"'That's right,' he insists, his lips disappearin' with certainty. 'I s'pose we hadn't reely ought even to come in here an' stan' 'round, like we are.'
"He looks sidlin' over towards me, warmin' my hands rill secular by the church stove. An' I felt like I'd been spoke up for when somebody says from the door:—
"'You better just bar out the carpenters o' this world, friends, an' done with it!'
"It was Abel Halsey, standin' in the entry, lookin' as handsome as the law allows. An' I see he happened to be there because the Through was about due,—that's the one that don't stop here,—an' you can always get a good view of it from this slope. You know Abel never misses watchin' a fast train go 'long, if he can help himself.
"'What's the i-dea?' Abel says. 'How can you pray at all in closets an' places that ain't been dedicated? I shouldn't think they'd be holy enough, 's'e.'
"'That,' says the postmaster, sure o' support, 'ain't the question.'
"'I thought it couldn't be,' says Abel, amiable. 'Well, what is the question? Whether prayer is prayer, no matter where you're prayin'?'
"'Oh, no,' says Eppleby Holcomb, soothin', 'it ain't that.'
"'I thought it couldn't be that,' says Abel. 'Is it whether the Lord is in dedicated spots an' nowheres else?'
"'Abel Halsey,' Timothy tarts up, 'you needn't to be sacrilegious.'