“I’m really not a bad fellow. I don’t go chasing after women—oh, that fool woman at the hotel didn’t count—not now that I’ve got Lulu. Cleo never was married to me; she doesn’t matter. I like to be good. If I’d just been married to somebody like Sharon! O God! Sharon! Am I untrue to her? No! Dear Lulu, sweet kid, I owe something to her, too. I wonder if I could get to see her Saturday—”
A new contentment he had, and explosive success.
CHAPTER XXVI
I
in the autumn of his first year in Zenith Elmer started his famous Lively Sunday Evenings. Mornings, he announced, he would give them solid religious meat to sustain them through the week, but Sunday evenings he would provide the best cream puffs. Christianity was a Glad Religion, and he was going to make it a lot gladder.
There was a safe, conservative, sanguinary hymn or two at his Lively Sunday Evenings, and a short sermon about sunsets, authors, or gambling, but most of the time they were just happy boys and girls together. He had them sing “Auld Lang Syne,” and “Swanee River,” with all the balladry which might have been considered unecclesiastical if it had not been hallowed by the war: “Tipperary” and “There’s a Long, Long, Trail,” and “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile.”
He made the women sing in contest against the men; the young people against the old; and the sinners against the Christians. That was lots of fun, because some of the most firmly saved brethren, like Elmer himself, pretended for a moment to be sinners. He made them whistle the chorus and hum it and speak it; he made them sing it while they waved handkerchiefs, waved one hand, waved both hands.
Other attractive features he provided. There was a ukulele solo by the champion uke-player from the University of Winnemac. There was a song rendered by a sweet little girl of three, perched up on the pulpit. There was a mouth-organ contest, between the celebrated Harmonica Quartette from the Higginbotham Casket Factory and the best four harmonicists from the B. & K. C. railroad shops; surprisingly won (according to the vote of the congregation) by the enterprising and pleasing young men from the railroad.
When this was over, Elmer stepped forward and said—you would never in the world have guessed he was joking unless you were near enough to catch the twinkle in his eyes—he said, “Now perhaps some of you folks think the pieces the boys have played tonight, like ‘Marching Through Georgia’ and ‘Mammy,’ aren’t quite proper for a Methodist Church, but just let me show you how well our friend and brother, Billy Hicks here, can make the old mouth-organ behave in a real highbrow religious hymn.”
And Billy played “Ach Du Lieber Augustin.”