The boys noticed that occasionally a lantern-jawed fellow would look pious at them, as though afraid he would be contaminated.  So Sunday morning they decided to go to church in a body.  Seventy-five of them slicked up and marched to the Rev. Dr. Morgan’s church, where the reverend gentleman was going to deliver a sermon on Temperance.  No minister ever had a more attentive audience, or a more intelligent one, and when the collection plate was passed every last one of the travelers chipped in a silver dollar.

[Illustration:  THE SEXTON IN ALL HIS GLORY.]

When the sexton had received the first ten dollars the perspiration stood out on his forehead as though he had been caught in something.  It was getting heavy, something that never occurred before in the history of church collections at the Bay.  As he passed by the boys, and dollar after dollar was added to his burden, he felt like he was at a picnic, and when twenty-five dollars had accumulated on the plate he had to hold it with both hands, and finally the plate was full, and he had to go and empty it on the table in front of the pulpit, though he was careful to remember where he left off, so he wouldn’t go twice to the same drummer.

As he poured the shekels out on the table, as still as he could, every person in the audience almost raised up to look at the pile, and there was a smile on every face, and every eye turned to the part of the church where sat the seventy-five solemn looking traveling men, who never wore a smile.  The sexton looked up to the minister, who was picking up a hymn, as much as to say, “Boss, we have struck it rich, and I am going back to work the lead some more.”  The minister looked at the boys, and then at the sexton as though saying, “Verily, I would rather preach to seventy-five Milwaukee and Chicago drummers than to own a brewery.  Go, thou, and reap some more trade dollars in my vineyard.”

The sexton went back and commenced where he left off.  He had his misgivings, thinking maybe some of the boys would glide out in his absence, or think better of the affair and only put in nickels on the second heat, but the first man the sexton held out the platter to planked down his dollar, and all the boys followed suit, not a man “passed” or “renigged,” and when the last drummer had been interviewed the sexton carried the biggest load of silver back to the table that he ever saw.

Some of the silver dollars rolled off on the floor, and he had to put some in his coat pockets, but he got them all, and looked around at the congregation with a smile and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief and winked, as much as to say, “The first man that speaks disrespectfully of a traveling man in my presence will get thumped, and don’t you forget it.”

The minister rose up in the pulpit, looked at the wealth on the table, and read the hymn, “A charge to keep I have,” and the congregation joined, the travelers swelling the glad anthem as though they belonged to a Pinafore chorus.  They all bowed their heads while the minister, with one eye on the dollars, pronounced the benediction, and the services were over.