"William, stop! You are hurting Brother Sears's feelings and appealing to the worst passions in the rest of your congregation!"
But it was too late. Suddenly Sears arose and strode out of the house. Five minutes later William closed with a few leaping flame sentences and sat down, so much carried away with the sincerity of his own performance that he had not even noticed Sears's departure.
When he discovered the sensation he had created and the enormity of his chief steward's indignation, he was far from repentant. He simply withdrew and devoted an extra hour a day to special prayer for Brother Sears. It was no use to advise him that he might as well cut off the electric current and then try to turn on the light as to pray for a man like Sears. He had a faith in prayer that no mere reasoning could obstruct or circumvent. And the nearer I come to the great answer to all prayers, the more I am convinced that he was right. But in those days I almost suspected William of cheating in the claims he made for the efficacy of prayer. Thus, in the case of Brother Sears, to all appearances it was I who brought about a reconciliation by readjusting one of the little short circuits of his perverse nature.
Brothers Sears was a man who loved to excel his fellow-man even in the smallest things. He not only felt a first-place prominence in the little society of the village, he strove to surpass the least person in it if there was any point of competition between them. It would have been a source of mortification to him if the shoemaker had grown a larger turnip than he had grown.
William and I were walking by his garden one day, after he had sulked for a month, and saw him standing in the midst of it with a lordly air. William would have passed him by with a sorrowful bow, but I hailed him:
"Good afternoon, Brother Sears! You have a beautiful garden, but I believe our pole beans are two inches taller than yours on the cornstalk."
He was all competitive animation at once, measured the curling height of his tallest bean vine, and insisted upon coming home with us to measure ours, which, thank heavens, were four inches shorter.
He was so elated over this victory that he apparently forgave William on the spot for his Dives sermon, and handed him ten dollars on quarterage to indicate the return of his good will.
"Mary," said William, staring down happily at the crisp bill in his hand as Sears disappeared, "never say again that the Lord does not answer prayer!"
For a moment I felt a flash of resentment. Who was it that had had the courage to beard Sears in his own garden? Who had tolled him all the way across town into our garden to measure our bean stalk? Who was it that had thought up this method of natural reconciliation, anyhow? Not William, walking beside us in sad New Testament silence. Then, suddenly, my crest fell. After all, I was merely the instrument chosen by which William's prayers for Sears had been answered. To his faith we owed this reaction of grace, not to me, who had not uttered a single petition for the old goat.