“Mortify the flesh?”
“O’ course, you can’t put peas in yore shoes er get any of yer frien’s to lash you, so you’ll have to find some other way of mortifyin’ yer flesh. Wall, fer my part, I don’t need to look fur none, fur I never had too many blessin’s in my life, less’n you’d want to put the children under that head.”
Silas shut his jack-knife with a snap and, laughing, slid down on his side of the fence. In serious silence Nathan Foster watched him go stumping up the path toward the house.
“Silas seems to take everything so light in this world; I wonder how he can do it.”
With Nathan, now, it was just the other way. Throughout his eight and forty years he had taken every fact of life with ponderous seriousness. Entirely devoid of humor, he was a firm believer in signs, omens, tokens, and judgments. He was a religious man, and his wealth frightened and oppressed him. He gave to his church and gave freely.
As usual, he had taken his friend’s bantering words in hard earnest and was turning them over in his mind.
The next morning when Nathan and Silas met to compare notes, Nathan began:
“I have been thinking over what you said last night, Silas, about me mortifyin’ my flesh, and it seems to me like a good idee. I wrasselled in prayer last night, and it was shown to me that it wa’n’t no more’n right fur me to make some kind o’ sacrifice fur the mercies that’s been bestowed upon me.”
“Wall, I don’t know, Nathan; burnt-offerings are a little out now.”
“I don’t mean nothin’ like that; I mean some sacrifice of myself, some—”