she suddenly exclaimed with suppressed wrath, and in her
penetrating tones:

"What is the matter with you men, anyway? You'd have to pay your
butcher, or your baker, or your grocer, whether you wanted to or not.
Then why in the name of conscience don't you pay your parson?
Certainly religion that don't cost nothin' is worse than nothin'. I'll
tell you the reason why you don't support your parson: It's just
because your rector's a gentleman, and can't very well kick over the
traces, or balk, or sue you, even if you do starve him. So you,
prosperous, big-headed men think that you can sneak out of it. Oh, you
needn't shuffle and look mad; you're goin' to get the truth for once,
and I had Johnny Mullins lock the front door before I began."

The whole audience responded to this sally with a laugh, but the
speaker relented not one iota. "Then when you've smit your rector on
one cheek you quote the Bible to make him think he ought to turn his
overcoat also." Another roar. "There: you don't need to think I'm
havin' a game. I'm not through yet. Now let's get right down to
business. We owe our rector a lot of money, and he is livin' in a tent
because we neglected to pay the interest on the rectory mortgage held
by the Senior Warden of our church. Talkin' plain business, and
nothin' else, turned him out of house and home, and we broke our
business contract with him. Yes we did! And now you know it.

"Some of us have been sayin'--and I was one of 'em till Mr. Maxwell
corrected me--that it was mean of Mr. Bascom to turn the rector and
his wife out of their house. But business is business, and until we've
paid the last cent of our contributions, we haven't any right to
throw stones at anyone. Wait till we've done our part, for that! We've
been the laughing stock of the whole town because of our pesky
meanness. That tent of ours has stuck out on the landscape like a
horse fly on a pillow sham.

"It's not my business to tell how the rector and his wife have had to
economize and suffer, to get along at all; or how nice and
uncomplainin' they've been through it all. They wouldn't want me to
say anythin' of that; sportsmen they are, both of 'em. The price of
food's gone up, and the rector's salary gone down like a teeter on a
log.

"Now, as I remarked before, let's get right down to business. The only
way to raise that money is to raise it! There's no use larkin' all
'round Robin Hood's barn, or scampering round the mulberry bush an