have told you that I couldn't go the pace."

"'She saw the truth in a flash, and the old-fashioned woman in her got to work.

"'"Roger, get up and dress yourself," said she. "We will go and see your partners to-night. We will go together, for I am as guilty as you. We will tell them the truth and beg for time. Maybe we can get the money."

"'We started in our motor-car about one o'clock for the city, on dark and muddy roads. Some ten miles out we broke an axle and left car and driver and went on afoot. My wife wouldn't wait. No trains were running. But we could get a trolley five miles down the road. So we went on in the dark and silence. I put my arm around her, and not a word passed between us for an hour or so. I don't know what she was thinking of, but I was trying to count my follies. It began to rain, and I felt sorry for Bess, and took off my coat and threw it over her.'

"'"I don't mind the rain," she said. "It will cool me."

"'We were a sight when we got to the trolley, and just before daylight we rang the bell of the senior partner. Our weariness and muddy shoes and rain-soaked garments were a help to us. They touched his heart, sir. Anyhow, he gave me a week of grace in which to make good. I must get the money somehow, and I want your advice about it.'

"'I'm glad of one part of it all,' I said—'that you have discovered each other and learned that you are human beings of a pretty good sort. I've much more respect for both of you than I ever had before.'

"He looked at me in surprise.

"'Oh, you are a better man than you were three months ago!' I answered him. 'You happen to have run against the law, and it's shocked and frightened you. But you are improving. Long ago you began to incur debts which you couldn't pay, and you must have known that you couldn't pay them. In that manner you became possessed of a large sum of money belonging to other people. It was used not for necessities, but to maintain a foolish display. That is the most heartless kind of fraud. I've much more respect for you now that you see your fault and confess it. I'm convinced now that you have a conscience, and that you will be likely to make some use of it in the future. I'm particularly grateful to your wife. She has shown me that she is just a woman, and not an angel. I don't believe that it was at all necessary for you to have groveled in aristocratic crimes in order to win her heart. The yacht cruise and the tandem and the violets and the Fifth Avenue clothes and the ton of candy were quite superfluous. You needed only to tell her the truth, like a man, and say that you loved her.'

"'It is true, Roger,' said the girl as she broke down again.

"'I did it all to please you, dear,' the boy answered, in his effort to comfort her.

"'And it did please me,' she said, brokenly, 'but I know that I should have been better pleased if—'

"She hesitated, and I expressed her thought for her:

"'If he had centralized on manhood. There is something sweeter than violets and grander than fine raiment in a sort of character that a boy should offer to the girl he loves.'

"They were both convinced. It was easy to see that now, and I promised to do what I could for them.

"I got a schedule of the young man's debts and found that he owed, among other debts, six thousand dollars to sundry shops and department stores in New York—the purchases of his wife in the eight months of their wedded life. I asked her how it could have happened.

"'He opened accounts for me and said I could buy what I wanted, and you know it is so easy to say "Charge it,'" was her answer. 'Every one has accounts these days, and they tempt you to buy more than you need.'

"'It is true. Credit is the latest ally of the devil. It is the great tempter. It is responsible for half the extravagance of modern life. The two words 'charge it' have done more harm than any others in the language. They have led to a vast amount of unnecessary buying. They have developed a talent for extravagance in our people. They have created a large and growing sisterhood and brotherhood of dead-beats. They have led to bankruptcy and slow pay and bad debts. They have raised the cost of everything we require because the tradesman compels us to pay his uncollected accounts. They are added to your bills and mine, and the merchant prince suffers no impairment of his fortune.

"Bessie's bank-account was also overdrawn. That reminds me of a new sinner—the bank-check. It is so easy to draw a check—and, then, somehow, it's only a piece of paper. You let it go without a pang while you would be very thoughtful if you were counting out the money and parting with it.

"The check is another way of saying 'Charge it.'

"That evening I went to see Harry."



XII

IN WHICH HARRY IS FORCED TO ABANDON SWAMP FICTION AND LIKE FOLLIES AND TO STUDY THE GEOGRAPHY AND NATIVES OF A LAND UNKNOWN TO OUR HEIRISTOCRACY

"I found Harry smoking with Cub Sayles in his den above stairs in the big country-house of Henry Delance. As I entered Harry said to his young friend:

"'I have to talk over some things with Mr. Potter—would you mind going down to the library?'

"Cub withdrew, and Harry sat down with me.

"'I suppose you've seen him?' he asked, nervously.

"'Whom?'

"'Why, you know a mysterious stranger has been looking for me and—by Jove!—I'm scared stiff. He's an Englishman.'

"'What of that?'

"'Let me show you,' said Harry.

"He took a key from his pocket, unlocked a door, and fetched the familiar skull of the Bishop of St. Clare and put it on the table before me.

"'It's that damn Bishop's head,' he whispered. 'It has come back—would you believe it?—picked up by a fisherman on the Irish coast and returned to the express office in London. All the old directions were quite legible on the box. "To Harry Delance, SS. Lusitania. If not found, forward to Pointview, Conn., U.S.A., charges collect!" So it came on. I received a notice and went down and got it out of bond and paid three pounds, and here it is.'

"'It looks as if the Bishop was out for revenge,' I said, with a laugh.

"'He's got on my nerves and my conscience,' said Harry. 'By Jove! he haunts me. When I heard of this mysterious Englishman to-day I got a chill.'

"'You go buy yourself a small shovel and a pocket light to-morrow,' I suggested, and at night go back in the hills with the Bishop's head and bury it.'

"'And if I get into trouble I want you to take care of me.'

"I made no answer. It didn't seem necessary, but I said: 'There's another matter of which I have come to talk with you. Our friend Roger is in trouble.'

"I told him the story of Roger's downfall. It got under his vest, and I added: 'Now, Harry, it's up to you to indulge in some more philanthropy. You ought to help him.'

"'What—what can I do?' he asked in amazement.

"'Lend him the money—twenty thousand dollars. It isn't all that the public will charge against you on Roger's account, but it will do.'

"'Harry sank in his chair and threw up his hands as if grasping for a straw.

"'It's my whole allowance for the year,' he said, 'and I couldn't appeal to the Governor.'

"'Nevertheless you ought to do it, for Roger told me that it was your pace that brought him where he is.'

"'What an ass!' Harry exclaimed, and the old Bishop seemed to indorse his view. 'By the blue beard of the Caliph, what am I to do?'

"'Pay it,' I insisted.

"'Pay it and die,' he groaned. 'I shall have to do it somehow, but this kind of thing is grinding me.'

"'You can go to my ranch in Wyoming and live on nothing for six months,' I said. 'When you get back I'll lend you enough to tide you over!

"'I'll do it,' he said, as if it were the very straw he had been reaching for.

"Then he began to tell me of other troubles. Marie had been decidedly cool to Harry at the servants' ball. Then he had met her on the street, and she had barely noticed him and hurried away, with the young Reverend Robert Knowles at her side. Harry was, fortunately, going slow, but he had received internal injuries and was suffering from shock.

