Jason Locker forbade his son his home if ever he were seen in the hussy's company again, and Homer left by the front door.... He announced his purpose of journeying to the South Seas or New York, or some other equally strange and dangerous shore. The town seethed. It had been years since any local sensation approached this high moment.... At half past six Pliny Pickett, Scattergood's right-hand man and general errand boy, was seen to approach Homer on the street and to whisper to him. Pliny always enshrouded his most matter-of-fact errands with voluminous mystery. "Scattergood wants you sh'u'd see him right off," he said, and tiptoed away. Another sensation occurred that evening. Scattergood Baines went to prayer meeting in the Methodist church. When word of this was passed about, the Baptists and Congos deserted their places of worship in whispering groups and invaded the rival edifice until it was crowded as it had seldom been before. Scattergood in prayer meeting! Scattergood, who had never been inside a church since the day of his arrival in Coldriver, forty years before.... Even Yvette Hinchbrooke and her affairs sank into insignificance. But the amazing presence of Scattergood in church was as nothing to the epochal fact that, after the prayer and hymn, he was seen slowly to get to his feet. Scattergood Baines was going to lift up his voice in meeting! "Folks," he said, "I've knowed Coldriver for quite a spell. I've knowed its good and its bad, but the good outweighs the bad by a darn sight." The congregation gasped. "I run on to a case to-day," he said, and then paused, apparently thinking better of what he was going to say and taking another course. "They's one great way to reach folks's hearts and that's through their sympathy. All of you give up to furrin missions to rescue naked fellers with rings in their noses. That's sympathy, hain't it? Mebby they hain't needin' sympathy and cast-off pants, but that's neither here nor there. You _think_ they do.... Coldriver's great on sympathy, and it's a doggone upstandin' quality." Again the audience sucked in its breath at this approach to the language of everyday life. "If I was wantin' to stir up your sympathy, I'd tell you about a leetle feller I seen yestiddy. Mebby I will. He wa'n't no naked heathen, and he didn't have no ring into his nose. He was jest a boy. Uh-huh! Calculate he might 'a' been ten year old. Couldn't walk a step. Suthin' ailed his laigs, and he had to lay around in a chair in one of these here kind of cheap horspittles. Alone he was. Didn't have no pa nor ma.... But he had to be looked after by somebody, didn't he? Somebody had to pay them bills." Scattergood blew his nose gustily. "Mebby he could 'a' been cured if they was money to pay for costly doctorin', but they wa'n't. It took all that could be got jest to pay for his food and keep.... Patient leetle feller, too, and gentlelike and cheerful. Kind of took to him, I did."