ess we can cheat a
little with mats and cakes and things and not stand any more danger
of hell-fire than all those men putting each other's eyes out and
killing everybody they can hit, and spending the money for guns and
awful exploding stuff that ought to go for the good of the world. I
ain't worried one mite about church fairs when the world is where it
is now. You just run right into your study, Mr. Elliot, and finish
your sermon; and there's a pan of hot doughnuts on the kitchen table.
You go through the kitchen and get some doughnuts. We had breakfast
early and you hadn't ought to work too hard on an empty stomach. You
run along. Don't you worry. All this is up to me and Maria Dodge and
Abby Daggett and a few others. You haven't got one blessed thing to
do with it. All you've got to do is to preach as well as you can, and
keep us from a free fight. Almost always there is a fuss when women
get up a fair. If you can preach the gospel so we are all on speaking
terms when it is finished, you will earn your money twice over. Run
along."

Wesley Elliot obeyed. He always obeyed, at least in the literal
sense, when Mrs. Solomon Black ordered him. There was about her a
fairly masterly maternity. She loved the young minister as firmly for
his own good as if he had been her son. She chuckled happily when she
heard him open the kitchen door. "He'll light into those hot
doughnuts," she thought. She loved to pet the boy in the man.

Wesley Elliot in his study upstairs--a makeshift of a study--sat
munching hot doughnuts and reflecting. He had only about one-third of
his sermon written and it was Saturday, but that did not disturb him.
He had a quick-moving mind. He sometimes wondered whether it did not
move too quickly. Wesley was not a conceited man in one sense. He
never had doubt of his power, but he had grave doubts of the merits
of his productions. However, today he was glad of the high rate of
speed of which he was capable, and did not worry as much as he
sometimes did about his landing at the exact goal. He knew very well
that he could finish his sermon, easily, eat his doughnuts, and sit
reflecting as long as he chose. He chose to do so for a long time,
although his reflections were not particularly happy ones. When he
had left the theological seminary a year ago, he had had his life
planned out so exactly that it did not seem possible to him that the
plans could fail. He had graduated at the head of his class. He had