“The calls, do you mean?” said he.  “Well, I should like to be paid four dollars a day for just dressin’ up in my best and visitin’, that’s all.”

“Not only the calls,” said I, “though you would find calling anything but recreation, if it was your business.  But there are the prayer-meetings, and the Sabbath-school, and the whole management and direction of the church.”

“Prayer-meetin’ and Sabbath-school!” replied Mr. Hardcap; “don’t we all work in them?  And we don’t ask any salary for it.  I guess it ain’t no harder for the parson to go to prayer-meetin’ than for me.”

I shrugged my shoulders.  The deacon interposed.

“I agree with you, Mr. Laicus,” said he.  “We have got to pay a good salary.  I wish we could make it two thousand a year instead of fifteen hundred.”

Mr. Hardcap opened his eyes and pursed his mouth firmly together, as though he would say ‘Do my ears deceive me?’

“But,” continued the deacon, “there is something in what Mr. Hardcap says.  There are half-a-dozen farmers in our Wheathedge congregation who don’t handle fifteen hundred dollars in money from one year’s end to the other.  Mr. Hardcap isn’t the only man to whom it seems a big sum to pay.  Mr. Lapstone the shoemaker, Mrs. Croily the seamstress, Joe Hodgkins the blacksmith, and half-a-dozen others I could name, have to live on less.  And you must remember their incomes, Mr. Laicus, as well as yours, and mine, and Mr. Wheaton’s here.”

“Well, gentlemen,” said Mr. Wheaton, “we’ve got to pay a good salary, but I think we ought to keep expenses down all we can.”

“I don’t believe in makin’ preachin’ a money makin’ business no-how,” said Mr. Hardcap.  “Parsons hain’t got no business to be a layin’ up of earthly riches, and fifteen hundred dollars is a good deal of money to spend on bread and butter, now I tell you.”

“Mr. Hardcap,” said I, “what do your tools cost you?”

“My tools?” said he.  “Yes,” said I, “your tools.  What do they cost you?”

“Well,” said he, “they range all the way from ten cents up to five dollars, accordin’ to the article and its quality.”

“Did you ever consider,” said I, “what a minister’s tools cost?”

“Minister’s tools!” said he, “I didn’t know he had any, except his pen.”

“My dear sir,” said I, “his tools alone cost him between one and two hundred dollars a year.”

Mr. Hardcap expressed his incredulity by a long whistle; and even Deacon Goodsole expressed a quiet doubt.  But my father was a minister and I know something about it.

“Look here,” said I.  “He must have at least two religious weeklies, one of his own denomination, and one of a more general character,” and I took out a pencil and paper and noted down my list as I made it, “that’s six dollars.  He ought to have at least two of the popular magazines, that’s eight dollars.  He ought to have a good scientific magazine of some kind, four dollars more; and his theological quarterly is indispensable, four dollars more; and at least one of the daily newspapers, he ought really to read on both sides, but we will allow only one, that’s ten dollars, and here is the footing of his periodical literature:  Two religious weeklies $6 Popular Magazines 8 Scientific Magazine 4 Theological Quarterly 4 Daily Paper 10 $32”