“Poor white trash is sometimes converted in church, isn’t it?” asked Mr. Crupp; “and what’s to keep poor white trash from stopping drinking? what but a good, honest, religious, rum-hating neighbor that looks at ’em so savagely and lets ’em alone so hard that they’d take pains to get drunk, just to worry him? I know how you feel toward them; I _saw_ it once: one Sunday I passed you on the road just opposite their place; you was in your wagon takin’ your folks to church, and I--well, I was out trying to shoot a wild turkey, which I mightn’t have been on a Sunday. They were all laughin’ and cuttin’ up in the house--it’s seldom enough such folks get anything to laugh about--and I could just _see_ you groan, and your face was as black as a thunder cloud, and as savage as an oak knot soaked in vinegar. The old man came out just then for an armful of wood, and nodded at you pleasant enough; but that face of yours was too much for him, and pretty soon he looked as if he’d have liked to throw a chunk of wood at your head. I’d have _done_ it, if I’d been him. The old man was awfully drunk when I came back that way, two or three hours later. That was a pretty day’s work for a Son of Temperance, wasn’t it--and Sunday, too?” The casing to Father Baguss’s conscience was not as thick as that to his brain, and he was silent; perhaps the prospect of getting some mill stock aided the good work in his heart. Crupp continued: “I’m a ‘Son’ myself, now, and I know what a man agrees to when he joins a division. If you think you’ve lived up to it--you and the other members of the Barton Division--I suppose you’ve a right to your opinion; but if my ideas, picked up on both sides of the fence, are worth anything to you, they amount to just this: the Sons of Temperance in this town haven’t done anything but help each other not to get back into bad ways again, and to give a welcomin’ hand to anybody that’s strong enough in himself to come into the division with you; and that isn’t the spirit of the order.” Crupp got his sugar, and no one pressed him to stay longer; but, as he slowly departed, as became a soldier who was not retreating but only changing his base, Father Baguss followed him, touched his sleeve as soon as he found himself outside the store door, and said, “Say, Crupp, I’ll try to do something for Tappelmine, though I don’t know yet what it’ll be, an’ I don’t care if you _do_ let me have about five sheers of that mill stock; I s’pose you won’t want more than you paid for it?” CHAPTER IX. SOME VOLUNTEER SHEPHERDS. The mail-stage did not make its appearance at the usual hour on the day following Crupp’s conversation with Father Baguss, and during a lull in the desultory conversation which prevailed among those who were waiting for the mail, the postmaster displayed at his window his large, round face, devoid of its habitual jolly smile, and remarked, “Too bad about Wainright, isn’t it?” “What’s that?” asked half a dozen at once.