Nights Silas used to fetch him down to Miller Brothers' store so he could get acquainted with folks. Sociable? The most sociable man I ever met with. Mebby he'd borrow five cents off one of his friends and lay it all out in crackers and cheese; then he'd set on the counter and dangle his legs and talk and munch and munch and talk. He never seemed to carry no money. I suppose, havin' so many millions, he didn't want to appear ostentatious; and when he'd ask for the nickel his friends would laugh and laugh; and it was comical, him having to borrow five cents like that. Once he brought some picture-cards down to the store he'd had taken the year before when he was in the Holy Land. There was views of him at the Tomb, him on the shores of Galilee, him at the Mount of Olives, but no olives.
The first Sunday he spent in the valley he attended church right there in the old Fork's Meetin'-house, and after the service the minister asked him if he wouldn't favor us with a few remarks. Say, I ain't ever forgot that meetin'. What do you think that simple soul done? He got up, his eyes shinin' and tears in his voice like he was gettin' ready to leak, and told us about his early struggles.
Joe Whittaker said afterward he hadn't known whether he was attendin' divine service or night session of a business college. As we left the church, I says to Joe:
“How you can bring yourself to criticize a simple soul like that is more than I can understand.”
“All the same,” says Joe, “he's got God and mammon confused in his mind. Savin's and salvation are pretty much one and the same to him. I don't want to be told how to make twenty-five dollars to start on,—-I know that much,—but I'd be grateful if the old man had told me how to make a million or two.”
“Well, he deserves a lot of credit,” I says.
“What for?” asks Joe.
“For bein' successful and sacrificin' himself to make money,” I says, heated.
“Do you respect a hog for taking on fat?” says Joe.
“No, I don't,” I says. “That's a hog's nature, to take on fat.”