“Rather a fine distinction,” remarked his hearer, smiling.
“Yes, sir,” said David. “Now, there’s old maid Allis, relative of the Rogerses, lives all alone down on Clark Street in an old house that hain’t had a coat o’ paint or a new shingle sence the three Thayers was hung, an’ she talks about the folks next door, both sides, that she’s knowed alwus, as ‘village people,’ and I don’t believe,” asserted the speaker, “she was ever away f’m Homeville two weeks in the hull course of her life. She’s a putty decent sort of a woman too,” Mr. Harum admitted. “If the’ was a death in the house she’d go in an’ help, but she wouldn’t never think of askin’ one on ’em to tea.”
“I suppose you have heard it said,” remarked John, laughing, “that it takes all sorts of people to make a world.”
“I think I hev heard a rumor to that effect,” said David, “an’ I guess the’ ’s about as much human nature in some folks as the’ is in others, if not more.”
“And I don’t fancy that it makes very much difference to you,” said John, “whether the Verjooses or Miss Allis call you ‘village people’ or not.”
“Don’t cut no figger at all,” declared Mr. Harum. “Polly ’n I are too old to set up fer shapes even if we wanted to. A good fair road-gait ’s good enough fer me; three square meals, a small portion of the ‘filthy weed,’ as it’s called in po’try, a hoss ’r two, a ten-dollar note where you c’n lay your hand on’t, an’ once in a while, when your consciunce pricks ye, a little somethin’ to permote the cause o’ temp’rence, an’ make the inwurd moniter quit jerkin’ the reins—wa’al, I guess I c’n git along, heh?”
“Yes,” said John, by way of making some rejoinder, “if one has all one needs it is enough.”
“Wa’al, yes,” observed the philosopher, “that’s so, as you might say, up to a certain point, an’ in some ways. I s’pose a feller could git along, but at the same time I’ve noticed that, gen’ally speakin’, a leetle too big ’s about the right size.”
“I am told,” said John, after a pause in which the conversation seemed to be dying out for lack of fuel, and apropos of nothing in particular, “that Homeville is quite a summer resort.”
“Quite a consid’able,” responded Mr. Harum. “It has ben to some extent fer a good many years, an’ it’s gettin’ more an’ more so all the time, only diff’rent. I mean,” he said, “that the folks that come now make more show an’ most on ’em who ain’t visitin’ their relations either has places of their own or hires ’em fer the summer. One time some folks used to come an’ stay at the hotel. The’ was quite a fair one then,” he explained; “but it burned up, an’ wa’n’t never built up agin because it had got not to be thought the fash’nable thing to put up there. Mis’ Robinson (Dug’s wife), an’ Mis’ Truman, ’round on Laylock Street, has some fam’lies that come an’ board with them ev’ry year, but that’s about all the boardin’ the’ is nowdays.” Mr. Harum stopped and looked at his companion thoughtfully for a moment, as if something had just occurred to him.
“The’ ’ll be more o’ your kind o’ folk ’round, come summer,” he said; and then, on a second thought, “you’re ’Piscopal, ain’t ye?”
“I have always attended that service,” replied John, smiling, “and I have gone to St. James’s here nearly every Sunday.”
“Hain’t they taken any notice of ye?” asked David.
“Mr. Euston, the rector, called upon me,” said John, “but I have made no further acquaintances.”
“E-um’m!” said David, and, after a moment, in a sort of confidential tone, “Do you like goin’ to church?” he asked.
“Well,” said John, “that depends—yes, I think I do. I think it is the proper thing,” he concluded weakly.
“Depends some on how a feller’s ben brought up, don’t ye think so?” said David.
“I should think it very likely,” John assented, struggling manfully with a yawn.
“I guess that’s about my case,” remarked Mr. Harum, “an’ I sh’d have to admit that I ain’t much of a hand fer church-goin’. Polly has the princ’pal charge of that branch of the bus’nis, an’ the one I stay away from, when I don’t go,” he said with a grin, “ ’s the Prespyteriun.” John laughed.
“No, sir,” said David, “I ain’t much of a hand for’t. Polly used to worry at me about it till I fin’ly says to her, ‘Polly,’ I says, ‘I’ll tell ye what I’ll do. I’ll compermise with ye,’ I says. ‘I won’t undertake to foller right along in your track—I hain’t got the req’sit speed,’ I says, ‘but f’m now on I’ll go to church reg’lar on Thanksgivin’.’ It was putty near Thanksgivin’ time,” he remarked, “an’ I dunno but she thought if she c’d git me started I’d finish the heat, an’ so we fixed it at that.”
“Of course,” said John with a laugh, “you kept your promise?”
“Wa’al, sir,” declared David with the utmost gravity, “fer the next five years I never missed attendin’ church on Thanksgivin’ day but four times; but after that,” he added, “I had to beg off. It was too much of a strain,” he declared with a chuckle, “an’ it took more time ’n Polly c’d really afford to git me ready.” And so he rambled on upon such topics as suggested themselves to his mind, or in reply to his auditor’s comments and questions, which were, indeed, more perfunctory than otherwise. For the Verjooses, the Rogerses, the Swaynes, and the rest, were people whom John not only did not know, but whom he neither expected nor cared to know; and so his present interest in them was extremely small.
Outside of his regular occupations, and despite the improvement in his domestic environment, life was so dull for
