“Something can be done, too,” said Pa Shenk.  “You remember when the people on upper Deep Creek used to come here to church, four miles or so?  Well, now they are going to Fairfield Church—­owners, renters, everybody.  It’s surprising how Fairfield Church is growing.  That’s going away from town, not to it, and they’re as near to town as we are.”

“Then,” persisted J.W., “how do you account for it?”

“Only one way, my boy,” said Pa Shenk.  “I’m as much to blame as any, but we’ve had some preachers here that didn’t seem to understand, and then lately we’ve had preachers who stayed in town all the time except on preaching Sunday, and we scarcely saw or heard of ’em all the two weeks between.  They haven’t held protracted meetings for several years, and I ain’t blaming ’em.  What’s the use of holding meetings when you know nobody’s coming except people that were converted before our present pastor was born?”

“You say some people are going over to Fairfield?” asked J.W.  “Why do they go there, when they could go to town about as easy?”

“Well, John Wesley,” Pa Shenk answered, soberly.  “I think I know.  But you say you’re going to spend next Sunday with Marty.  From what Marty writes I’ve a notion it’s much the same on his work as it is at Fairfield, except that Marty has two points.  Wait till next week, and then come back and tell us how you explain the difference between Deep Creek Church and Ellis.”

In the afternoon Jeannette and J.W. took a ride around the neighborhood, whose every tree and culvert and rural mail-box they knew, without in the least being tired of seeing it.  Their talk was on an old, old subject, and not remarkable, yet somehow it was more to them both than any poet’s rhapsody.  And their occasional silences were no less eloquent.

But in a more than usually prosaic moment Jeannette said, “John Wesley, I wonder if there’s any hope to get the Deep Creek young people interested in church the way they used to be?  I’m just hungry for the sort of good times the older boys and girls used to have when you and Marty and I were nothing but children.  They enjoyed themselves, and so did everybody else.  What’s the matter with so many country churches, nowadays?”

To which question J.W. could only answer:  “I don’t know.  I didn’t realize things were so bad here.  Maybe I’ll get some ideas about it next Saturday and Sunday.  Your father seems to think Marty is getting started on the right track.  And that reminds me; don’t let me go away without those books he wants, will you?”

This is not a record of that Sunday afternoon’s drive, nor of the many others which followed on other Sundays and on the days between.  Some other time there may be opportunity for the whole story of Jeannette and J.W.

* * * * *

As J.W. drove up to Ellis Corners post office late the next Friday afternoon Marty waylaid him and demanded to be taken aboard.  “Drive a half-mile further east,” he said after their boisterous greetings.  “That’s where we eat to-night—­at Ambery’s.  Then just across the road to the church.  We’ve got something special on.”