He was certain that he had done well; he was thinking of it on Monday morning as he walked from his boarding-house to the post office.
He saw one Lem Staples, a jovial horse-doctor who was known as the Village Atheist, sitting on a decayed carriage seat in front of the Fashion Livery Barn. Doc Staples was a subscriber to the Truth Seeker, a periodical said to be infidel, and he quoted Robert Ingersoll, Ed Howe, Colonel Watterson, Elbert Hubbard, and other writers who were rumored to believe that a Catholic was as good as a Methodist or Baptist. The Doc lived alone, “baching it” in a little yellow cottage, and Frank had heard that he sat up till all hours, eleven and even later, playing cribbage in Mart Blum’s saloon.
Frank disliked him, and did not know him. He was prepared to welcome honest inquiry, but a fellow who was an avowed atheist, why, Frank raged, he was a fool! Who made the flowers, the butterflies, the sunsets, the laughter of little children? Those things didn’t just happen! Besides: why couldn’t the man keep his doubts to himself, and not try to take from other people the religion which was their one comfort and strength in illness, sorrow, want? A matter not of Morality but of reverence for other people’s belief, in fact of Good Taste—
This morning, as Frank scampered down Vermont Street, Lem Staples called to him, “Fine day, Reverend. Say! In a hurry?”
“I’m—— No, not especially.”
“Come sit down. Couple o’ questions I’m worried about.”
Frank sat, his neck prickling with embarrassment.
“Say, Reverend, old Ma Gherkins was telling me about your sermon yesterday. You figger that no matter what kind of a creed a fellow’s got, the one thing we can all bank on, absolute, is the teaching of Jesus?”
“Why, yes, that’s it roughly. Doctor.”
“And you feel that any sensible fellow will follow his teaching?”