"Well, I guess!" replied Lizzie, holding a large slice of bread on her palm and spreading it with butter for Zwingli.
"I'm even invited to New Munich sometimes to give an address and to Lebanon and even to Reading yet, and that's a big place. You see they know I have the power to hold an audience. I never fail to hold my audience. Did you ever see me fail to hold my audiences, Lizzie?"
"No, indeed, they're always sorry when he stops preaching!" affirmed Lizzie.
"I was once approached by some men who offered to finance me as an evangelist, and if I had consented I'd be as rich a man to-day as brother Daniel is, for there ain't a more money-making profession to-day than Evangelism, every one knows that. Look at Billy Sunday's rake-offs! But I had to refuse them because they wanted me to do a certain thing that my conscience wouldn't leave me do: they said a feature of my evangelistic campaign would have to be addresses to audiences of Women Only, on Eugenics; that you couldn't have a swell, up-to-date evangelistic campaign without that big drawing card. Well, I said I could easy do that; so that part was all right. But when they told me that in order to make it a go, I'd have to interduce into my talk to Women Only, one or two sudgestive remarks, I refused!" said Hiram heroically. "Not one sudgestive remark will I make, I told them. 'Take me or leave me, but I won't make one sudgestive remark to an audience of Women Only!' So," he concluded grandly, "by standing up for my principles, you see, I lost a fortune!"
Margaret glanced, now and then, at Daniel and his sisters to learn from their faces whether they considered Hiram sane; but they, far from looking alarmed or disgusted, seemed to regard the bouquets he flung at himself as a personal tribute to themselves, his near relatives, who could at least inhale their fragrance.
"Yes, Hiram's a born preacher, that I will say," remarked Jennie.
"Yes, from a little boy, yet, he always wanted to be a preacher," added Sadie.
"He's got the gift all right," affirmed Daniel emphatically.
An expectant pause, just here, made Margaret realize that they were waiting for her to cast her bouquet at Hiram's feet. She was an amiable creature and would have been perfectly willing to oblige them if her wits had been more agile; but for the life of her she could think of nothing to say that would not too deeply perjure her soul.
Her silence, however, in no way daunted Hiram.