The young man shot out of his chair as if Mr. Thompson had fired a dynamite charge beneath him. “Oh, the Devil!” he shrieked, and then subsided, blushing to the back of his neck.
Somehow this interruption took the spirit out of the meeting. Giggles from Luther and the younger element interfered with the solemnity of Mr. Perley's closing remarks, and no one else was brave enough to “testify” under the circumstances. They sang again, and the meeting broke up. The nervous young man was the first one to leave.
Captain Eri got his friend out of the clutches of the “Come-Outers” as quickly as possible, and piloted him down the road toward his home. John Baxter was silent and absent-minded, and most of the Captain's cheerful remarks concerning Orham affairs in general went unanswered. As they turned in at the gate the elder man said:
“Eri, do you believe that man's law ought to be allowed to interfere with God's law?”
“Well, John, in most cases it's my jedgment that it pays to steer pretty close to both of 'em.”
“S'pose God called you to break man's law and keep His; what would you do?”
“Guess the fust thing would be to make sure 'twas the Almighty that was callin'. I don't want to say nothin' to hurt your feelin's, but I should advise the feller that thought that he had that kind of a call to 'beware of imitations,' as the soap folks advertise.”
“Eri, I've got a call.”
“Now, John Baxter, you listen. You and me have been sailin' together, as you might say, for forty odd years. I ain't a religious man 'cordin' to your way of thinkin', but I've generally found that the Lord runs things most as well as us folks could run 'em. When there's a leak at one end of the schooner it don't pay to bore a hole at the other end to let the water out. Don't you worry no more about Web Saunders and that billiard saloon. The s'lectmen 'll attend to them afore very long. Why don't you go up to Boston for a couple of weeks? 'Twill do you good.”
“Do you think so, Eri? Well, maybe 'twould—maybe 'twould. Sometimes I feel as if my head was kind of wearin' out. I'll think about it.”