"And he's getting mighty popular, let me tell you, even with them that no other minister could please or get near. There's old Mrs. Rosenwinkle. She loves him just because he never tried to tell her that the earth was round. Why, she says he's as good as any Lutheran. And Hank Lolly said that maybe when that new suit Billy's ordered him out of the new mail-order catalogue gets here, he'll go hear him preach. It seems the minister's been driving around with Hank all over creation and Hank says he can get along with him as easy as he does with Billy.
"And did you hear what he did for Jim Tumley? It seems the minister told Grandma Wentworth what a fine voice Jim had and what an ear for music. And he was most surprised that Jim never even had a second-hand organ of his own in the house but had to go over to his sister's, Mrs. Hoskins, for to play a little tune when the fancy took him. He said it was an awful pity that a man who wanted music so badly and was always so obliging at weddings and funerals and entertainments should be without a proper instrument. And Grandma just said, 'My land, nobody's ever thought of that but I'll speak of it.'
"Well, she did and the consequence is that Mary Tumley is so nervous she can't sleep. She says if she takes the savings out of the bank there won't be enough money for a Keeley cure, or a respectable funeral for Jim in case he dies. She's struggled and struggled but come to the conclusion that it wouldn't be right and would set an awful example to the Luttins next door, who are extravagant enough as it is.
"But it's my notion that Jim Tumley will get his organ and maybe a piano. I saw him going in with Frank Burton on that early morning train and it means something. Besides, Grandma told me that Frank fairly hates himself for not thinking of it before and waiting like a born idiot for a boy to come all the way from India and tell him what to do for his best friend.
"Agnes Tomlins says she's got a good mind to go and see the minister about Hen. She says that if Hen don't quit abusing her and tormenting her she's going to leave him; that her sister Mary over in Aberdeen has a big up-stairs bedroom all aired and waiting for her. It seems that Hen's more than contrarily stubborn lately. He's contradicted Agnes publicly time and again and gone against her in private till Agnes says there's no living with him.
"But she says she would overlook everything except Hen's keeping a secret drawer in his chiffonier. It seems Hen has gone and locked that bottom drawer and Agnes can't either buy or borry a key that will open it. And she can't find where Hen has hid his, try as she may. And when she mentions that drawer to Hen, saying she wants to red up, he lets on like he don't know what she's talking about but he does, because he told Doc Philipps, when he went to see about his liver, that if he couldn't wear a soft collar or a soft hat like other men and keep a dog and smoke in the house, and eat strawberries or whistle or go to ball games on Sundays and prize fights on the sly, why, there was one thing he could do and would have and that was a drawer, a whole chiffonier drawer, all to himself. And that he bet there weren't many men in Green Valley that could say as much. Hen just swore that he intends to have something all his own and that nobody'll open that drawer except over his dead body.
"Dolly Beatty was sitting in the waiting room and heard him. Of course, she's a great friend of Bessie Williams and told her and Bessie told Laura Enbry and of course it got to Agnes. So she's going to speak to the minister and maybe get a divorce, which will be the first divorce scandal in Green Valley.
"Now that's the sort of thing that goes on in Green Valley. And if the new minister is supposed to calm these troubled waters he's got my sympathy. Joe, I think you're charging me ten cents too much for these patches. They're not as big as the ones you put on the other pair and those were fifty cents."
So without a conscious move on anybody's part Cynthia's son became Green Valley's minister. All the necessary rites gone through, Green Valley accepted him as it accepted the sunshine and rain, the larks and wild roses, and all the other gifts that heaven chose to send.
Roger Allan and Grandma Wentworth began to call him John. But Nanny Ainslee always spoke of him and addressed him as Mr. Knight. And he discovered after a time that for some strange reason he did not like this.