"'The old man is at the bottom of it,' I explained. 'You gave him a dose from the wrong bottle. It p'isoned him.'

"'By Jove! What a prude he is!' said Harry. 'Upon my word that is one of the noblest books I ever read—contains a great lesson, don't you know? It takes you straight to the heights.'

"'Too straight,' I said. 'It turns out for nothing. It crosses a morass to avoid going around. When you reach the high ground you are covered with mud and slime. You need to be washed and disinfected, and perhaps you've caught a fever that will last as long as you live. Many a boy and girl have got mired in this swamp fiction that you enjoy so much. There are many of us who prefer to go around the swamp and keep on a decent footing even if it takes longer.'

"'We want to know all sides of life,' said Harry.

"'And would you care to see the girl you loved studying life in a brothel?'

"'Well, really, you know, that's different,' Harry stammered.

"'But the fact is, her feet might as well be in a brothel as her brain,' I insisted. 'She might shake the dust from her feet. Harry, there's one side of life that you ought to study at once—the American side. You've neglected the Western hemisphere in your studies. When can you start for the ranch?'

"'Day after to-morrow—if you like. This place is a dreadful bore.'

"'Good! I'll attend to the tickets to-day, The cart, drag, and horses will be all the better for a vacation, and the eyes of the people are in need of rest.'

"'The whole outfit is going to be sold," said Harry. 'Idiots and the hoi polloi have quite ruined the sport here. The Governor is always poking fun at it, you know, and it has made me so weary! One can't stand that kind of thing forever—can he? I got after his helmet, battle-ax, and family tree, by Jove! Our crested chambermaids and bootblacks have been a great help to me. What a noble band of philanthropists! Father and I have made an agreement. He is going to chuck the battle-ax and saw the royal branches off our family tree and I am going to sell the drag, cart, and horses.'

"'That's a great treaty,' I said. 'The settlement of the Alaskan frontier is not more important than fixing the boundaries of our social life. Let us surrender the tools of idiocy; especially, let us abandon all claim to the helmet and battle-ax. They're all right in their place, but they aren't ours. The plowshare and the pruning-hook are our symbols.'

"'By Jove! you know, the old Bishop of St. Clare agrees with you exactly,' said Harry. 'I've been reading his life and writings, which I picked up in London, and he's about converted me to your way of thinking. He hated "the glittering idleness" of the rich and put industry above elegance.'

"'And he doesn't intend that your education shall be neglected—he's looking after you.'

"'He's as industrious as Destiny,' said the young man. 'Did you know that Cub Sayles is engaged?'

"'To whom?'

"'Mrs. Revere-Chalmers.'

"'God rest his soul!' I exclaimed.

"'It's just the thing for Cub,' said Harry. 'He's poor but presentable, and has many extravagant tastes. She's quite a bit older than he, of course, but that isn't unusual.'

"'I warned him long ago, knowing that his folly would undo him. Now he will be a captain of New Thought, King of the Flub Dubs, advertising manager of the Psychological Hair Factory, and inspector of pimples.'

"'But don't you know that he will have everything that he desires?'

"'Except happiness.'

"'Oh, I think that she is very fond of him!' said Harry. 'She told me to-day that he is the only man she ever loved, and the dear old girl thinks that she won him by concentration.'

"With this remark, made on the 20th of May, Harry dropped out of the history of Pointview until December."



XIII

IN WHICH THE MINISTER GETS INTO LOVE AND TROUBLE

"Cub resigned his place in my office next day, and confessed his purpose, and I heard him with sober respect and tried in every proper way to save him. It wouldn't work.

"The lines of panic had left the face of Cub. The two-pound expression had departed from it. The faintness of chaperons would no longer imperil his comfort.

"'A hundred and four pounds of candy and twenty suppers, and all for nothing!' I exclaimed. 'You ruin a girl's digestion and chuck her over. It isn't fair.'

"'But, sir, I found that I didn't love her,' said Cub.

"'What a waste of violets, confectionery, and crab-meat!'

"'Yes, sir, in a way; but you see I had to have my training in society,' Cub declared.

"What was the use? Cub had no more humor than a sewing-machine.

"'The wedding day drew on apace, and just before its arrival a notorious weekly in New York gave the lady a drubbing. Certain circumstances that made her first marriage unhappy were plainly hinted at. The town shuddered with amazement. Cub stood pat, but the Episcopal minister refused to marry them. The Baptist minister balked. It looked like a postponement, but the knot was tied, on schedule time, by the Reverend Robert Knowles. That made no end of talk, and a small party of insurgents left his church. Deacon Benson was on the point of pulling out, and swore so much about it that I advised him to hang on for his own sake.

"'But there ain't much to hang on to,' said the Deacon.

"'Mrs. Revere-Chalmers-Sayles held a mortgage on the property of the Baptist Society of Pointview, and asked me to foreclose it.

"'I have another mortgage on the Congregational church, and they're behind in their interest, but I'm not going to push them,' she said to me.

"So young Mr. Knowles had acted from motives of business prudence, and was not much at fault. The old church had ceased to live within its means and had entered the 'charge it' van, and was trying to serve two masters.

"Betsey and I paid both mortgages and threw them in the fire.

"Young Mr. Knowles came to see us with Marie, and brought the thanks of the parish. They were a good-looking couple.

"This minister of the First Congregational Church of Pointview now aspired to be the prime minister of its first heiress. Their acquaintance, which had begun in the arrangements for the servants' ball, had grown in warmth and intimacy as soon as Harry had gone. Robert began to take after Marie, with muffler open and all the gas on. He was a swell of a parson—utterly damned with good-fortune. Had an income from the estate of his father, a call from on high, a crest from Charlemagne, diplomas from college and the seminary, a fine figure, red cheeks, and 'heavenly eyes.' As to his fatal gift of beauty, the young ladies were of one mind. They agreed, also, about the cut of his garments, that were changed several times a day.

"A dashing, masculine, head-punching spirit might have saved him with all his ballast, but he didn't have it. The Reverend Robert was a good fellow to everybody—a fairly sound-hearted, decent, handsome fellow, but not a man. To be that, one has to know things at first hand—especially work and trouble. He was a second-hand, school-made thinker. His doctrines came out of the books, but his conduct was mildly modern. He danced and smoked a little, and played bridge and golf, and made his visits in a handsome motor-car.

"Marie liked the young man, and she and her mother rode and tramped about with him almost every day of that summer. Deacon Joe showed signs of faintness when he spoke of him.

"One day I went up to the Benson homestead and found the old man sitting on his piazza alone.

"'Where's Marie?' I asked.

"'Off knocking around with the minister,' said Deacon Joe, in a voice frail with contempt.

"'She might be in worse company,' I suggested.

"'Maybe,' he snapped.

"'What's the matter with the minister?'

"'Nothing,' said the old man, with a chuckle. 'He's a complete gentleman, complete! So plaguy beautiful that he's a kind of a girl's plaything. He couldn't milk a cow or dig a hill o' potatoes. Acts kind o' faint an' sickly to me.'

