and the Presiding Elder called for his superannuation at the conference
that fall, on the grounds that Brother Thompson showed signs of
"failing powers."

Maybe he did, but it was only his mortal faculties that were failing.
To the last he retained a clear and definite knowledge of the Kingdom
of Heaven that many a man in possession of all his powers never
attains. The great change was that he took on a melancholy attitude to
reality.

CHAPTER XVI

IN THE LITTLE GRAVEYARD BEHIND REDWINE CHURCH

William was too dazed by the misfortune of his superannuation to think
or plan for the future. For him there was no future. He sat in the
chimney corner, following me about the house with his vacant eyes, but
really grieving for one of the choice, hard circuits, with its
dried-fruit salary, such as he had received for years, or remembering
the good pastoral times he had upon one in this or that year.

I have sometimes wondered what would be the moral effect upon a church
community if an old and helpless preacher like William should be sent
to it with the understanding that the church should minister to him
instead of his ministering to the church; that every saint and sinner
should be invited to contribute to his peace and comfort, even as for
years he had labored for them. There would be less preaching, of
course, but more development in real Christian service. An old
preacher treated in this manner would become very dictatorial, a
perfect autocrat about ordering charities for the poor and prayers for
the penitents, but would it be so bad for the church?

However, that was not my consideration now. The Redwine Circuit was
only twenty miles distant; the little house between the two green hills
that had been the Methodist parsonage thirty years before was long
since abandoned for a shiny, green and yellow spindle-legged new
parsonage at Royden. And while William, who had always had his home
dictated to him by the Conference, showed a pathetic apathy about
choosing one for himself, I hankered for the ragged-roof cottage with
its ugly old chimneys that had first sheltered our life together. So
within a month the horse and buggy were sold, the cottage at Redwine
rented, and we settled in it like two crippled birds in a
half-feathered nest.

Now, for the first time since I left Edenton, a happy, thoughtless
bride, I had leisure to think just of ourselves, of our sum total, as
it were. And I found that we were