ibbands, selling calico to captious women.

The large, suave figure of the Universalist minister, in grey alpaca coat
and black trousers, approached leisurely over the street, and stopped
before Gordon. The minister had a conspicuously well-fed paunch, his
smooth face expressed placid self-approval, his tones never for a moment
lost the unctuous echo of the pulpiteer.

"You have not worshipped with us lately," he observed. "Remiss, remiss.
Our services have been stirring--three souls redeemed from everlasting
torment at the Wednesday meeting, two adults and a child sealed to Christ
on Sunday."

"I'll drop in," Gordon told him pacifically.

"A casual phrase to apply to the Mansion of the Son," the minister
observed, "more humility would become you.... God, I pray Thee that Thy
fire descend upon this unhappy man and consume utterly away his carnal
envelope. What are you doing?" he demanded abruptly of Gordon.

"Nothing particular just now."

"There are some small occupations about the parsonage--a board or so loose
on the ice house, a small field of provender for the animal. Let us say a
week's employment for a ready man. I could pay but a modest
stipend ... but the privilege of my home, the close communion with our
Maker. You would be as my brother: what do you say?"

Gordon was well aware of the probable extent of the "small occupations,"
the minister's reputation for exacting monumental labors in return for the
"modest stipend" mentioned. However, the proposal furnished Gordon with a
solution for immediate difficulties; it secured him a bed and food, an
opportunity for the maturing of further plans.

He rose, queried, "Shall I go right along?"

"Admirable," the other approved. "My beloved helpmate will show you where
the tools are kept, when you can begin immediately."

Gordon made his way past Simmons' store to the plaster bulk of the
Universalist Church, its lawn shared by the four-square, shingled roof of
the parsonage. Back of both structures reached a small field of heavy
grass, where Gordon labored for the remainder of the day.

Late in the afternoon an aged, gaunt man drove an incongruous, two
wheeled, breaking cart into the stable yard behind the parsonage. After
hitching an aged, gaunt white horse, he approached the field's edge, where
Gordon was harvesting. It was the minister's father-in-law, himself a
clergyman for the half century past, a half century that stretched back
into strenuous, bygone