Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/224

 guished from the old by being "dry religion." But these were intricacies with which a woman of Miss Caroline's years could not be expected to entangle herself. This she would say, however, that during her residence in Little Arcady she would fling aside the prejudice of a lifetime and worship each Sabbath at the minister's Methodist church.

It did not seem to the minister that she said it as might an explorer who consents for a time to adopt the manner and customs of the tribe among which a spirit of adventure has led him. He accepted her implied tribute modestly and with unaffected gratification, again wiping his brow and his broad, good face.

When I joined them at four o'clock, having been moved by hope of a cooling chat with Miss Caroline, the minister was slightly more flushed, I thought, than the day could warrant. He was about to leave, was, in fact, concluding his choicest anecdote of "Big Joe" Kestril—for he was a man who met all our kinds. "Big Joe," six feet, five, a tower of muscled brawn, standing on a corner, pleasantly inebriated, had watched go feebly by the tottering, palsied form of little old Bolivar Kent, our most aged and richest man. The minister, also passing, had observed Kestril's humorous stare.

"The big fellow called to me," he was saying to Miss Caroline as I came up. "'Parson,' said he—they all know me familiarly, madam—'Parson,' said he, 'I wish I could take all I'm worth and all old