ELVIRA HOPKINS OF 
 
 IS CORNERS 
 
 BYIZORA CHANDLER
 
 V
 
 ELVIRA HOPKINS OF 
 
 TOMPKIN'S CORNER 
 
 IZORA CHANDLER 
 
 Author of" Three of Us," " Anthe," " A Dog of 
 Constantinople," Etc., Etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 WILBUR B. KETCHAM 
 
 7 AND 9 WEST EIGHTEENTH ST.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1899, 
 BY WILBUR B. KETCHAM.
 
 LOVINGLY INSCRIBED 
 
 TO THE 
 DEAR " BONNIE LADDIE," 
 
 WHOSE 
 
 PERSISTENT AND UNWAVERING FAITH 
 IN MY ABILITY TO DO, 
 
 HAS MADE 
 
 MANY THINGS POSSIBLE UNTO ME. 
 " MILLIE." 
 
 2229170
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I. Aunt Elvira's Reasons for Writing 7 
 
 II. After Acknowledging the Receipt of a Note from 
 the Publisher she begins to Discuss Church 
 and Society Relations 14 
 
 III. That Call from Mrs. Judge Bawcom 19 
 
 IV. She Argues the Case, somewhat, of the Church, 
 
 for the Young, as well as the Young for the 
 
 Church 30 
 
 V. She begins to try to Live out some of the Re- 
 sults of her Pondering 39 
 
 VI. She Quotes from a Sermon Preached by Ellen 
 
 Maria's Husband 49 
 
 VII. In which she Relates some of Martha Ann's 
 
 Sayings 57 
 
 VIII. In which she tells of her first Visit to an An- 
 nual Conference, and an Interview with the 
 
 Bishop 67 
 
 IX. Aunt Elvira Ponders onto the Division Existing 
 between the Young and the Old in their 
 
 Spiritual Life at Tompkins Corners 82 
 
 X. She is of the Opinion that Christians, taking 
 them as they Run, are about as Touchy as 
 Musicians ever thought of Being 92 
 
 5
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 XI. Martha Ann shows her Affection in a Peculiar 
 Manner, and, afterwards, expatiates upon 
 the Liability of Mankind to Misunderstand 
 
 Each Other 106 
 
 XII. Aunt Elvira has heard some Criticism of Sun- 
 day School Music and Writes Concerning 
 the Singing at the Tompkins Corners Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church 118 
 
 XIII. She is a Methodist Heart, Soul, and Pocket- 
 
 book and, in her Love for the Church, she 
 is troubled at some of its Methods in Re- 
 vival Meetings 121 
 
 XIV. Martha Ann Speaks her Mind 130 
 
 XV. Aunt Elvira thinks the Church is Taking too 
 
 much upon its Shoulders and Accomplishing 
 
 too Little 1 40 
 
 XVI. She finds a New Plan for Adding to the Church 
 
 Which is Acted Upon with Certain Results. 155 
 
 XVII. Martha Ann gives her Opinion as to the Value 
 
 of some Prayers 168 
 
 XVIII. Martha Ann Expresses Some pretty lively Con- 
 victions Concerning the Renting of Pews. 
 She Wonders as to the Real Ownership of 
 the Lord's House, and Suggests " The 
 Church of the Pew-Holder " as an Approp- 
 riate Name for some Places of Worship. ... 179
 
 ELVIRA HOPKINS OF 
 
 TOMPKIN'S CORNER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Her Reasons 
 for Writing 
 
 / T V HB more I ponder onto it, the more 
 curioser it 'pears that there was ever 
 a time when I thought I could get along 
 without having no religion. But I did ; 
 and mighty poor getting along it was, 
 too. 
 
 The change come 'round 'long of my 
 favorite niece, Bllen Maria's, going and 
 marrying herself to that young minister, 
 John Wesley Gray, and then, with her 
 sweet voice so like to her dear mother's 
 
 7
 
 8 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 'a-getting of my old heart all mellered up, 
 till I was willing to go anywhere and do 
 anything that her and her Saviour wanted 
 me to. 
 
 I'm almost ashamed to say it, but I'd 
 allers thought myself 'bout as good as 
 most Christians, and, mebbe, a leetle 
 better'n the generality of 'em. But my 
 Bllen Maria, well, if she'd met St. Peter, 
 and a-looked into his face with them 
 innocent eyes of hern, and had talked to 
 him, gentle-like, he'd never a-turned 
 ag'in his Lord on that black night. 
 
