“And you wouldn’t feel ashamed of me if I handled a shovel or dug in the street?”
“I’d be the proudest woman in the town, Donny; you are just your fine dear self, whatever you do; and if you have the courage to put your pride in your pocket and work in overalls, that would make you all the finer to me. Manual work would relieve the tension of your nerves. You seem to be in fairly good physical condition. Don’t you worry one bit about me. I am going to wash some lace curtains for Mrs. Roscoe-Jones, and that will keep me out of mischief. Now, if you will allow me, I am going to tear up 242 that sermon on foreign missions, and start a little home mission of my own by sending you to bed.”
The second morning after this ruthless destruction of Maxwell’s eloquent plea for the mission at Bankolulu, Danny Dolan drove up to the tent-rectory at half-past six, and Maxwell emerged and jumped up by Danny’s side, dressed in a rather soiled suit of overalls: Danny was a teamster, a good looking youth, and a devoted friend of Maxwell’s since the parson had taken care of him and his family through an attack of malignant diphtheria. But while Danny was a most loyal friend, he was not of the emotional type, and so, when Maxwell had seated himself comfortably and had lighted his briar pipe, Danny started down the road at a vigorous pace, grinning broadly at Maxwell’s attire as he remarked:
“So you’re really goin’ to work like the rest of us, I reckon.”
“Right you are, Danny—four days a week, anyhow. Don’t I look like the real thing?”
“Sure you do; only you better not shave every day, and you’ll have to get your hands dirty before you can fool anybody, and maybe your face’ll give you away even then. Be you comfortable in them clothes?”
“Sure thing; I’m never so contented as I am in working clothes.” 243
“That’s all right. You’re the stuff. But how about the proper old maids in the parish who ogle and dance around you; they won’t cotton to your clothes a little bit. They’ll think you’re degradin’ of yourself and disgracin’ of the parish. Here you be ridin’ on a stone wagon, and you don’t look a bit better than me, if I do say it.”
“I’m afraid they’ll have to survive the shock somehow or other; a man has to dress according to his work.”
“Hm! Now there’s that there Mrs. Roscoe-Jones and Miss Bascom; I’ll bet if they saw you in that rig they’d throw a fit.”