"'Well, Silas,' says Eppleby Holcomb, that hadn't been saying anything, 'I donno as some of us could bring ourselves to think of Christ as real Christ-like, if he come back the way he use' to be.'
"Insley sat looking round on them all, still with his way of saying good morning on a good day. I wondered if he wasn't wishing that they'd hang on that way to something worth hanging to. For I've always thought, and I think now, that they's a-plenty of stick-to-itiveness in the world; but the trouble is, it's stuck to the wrong thing.
"The talk broke up after that, like somebody had said something in bad taste; and we conversed around in groups, and done our best to make 'way with the refreshments. And Insley set talking to Mis' Eleanor Emmons, the new widow, lately moved in.
"About Mis' Emmons the social judgment of Friendship Village was for the present hanging loose. This was partly because we didn't understand her name.
"'My land, was her husband a felon or a thief or what that she don't use his name?' everybody asked everybody. 'What's she stick her own name in front of his last name like that for? Sneaked out of usin' his Christian name as soon as his back was turned, I call it,' said some. 'My land, I'd use my dead husband's forename if it was Nebuchadnezzar. My opinion, we'd best go slow till she explains herself.'
"But I guess Insley had more confidence.
"'You'll help, I know?' I heard him say to Mis' Emmons.
"'My friend,' she says back, 'whatever I can do I'll do. It's a big job you're talking about, you know.'
"'It's the big job,' says Insley, quiet.
"Pretty soon Mis' Toplady got up on her feet, drawing her shawl up her back.