 So, it 'pears to me that religion 'dorter 
 be wrote up by somebody what don't set 
 up to be a critic ; but who'll jest say 
 plain and frank what she thinks about 
 the hull subject. Somebody who havin' 
 got along without it, and then, having 
 got to be interested into it' heart, soul and 
 pocket-book will tell of the good things 
 with a sort of humble satersf action, and 
 who'll touch onto the faults of them what 
 perf esses it in a lovin' sort of way jest as
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 9 
 
 I'd a done to my children, if I hadn't 
 a-been simply a maiden woman with noth- 
 ing to do about children 'cept to tell other 
 folks what d'orter be done with theirn. 
 
 I've been pondering onto this subject 
 ever sence I had that long talk with Bllen 
 Maria. There was siveral reasons why I 
 begun pondering immediate. One of 'em 
 was, that as soon as it 'come to be noised 
 'round that I was getting to be serious 
 inclined why ! I can't begin to tell you 
 how many folks got interested into my 
 spiritual well-bein' at once. 
 
 The whole Presbyterian Church 's 
 you might say called onto me ; from 
 the president of the sewing-circle clean 
 on down through to the parson, hisself. 
 Some said one thing : some said another : 
 but they was all interested. 
 
 A few Baptists begun to feel an interest 
 in me, likewise some Lutherans and 
 Kpiscopals and Congregationals. It was 
 really extraordinary how much interest 
 was woke up into the hull of Tompkin's
 
 10 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 Corners jest because of my going to 
 prayer-meeting 'long of Ellen Maria after 
 we'd had our leetle talk. 
 
 If I hadn't a-looked after my own affairs 
 and made up my mind for myself for 
 years, I might a-got so sot up as to 
 a-turned away from the church what took 
 an interest into me when I was most 
 needing it, and I might a-joined myself 
 onto one what only got scairt about me 
 when the danger was over. 
 
 Ellen Maria didn't take on. She only 
 said : " Go just where you want to go, 
 auntie, I know you'll be a Christian in 
 any communion. I'd like to have you 
 come with us because we need such as 
 you, but I don't want to influence you." 
 
 She said a few other things in the same 
 quiet way. I'm proud of her. She's a 
 college graduate; but she talks just as 
 simple and plain as I do, only she talks 
 more correcter and a great deal sweeter 
 and sunnier. 
 
 I began to look, kinder on the sly, into
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 11 
 
 John Wesley Gray's books and papers. 
 And the more I looked, the more interest- 
 eder I got. Sometimes my eyes was so 
 misty that wiping my spectacles didn't 
 help at all. And swallowing didn't keep 
 my heart down out of my throat as I went 
 on a-reading of the brave men and women 
 who planted the Church away out onto 
 the borders. 
 
 Pretty soon I made my mind up, square 
 and honest, that if I, who'd never done 
 anything toward helping poor, suffering 
 hearts to Jesus, could be took into a 
 church with such a history, I'd better 
 get in, immediate, and begin work. 
 
 Well, I done so, and I hain't sorry. 
 And, 'cause, mebbe, some other folks may 
 be going through the same experience, 
 and, from having led a more sheltered life, 
 they mayn't have such a russet and 
 gnurly will as I who have fought my 
 own battle for so many lonely years, I'm 
 a-going to write it all out into a book 
 j ust as far as in me lies.
 
 12 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 As much as Ellen Maria and John 
 Wesley thinks of my judgment onto 
 other matters, I'm sure they'd be wor- 
 ritted to death if they knew what I was 
 a-undertaking. They'd want to polish up 
 my grammar till I wouldn't know what I 
 was a-talking 'bout. Or, they might 
 want to suggest a few particulars or kiver 
 up some of the faults I shall tell of and 
 tell of just because I have got to love the 
 Church by being interested into it heart, 
 soul, and pocket-book, so much that I 
 want to see it lift its beautiful white 
 wings like a dove and fly up into clear 
 air. 
 
 I want it to be so sweet and joyful that 
 folks who hain't never paid no 'tention, 
 will turn to look and to listen and after 
 a-hearing of its gentle voice, they'll say : 
 " Tears like 'twould be sweet and com- 
 fortable-like to one's heart in there, and 
 the hard things into my life would kinder 
 get nielleredup by such company ; and the 
 wickedness what has got into my life
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 13 
 
 could be dropped out of it if I was to 
 begin praying about it." 
 
