Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

"I would rather give John up a thousand times than have you like Jake
Vodell," she said. "You shan't even think that way."

When she was gone, Peter Martin filled and lighted his pipe again, and for another hour sat alone.

Whether or not his thoughts bore any relation to the doctrines of Jake Vodell, they led the old workman, on the following day, to pay a visit to Adam Ward at his home on the hill.

CHAPTER XXII

OLD FRIENDS

It was Sunday morning and the church bells were ringing over the little city as the old workman climbed the hill to Adam Ward's estate.

There was a touch of frost in the air. The hillside back of the interpreter's hut was brown. But the sun was bright and warm and in every quarter of the city the people were going to their appointed places of worship. The voice of the Mill was silenced.

Pete wondered if he would find Adam at home. He had not thought about it when he left the cottage—his mind had been so filled with the object of his visit to the man who had once been his working comrade and friend.

But Adam Ward was not at church.

The Mill owner's habits of worship were very simply regulated. If the minister said things that pleased him, and showed a properly humble gratification at Adam's presence in the temple of God, Adam attended divine services. If the reverend teacher in the pulpit so far forgot himself as to say anything that jarred Adam's peculiar spiritual sensitiveness, or failed to greet this particular member of his flock with proper deference, Adam stayed at home and stopped his subscription to the cause. Nor did he ever fail to inform his pastor and the officers of the congregation as to the reason for his nonattendance; always, at the time, assuring them that whenever the minister would preach the truths that he wanted to hear, his weekly offerings to the Lord would be renewed. Thus Adam Ward was just and honest in his religious life as he was in his business dealings. He was ready always, to pay for that which he received, but, as a matter of principle, he was careful always to receive exactly what he paid for.