“Well, for my part,” said I, “I am willing to do my share toward paying off this debt.  But I will not pay a cent unless the whole is paid.  The minister must be provided for.”

“I say so, too,” murmured Mr. Hardcap.  I was surprised at this sudden and unexpected reinforcement.  The Deacon told me afterwards, that Mr. Hardcap had been repairing the parson’s roof and had not got his pay.

“Perhaps,” continued I, “we can fund this floating debt, make the mortgage four thousand five hundred, raise the difference among ourselves, and so clear it all up.  Who holds the mortgage?”

This question produced a sensation like that of opening the seventh seal in heaven.  There was silence for the space of—­well, something less than half an hour.  The Treasurer looked at the President.  The President looked at the Treasurer.  The male members of the congregation looked at each other.  The Deacon looked at me with a very significant laugh lurking in the corners of his mouth.  At length the President spoke.

“Well, gentlemen,” said he, “I suppose most of you know I hold this mortgage.  I have not called you together because I want to press the church for the money.  But a debt, gentlemen, is a debt, and the church, above all institutions, ought to remember the divine injunction of our blessed Master (the President is not very familiar with Scripture, and may be excused the blunder):  ’Owe no man anything.’ ("Except the minister,” said Deacon Goodsole, soto voce.) The proposition of our friend here, however, looks like business to me.  I think the matter can be arranged in that way.”

Arranged it was.  The President got his additional security, and the parson got his salary, which was the main thing Jennie cared for.  And to be perfectly frank with the reader, I should not have gone near Jim Wheaton’s that night if it had not been that I knew it would please Jennie.  I wait with some curiosity to see what will become of a church whose expenditures are regularly a quarter more than its income.  Meanwhile, I wonder whether the personal presents which friends make for affection’s sake to their pastor ought to be included by the Board of Trustees in their estimate of his salary? and also whether it is quite the thing to expect that the pastor will advance, out of his own pocket, whatever money is necessary to keep his church from falling behind its neighbors in showy attractions?

CHAPTER VI.

Am I a Drone?

Deacon Goodsole wants me to take a class in the Sabbath-school.  So does Mr. Work.  So I think does Jennie, though she does not say much.  She only says that if I did she thinks I could do a great deal of good.  I wonder if I could.  I have stoutly resisted them so far.  But I confess last Sunday’s sermon has shaken me a little.

I was kept in the city Saturday night by a legal appointment, and went the next day to hear my old friend Thomas Lane preach.  His text was “Why stand ye here all the day idle?”