of the "small occupations," the minister's reputation
for exacting monumental labors in return for the
"modest stipend" mentioned. However, the proposal
furnished Gordon with a solution for immediate
difficulties; it secured him a bed and food, an
opportunity for the maturing of further plans.

He rose, queried, "Shall I go right along?"

"Admirable," the other approved. "My beloved
helpmate will show you where the tools are
kept, when you can begin immediately."

Gordon made his way past Simmons' store to the
plaster bulk of the Universalist Church, its lawn
shared by the four-square, shingled roof of the parsonage.
Back of both structures reached a small
field of heavy grass, where Gordon labored for the
remainder of the day.

Late in the afternoon an aged, gaunt man drove
an incongruous, two wheeled, breaking cart into the
stable yard behind the parsonage. After hitching
an aged, gaunt white horse, he approached the field's
edge, where Gordon was harvesting. It was the
minister's father-in-law, himself a clergyman for
the half-century past, a half-century that stretched
back into strenuous, bygone days of circuit riding.
His flowing hair and a ragged goatee were white,
oddly stained and dappled with lemon yellow, his
skin was leather-like from years of exposure to the
elements, to the bitter mountain winters, the ruth-

[[129]]

p128 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p129w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p130

v?