“What is the matter with you men, anyway? You’d have to pay your butcher, or your baker, or your grocer, whether you wanted to or not. Then why in the name of conscience don’t you pay your parson? Certainly religion that don’t cost nothin’ is worse than nothin’. I’ll tell you the reason why you don’t 290 support your parson: It’s just because your rector’s a gentleman, and can’t very well kick over the traces, or balk, or sue you, even if you do starve him. So you, prosperous, big-headed men think that you can sneak out of it. Oh, you needn’t shuffle and look mad; you’re goin’ to get the truth for once, and I had Johnny Mullins lock the front door before I began.”
The whole audience responded to this sally with a laugh, but the speaker relented not one iota. “Then when you’ve smit your rector on one cheek you quote the Bible to make him think he ought to turn his overcoat also.” Another roar. “There: you don’t need to think I’m havin’ a game. I’m not through yet. Now let’s get right down to business. We owe our rector a lot of money, and he is livin’ in a tent because we neglected to pay the interest on the rectory mortgage held by the Senior Warden of our church. Talkin’ plain business, and nothin’ else, turned him out of house and home, and we broke our business contract with him. Yes we did! And now you know it.
“Some of us have been sayin’—and I was one of ’em till Mr. Maxwell corrected me—that it was mean of Mr. Bascom to turn the rector and his wife out of their house. But business is business, and until we’ve paid the last cent of our contributions, we 291 haven’t any right to throw stones at anyone. Wait till we’ve done our part, for that! We’ve been the laughing stock of the whole town because of our pesky meanness. That tent of ours has stuck out on the landscape like a horse fly on a pillow sham.
“It’s not my business to tell how the rector and his wife have had to economize and suffer, to get along at all; or how nice and uncomplainin’ they’ve been through it all. They wouldn’t want me to say anythin’ of that; sportsmen they are, both of ’em. The price of food’s gone up, and the rector’s salary gone down like a teeter on a log.
“Now, as I remarked before, let’s get right down to business. The only way to raise that money is to raise it! There’s no use larkin’ all ’round Robin Hood’s barn, or scampering round the mulberry bush any longer. I don’t care for fairs myself, where you have to go and buy somethin’ you don’t want, for five times what it’s worth, and call it givin’ to the Lord. And I don’t care to give a chicken, and then have to pay for eatin’ the same old bird afterwards. I won’t eat soda biscuit unless I know who made ’em. Church fairs are an invention of the devil to make people think they’re religious, when they are only mighty restless and selfish.
“The only thing to do is to put your hands in your 292 trousers pockets and pay, cash down, just as you would in any business transaction. And by cash, I don’t mean five cents in the plate Sunday, and a dollar for a show on Tuesday. We’ve none of us any business to pretend to give to the Lord what doesn’t cost a red cent, as the Bible says, somewheres. Now don’t get nervous. I’m going to start a subscription paper right here and now. It’ll save lots of trouble, and you ought to jump at the chance. You’ll be votin’ me a plated ice-water pitcher before we get through, for bein’ so good to you—just as a little souvenir of the evenin’.”
A disjointed murmur of disapproval rose from sundry parts of the room at this summary way of meeting the emergency. Nelson, who had tried in vain to catch the eye of the chair, rose at a venture and remarked truculently:
“This is a most unusual proceeding, Mrs. Burke.”
The chair remained immobile—but Hepsey turned upon the foe like a flash of lightning.
“Precisely, Mr. Nelson. And we are a most unusual parish. I don’t claim to have any information gained by world-wide travel, but livin’ my life as I’ve found it here, in ths town, I’ve got to say, that this is the first time I ever heard of a church turnin’ its rector out of house and home, and refusin’ to give 293 him salary enough to buy food for his family. Maybe in the course of your professional travels this thing has got to be an everyday occurrence to you,—but there’s some of us here, that ’aint got much interest in such goings-on, outside of Durford.”