evening when Grant Adams returned from work he received two
significant notes. One was from John Dexter and ran:

"Dear Grant: Fearing that you may hear of the comment my invitation to
you to speak in my pulpit is causing and fearing that you may either
decide at the last minute not to come or that you will modify your
remarks out of consideration for me, I write to say that while of course
I may not agree with everything you advocate, yet my pulpit is a free
pulpit and I cannot consent that you restrict its freedom in saying your
full say as a man, any more than I could consent to have my own freedom
restricted. Yours in the faith--J. D."

The other note ran: "Father says to tell you to tone it down. I have
delivered his message. I say here is your chance to get the truth where
it is most needed, and even if for the most part it falls on stony
ground--you still must sow it.--L. N. VD."

Sunday evening saw a large congregation in the pews of the Rev. John
Dexter's church. In the front and middle portion of the church were the
dwellers on the Hill, those whose lines fell in pleasant places. They
were the "Haves" of the town,--conspicuous and highly respectable with
rustle of silks and flutter of ribbons.

And back of these sat a score of men and women from South Harvey, the
"Have-nots," the dwellers in the dreary valley. There was Denny Hogan,
late of the mines, but now of the smelter--with his curly hair plastered
over his forehead, and with his wife, she that was Violet Mauling
holding a two-year-old baby with sweaty, curly red hair to her breast
asleep; there was Ira Dooley, also late of the mines, but now proprietor
of a little game of chance over the Hot Dog Saloon; there was Pat
McCann, a pit boss and proud of it, with Mrs. McCann--looking her eyes
out at Mrs. Nesbit's hat. There was John Jones, in his Sunday best, and
Evan Hughes and Tom Williams, the wiry little Welsh miners who had faced
death with Grant Adams five years before. They were with him that night
at the church with all the pride in him that they could have if he were
one of the real nobility, instead of a labor agitator with a little more
than local reputation. And there were Dick and his boy Mugs and the
silent Mrs. Bowman and Bennie her youngest and Mary the next to the
youngest. And Mrs. Bowman in the South Harvey colony was a person of
consequence, for she nodded to the Nesbits and the Mortons and to Laura
and to Mrs. Calvin and to all the old