"The Deacon thoughtfully stirred the roots of his beard with the fingers of his right hand, and went on with a squint and a feeble tone which he seemed to think best suited to his subject.

"'Talks so low you can hardly hear him. I have to set with my hand to my ear every Sunday to make out what he's sayin', an' he prays as if he had the lung fever. Talks o' hell as though it was a quart o' cold molasses. That's one reason we ain't no respect for it in this community. Ay—'es! That's the reason.'

"He squinted his face thoughtfully and resumed with more energy.

"'I like to hear a man get up on his hind legs and holler as they used to—by gravy! Ye can't scare anybody by whispers. Damn it, sir, what we need is an old-fashioned revival.'

"The Deacon halted to take a chew of tobacco, and went on, with a sorrowful calmness:

"'Now this young feller don't want to give no credit to God—not a bit—no, sir! Science has done everything. I've noticed it time an' ag'in. T'other Sunday he said that an angel spoke to Moses, an' the Bible says, as plain as A B C, that God spoke to him. How can he expect that God is going to bless his ministry, an' he never givin' Him any credit?'

"'It's rather bad politics, anyhow,' I said.

"'An' the church is goin' from bad to worse,' he complained. 'The average attendance is about forty-seven, an' it used to be between five an' six hundred, an' we are all taxed to death to keep it goin'. I have to pay three hundred a year for the privilege o' gittin' mad every Sunday. Two or three of us have got after him an' made him promise to do better. Some awful free-minded folks have crept into the church, an' the fact is, we need their money,' Deacon Joe went on. 'What the minister ought to do is stick to the old doctrines that are safe an' sound. 'St'id o' that he's tryin' to sail 'twixt rock an' reef.'

"'Between Scylla and Charybdis,' I suggested.

"'Between Silly an' what?' the old man asked, as if in doubt of my meaning.

"We were interrupted by the arrival of the Reverend Robert with Marie and her mother, in his handsome landaulet. Marie asked me to go with her to gather wild flowers in a bit of woodland not far away. I went, and soon saw her purpose. She had had the 'jolliest, cutest letter from Harry' that she had ever read, and seemed to be in doubt as to whether she ought to let him write to her.

"'Has your grandfather forbidden it?' I asked.

"'No.'

"'Then it's up to you,' I said.

"'Do you think he cares for me?'

"'I should think him a fool if he didn't,' I said, looking down into her lovely dark eyes.

"'But do you really and truly think that he cares for me?' she insisted.

"'I suspect that he does.'

"'Why?'

"'A lawyer must not betray a confidence.'

"'Do you like him?'

"'Wait until his uneducation is completed, and I'll tell you. I am beginning to have hope for Harry.'

"'I'm sorry grandpapa is so hateful!' she exclaimed, with a sigh.

"I stood up for the old man and asked:

"'Do you like the Reverend Robert?'

"'Very much! He's so good-looking, and has such beautiful thoughts! Have you heard him preach?'

"'No.'

"'We think his sermons are fine. Everybody likes them but grandpapa. He wants noise, you know—lung power and old theology. I hate it!'

"'He doesn't take to Robert?'

"'No; he calls him a calf. Nobody is good enough for me, you know. He'd like me to marry some man with a hoe, who would take me to church and Sunday school every sabbath morning, and for a walk to the cemetery in the afternoon, and down to the prayer-meeting every Wednesday night, and on a journey from Genesis to Revelations once a year. It's too much to expect of a human being. Then the hoes are in the hands of Poles, Slavs, and Italians. So what am I to do?'

"'Well, you are young—you can afford to wait a while,' I said.

"'But not until I am old and all withered up. I am going to marry the man I love within a year or so, if he has the good sense to ask me. Don't you ever go to church?'

"'No,' I said.

"'Why not?'

"I tried to think. There were the ministers—two boys and three old men—dried beef and veal! Not to my knowledge had a single one of them ever expressed an idea. They were seen, but not felt. The Church! Why, certainly, it was founded on the sweetness, strength, and sanity of a great soul. I had almost forgotten that. It had grown feeble. It had got its fortunes entangled in psychological hair. It should have been correcting the follies of the people—their selfishness, their sinful pride, their extravagance, their loss of honor and humanity. Had I not seen, in the case of Harry and his followers, how the Church had failed in its work? Ought it not to have sought and saved them long ago—saved them from needless disaster? It should have been appealing to their consciences. If appeals had failed it should have stung them with ridicule or raised a voice like that of Christ against the Pharisees. The Church! Why, it was living, not in the present, but in the past. Here in Pointview the Church itself had become one of the greatest follies of the time.

"'I want you to go next Sunday and hear Mr. Knowles, as a favor to me—won't you?' Marie asked.

"'Yes,' I said. 'In the next five Sundays I shall go to every Protestant church in Pointview. I want to know what they're doing. I shall put aside my scruples and go.'"



XIV

IN WHICH SOCRATES DISCOVERS A NEW FOLLY

"Well, I went and saw the Reverend Robert Knowles sail between 'Silly and Charybdis.' He bumped on both sides, but did it rather gracefully. He reviewed the career of Samuel, who lived and died some thousands of years ago. The miraculous touch of Carlyle or Macaulay might easily have failed in the task of reviving a man so thoroughly dead. But the Reverend Robert entered this unequal contest with no evidence of alarm. The dead man prevailed. The power of his long sleep fell upon us. My head grew heavy. I felt my weight bearing down upon the cushions. A stiffness came into my bones.

"On our way to church Betsey had placed the young minister in my thoughts. The trustees had reckoned that he would revive the interest of the young people in Sunday worship; and he did, but it was the worship of youth and beauty.

"Well, the other churches were emptier than ever, and so the spiritual life of the community was in no way improved. In fact, I guess it had been a little embittered by the new conditions. As soon as it became known that Marie had won the prize of his favor the other girls had returned to their native altars, having discovered that the new minister was vain, worldly, and conceited.

"Lettie Davis, who had made a dead set at him, had been strongly convinced of that as soon as he began to show a preference for Marie, and the Davis family had left the church and gone over to the Methodists. The young man had been filled with alarm. He feared it would wreck the church. That old ship of the faith was leaky and iron-sick, and down by the head and heel, as they say at sea. She rolled if one got off or on her.

"Such was the condition of things when we entered the church of my fathers. We sat down in the Potter pew a few minutes before the service began. There were, by actual count, forty-nine people gathered around the altar of the old church, and behind us a great emptiness and the ghosts of the dead. In my boyhood I had sat in its dim light, with six hundred people filling every seat to the doors and a man of power and learning in the pulpit.

"Faces long forgotten were there in those pews—old faces, young faces. How many thousands had left its altar to find distant homes or to go on their last journey to that nearer one in the churchyard! My heart was full and ready for strong meat, but none came to me. The moment of silence had been something rare—like an old Grecian vase wonderfully wrought. Then, suddenly, the singing fell upon us and broke the silence into ruins. It was in the nature of a breach of the peace. There are two kinds of people who ought to be gently but firmly restrained: the person that talks too much and the person that sings too much.

