ROGER OAKLEY had gone to work in the car-shops the day following his arrival in Antioch. Dan had sought to dissuade him, but he was stubbornness itself, and the latter realized that the only thing to do was to let him alone, and not seek to control him.
After all, if he would be happier at work, it was no one's affair but his own.
It never occurred to the old convict that pride might have to do with the stand Dan took in the matter.
He was wonderfully gentle and affectionate, with a quaint, unworldly simplicity that was rather pathetic. His one anxiety was to please Dan, but, in spite of this anxiety, once a conviction took possession of him he clung to it with unshaken tenacity in the face of every argument his son could bring to bear.
Under the inspiration of his newly acquired freedom, he developed in unexpected ways. As soon as he felt that his place in the shops was secure and that he was not to be interfered with, he joined the Methodist Church. Its services occupied most of his spare time. Every Thursday night found him at prayer-meeting. Twice each Sunday he went to church, and by missing his dinner he managed to take part in the Sunday-school exercises. A social threw him into a flutter of pleased expectancy. Not content with what his church offered, irrespective of creed, he joined every society in the place of a religious or temperance nature, and was a zealous and active worker among such of the heathen as flourished in Antioch. There was a stern Old Testament flavor to his faith. He would have dragged the erring from their peril by main strength, and have regulated their morals by legal enactments. Those of the men with whom he came in contact in the shops treated him with the utmost respect, partly on his own account, and partly because of Dan.
McClintock always addressed him as “The Deacon,” and soon ceased to overflow with cheerful profanity in his presence. The old man had early taken occasion to point out to him the error of his ways and to hint at what was probably in store for him unless he curbed the utterances of his tongue. He was not the only professing Christian in the car-shops, but he was the only one who had ventured to “call down” the master-mechanic.
Half of all he earned he gave to the church. The remainder of his slender income he divided again into two equal parts. One of these he used for his personal needs, the other disappeared mysteriously. He was putting it by for “Dannie.”
It was a disappointment to him that his son took only the most casual interest in religious matters. He comforted himself, however, with the remembrance that at his age his own interest had been merely traditional. It was only after his great trouble that the awakening came. He was quite certain “Dannie” would experience this awakening, too, some day.
Finally he undertook the regeneration of Jeffy. Every new-comer in Antioch of a philanthropic turn of mind was sure sooner or later to fall foul of the outcast, who was usually willing to drop whatever he was doing to be reformed. It pleased him and interested him.
He was firmly grounded in the belief, however, that in his case the reformation that would really reform would have to be applied externally, and without inconvenience to himself, but until the spiritual genius turned up who could work this miracle, he was perfectly willing to be experimented upon by any one who had a taste for what he called good works.