"Well," spoke up Frank, still thinking of the pleasant passing of what was usually a tiresome train trip, "if Christian Science makes a man as likable and neighborly as that I, for one, approve of Christian Science. What did you say his name was—Hamilton?"
It was because Frank was so willing to let every man worship his God in his very own way that Green Valley, that is the religiously watchful part of it, had decided that Frank was an atheist. For, said these cautious children of God, "He who is willing to believe in all things believes in nothing."
But it wasn't religion that the two men talked that Saturday afternoon. The sun was warm, the lumber dry, the saws sharp and with the work going smoothly along there was plenty of time for talk, talk on all manner of subjects.
Frank's wife had gone over to Randall's to a special meeting of the sewing society. Not only were the women going to cut out and make up little aprons and dresses for the inmates of the nearest orphanage but they intended to discuss several new social problems that confronted Green Valley. The two most vital being "What do you make of that new saloon keeper and his wife?" and "What goes on behind those poolroom curtains, especially nights?"
Not that there was in Green Valley any interfering Civic League or any such thing as a Pure Morals Society. Green Valley had never had to resort to such measures. It had hitherto trusted human nature, Green Valley sunshine and neighborliness to do whatever work of social mending and reforming had to be done.
But something had happened to the big city to the east, some new mayor or some new civic force had stirred things up in that huge caldron of humanity and slopped it over so that it had begun to trickle away into such quiet little hollows as Green Valley. It trickled so slowly and was as yet so thin a stream that the little towns were hardly aware of it as yet.
Green Valley was only just beginning to itch and wiggle and search and wonder what the matter could be. It was the women, the mothers, who scented trouble first. The men were still placidly doing the same old Saturday afternoon tasks, mowing lawns, talking road improvements, swapping yarns and brands of tobacco or, like Frank Burton, doing various building jobs about their premises.
Frank and his helper were certainly enjoying themselves. When the skeleton of that hen house was half up Frank thought it was about time to call a halt for refreshments. He went to the ice-box and brought out a nice home-boiled ham, commandeered a golden loaf of fresh bread, searched about for pickles, mustard, preserves and butter. Then they sat down. And as he ate Frank again waxed talkative.
"I've heard people," he said, "both men and women, talk about marriage being slavery and a lottery and not worth the price folks have to pay for it. But I'm freer as a married man than ever I was single. Why, where I boarded before I married Jennie, you couldn't get a slice of bread and butter or a toothpick between meals even if you'd been a growing kid. And in those days I was always hungry. And I've always hated restaurants where food is cooked in tanks instead of nice little home kettles in a blue and white kitchen. And I hate restaurant dishes. There's never anything interesting about them. And most waitresses are discouraging sort of girls. I just kind of existed in those days.
"But ever since I've married Jennie I've lived. Jennie never talks much about what she's cooking. But she'll let you come in the kitchen and lift the kettle lids if you want to and poke around and never once let on that you're a nuisance. And she never gets angry if you dig into the fresh bread or crack the frosting on the new cake. So take it all in all I've always considered all this talk about married life being nothing but self-sacrifice just so much rot—why—hello, Sammy!"