"This young minister undoubtedly meant well. He's about the kind of a chap that I've seen in law-offices working for fifteen dollars a week—industrious, zealous, and able up to a point, and all right under supervision. He can be trusted to handle a small case with intelligence and judgment. But I wouldn't go to him for instruction in philosophy; and if I wished to relay the foundation of my life I should, naturally, consult some other person. As one might expect, he had searched the cellars of theology for canned goods, and with extraordinary success.

"The young man had so lately arrived in this world he couldn't be expected to know much about its affairs, and especially about those of Samuel. It was graceful and decorous elocution. The Deacon expressed his opinion of it in snores, and I longed to follow suit.

"The sermon ended with a dramatic recitation, and on our way out the minister met us at the door.

"'You must manage to keep these people awake,' I suggested to him.

"'How am I to do it?' he asked.

"'Well, you might have a corps of pin-stickers carefully distributed in the pews, or you could put the pins in your sermon. I recommend the latter.'

"We went away with a sense of injury.

"'Let's keep trying,' said Betsey, 'until you find some one you would care to hear. I would feel at home in any of our churches. These days there's no essential difference between Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians. I've talked with all of them, and their differences are dead and gone. They stand in the printed creeds, but are no longer in the hearts of the people.'

"'Then why all these empty churches?' I asked. 'Why don't the people get together in one great church?'

"'Don't talk about the millennium,' said Betsey. 'We must try to make the best of what we have.'

"Well, in the next four Sundays we went from church to church to get strength for our souls, and found only weakness and disappointment. Immune from ridicule and satire, the sacred inefficiency of our pulpit had waxed and grown and taken possession of the churches. And one thought came to me as I listened. There should be a number of exits to every Christian church, plainly marked: 'To be used in case of fire.' Ancient history, dead philosophy, sophomoric periods, bad music, empty pews, weary groups of the faithful longing for home, were, in brief, the things that we saw and heard. It was pathetic.

"I began to think about it. Here were five church organizations, all weak, infirm, begging, struggling for life. The automobile and the golf and yacht clubs had nearly finished the work of destruction which incompetence had so ably begun. There was not much left of them; yet their combined property was worth about one hundred thousand dollars. They spent in the aggregate fifty-six hundred dollars for ministers' salaries, and their total average attendance was only four hundred and forty-nine. I could see no more extravagant waste of time, work, and capital in any other branch of human effort. Some would call it wicked, but, though we speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, we had better have kept still.

"The Reverend Mr. Knowles came to me within a day or two and apologized for his sermon. He complained that he couldn't be himself—that he didn't dare speak his thoughts.

"'Whose thoughts do you speak?' I asked.

"'Well, I trail along in the wake of the fathers.'

"'Then you are feeding your flock on corned and kippered thoughts—on the dried and dug-up convictions of the dead. It isn't fair. It isn't even honest. The church here is dying of anemia for want of fresh food. The new world must have new thought to fit new conditions. Its outlook has been utterly changed. If a man who had never seen a locomotive or a motor-car or a tandem or a telephone or an electric light or the sons and daughters of a new millionaire or the home and crest of the same or a bill of a modern merchant were to come down out of the backwoods and try to tell us how to run the world, we should think him an ass, and wisely. Consider how these things have changed the spirit of man and surrounded it with new perils.'

"'But think of the old fellows—the mossbacks—who hate your new philosophy,' said the minister.

"'And think of the young fellows who are so easily tossed about. The moss of senility is covering the bloom of youth and the honor of youth.'"



XV

IN WHICH HARRY RETURNS TO POINTVIEW AND GOES TO WORK

"Betsey and I were giving a dinner-party at our house. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Delance and the Warburtons and Dan and Lizzie had come over to discuss a plan for the correction of the greatest folly and extravagance in the village—namely, the waste of its spiritual energy.

"At first we had to discuss a fact related to another folly, for the Delances told how Harry's pet collie had come up to the back door that day with a human skull in his mouth. Of course I knew that Harry's Bishop had returned, but held my peace about it. To them it had suggested murder, and they had consulted the chief of police.



"'How do you know that it is not one of your ancestors dug up in a back pasture,' I said.

"'It might be William the Conqueror,' Lizzie remarked.

"'I deny it,' said Delance, in perfect good nature. 'We have resigned from William's family. As a matter of fact, I never joined it.'

"I congratulated him.

"'It has always seemed like the merest poppycock to me—this genealogical craze of the ladies,' said Henry. 'When our London solicitor wrote that it would take another hundred pounds to establish the connection beyond a doubt, he gave away the whole scheme, and I resigned. It was too silly. In these days of titled chambermaids I think we shall worry along pretty well without William.'

"Then Betsey said: 'I was reading in the county history to-day that old Zebulon Delance, who was killed in a fight with Indians in 1750, was buried in a meadow back of his house.'

"'It may be the skull of old Zeb,' said Henry.

"'Now there's an ancestor worth having,' I suggested.

"'I wonder if it can belong to old Zeb,' Henry mused.

"At last we got to my plan. I pictured the condition of the community as I saw it, and the inefficiency of the church and the need of a new and active power in Pointview.

"I proposed that we buy the old skating-rink and remodel it, employ the best talent in America, and start a new center of power in the community—a power that should, first of all, keep us sane, and then as decent as possible. The mathematics of the enterprise were at my fingers' ends:

"Initial Expenses $15,000 "Annual Outlay for Instruction 8,000 "For Music 3,500 "For Maintenance 1,000 "For Management 3,500

"It was no small matter, but the initial expense and the first year's outlay were subscribed in ten minutes. Betsey set the ball rolling with an offer of ten thousand dollars, and then it was like shaking ripe apples off a tree.

"'Who is to be the manager?' Delance wanted to know. 'It's a big job.'

"'I propose that we try Harry,' I said; 'in my opinion it will interest him. I've had him in training for a year or so, and he's about ready for big work.'

"'I don't believe Harry can do it,' his father declared.

"'I should think it might not be to his taste,' said Bill Warburton.

"'But I have later and better information than the rest of you,' I said. 'If you will leave the matter in my hands you may hold me responsible for the results.'

"They gave me the white card. I could do as I liked. The fact is, I had just had a letter from Harry which filled me with new hope. I have it here."

