But while nothing Mr. and Mrs. Arnold did for the meetings at their home or anywhere excused them from personal activity in those meetings, no pains or expense in entertaining the preachers were ever a substitute for the regular support of the Gospel by prompt and liberal payment through the stewards. But beyond the regular "quarterage" they appreciated the need of "presents." And probably, in the forty-two years of their active business life together, seldom, if ever, did a Gospel minister make a pastoral visit at their home and go away without carrying with him some little token of the veneration and love there cherished for his holy office and work, or of remembrance of his lone family, so much of the time deprived of his presence, and of many delicacies which he had among his people far away. The "fatted calf," lamb, or fowl would in many places be dressed for his feasting, while the family at home, in some inferior quarters, were having rather dry fare, if not scanty fare; the thought of which would often mar the pleasure of his most sumptuous entertainments. Economical, not to say penurious, stewards demanded an "account of everything given to the preachers;" but Mrs. Arnold insisted that besides salary matters presents were needed, and it was the privilege of that house to give them at pleasure, and the left hand must not know what the right hand conferred. Often the minister himself knew nothing of it until some one of his family searched the box of his carriage seat, which they were not slow to do when it came from certain parts of the circuit--some article of provision for the table, common and plenty enough in the cellar or dairy of the farm, but not certain to be flush in the parsonage; some tidbit or condiment to humor a delicate appetite; some choice fruits or knickknacks for the children; some material from the sheep or flax of the farm spun by her own diligent fingers to be made up in the lonely parsonage for the wife or children, or underwear for the man of God. When the minister's family was within reach of this very busy mother in Israel she would often relieve the loneliness, and sometimes the wants, experienced in his "long rounds" by her visits to the sacred rooms, which in those early years of Methodism were oftener parts of some kind member's home than a regular "parsonage" or "rectory." So when the weary itinerant would return and find that his family had not been entirely neglected in his absence he would take new courage to pursue his toilsome way. As already intimated, Mrs. Arnold usually made the "junior preacher" of the circuit an object of motherly care. He was generally a single man in those early days, and often scarcely out of his boyhood. Many a worn garment was overhauled and repaired; many a pair of new warm socks or mittens was laid with new underwear upon his pillow.