ed palms could not keep the sound from
his ears.

IV

Each night the gathering at Vieux Michaud's became larger; it grew too
large for the house, and presently overflowed into the yard behind,
where Michaud kept his lumber. Generally thirty or forty natives
collected between six and seven in the evening, roosting on the piled
boards or sitting on the dusty ground in little groups, their
cigarettes puncturing the blue darkness that clung close to the earth
under the young moon. There were few women among them at first and
fewer young men; Simpson, who knew that youth ought to be more
hospitable to new ideas than age, thought this a little strange and
spoke to Michaud about it.

"But they are my friends, m'sieu'," answered Michaud.

The statement might have been true of the smaller group that Simpson
had first encountered at the carpenter's house; it was not true of the
additions to it, for he was evidently not on intimate terms with them.
Nor did he supply rum for all of them; many brought their own. That
was odd also, if Simpson had only known it; the many _cantinas_
offered attractions which the carpenter's house did not. That fact
occurred to him at length.

"They have heard of you, m'sieu'--and that you have something new to
say to them. We Haytians like new things."

Thus, very quietly, almost as though it had been a natural growth of
interest, did Simpson's ministry begin. He stepped one evening to the
platform that overhung the carpenter's backyard, and began to talk.
Long study had placed the missionary method at his utter command, and
he began with parables and simple tales which they heard eagerly.
Purposely, he eschewed anything striking or startling in this his
first sermon. It was an attempt to establish a sympathetic
understanding between himself and his audience, and not altogether an
unsuccessful one, for his motives were still unmixed. He felt that he
had started well; when he was through speaking small groups gathered
around him as children might have done, and told him inconsequent,
wandering tales of their own--tales which were rather fables, folklore
transplanted from another hemisphere and strangely crossed with
Christianity. He was happy; if it had not been that most of them wore
about their necks the leather pouches that were not scapulars he would
have been happier than any man has a right to be. One of these
pouches, showing through the ragged shirt of an old man with thin lips
and a