The Honorable Socrates Potter took the letter from his pocket and said:

"You see, Harry has been discovering America. He is the Columbus of our heiristocracy. His mental map has been filled with great cities and splendid hotels, and thrifty towns and enormous areas of wheat and corn, and astonishing distances and sublime mountain scenes. Moreover, he has learned the joys of a simple life; he had to. Of course, he knew of these things, but feebly and without pride, as one knows the Tetons who has never seen them. Leaving in May, he stopped in all the big cities, and finished his journey from the railroad with a stage-ride of some ninety miles. Of the stage-ride and other matters, he writes thus:

"'On the front seat with the driver sat a lady smoking a cigar, who, now and then, offered us a drink from a bottle. At her side was a lady with a wooden leg, and a hen in her hand. You know every woman is a lady out here. The driver swore at the horses, the hen swore at the lady, and several of the passengers swore at each other, and it was all done in the most amiable spirit. Two rough-necks sat beside me who kept shooting with revolvers at sage-hens as they—the men, not the hens—irrigated the tires with tobacco-juice. At the next stop I got into a row with a one-eyed professor of elocution, because he said I carried too much for the size of my mule, an' didn't speak proper. He objected to my pronunciation, and I to his choice of words. In the argument his revolver took sides with him. I got one of my toes lopped with a bullet, and the lady who carried the cigar and the bottle took me to her home and nursed me like a mother, and the lady with the wooden leg brought me strawberries every day and sang to me and told me some good stories. I had thought it was a God-forsaken country, but, you see, I was wrong. There's more real practical Christianity among these people than I ever saw before, and it's hard work to be an ass here. The way of the ass is full of trouble, and I begin to understand why you wanted me to come out to Wyoming. The people are rough, but as kind as angels. Felt like turning back, but these women put new heart in me, especially the wooden-legged one.

"'"We don't like parlor talk out here," she said; "it ain't considered good ettikit. Folks don't mind a little, but if it goes too fur it's considered insultin' an' everybody begins to speak to ye like he was talkin' to a balky mule."

"'I went on as soon as I was able, and spent the whole summer on the back of a cayuse. Got lost in the mountains; went hungry and cold like the wolf, as Garland puts it, for three days; had to think my way back to camp. It was the best schooling in geography and logic and American humanity that I ever had. Every man at the ranch, and the women, had been out hunting for me. I offered them money, but they woudn't take a cent—the joy of seeing me was enough. They haven't a smitch of the revolting money-hunger of the average European. With all its faults I am proud of my country. I want you to find a good, big American job for me.

"'I have been reading the Bishop of St. Clare, who says: "There hath been more energy expended in swaggering about with full bellies and a burden of needless fat than would move the island to the main shore. If thy purse be used to buy immunity from work, it secureth immunity from manhood; and what is a man without manhood?"

"'There is the American idea for you.

"'Deacon Joe has got to change his mind about me. Marie has only written me one letter, and that was a frost. If you have any influence with the girl, don't let her get engaged to that parson.'

Socrates laughed as he put the letter away, and went on:

"Well, Harry came back, browned and brawny, with his cayuse, saddle, and sombrero, and a shooting-iron half as long as my arm.

"He came here for a talk with me the day after his arrival. The subject of a lifework was pressing on him.

"'Have you seen Zeb?' was his first query.

"'Zeb?' I asked. 'Who is Zeb?'

"'That dear old, irrepressible bishop,' said Harry. 'They have dug him up and named him Zeb, and put him on a top shelf in the library. They think he is one of our great-grandfathers.'

"'Oh, he has been promoted,' I remarked.

"Harry went on:

"'My dog is responsible for the reappearance of the bishop. I took him with me that night, and he knew where to find it. Father is sure that it's the head of old Zeb Delance.'

"'Let the Bishop rest where he is,' I suggested. 'Now that he has converted you, he will probably let up. At least, let us hope that he will not worry you. Of course he will remind you of past follies every time you look at him, but that will do you no harm.'

"'Oh, I couldn't forget him! Father has been reading up on Zeb, and he does nothing but talk about him. He has learned that the Indians buried the head and burned the body of a victim.'

"'He symbolizes the change in your taste. Zeb was a man of action—a worker. What do you propose to do now?'

"'Well, I have thought some of following Dan into agriculture.'

"'Don't,' was my answer. 'You're not the type for that kind of a job. Dan was brought up to work with his hands. I fear that you would be a Fifth Avenue farmer.'

"'Well, what would you say to a plant for the manufacture of aeroplanes? I stopped at Dayton and looked into the matter, and learned to fly. I have ordered a biplane, and it will be delivered in the spring.'

"I vetoed that plan, and asked where he proposed to settle.

"'Right here—if possible,' said Harry.

"'Good! There's one thing about your family tree that I like, and you ought to be proud of it. Your forebears, having been treated with shameless oppression, came to these inhospitable shores in 1630. They needn't have done it if they had been willing to knuckle down and say they liked crow when they didn't. They wouldn't do that, so they left the old sod and ventured forth in a little sailing-vessel on the mighty deep. It required some courage to do that. They landed safely, and for nearly three hundred years their descendants have lived and worked and suffered all manner of hardships in New England. It's a proper thing, Harry, that you should do your work where, mostly, they did their work—in dear old Connecticut.'

"'And besides, it's the home of Marie,' he said.

"'And let us consider what there is to be done in the home of Marie,' I went on. 'Here in the very town where so many of your fathers have lived and worked we find a singular parade of folly. The idle rich from a near city are closing in upon us. Many of the Yankees have acquired property and ceased to work. Back in the distant hills they toil not, but live from hand to mouth in a pitiful state of degeneration. The work of the hand is almost entirely that of Italians, Poles, Hungarians, and Greeks.

"'Our tradesmen have a low code of honor. They overcharge us for the necessities of life. Many of them have been caught cheating. Our wives and sons and daughters are living beyond their means, as if ignorant of the fact that it is the beginning of dishonesty. Our poverty is mostly that of the soul. The churches are dying, and the sabbath is dead. What we need is a return to the honor, sanity, and common sense of old New England, which gave of its fullness to the land we love. Let's start a school of old-fashioned decency and Americanism. Let's call it the Church of All Faiths and make it a center of power.'

"I laid the scheme before him in all its details, and then—

"'I'm with you,' he said, 'and I think I can see Knowles moving and Deacon Joe coming down off his high horse.'

"'Possibly we could use Knowles,' I suggested. 'There'll be a lot of detail.'

"'But only as a kind of clerk,' said Harry.

"As a kind of clerk, I agreed. 'We shall need a number of clerks. I intend that every family within ten miles shall be visited at least once a week. We shall not only let our light shine, but we shall make it shine into every human heart in this community. If they're too callous we'll punch a hole with our trusty blade and let the light in. The lantern and the rapier shall be our weapons.'

"Harry was full of enthusiasm. He had met Marie on the street, and she was glad to learn that he was going to work.

"'Incidentally, I hope to win your grandfather's consent,' he had said to her.

"And she had answered: 'If you could do that I should think you were an extremely able young man.'

"'And worthy of the best girl living?' Harry had urged.

"'That's too extravagant,' Marie had said as she left him.

"Harry went to work with me at once. He bought the rink and the ground beneath it and some more alongside. We spent days and nights with an architect making and remaking the plans, and by and by we knew that we were right. Soon the contractor began his work, and in three months we had finished the most notable meeting-house of modern times.

