"Taught, David," corrected his wife.
"It's the same thing," retorted Mr. Borland. "I'm too old for you to learn me them new words, mother—it's all right, as I was sayin', to get them learned an' taught how to work in china, an' ivory, an' wood an' hay an' stubble, as the good book says, but it's far better to see them workin' a little in human bein's. It must be terrible interestin' to try your hand on an immortal soul—them kind o' productions lasts a while. So don't go an' cool her off, mother—you let her stick to them kids without names if she wants to."
"But she tells me, David, she tells me some of them come to Sunday-school without washing their hands or faces."
"Tell her to wear buckskin mits," said Mr. Borland gravely.
"It's all very well to laugh, David—but they seem to have all sorts of things wrong with them. Madeline told me one day how she couldn't get the attention of the class because one of them kept winding and unwinding a rag on his sore finger for all the class to see it; he said a rat bit it in the night."
"Rough on rats'd soon fix them," said David reflectively; "I mind out in the barn one time——"
"But I'm serious, David," remonstrated Mrs. Borland; "and there's something else I hardly like to tell you. But only last Sunday Madeline was telling me—she laughed about it, but I didn't—how she asked one of the boys why he wasn't there the Sunday before, and he said: 'Please, ma'am, I had the shingles.'"
"Shingles ain't catchin'," declared David, as he gasped for breath. "Ha, ha, ha!" he roared, "that's the richest I've heard since the nigger show. Ha, ha! that's a good one—that's the kind of a class I'd like to have. None o' your silk-sewed kids for me, with their white chiffon an' pink bows! It seems a sin for them teachers to have so much fun on Sundays, don't it?" and David extricated his shank from beneath the table, venting his mirth upon it with many a resounding slap.
Mrs. Borland sighed discouragedly. "Well," she said at length, "I suppose there are greater troubles in life than that. In fact, I was just thinking of one of them when you were speaking about where you'd entertain the men when they come to-night."
"I'm afeard what I'll say won't entertain them a terrible lot," said David, passing his cup for further stimulus as he thought of the ordeal.