"I don't exactly know." Webb's freckled face held a reflective look. "I kept puttin' it off from year to year, thinkin' I would jine, especially as everybody was constantly naggin me about it. Seems to me that I was the chief subject at every revival they held. It bothered me considerable, I tell you. The old folks talked so much about my case that little boys an' gals would sluff away from me in the public road. But I wasn't to blame. The truth is, Mr. Mostyn, I wanted to give 'em all—Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians—a fair show. You see, each denomination declared that it had the only real correct plan, an' I'll swear I liked one as well as t'other. When I'd make up my mind to tie to the Methodists, some Baptist or Presbyterian would ax me what I had agin his religion, an' in all the stew an' muddle they got me so balled up that I begun to be afeard I wasn't worth savin' nohow. About that time this same tramp preacher come along, an' I heard 'im talk. I listened close, but I couldn't make out whether he stood for sprinklin', pourin', or sousin' clean under. So after he finished I went up an' axed 'im about it. I never shall forget how the feller grinned—I reckon I remember it because it made me feel better. He ketched hold o' my hand, he did, an' while he was rubbin' it good an' kind-like, he said: 'Brother, don't let that bother you. I'm floatin' on top myself. In fact, my aim is to stay out o' the jangle so I kin jine all factions together in brotherly bonds.' As he put it, the light o' God was shinin' on every earthly path that had any sort o' upward slope to it."
At this moment there was a vigorous blowing of the horn of an automobile in the road behind them, and in a cloud of dust a gleaming new car bore down toward them. To the banker's surprise, Webb paused in the center of the road and made no effort to move.
"Look out!" Mostyn cried, warningly. "Here, quick!"
"Humph!" Webb grunted, still refusing to move, his eyes flashing sullenly. "I'm goin' to pick up a rock some o' these days an' knock one o' them fellers off his perch."
Still immovable he stood while the honking car, with brakes on, slid to a stop a few feet away.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" the man at the wheel, in a jaunty cap and goggles, cried out, angrily. "You heard me blowin', didn't you?"
"I ain't deef," John flashed at him. "I wanted to see what 'the hell'—to use your words—you'd do about it. You think because you are in a rig o' that sort, Pete Allen, you can make men an' women break the'r necks to git out o' your way. If you had touched me with that thing I'd have stomped the life out o' you. I know you. You used to split rails an' hoe an' plow, barefooted over in Dogwood. 'White trash,' the niggers called your folks. You've been in town just long enough to make you think you can trample folks down like so many tumble-bugs."
"Well, you have no right to block the road up," the driver said, quite taken aback, his color mounting to his cheeks. "There is a law—"
"I don't care a dang about your law!" Webb broke in. "I'm law-abidin', but when a law is passed givin' an upstart like you the right to make a decent man jump out of your way, like a frost-bitten grasshopper, I'll break it. The minute a skunk like you buys a machine on credit an' starts out he thinks he owns the earth."
Still flushed, the man grumbled out something inarticulately and started on his way.