"The walls were tinted a rich cream color, the woodwork was painted white. There were new carpets in the aisles, and between them comfortable seats for nine hundred people. The fine old pulpit from which Jonathan Edwards had preached his first sermon was the center of a little garden of ferns and palms and vines and mosses, all growing in good ground, with a small fountain in their midst—a symbol of purity. A great sheet of plate glass behind the pulpit showed a thicket of evergreens. High above the pulpit was another big sheet of glass, through which one got a broad view of the sky, and it was framed in these words: 'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.'

"The walls were adorned with handsome pictures loaned by my friends. On one wall were these modern commandments, most of which were gleaned from the masterly volume entitled The Life and Writings of Robert Delance, Bishop of St. Clare, which Harry had found in a London bookstore:

"1. 'Be grateful unto God, for He hath given thee life, time, and this beautiful world. Other things thou shalt find for thyself.'

"2. 'Be brave with thy life, for it is very long.'

"3. 'Waste no time, for thy time is very little.'

"4. 'See that this world is the better for thy work and kindness.'

"5. 'Doubt not the truth of that thy senses tell thee, for thy God is no deceiver.'

"6. 'Love the truth and live it, for no one is long deceived by lying.'

"7. 'Give not unto the beast and neglect thy brother.'

"8. 'Go find thy brothers in the world and see that these be many, for a man's strength and happiness are multiplied by the number of his brothers.'

"9. 'Beware lest thy wealth come between thee and them and tend to thine own poverty and theirs.'

"10. 'Suffer little children to come unto thee, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'

"The simple-hearted old Bishop had just the philosophy we needed. It seemed to have been carefully designed to meet the inventiveness of the modern sinner. He was turning out well and had already exerted a wholesome influence on the character of Harry. Would that all ancestors were as well chosen!

"We did not wish to hinder the other churches, and that spirit went into all our plans. First, then, we decided that our services should begin at twelve o'clock every Sunday, and close at one or before twenty minutes after one. That gave our parishioners a chance to go to the other churches if they wanted to. I traveled from Boston to St. Louis, and returned via Washington, to engage talent for our pulpit. I wanted the best that this land afforded, and was prepared to pay its price. I engaged nine ministers, distinguished for eloquence and learning, three Governors, the Mayor of a Western city, two United States Senators, one Congressman, and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the land. They were all great-souled men, who had shown in word and action a touch of the spirit of Jesus Christ. Some of them had been throwing light into dark places and driving money-changers from the temple and casting out devils. They were all qualified to enlighten and lift up our souls.

"I asked that their lessons should be drawn from the lives of the modern prophets—Abraham Lincoln, Silas Wright, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Henry Clay, Noah Webster, George William Curtis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sidney Lanier, Horace Greeley, and others like them. What I sought most was an increase of the love of honor and the respect for industry in our young men and women. Holiness was a thing for later consideration, it seemed to me.

"I put a full-page advertisement in each local paper, which read about as follows:

"'The Church of All Faiths.

"'Built especially for sinners and for good people who wish to be better.

"'Will begin its work in this community Sunday, June 19th, at twelve o'clock, with a sermon by Socrates Potter, Esq., of Pointview, in which he will set forth his view of what a church should do, and an account of what this church proposes to do, for its parishioners. Other churches are cordially invited to worship, and to work with us for the good of Pointview.'

"The curiosity of all the people had been whetted to a keen edge. They had begged for information, but Betsey and I had said that they should know all about it in due time. I had given my plan to the contributors only, and they were to keep still about it.

"Sometimes silence is the best advertisement, and certain men who seem to be so modest that they are shocked by the least publicity are the greatest advertisers in the world. The man who hides his candle under a bushel is apt to be the one whose candle is best known. So it happened with us. Nine hundred and sixteen people filled the seats in our church that morning by twelve o'clock, and two hundred more were trying to get in.

"At the next service an honored minister whose soul is even greater than his fame preached for us, and that week a petition came to me, signed by six hundred citizens, complaining that the hour was inconvenient, and asking that it be changed to 10.30 A.M. I believe in the voice of the people, and obeyed it; but I knew what would happen, and it did. The other churches were deserted and silent. One by one their ministers came to see me—all save one old gentleman in whom the brimstone of wrath had begun to burn more fiercely. We needed and were glad to have the help of two of them. There were the sick and the poor to be visited; there were weddings and funerals and countless details in the organization of the new church to be attended to.

"I ought to tell you that a curious and unexpected thing had happened. Fisherfolk, street gamins, caddies, loafers on the docks and in the livery stables, millionaires and million-heiresses—people who had thought themselves either above or below religion—came to our meetings. Each resembled in numbers a political rally.

"We have started an improvement school for Sunday evenings, in which the great story is told in lectures and fine photographs thrown on a screen. And not only the great story, but any story calculated to inspire and enlighten the youthful mind. The best of the world's work and art and certain of the great novels will be presented in this way. I am going to get the great men of the world to give us three-minute sermons on the phonograph. Thus I hope to make it possible for our people to hear the voices and sentiments of kings, presidents, premiers, statesmen, and prophets—the men and women who are making history.

"We have started a small country club where poor boys and girls can enjoy billiards, bowling, golf, and tennis. Any boy or girl in this town who has a longing for better things is sought and found by our ministers, and all kinds of encouragement are offered. People and clergy of almost every faith that is known here in Pointview are working side by side for one purpose. Think of that! The revolution has been complete and mainly peaceful. As to the expense of it all, we tax the rich, and for the rest we temper the wind to the length of their wool.

"Of course, there were certain people who didn't like it, and among them was Deacon Joe. He and four others hired a minister, and sat in lonely sorrow in the old church every Sunday, until the expense sickened them. Then the Deacon got mad at the town, and refused to be seen in it.

"'Reach everybody,' had been one of our mottoes, and Deacon Joe said that he guessed we wouldn't reach him."



XVI

WHICH PRESENTS AN INCIDENT IN OUR CAMPAIGN AGAINST NEW NEW ENGLAND

"We had some adventures in new New England which ought to be set down. Here's one of them.

"The old village of Trent lies back in the hills, a little journey from Pointview, on the shores of a pleasant river. To the unknowing traveler, who approaches from either hilltop, it has a peaceful and inviting look. But the rutted, rocky road begins at once to excite suspicion. A bad road is an indication and a producer of degeneracy in man and beast. It tends to profanity, and if it went far would probably lead to hell. Trent itself is one of the little modern hells of New England. There are the venerable and neatly fashioned houses of the old-time Yankee—the peaked roofs and gables, the columns, the cozy verandas, the garden spaces. But the old-time Yankees are gone. The well-kept gardens are no more. Many of the houses are going to ruin. One is an Italian tenement. The others are inhabited by coachmen, chauffeurs, gardeners, mill-hands, and degenerate Yankees. The inn is a mere barroom. Sounds of revelry and the odor of stale beer come out of it. In front are teams of burden, abandoned, for a time, by their drivers, and sundry human signs of decay loafing in the shadow of the old lindens. Among them are the seedy remnants of a once noble race. They are fettered by 'rheumatiz' and the disordered liver. They move like boats dragging their anchors. To make life tolerable their imaginations need assistance. They are like the Flub Dubs of lost Atlantis. Each imagines himself the greatest man in the village. They talk in loud words. They quarrel and fight over the crown. So it has been a brawling, besotted community.

