"Didn't you find out about the feller's religion?"
"No, I didn't. I sorter touched on that—said you wanted to know—but Mr. Cavanaugh made light of it—said all that would come out right in due time. He said he was no hand for hurrying up the young on those lines. He said John Trott at bottom was the right sort, and that he would count on him serving the Lord in the long run as well as the next one."
"I don't know as I'd let that old skunk pick a religion for a son-in-law of mine." Whaley's lip was drawn tight as he spoke. "He don't take enough interest in doctrine, and when you force him to talk about it he says entirely too much about salvation through works alone. I like a man that knows what he believes and can point straight to Biblical authority in page, line, and word. It behooves a Christian to watch out what sort of a mate his daughter picks. Infidelity will breed at a fireside faster than tadpoles under skum in a mud-puddle."
"Well, I'm for keeping that part out of it just now," Mrs. Whaley suggested, timidly. "This is a good chance for the girl, and you know you have made a lot of folks mad by the way you talk to them."
"Well, I haven't said anything to Trott yet," Whaley answered, "and I may not, though he hasn't been out to meeting yet and that seems odd, when the Sabbath is a day of rest and there is nothing else to do."
"I happened to hear him tell Tilly that he was going next Sunday," Mrs. Whaley answered, "so you see that will work out all right."
"Well, we'll wait and see," Whaley returned. "They dance over there at Teasdale's house, don't they?"
"Some do and some don't," was the answer, slowly made. "Tilly don't and Mr. Trott never did in his life."
"There isn't much difference in actually dancing and giving sanction to it by looking on," Whaley said, his heavy brows meeting in a frown, "an' I'm in for calling a halt on Tilly going to such places. Looks like there would be plenty of decent amusements without hot-blooded young folks hugging up tight together and spinning around on the floor till they are wet with sweat from head to foot. Sally Teasdale ought to be churched, and she would be if she was a Methodist. The Presbyterians ain't strict enough. Well, if I believed in foreordained baby damnation as they do I'd let a child of mine dance her way into hell and be done with it. They make me sick. I had an argument with old Bill Tye yesterday and I fairly flayed up the ground with him—didn't leave him a leg to stand on, but he was mad—oh, wasn't he mad? The crowd laughed at him good."
Whaley turned away. He intended to chat with Cavanaugh outside, but he met the contractor coming in at the front door on his way to bed.