"Well, here's ten dollars I owe you."

"What for?" demanded William, holding back from the extended hand with
the fluttering bill in it.

"You don't remember it, I reckon, but you married us ten years ago. I
was so poor at the time I couldn't pay you for the greatest service one
man ever done another. We ain't prospered since in nothing except
babies, or I'd be handin' you a hundred instead of ten."

I have never heard a man compliment his wife since then that I do not
instinctively compare it with the compliment this mountain farmer paid
his wife that day. I never hear the love of a man for his wife
misnamed by the new disillusioned thinkers of our times that I do not
recall the charming testimony of this husband against the injustice and
indecency of their views.

CHAPTER VIII

I HOLD THE STAGE

So far, the circuit rider has been the hero of these letters, but in
this one his wife shall be the heroine, behind the throne at least, for
scarcely any other woman looks or feels less like one in the open.

The Methodist ministry is singularly devastating in some ways upon the
women who are connected with it by marriage. For one thing, it tends
to destroy their aesthetic sensibilities. They lack very often the
good taste of thrift in poverty, not so much because of the poverty,
but because they never get settled long enough to develop the
hen-nesting instinct and house pride that is dormant in us all. They
simply make a shift of things till the next conference meets, when they
will be moved to another parsonage.

A woman has not the heart to plant annuals, much less perennials, under
such circumstances. Let the Parsonage Aid Society do it, if it must be
done. And the Parsonage Aid Society does do it. You will see in many
Methodist preachers' front yards fiercely-thorny, old-lady-faced
roses--the kind that thrive without attention--planted always by the
president of the Parsonage Aid Society. And it may be there will be a
syringa bush in the background, not that the Parsonage Aid Society is
partial to this flower, but because it is not easily killed by neglect.
They choose the hardiest, ugliest known shrubs for the parsonage yard
because they last best.

On every circuit, in every charge, you will find the Parsonage Aid
Society a band of faithful, fretted, good housekeepers who worry and
wrangle over furnishing the parsonage as they worried and wrangled when
they were little girls over their communi