"Trent's leading citizen is a Yankee politician who owns most of its real estate and derives a profit from its lawless traffic. Trent has been his enterprise.

"Knowles went over there one day to conduct a funeral, which was interrupted by a dog-fight under the coffin and nearly broken up by a row over two dollars which had been found in a pocket of the dead man.

"We opened a club-house next to the hotel, and began a campaign for the regeneration of Trent. Soon we discovered that its one officer was unwilling to arrest offenders against law and order. We had him removed and a new man put in his place. This man was set upon and severely beaten, and lost interest in the good work. Then Harry applied for the job and got it. He took with him a force of husky young men—mostly college boys. The first day on duty he arrested in the street a drunken man who carried in his hands a small sack of potatoes. The latter whistled for help, and the enemies of law and order swarmed out of their haunts. Harry had become an expert ball pitcher, noted for speed and accuracy. He floored his man and took possession of the potatoes, with which he proceeded to defend himself. Only two balls were pitched, but they held the enemy in check until Harry's deputies had rushed out of the club-house. A flying wedge scattered the crowd. No further violence was needed. The ruffians saw that he meant business and had the nerve and muscle to carry it through, and nothing more was necessary—just then.

"They took the drunken man to the lock-up, and came back and got a bartender, and led him in the same path. Harry has the situation well in hand, and is the most popular man in our community. Every day we have items to put to his credit, and nothing to charge against his reputation. There's something going on at the club every evening, and the rooms are crowded. Those men who had sat day by day brawling under the lindens now spend most of their leisure in the reading and card rooms. Peace reigns in Trent. Such is the power of united benevolence working with the strong hand and the courageous spirit."



XVII

WHICH PRESENTS A DECISIVE INCIDENT IN OUR CAMPAIGN AGAINST OLD NEW ENGLAND

"Harry was pretty well disabled with affection for a time. He was like a Yankee with the 'rheumatiz,' and you know when a Yankee gets hold of the 'rheumatiz' he hangs on. It don't often get away from him. It becomes an asset—a conservational asset—an ever-present help in time of haying.

"Since Harry's return the tactics of Marie had been faultless. Her eyes had said, 'Come on,' while her words had firmly held him off. He shook the tree every time they met, but the squirrel wouldn't come down.

"It was a hard part for Marie to play, between the pressure of two handsome boys and her duty to grandpapa. The Reverend Robert had won the favor of the old gentleman by turning from tennis to agriculture for exercise. He had gone over to the Benson farm and helped with the spring's work; he had supper there every Sunday evening, after which he conducted a little service for the Deacon's benefit. He was pressing, as they say in golf, and it didn't improve his game. I saw that Marie was not quite so fond of him. I had maintained an attitude of strict neutrality, but could not fail to observe that Marie had begun to lean.

"'You have captured the rest of Pointview, and you ought to be able to take Benson's Hill,' Marie had said to Harry. 'Grandfather is the last enemy of your crusade.'

"It was a timely touch on the accelerator, and Harry began to speed up a little.

"'The farm is so well defended, and there's nothing I dread so much as a hickory cane,' the boy had answered. 'The last visit I made to the farm I wondered whether I was going to convert him to my way of thinking, or he was going to convert me to jelly.'

"Indeed, Deacon Joe stood firm as a mountain. People were saying that the minister would win in a walk, when Marie converted her grandfather by the most remarkable bit of woman's strategy that I ever observed. It was Napoleonic.

"One day in May, Harry came, much excited, to my office. Deacon Joe was about to move to his island, a mile or so off shore. He was going to take Marie with him for an indefinite period. No boat would be permitted to land there except his own and the Reverend Robert's. Marie would be a sort of prisoner. That day she had told him of the plan of her grandfather. In Harry's opinion Knowles had suggested it.

"'Where is the girl's mother?' I asked.

"'On some Cook's tour in Europe, and the old man is crazy as a March hare,' said my young friend. 'He's got a lot of bulldogs over there, and his hired men have been instructed to shoot a hole in any boat that comes near.'

"I went over to the Benson homestead that afternoon, and found Deacon Joe sitting on the piazza.'

"'How are you?' I asked.

"'Not very stout,' said he; 'heart flutters like a ketched bird.'

"'What are you doing for it?'

"'Doctor give me some medicine; I fergit the name of it, but it is the stuff they use to blow up safes with.'

"'Nitroglycerin! The very thing! I hope they will succeed in blowing up your safe.'

"I was pretty close to the old man, and was always very frank with him. He liked opposition, and was as fond of warfare as an Old Testament hero.

"'What, sir?' he asked.

"'There are some folks that have got to be blowed up before you can get an old idea out of their heads,' I went on. 'They are locked up with rust. That's what's the matter with you, Deacon. Your brain needs to be blowed open an' aired. You stored it full of ideas sixty years ago and locked the door for fear they'd get away. They should have been taken out and sorted over at least once a year, and some thrown into the fire to make room for better ones. If life does you any good, if it really teaches you anything, your brain must keep changing its contents.'

"The Deacon hammered the table with his cane, as he shouted:

"'You cussed fool of a lawyer! Don't you know that truth never changes? Truth, sir, is eternal.'

"Then I took the bat. 'Truth often changes, but error is eternal,' I said. 'You know when you want to prove anything, these days, you quote from the memoirs of a great man. Well, I was reading the memoirs of the late Doctor Godfrey Vogeldam Guph not long ago. He told of a man who was very singular, but not so singular as the doctor seemed to think. This man knew more than any human being has a right to know. He knew the plans of God, and had formed an unalterable opinion about all his neighbors. Then he locked up his mind and guarded it night and day, for fear that somebody would break in and carry off its contents. And it did seem as if people wanted to get hold of his treasure, for they often came and asked about it, and some even questioned its value. He said, "Away with you—truth is eternal, and my soul is full and I will part with none of it."

"'Meanwhile the truth about things around him began to change. Neighbor Smith became a good man. Neighbor Brown became a bad man. Priscilla Jones, who had been a vain and foolish woman, was one of the saints of God. The foundations of the world had changed. In a generation it had grown millions of years older and different—wonderfully different! Even God himself had changed, it would seem. His methods were not as people had thought them. His character was milder. Everything had changed but this one man. Now when he died and came to St. Peter, the latter said to him:

"'"Who were your friends?"

"'The new-comer thought a minute, and mentioned the names of some people who had been long dead. "They know the truth about me," he said.

"'"Ah, but the truth changes, and they haven't seen you in many years," said St. Peter.

"'"But I have not changed," said the man. "I am just as when they saw me."

"'"Then you are a fool or the chief of sinners," said St. Peter. "Behold a man as changeless as the flint-stone, who has made no friends in over forty years! That is all I need to know about you. Take either gate you please."

