“Out with it, Deac’n—ye had a meetin’ las’ night to see what was to be done with the impenitent. I was there—that is, I sot on a stool jest outside the door, an’ I heerd all ’twas said. Ye didn’t agree on nothin’—mebbe ye’v fixed it up sence. Any how, ye’v sot me down fur one of the impenitent, an’ yer goin’ fur me. Well——” “Go on nailin’,” interrupted the economical Deacon, a little testily; “the noise don’t disturb me; I can hear ye.” “Well, what way am I so much wickeder ’n you be—you an’ t’other folks at the meetin’-house?” asked Hay. “George, I never saw ye in God’s house in my life,” replied the Deacon. “Well, s’pose ye hevn’t—is God so small He can’t be nowheres ‘xcept in your little meetin’-house? How about His seein’ folks in their closets?” “George,” said the Deacon, “ef yer a prayin’ man, why don’t ye jine yerself unto the Lord’s people?” “Why? ’Cos the Lord’s people, as you call ’em, don’t want me. S’pose I was to come to the meetin’-house in these clothes—the only ones I’ve got—d’ye s’pose any of the Lord’s people ’d open a pew-door to me? An’ s’pose my wife an’ children, dressed no better ’n I be, but as good ’s I can afford, was with me, how d’ye s’pose I’d feel?” “Pride goeth before a fall, an’ a haughty sperit before,” groaned the Deacon, when the carpenter again interrupted. “I’d feel as ef the people of God was a gang of insultin’ hypocrites, an’ ez ef I didn’t ever want to see ’em again. Ef that kind o’ pride’s sinful, the devil’s a saint. Ef there’s anythin’ wrong about a man’s feelin’ so about himself and them God give him, God’s to blame for it himself; but seein’ it’s the same feelin’ that makes folks keep ’emselves strait in all other matters, I’ll keep on thinkin’ it’s right.” “But the preveleges of the Gospel, George,” remonstrated the Deacon. “Don’t you s’pose I know what they’re wuth?” continued the carpenter. “Haven’t I hung around in front of the meetin’-house Summer nights, when the winders was open, jest to listen to the singin’ and what else I could hear? Hezn’t my wife ben with me there many a time, and hevn’t both of us prayed an’ groaned an’ cried in our hearts, not only ’cos we couldn’t join in it all ourselves, but ’cos we couldn’t send the children either, without their learnin’ to hate religion ’fore they fairly know’d what ’twas? Haven’t I sneaked in to the vestibule Winter nights, an’ sot just where I did last night, an’ heard what I’d ’a liked my wife and children to hear, an’ prayed for the time to come when the self-app’inted elect shouldn’t offend the little ones? An’ after sittin’ there last night, an’ comin’ home and tellin’ my wife how folks was concerned about us, an’ our rejoicin’ together in the hope that some day our children could hev the chances we’re shut out of now, who should come along this mornin’ but one of those same holy people, and Jewed me down on pay that the Lord knows is hard enough to live on.”