 I ain't no poet, and I ain't no picture* 
 painter ; but that's a describing of what 
 I want my Church to be, and of what 
 I, mostly, think it is. And I've been 
 a-pondering onto the matter for quite a 
 spell.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 After Acknowledging tlie Re- 
 ceipt of a Note from the 
 Publisher, she Begins to 
 Discuss Church and Society 
 Relations 
 
 T COMB nigh onto stopping this book 
 straight from the mark. Melviny 
 Mellings she's the literary woman of 
 Tompkin's Corners, and I thought I'd 
 talk the matter over with her on the sly, 
 she said that it was a powerful under- 
 taking for a middle-age maiden woman 
 what hain't never traveled outside of her 
 own county, and who finished her educa- 
 tion into a yellow schoolhouse on the 
 ridge. 
 
 Melviny hain't been more'n fifty mile
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 15 
 
 over the county line herself, and she 
 didn't go there but once. And she only 
 got two quarters at a seleck school. But 
 she's real peart, Melviny is, and she 
 reads heaps of books and writes poetry 
 and things like that. 
 
 She told me all about book printers and 
 their carryings on. She said that nothing 
 ever made a real first-class publisher so 
 mad as to get a roll of mannyscrip' what 
 showed, plain and earnest, that the writer 
 of it was a genus. She showed me the 
 letter that one of them wrote to her once, 
 and I must say that it did seem to be a 
 little sassy. 
 
 You see, she'd been sending him manny- 
 scrip' after mannyscrip', any one of which 
 would a made his fortune and hern in no 
 time. And, after a-keeping of 'em for 
 two or three months, he just kept right 
 on a not printing of 'em but just a-send- 
 ing of 'em back, with a little letter stat- 
 ing his thanks for the privilege of read- 
 ing of 'em and such like nonsense.
 
 16 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 Well, after several years, Melviny 
 naturally got a little riled, and sot down 
 and wrote him a letter asking what he 
 meant by such conduck. And she hinted 
 in pretty plain English, that it might be 
 possible that he was a-making of his for- 
 tune by having her writings printed, 'way 
 in Rooshy or Sibery, over his own signa- 
 ture. 
 
 She believes that she hit the truth or 
 he wouldn't a-been so imperdent in his 
 answering. But he didn't make anything 
 by it, because she stopped a-sending of 
 her writings to him immediate. 
 
 So, I begun to think of Melviny's 
 experience, and I must confess that the 
 thoughts was far from comforting. If 
 Melviny couldn't get her things made up 
 into books, when she'd wrote poetry for 
 the Tompkin's Corner News, what would 
 become of mine ? Most any book-maker 
 might think he had a right to set up and 
 say what he wanted to print and what he 
 didn't want to.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 17 
 
 But, I just sent that first chapter off, 
 on the sly, to a publishing man what had 
 his name onto a good many of John 
 Wesley Gray's books ; and you'd a thought 
 from the answer I got it was short, bless 
 you, 'twas awful short, and to the p'in't 
 but you'd a thought that this publishing 
 man was just as interested about printing 
 books that folks want to read as anybody 
 else. And, if you'll believe me, he jest 
 the same as owned up that he'd been 
 pondering onto the subject of religion 
 and the church and sich for some time 
 back, hisself. 
 
 I spect that's what comes of my being 
 natural when I write. If John Wesley, 
 or Ellen Maria, or even Melviny Mellings 
 had a-polished up that first chapter there 
 wouldn't a been anything but the shine 
 left ; and nobody would a knowed what I 
 was a-trying to get at. 
 
 I can't help feeling sorry, though, that 
 the publishing man took such pains as to 
 print all of his letter except his name,
 
 18 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 which he just wrote. If he should ever 
 feel called upon to write to me again, I 
 hope he won't put himself out, for my 
 eyes is real good, and I can read plain 
 writing tolerable easy.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 That Call from Mrs. 
 Judge Bawcom 
 
 XT OW, the one thing what stirred me up 
 about joining myself onto a church 
 was the respectability sum. (I want folks 
 to have some idea as to what I'm writing 
 onto ; so I don't talk about solving no 
 problems. That's college education talk. 
 But in my schooldays we worked sums 
 and we got ans'ers to 'em. We didn't get 
 no solutions. If a sum was hard we 
 worked hard. If 'twasn't, we didn't. And 
 I hain't a bit ashamed to own up that the 
 respectability sum is about the hardest 
 thing I've tackled onto for quite a 
 spell.) 
 