"'"One leads to Heaven—doesn't it?" said the new-comer, in great alarm.

"'"Yes, but you wouldn't recognize the place. There isn't a soul in paradise that cares which way you go—not a soul in all its multitude that will be glad to see you. They have better company. Stranger! go which way you please, Heaven will be as uncomfortable as hell."

"Deacon Joe gave me close attention, and I saw that my sword had nicked him a little. Anything that affected his hope of Paradise was sure to engage his thought. He shook his head, and said that he didn't believe it. But he couldn't fool me. I knew that the seed of change had struck into him.

"I gave him another thrust. 'Deacon, you knew Harry Delance when he was a fool. But the truth about him has changed. He is now a hard-working, level-headed young fellow, and you ought to be his friend.'

"'Wal, I like the way he cuffed them fellers over at Trent,' said the Deacon. 'He pounded 'em noble—that's sartin. Mebbe if he licks a few more men I'll begin to like him.'

"'Give him a chance,' was my answer. 'I hear that you are going to move for the summer.'

"'Goin' to my island to-morrow,' said Deacon Joe. 'I'm sick of the autymobiles an' the young spendthrifts hangin' around Marie, an' her extravagance, an' the new church nonsense, an' the other goin's-on. I've got a good house there, an' Marie an' I are goin' to rest an' stroll around without bein' run over until her mother comes back. The only trouble I have there is the hired men. They rob me right an' left. I wish somebody would lick them.'

"'You really need a young man like Harry,' I urged. 'And Marie needs him. She'll be lonely over there.'

"'Not a bit,' said the Deacon. 'She'll have a saddle-horse, and young Knowles can come over once a week, if he wants to. I hear he's done splendid lately.'

"'He's doing well, but I am inclined to think that Harry is the better man,' I said, taking sides for the first time.

"'I don't believe it,' was the answer of Deacon Joe. 'Knowles is getting pretty sensible, and his voice is stronger.'

"The Deacon moved next day, and when Sunday came I went over in a boat with the Reverend Robert at eight o'clock in the morning. I was taking a stroll on the beach when I met him, and he asked me to go along. It was just a social call, he explained. Incidentally, he was going to pray and read a Scripture lesson at the Deacon's request. As we left the dock, Harry came riding by on one of his thoroughbreds and I waved my hand to him. When we got to the Deacon's landing, I said to Robert:

"'As I am not invited, perhaps you had better announce me to Deacon Joe, while I stay here in the boat.'

"'All right,' he said, as he gaily jumped ashore and tied the painter rope.

"Robert hurried in the direction of the little house, and had covered half the distance, when a bulldog came sneaking toward him. Robert saw the dog, and ran for a tree. He was making handsome progress up the trunk of the tree when the dog reached him, and, seizing a leg of his trousers, began to surge backward. The cloth parted at the knee, and between the pulling of man and dog, Robert lost about all the lower end of one trousers-leg. The hired man came running out with some more dogs, and said:

"'It's all right, Mr. Knowles, you can come down. I hope he didn't hurt you.'

"'Excuse me,' said the young man, 'but I think I'll stay here a while.'

"Three dogs stood at the foot of the tree looking anxiously upward.

"'They won't hurt you while I'm here,' said the hired man.

"'I won't take any chances,' said Robert. 'Go shut up your lions, and I'll come down.'

"'Who's that in the boat?' the hired man asked.

"'Mr. Potter,' said Robert.

"'Well, he mustn't land 'less the old man says so—I don't care who he is.'

"Just then the hired man changed his position suddenly, and stood looking into the sky. I turned and saw an aeroplane coming down like some great bird from the hills, behind the village. It sailed high above the spires, and coasted down to a level some fifty feet above the water-plane between shore and island. In a minute or so it roared over me, circled the point, and came down in the open field that faced the Deacon's cottage. Dogs and chickens flew and ran in great confusion as it swooped to earth. I knew that Harry and his new flier had reached the island of Deacon Joe, and I hurried ashore to see—well, 'to see what I could see,' as the old song has it. Harry jumped from his seat. The hired man ran toward him. Deacon Joe and Marie and a woman-servant hurried out-of-doors.

"In less time than it takes to tell it, Harry had licked the hired man, and kicked two dogs in the belly till they ran for life, and shot another one, and was chasing a second hired man around the wood-shed. Not being able to run fast enough to do further damage, Harry came to the astonished group in front of the house and caught Marie in his arms and kissed her.

"Then he turned to the Deacon, and said: 'Sir, I will keep off your island if you wish, but I do not propose to be bluffed when I come to pay my compliments to you and Marie.'



"Deacon Joe was dumb with astonishment. The young minister came down out of his tree and walked slowly toward the group, with rags flapping over one extremity of his union-suit. He looked like a man with a wooden leg.

"'How did ye get here?' Deacon Joe demanded of Harry.

"'Jumped from the top of Delance's Hill and landed right here,' said the latter.

"'In that awful-lookin' thing?' the Deacon asked, pointing with his cane and squinting at the big biplane.

"'In that thing,' Harry answered.

"'How long did it take ye?'

"'About five minutes.'

"'It's impossible,' said the Deacon, as he approached the biplane and began to look at it.

"'But you'll see me jump back again in a little while,' Harry assured him.

"'Geehanniker!' the Deacon exclaimed. 'Jumped from the top of Delance's Hill an' licked my caretaker an' chased a hired man an' sp'ilt two dogs an' treed the minister and kissed the lady o' the house—all in about ten minutes. I guess you're a good deal of a feller.'

"It was the kind of thing that warmed the warrior soul of the Deacon.

"'Hello—here's a dead dog,' said Harry. 'If you'll have one of the men bring me a shovel I'll bury him there in the garden. Meanwhile you may tell me how much I owe you for the two dogs.'

"'I guess about twenty-five dollars,' said the Deacon.

"'How much off for cash?' Harry asked.

"'Wal, sir, if you ain't goin' to ask me to charge it, ten dollars would do,' the Deacon allowed.

"'There's a wonderful power in cash,' said Harry, as he produced the money.

"'You're gettin' some sense in your head,' said the Deacon.

"The shovel was brought; and Harry, who had expected to shoot a dog or two and had been practising for this very act, put his victim under three feet of soil in as many minutes. That also pleased the Deacon.

"'Purty cordy, too,' the latter said, as he turned to Marie. 'Now, girl, take your choice. I want to know which is which, an' stop bein' bothered about it.'

"She made her choice then and there, and as to which of the two it may have been you will have no doubt when I tell you that Marie had planned every detail in this bit of strategy and Harry had been man enough to put it through.

"'You know Zeb's commandment has been a help to me,' he said, when I offered congratulations. '"Be brave with your life, for it is very long."'

"The Deacon has changed. His heart and mind are open. Every Sunday you may see him in a front seat, drinking at the new fount of inspiration; and it is a rule of his life to make a new friend every day. I'm inclined to think that the old man has been saved at last.

"Yes, we try to reach everybody in one way or another."

THE END