The governor's questions did not refer to the great world,--it seemed as though the world had become of no account to him,--but to Millerstown, the Millerstown of his youth, of apple-butter matches, of raffles, of battalions, of the passing through of troops to the war, of the rough preachers of a stirring age. He remembered many things which his brothers had forgotten; they and the younger folk listened entranced. As for Bevy, moving about on tiptoe, so as not to miss a word,--it was a marvel that she was able to finish the dinner. "He traveled on horseback," said the governor. "He had nothing to his name in all the world but his horse and his old saddlebags, and he visited the people whether they wanted him or not. At our house he was always welcome,--he stayed once a whole winter,--and on Sundays he used to give it to us in church, I can tell you! Everything he'd yell out that would come into his mind. One Sunday he yelled at me, 'There you stand in the choir, and you couldn't get a pig's bristle between your teeth. Sing out, Daniel!' "But he could preach powerfully! He made the people listen! There was no sleeping in the church when he was in the pulpit. If the young people did not pay attention, he called right out, 'John, behave! Susy, look at me!'" "We have such a preacher here," said Uncle Edwin in his slow way. "He is a Improved New Mennonite. He--" "They wear hats with Scripture on them, and they sing, 'If you love your mother, keep her in the sky,'" interrupted Katy. "'_Meet_ her in the sky,'" corrected Grandmother Gaumer. "That has some sense to it." "He won't read the words as they are written in the Bible," went on Uncle Edwin, apparently not minding the interruption. He shared with the rest of Katy's kin their foolish opinion of Katy. "He says the words that are printed fine don't belong there, they are put in. It is like riding on a bad road, his reading. It goes bump, bump. It sounds very funny." "He preaches on queer texts," said Katy. "He preached on 'She Fell in Love with her Mother-in-Law.'" "Now, Katy!" admonished Grandmother Gaumer. Bevy Schnepp had endured as much as she could of insult to the denomination to which she belonged and to the preacher under whom she sat. "Your Lutheran preachers have 'kein Saft und kein Kraft, kein Salz und kein Peffer' [no sap and no strength, no salt and no pepper]," she quoted. "They are me too leppish [insipid]. You must give these things a spiritual meaning. It meant Naomi and Ruth." The governor smiled his approval at Bevy. "Right you are, Bevy!" Then he began to ask questions about his former acquaintances. "What has come over John Hartman?" "While he is so cross, you mean?" said Grandfather Gaumer. "I don't know what has come over him. It is a strange thing. He is so long queer that we forget he was ever any other way." "Was he ugly this morning?" asked Grandmother Gaumer. "He didn't ask us to come in and she didn't come to the door at all."