 What set the subject a-revolving into 
 
 19
 
 20 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 my mind was that call from Mrs. Jedge 
 Bawcom. Not that she hadn't never 
 called onto me before, for she had. The 
 Bawcoms and the Hopkinses has always 
 been on visiting terms ; but because she's 
 what you call ladylike ; and it's real 
 pleasant to have her carriage stop before 
 your door and to see her getting out, slow- 
 like and stately just as if nothing 
 couldn't be done without her, but as if 
 she wasn't going to hurry if it wasn't 
 never done. 
 
 Well, she set right down into that 
 there stuffed Boston rocker what always 
 stands in the right-hand corner of the 
 square parlor, 'longside of the window 
 that's next to the elm outside. And she 
 talked in her slow, elegant way about 
 matters and things in general, till we 
 come, somehow 'ruther, to speaking 'bout 
 the different churches. 
 
 " Miss Hopkins," says she, " what's 
 this I've hearn about your going off to 
 the Methodist Church ? It's strange how
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 21 
 
 reports get strung about into which there 
 ain't one grain of truth." 
 
 Now she didn't have any mean, sneak- 
 ing sneer onto her face when she spoke 
 that word, Methodist. She thinks alto- 
 gether too much of herself to be found a- 
 sneering at anything or anybody. But, 
 if you'll believe me, there was a battery 
 shock that run down my whole spinal 
 column, and made me feel for about a 
 minute as if I'd been caught a-doing some- 
 thing what didn't belong to the best 
 Tompkin's Corners' manners. 
 
 But, after a breath or two, I begun feel- 
 ing my temper a-rising, and I looked at 
 her quite severe. But there she set, every 
 inch a lady, who wouldn't be found try- 
 ing to put down anybody least of all a 
 whole church for the world. It was real 
 fortunate that I didn't speak that first 
 minute, for I should, a-most likely, been 
 kinder worked up over it afterwards if 
 I had. 
 
 " We're always counting onto you."
 
 22 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 she went on, "as belonging to our par 
 ticular company. There ain't many of the 
 old families left, and we don't want to lose 
 one out 'specially such a one as yours 
 has been. Of course I hain't saying as 
 there beant no good folks into that 
 church." The galvanic battery took a- 
 hold of my spinal column again. " No- 
 body wouldn't think of doubting their 
 piety; but it don't seem likely to me, 
 that a person with your tastes and bring- 
 ing-up, Miss Hopkins, would feel very 
 much to home with some of them." 
 
 There was a kind o' insinuating tone 
 into her slow voice ; and while she spoke 
 it, she moved a little and the sunlight was 
 ketched by the beads what was em- 
 broidered all over the front breadth of her 
 dress, and throwed off into little sparkles 
 onto the wall. And they danced and 
 shook theirselves as if they was about 
 tickled to death over the very idea. And 
 she looked so real genteel and ladylike ! 
 And I remembered the old cheeny, and the
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 23 
 
 solid silver, and the 'ristocratic air of her 
 whole house. Not that her own family 
 was anything so very great ; but that, 
 having married herself to the Jedge, she 
 took all o' them airs onto herself jest as 
 natural-like as if she'd- been a born Baw- 
 com. 
 
 I begun to think that 'twas time for me 
 to open my mouth. So, in as mild a 
 tone as hern, I said that I wanted to be 
 recognized because I was Elvira Hopkins, 
 a respectable and comfortable-off maiden 
 woman, and not jest because I tended 
 one church 'stead of another. I told her 
 that I could appreciate friends regular- 
 built friends as well as anybody ; but 
 that I didn't want nobody a-sociating with 
 me just 'cause I belonged to their com- 
 munion and helped to bear the expenses 
 of their church. 
 
 I told her that I never had been one 
 of them kind what had to keep their re- 
 spectability bolstered up by a parson and 
 a passel of deacons ; that I hadn't had
 
 24 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 yet to be dragged into what a certain fe-vs 
 might call " good society " by hanging 
 on to a popular church. 
 
 Talking seemed to come easy after I'd 
 got my mouth open. And I went on and 
 told her that as to my not feeling to home 
 with some of the Methodist folks, that I 
 could name to her, right there, a number 
 of Presbyterians and some Baptists and 
 Congregationals, and a few Lutherans 
 and Bpiscopals, with whom I hadn't never 
 been able to make myself feel to home. 
 
