I give you my
word that I will think earnestly on the subject, and do it at once, and
give myself no rest until I have devised some plan to do what you have
asked me."
"God bless you, ma'am! God bless you!" said the cobbler, dropping a
tear upon one of the grimy hands at work upon the shoe.
CHAPTER IX.
Reynolds Bartram was greatly annoyed by the results of the several
interviews he had imposed upon the new assistant cobbler at Bruceton.
He had silenced, if not conquered, all the other religious
controversialists of the town, and found the weak spots in the armor of
many good people not given to controversy, whom he had beguiled into
talking on religious themes. Why he should want to converse at all upon
such subjects puzzled the people of the town, all of whom had known him
from boyhood as a member of a family so entirely satisfied with itself
that it never desired any aid from other people, to say nothing of
higher powers. Sometimes the Bartrams went to church for social
purposes, but always with an air of conferring a favor upon the power
in whose honor the edifice was erected.
But Bartram had good enough reasons for his sudden interest in
religion. He was in love with Eleanor Prency, and, after the manner of
his family regarding everything that interested them, he was
tremendously in earnest with his wooing.
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