After a moment of puzzled thought Phillida comprehended that this way of speaking of disease was a part of the liturgy of Christian Science. She could not persuade Mr. Martin into the parlor; he waited in the vestibule while she got ready to go. Once out on the wet sidewalk he said:
"It's all the fault of the infant-class teacher, down at the Mission."
"What is the fault of the infant-class teacher, Mr. Martin?" asked Phillida with some surprise.
"This seeming sore throat of Tommy's."
"How can that be? I don't understand."
"Well, you see she talked to the children last Sunday about swearing and other such sins of speech. Now sin and disease are cor—what-you-may-call-it. Tommy he came home with that big head of his running on the talk about swearing, and in two days here he is with a—a belief in a sore throat. If I had my way I'd take the children out of Sunday-school. But mother will have her own way, you know, and I ain't anywhere when it comes to anything like that."
Phillida said nothing in reply to this, and presently Mr. Martin began again:
"It ain't my doing, the getting you to come and pray for Tommy. I wanted somebody ruther more scientific; Miss Bowyer she knows the cause and effect of things. But mother ain't enlightened yet, and she declared up and down against Miss Bowyer. And I declared up and down against doctors that can only cure sickness on the mortal plane. So, you see, we comp'omised on you. But I let mother know that if she would be so obs'inate ag'inst Miss Bowyer I wa'n't risponsible for the consequences; they'd be on her head. She can't say that I'm risponsible."
Phillida shuddered, and made a motion as of drawing her sack more closely about her.
"Though for that matter," Martin went on, "Tommy's kind of settled the thing himself. He declared up and down that he didn't want Miss Bowyer, and he declared up and down he didn't want a man doctor. What he wanted was Dick's Sunday-school teacher. And neither one of us kind of liked to refuse him anything, seeing he's sick; and so that kind of settled it. And so the risponsibility'll be—I don't know where—unless it's on you."