dering the number of people that I
have helped to snatch as brands from the burning, it does seem to me
that I must have covered a good many sins of my own,--such as they are.
I'm only a human being, and a poor, weak, and sinful creature, but
there's certainly a good many folks in this town that would not have
started in the right way when they did if it hadn't been for what I
said to them. Now, here's the biggest movement of the kind going on
that ever was known in this town, and I'm out of it. What for? Just
because I don't agree with Sam Kimper. I mean, just because Sam Kimper
don't agree with me. I don't suppose the thing would have come to
anything, anyhow, if it hadn't been for that fool of a young lawyer
setting his foot in it in the way he did. Everybody likes excitement,
and it's a bigger thing for him to have gone into this protracted
meeting than it would be for a circus to come to town with four new
elephants. It's rough."

The deacon took a few papers from his pocket, looked them over, his
face changing from grave to puzzled and from puzzled to angry and back
again through a whole gamut of facial expressions. Finally, he thrust
the entire collection back into his pocket, and said to himself,--

"If he keeps on at that work, I may have as much trouble as he let on
that I would. I don't see how some of these things are going to be
settled unless I have him to help me; and if he's going to be as
particular as he makes out, or as he did make out the other day,
there's going to be trouble, just as sure as both of us are alive. Of
course, the more prominent he is before the public, the less he'll want
to be in any case in court that takes hard fighting, particularly when
he don't think he's on the popular side. And there's that Mrs. Poynter
that's been bothering me to death about the interest on her mortgage: I
keep hearing that she's at the meetings every night, and that she never
lets an evening pass without speaking to Bartram. Maybe all she's
talking about is some sinner or other that she wants to have saved; but
if she acts with him as she does with me, I'm awfully afraid that she's
consulting him about that interest.

"I didn't think it was the right time of the year to start special
meetings, anyhow; and I don't know what our minister did it for without
consulting the deacons. He never did such a thing in his life before.
It does seem to me that once in a while everything goes crosswise, and
it all happ