Then he was besieged, and as soon as the horse was put up, by three pairs of busy hands, they came to the supper table, whereon was a full two pounds of delicious butter, and sat down with tingling impatience.
The blessing was asked in all due form—a blessing ten miles long, it seemed to the youngsters, and then the long, fat envelope came out of Mr. Fernald's pocket.
"She must have written a lot," he said, taking out two folded papers, and then a letter.
"My dear great-nephews," ran the epistle, "as your parents have assured me that you have kept your promise, and denied yourselves butter for the space of a year, here is the fifty dollars I promised to each of you—wisely invested."
Mr. Fernald opened the papers. To Holdfast Fernald and to J. Edwards Fernald, duly made out, receipted, signed and sealed, were two $50 life memberships in the Missionary society!
Poor children! The younger one burst into wild weeping. The older seized the butter dish and cast it on the floor, for which he had to be punished, of course, but the punishment added nothing to his grief and rage.
When they were alone at last, and able to speak for sobbing, those gentle youths exchanged their sentiments; and these were of the nature of blasphemy and rebellion against God. They had learned at one fell blow the hideous lesson of human depravity. People lied—grown people—religious people—they lied! You couldn't trust them! They had been deceived, betrayed, robbed! They had lost the actual joy renounced, and the potential joy promised and withheld. The money they might some day earn, but not heaven itself could give back that year of butter. And all this in the name of religion—and of missionaries! Wild, seething outrage filled their hearts at first; slower results would follow.
*
The pious enthusiasm of the little town was at its height. The religious imagination, rather starved on the bald alternatives of Calvinism, found rich food in these glowing tales of danger, devotion, sometimes martyrdom; while the spirit of rigid economy, used to daylong saving from the cradle to the grave, took passionate delight in the success of these noble evangelists who went so far afield to save lost souls.
Out of their narrow means they had scraped still further; denied themselves necessaries where no pleasures remained; and when the crowning meeting was announced, the big collection meeting, with the wonderful brother from the Church in Asia to address them again, the meeting house was packed in floor and gallery.