Two hours later the two returned full of enthusiasm. Leslie was brimming over.
“O Cloudy, we’re going to give this sleepy old town the surprise of a lifetime! We’re going to have a grand time to-morrow night, just getting all the members together and doping it out what to do. And you ought to hear Allison talk! He’s just like a man! He made a wonderful speech telling them how they ought to get together, and everybody do teamwork and all that, like they do in football; and they asked him to make it over again to-morrow night, and he’s going to!”
Leslie’s eyes were shining with pride, and she looked at her brother lovingly. He flushed embarrassedly.
“Well, what could you do, Cloudy? There they 198 were sitting like a lot of boobs, and nobody knowing what to do except that Jane Bristol. She’s the only sensible one of the bunch, and they don’t listen to her. They made me mad, ignoring her suggestions the way they did; so I had to speak up and say she was right; and I guess I talked a lot more when I got started, because she really had the right dope, all right, and they ought to have had sense enough to know it. She’s been in this work before, and been to big State conventions and things. Say, Cloudy, that Christian Endeavor stuff must be a pretty big thing. It seems to have members all over the world, and it’s really a kind of international fraternity. I rather like their line. It’s stiff all right, but that’s the only way if you’re going into a thing like that.”
“And how did the praying go?” asked Julia Cloud, watching her boy’s handsome, eager face as he talked.
“All right,” he evaded reticently.
“He prayed, Cloudy!” announced Leslie proudly. “It was regular!”
“Well, what could a fellow do?” said Allison apologetically, as if he had done something he was half ashamed of. “That poor girl prayed something wonderful, and then they all sat and sat like a parcel of boobs until you could feel her cheeks getting red, and nobody opening their mouths; so I started in. I didn’t know what to say, but I thought somebody ought to say something. I did the best I knew how.”
“It was regular, Cloudy!” repeated Leslie with shining eyes.
“Well, it got ’em started, anyhow,” said Allison. “That was all that mattered.”