"The congregation is like the preacher. They will sit for two hours, and after a break of a few minutes they will sit again for two hours, listening to sermons; and even the interval is somewhat evenly divided between their bread and cheese in the churchyard and the discussion of the sermon they have just listened to. They are great on theology. One worthy old party tackled me on my views of the sermon we had just heard; after a little preliminary sparring Iwent to my corner. I often wonder in what continent I am.
"The school, a primitive little log affair, has much run to seed, but offers opportunity for repose. I shall avoid any unnecessary excitement in this connection.
"In private life the padre is really very decent. We have great smokes together, and talks. On all subjects he has very decided opinions, and in everything but religion, liberal views. I lure him into philosophic discussions, and overwhelm him with my newest and biggest metaphysical terms, which always reduce his enormous cocksureness to more reasonable dimensions.
"The minister's wife is quite another proposition. She argues, too, but unfortunately she asks questions, in the meekest way possible acknowledging her ignorance of my big terms, and insisting upon definitions and exact meanings, and then it's all over with me. How she ever came to this far land, heaven knows, and none but heaven can explain such waste. Having no kindred soul to talk with, I fancy she enjoys conversation with myself, (sic) revels in music, is transported to the fifth heaven by my performance on the violin, but evidently pities me and regards me as dangerous. But, my dear Maitland, after a somewhat wide and varied experience of fine ladies, I give you my verdict that here among the Anakim, and in this wild, woody land, is a lady fine and fair and saintly. She will bother me, I know. Her son Hughie (he of the bear), of whom Itold you, the lad with the face of an angel and the temper of an angel, but of a different color--her son Hughie she must make into a scholar. And no wonder, for already he has attained a remarkable degree of excellence, by the grace, not of the little log school, however, I venture to shy. His mother has been at him. But now she feels that something more is needed, and for that she turns to me. You will be able to see the humor of it, but not the pathos.
She wants to make a man out of her boy, 'a noble, pure-hearted gentleman,' and this she lays upon me! Did I hear you laugh?
Smile not, it is the most tragic of pathos. Upon me, Jack Craven, the despair of the professors, the terror of the watch, the--alas!
you know only too well. My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and before I could cry, 'Heaven forbid that I should have a hand in the ****** of your boy!' she accepted my pledge to do her desire for her young angel with the OTHER-angelic temper.
"And now, my dear Ned, is it for my sins that I am thus pursued?
What is awaiting me I know not. What I shall do with the young cub I have not the ghostliest shadow of an idea. Shall I begin by thrashing him soundly? I have refrained so far; I hate the role of executioner. Or shall I teach him boxing? The gloves are a great educator, and are at times what the padre would call 'means of grace.'
"But what will become of me? Shall I become prematurely aged, or shall I become a saint? Expect anything from your most devoted, but most sorely bored and perplexed, "J. C."
