The big supper—­I guess they would call it a dinner now—­served in the large room on a long table and some smaller ones, was the great event of the party.  The Wades were very strict church-members.  Such a thing as card playing was not to be thought of, and dancing was just as bad.  Both were worldly amusements whose feet took hold on hell.  We have lost this strictness now, and sometimes I wonder if we have not lost our religion too.

The Wades were certainly religious—­that is the Governor and Mrs. Wade.  Jack Wade, the John P. Wade who was afterward one of the national bosses of the Republican party, and Bob, the Robert S. Wade who became so prominent in the financial circles of the state, were a little worldly.  A hired hand I once had was with the Wades for a while, and said that when he and the Wade boys were out in the field at work (for they worked as hard as any of the hands, and Bob was the first man in our part of the country who ever husked a hundred bushels of corn in a day) the Wade boys and the hired men cussed and swore habitually.  But this scamp, when they were having family worship, used to fill in with “Amen!” and “God grant it!” and the like pious exclamations when the governor was offering up his morning prayer.  But one morning Bob Wade brought a breast-strap from off the harness, and took care to kneel within easy reach of the kneeling hired man’s pants.  When he began with his responses that morning, a loud slap, and a smothered yell disturbed the governor—­but he only paused, and went on.

“What in hell,” asked the hired man when they got outside, “did you hit me for with that blasted strap?”

“To show you how to behave,” said Bob.  “When the governor is talking to the Lord, you keep your mouth shut.”

I tell this, because it shows how even our richest and most aristocratic family lived, and how we were supposed to defend religion against trespass.  I am told that in some countries the wickedest person is likely to be a praying one.  It seems, however, that in this country the church-members are expected to protect their monopoly of the ear of God.  Anyhow, Bob Wade felt that he was doing a fitting if not a very seemly thing in giving this physical rebuke to a man who was pretending to be more religious than he was.  The question is a little complex; but the circumstance shows that there could be no cards or dancing at the Wade’s party.

Neither could there be any drinking.  The Wades had a vineyard and made wine.  The Flemings lived in the next farm-house down the road, and when our party took place, the families were on fairly good terms; though the governor and his wife regarded the Flemings as beneath them, and this idea influenced the situation between the families when Bob Wade began showing attentions to Kittie Fleming, a nice girl a year or so older than I. Charlie Fleming, the oldest of the boys, was very sick one fall, and they thought he was going to die.  Doctor Bliven prescribed wine, and the only wine in the neighborhood was in the cellar of Governor Wade; so, even though the families were very much at the outs, owing to the fuss about Bob and Kittie going together, Mrs. Fleming went over to the Wades’ to get some wine for her sick boy.