"I thought you couldn't," Jock returned calmly; "and you shan't if you don't want to."
"Thank you. Don't let them feel hurt, but I could not go."
Jock cast a sympathetic glance toward her; and changed the subject.
"It's wonderful the grip that weak little Reverend has already got on this town," he went on. "He's a sly one. Preaching ain't in it with the undercurrent he's let loose here. It's just sapping the foundations of society. It's setting free a lot of good stuff, but it's striking Tate an all-fired blow."
"Tell me about it, Jock. It seems as if I had been asleep a—long while."
"Well there are sermons and sermons." Jock was flattered by the look in Joyce's large eyes. "If the Reverend Kid had opened shop in the regular way, Tate and his pals would have downed him in no time; but what you going to do about sermons that are slipped in with talks to women over their wash-tubs, and what not?
"Him and me was going by Falstar's the other day, and Peggy was washing uncommon hard. Drew, he steps close to the tubs and says he, 'I tell you, Mrs. Falstar, I don't know no better religion than getting the spots out instead of slighting them. It's like the little Scotch girl who said she knew when she got religion, for she had to sweep under the mats.' Peggy was all a-grin, and Lord! how she went at it. Later, she attacked the mats. It had set her thinking. I saw 'em hanging out, and she beating them as she must often feel like beating Pete." A real laugh greeted this, and Jock glowed with approval.
"And then what does that young lunger do, but gather in all the floating population in the kid line, and play games with 'em, and read thrillers to 'em up at the bungalow every evening. He's teaching them as wants to learn, too. He's got Tate flamgasted. You see, the old man depended, for the future, on them youngsters that haunted the tavern and got the drippings that fell from within. The Black Cat Tavern Kindergarten is busted, and the Bungalow stock is going up."
"Kindergarten? What's that, Jock?"
"Oh, it's a new-fangled idea in the way of schools. Sort of breaking up the ground for later planting."