Part 26 (1/2)
”Sure you do; only you better not shave every day, and you'll have to get your hands dirty before you can fool anybody, and maybe your face'll give you away even then. Be you comfortable in them clothes?”
”Sure thing; I'm never so contented as I am in working clothes.”
”That's all right. You're the stuff. But how about the proper old maids in the parish who ogle and dance around you; they won't cotton to your clothes a little bit. They'll think you're degradin' of yourself and disgracin' of the parish. Here you be ridin' on a stone wagon, and you don't look a bit better than me, if I do say it.”
”I'm afraid they'll have to survive the shock somehow or other; a man has to dress according to his work.”
”Hm! Now there's that there Mrs. Roscoe-Jones and Miss Bascom; I'll bet if they saw you in that rig they'd throw a fit.”
”Oh no; it isn't as bad as that, Danny.”
”They'd think you'd been disgraced for life, to become a laborin' man, you bet.”
”A what?”
”A laborin' man.”
”Then you think that a parson doesn't labor?”
”Well, I always thought that bein' a parson was a dead easy job, and a nice clean job too.”
”Danny,” Maxwell inquired after a momentary silence, ”don't you suppose that a man labors with his brain as well as with his muscles?
And sometimes a parson labors with his heart, and that is the hardest kind of work a man ever does. The man who is most of a laboring man is the man who labors with every power and faculty he possesses.”
”Well, now, I guess that may be right, if you look at it that way.”
”Yes; you speak of a laboring man, and you mean a man who uses his muscles and lets his brain and his feelings die of starvation. To try to help some one you're fond of, who is going to the bad, is the most nerve-racking and exhausting work which any man can possibly do.”
”Hm! you always was a dum queer parson, more like the rest of us, somehow. And you don't hold that you're disgracin' your profession ridin' with me, and shovelin' gravel?”
”I don't seem to be worrying much about it, do I?”
”No,” he agreed--and added, ”and I'm dum sure I would like a day off now and then from preachin' and callin' on old maids, if I was you.
But there's times I might be willin' for to let you take my work for yours.”
”Now see here, if you'll do my work for a few days, I'll do yours.”
”Well, what'd I have to do? I 'aint makin' any contract without specifications.”
”Well, suppose we say you do my work Sat.u.r.day and Sunday. That means you finish up two sermons, which must be original and interesting when you are preaching to the same set of people about a hundred and fifty times a year. Then you must go and see a woman who is always complaining, and listen to her woes for three-quarters of an hour.
Then you must go and see what you can do for Tom Bradsaw, who is dying of tuberculosis. Then you must conduct a choir rehearsal--not always the highest gratification of a musical ear. Sunday, you must conduct four services and try to rouse a handful of people, who stare at you from the back pews, to some higher ideals of life and common decency, Then----”
”Oh, heavens, man! Sure, an' that's enough; I stick to the stone wagon every time.”
”You'd be a fool if you didn't,” replied Maxwell straightly. ”Then again you get your pay promptly every Sat.u.r.day night. I never know when I am going to get mine.”
”You don't? Begad, and I wouldn't work for anybody if I wasn't paid prompt. I'd sue the Bishop or the Pope, or somebody.”
”Parsons don't sue: it's considered improper.”