“All the more reason for keeping Guy at home and setting him to work. Now if I chose to send Noah to college, I could afford it,” added the deacon, proudly.
“Why don’t you do it, then?” asked Mr. Ainsworth.
“Noah doesn’t care to go. He wants to be a business man.”
“I wouldn’t give him a place in my store,” thought Ainsworth, “if he would work for nothing.”
Of course he didn’t say this.
On the whole, Deacon Crane didn’t find as much sympathy as he expected in his opposition to the minister, but he succeeded in converting half a dozen heads of families to his views. They were not persons of much importance, but, instigated by the deacon, they talked a good deal, and managed to convey the impression that there was really considerable dissatisfaction with Mr. Fenwick.
Finally, Deacon Crane thought the time had come to call upon the minister, and let him know how matters stood, or rather how he wished matters to stand.
So one evening he took his cane, and made his way to the parsonage.
Mr. Fenwick was at work upon his sermon for the coming Sunday, but he laid down his pen and greeted the deacon cordially.
“I hear that your son hasn’t come home on the Osprey, Brother Fenwick,” the deacon began.