Excerpt:
Mrs. Solomon Black had revealed the state of affairs, that morning. “You may as well know,” said she. “There ain't a cent to pay you, and I said when you came that if we couldn't pay for gospel privileges we should all take to our closets and pray like Sam Hill, and no charge; but they wouldn't listen to me, though I spoke right out in conference meeting and it's seldom a woman does that, you know. Folks in this place have been hanging onto the ragged edge of nothing so long they don't seem to sense it. They thought the money for your salary was going to be brought down from heaven by a dove or something, when all the time, those wicked flying things are going round on the other side of the earth, and there don't seem as if there could be a dove left. Well, now that the time's come when you ought to be paid, if there's any decency left in the place, they comes to me and says, ‘Oh, Mrs. Black, what shall we do?’ I said, ‘Why didn't you listen when I spoke out in meeting about our not being able to afford luxuries like gospel preaching?’ and they said they thought matters would have improved by this time. Improved! How, I'd like to know? The whole world is sliding down hill faster and faster every minute, and folks in Brookville think matters are going to improve, when they are sliding right along with the Emperor of Germany and the King of England, and all the rest of the big bugs. I can't figure it out, but in some queer, outlandish way that war over there has made it so folks in Brookville can't pay their minister's salary. They didn't have much before, but such a one got a little for selling eggs and chickens that has had to eat them, and the street railway failed, and the chair factory, that was the only industry left here, failed, and folks that had a little to pay had to eat their payings. And here you are, and it's got to be the fair. Seems queer the war in Europe should be the means of getting up a fair in Brookville, but I guess it'll get up more'n that before they're through fighting.”
All this had been the preliminary to the speech which sent Wesley forth for doughnuts, then to his study, ostensibly to finish his lovely sermon, but in reality to think thoughts which made his young forehead, of almost boyhood, frown, and his pleasant mouth droop, then inexplicably smooth and smile. It was a day which no man in the flush of youth could resist. That June day fairly rioted in through the open windows. Mrs. Black's muslin curtains danced in the June breeze like filmy-skirted nymphs. Wesley, whose imagination was active, seemed to see forced upon his eager, yet reluctant, eyes, radiant maidens, flinging their white draperies about, dancing a dance of the innocence which preludes the knowledge of love. Sweet scents came in through the windows, almond scents, honey scents, rose scents, all mingled into an ineffable bouquet of youth and the quest of youth.
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