When they had had two glasses apiece Frank again inspected his assistant.
"But say—do ministers in India do such darn common things as building chicken houses? I can't remember ever seeing a minister mixing so carelessly with us low-down sinners or standing around in public with his sleeves rolled up and his frock coat off. Aren't you a queer breed of parson?"
"Maybe," Cynthia's son admitted, "but so was father. He could help bring a baby into the world, could wash and dress it, cure it if it was sick, bury it if it died. He could teach a woman how to cook a meal and cut out a dress. He knew how to heal a horse's sore back and how to help a man get over needing whisky. He used to brush my mother's hair nights when her head ached and make whistles for me and tell the little brown children stories, study the stars with the old men and coax the women into using his medicines instead of their charms."
"For heaven's sake! When did your father get time to talk religion?" wondered Frank.
"Oh, he never talked religion much. He just sort of lived and neighbored with his people and just laughed most of the time at mother and me. He was always busy and never took care of himself. Just before he died he explained things to me. He said:
"'Son, I came out of the West to bring a message to the East. You go back to the West with a message from the Orient. Tell them back home there that hearts are all alike the world over. And that we all, white men, black men, yellow men and brown men, are playing the very same game for the very same stakes and that somehow, through ways devious and incomprehensible, through honesty and faith, failure and perseverance, we find at last the great content, the peace that passeth understanding.'
"So I have come home to preach that. But I haven't had time as yet to do much. I've been getting up a Sunday-school class and getting Seth Curtis interested in the church finances and getting acquainted with Hank Lolly and Mrs. Rosenwinkle and—atheists."
"Yes—and among other things you've put Jim into the choir."
"Oh, that was easy—just common sense. It's going to be ever so much harder though to get at Jim Tumley's generous friends and convince them that Jim's stomach won't stand their friendly donations.
"I don't know how I'm going to show them that if they love him they must protect him from themselves. It's going to be hard work. But he's worth saving, that little man with the lark's voice and the gentle heart."