General stores -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction; West (U.S.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"That's what it is. Now, Brother Grateway, that plate was just like
the people you was tellin' me 'bout yesterday, that you was clean
discouraged over. You've been pilin' warnin's an' exhortations on 'em,
an' they didn't seem to mind 'em worth a cent--'peared just as blank
as they ever were. But the pictur' was there, an' there 'twas boun'
to stay, as long as the plate lasted--locked up in them chemicals,
to be sure, but there it was all the same, an' out it came when the
developer was poured on an' soaked in. An' so, John Grateway, all that
you've ever put into them people is there, somewhere--heaven only
knows where an' how, for human natur' 's a mighty sight queerer than
a photograph plate, an' to bring out what's in it takes about as many
kinds o' developer as there are people. Mebbe you haven't got the right
developer, but it's somewhere, waitin' for its time--mebbe it'll be
a big scare, or a dyin' wife, or a mother's trouble. Religious talk
rolled off o' me for years, like water from a duck's back, till one
day I fell between two saw-logs in the crick, an' thought 'twas all up
with me--that was the developer I needed. So when you say your prayers
to-night, don't forget to give thanks for havin' seen a photograph
plate developed, an' after this you go right on takin' pictur's, so to
speak, with all your might, an' when you find you can't finish them,
hearten yourself up by rememberin' that there's Somebody that knows
millions of times as much about the developin' business as you do, an'
gives His entire time an' attention to it."
"Photography is a means of grace, Caleb," said Philip, and Grace joined
in the confession.
XV--CAUSE AND EFFECT
"EVER have any trouble with your bath-tub arrangements?" Caleb asked
Philip one day when both men were at leisure.
"No," said Philip, somewhat surprised at the question.
"Think the man that put 'em in did the work at a fair price?"
"Oh, yes. But what's on your mind, Caleb? It can't be that you're going
to start a plumber in business here? I don't know what cruder revenge a
man could take on his worst enemies."
"No," said Caleb. "Heapin' coals o' fire on a man's head, accordin' to
Scriptur', is my only way o' takin' revenge nowadays. It most generally
does the other feller some good, besides takin' a lot o' the devil
out o' yours truly. But about bathin'--well, I learned the good of
it when I was a hospital nurse for a spell in the army, an' I've been
pretty particular 'bout it ever since, though my bath-tub's only an
army rubber blanket with four slats under the edges, to keep the water
from gettin' away. I've talked cleanliness a good deal for years, an'
told folks that there wa'n't no patent on my kind o' bath-tub; but it
ain't over an' above handy, an' most folks in these parts have so much
to do that they put off any sort o' work that they ain't kicked into
doin'. So, the long an' short of it is that I'm goin' to back a bathin'
establishment, for the use of the general public."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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