 The little sparkles on to the wall got 
 mad, and danced up and down and shook 
 their bright little fists at me. Though 
 . Mrs. Jedge Bawcom talked as mild as ever 
 .and she said with a sort of sigh : " I'm 
 real surprised to hear you a-talking in 
 such a fanatical manner, Miss Hopkins. 
 I wouldn't a-believed it possible from one 
 of your family. I shall still hope that 
 we'll be friendly. But it ain't to be ex- 
 pected that we'll be likely to meet as often 
 in the future as in the past."
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 25 
 
 Then she got up and pulled her long 
 fur cloak up onto her sloping shoulders, 
 and shook hands with me in the perlitest 
 way possible : and, after a observation or 
 two onto the weather, she went off. But 
 she left me somewhat as a big steamer 
 might cut loose from a little row-boat out 
 onto the deep sea jest cut right loose 
 and sail off a-leaving of the little thing to 
 take care of itself if it could. 
 
 I was calm outside perfectly calm and 
 well-behaved ; but it wan't to be expected 
 that I was a first-class saint away down 
 out of sight. 
 
 I s'pose 'twas that very thing that done 
 more toward making a Methodist out of 
 me in a hurry than anything else. I 
 mean the fact that she went a leetle too 
 fur. 'Twas like using a spur onto a mettle- 
 some beast, with me. Though I can see 
 how it might a wilted some folks like cut 
 clover under a August sun. 
 
 I jest said to myself, I did: "Elvira, 
 Hopkins, ef you've got one spark of re-
 
 26 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 spectability or old family name or any- 
 thing else that's worth having, you just 
 go and put 'em where they'll do the most 
 good. And where some folks, who ain't 
 certain sure of the genuineness of theirn, 
 feel kinder feard of putting 'em to the 
 test. Maybe there's a work for your old 
 hands to do yet in this shilly-shally 
 world. You hain't never been called a 
 shirk yet, and I wouldn't begin at this 
 time of life, if I was you." 
 
 My bonnet and shawl was on in a jiffy. 
 It wan't no time before John Wesley 
 Gray was a-writing my name down as a 
 probationer into his church. Ellen Maria 
 kissed me onto both of my old cheeks. 
 
 " You blessed Auntie,", says she. 
 " You're going to be a Methodist, are 
 you ? Well, I know what that means. 
 It's heart, soul, and pocketbook." 
 
 " Yes," says I. " And it's respect- 
 ability and the old fambly name thrown 
 in, 'longside o' the rest." 
 
 They both stared, but I didn't let on.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 27 
 
 It wouldn't a been best to a let on. 
 Afterward, I set down with my niece in 
 the little setting-room to have a little 
 visit, and as we set there with the door 
 of the study ajar, I could see that the 
 young minister rested his head onto his 
 hands a good deal ; that he 'peared like 
 a man what was a-carrying burdens so 
 heavy as not to be good for him. 
 
 " My dear, what is the matter of John 
 Wesley," I inquired. " Is his sermon 
 work too heavy for him? " 
 
 Then Ellen Maria, she sighed real 
 hard. And she begun to seem very much 
 interested into something what was going 
 on outside the window. I've a sneaking 
 sorto' suspicion that 'twas to hide the look 
 that come over her face, so's I shouldn't 
 get onto it. For, seeing as she's all I 
 have in the world, she knows how close 
 she's watched by a pair of loving old eyes. 
 
 So she just said: "Oh, no! he loves 
 nothing better'n his pulpit preparation. 
 He's just had a call from the young
 
 28 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 Bldredges and the Wrights. They came 
 to ask for their church letters." She 
 leaned forward as if things was getting 
 very interesting out of the window. * ' They 
 say we've no society in our church, and 
 that it would be pleasanter to be united 
 in church interests with the same ones 
 who are their associates in other matters. 
 So, they are going to join the Presby- 
 terians." 
 
 I was surprised. Grandfather Bldredge 
 was one of the oldest members of the 
 Methodist church. And Jonathan Wright 
 had been a class-leader for up'ards of forty 
 year. 
 
 " If we don't have any society in our 
 church," said Bllen Maria with a little 
 tremble into her voice that took right a- 
 hold of my heart-strings, " it's because we 
 won't have it. Methodists who have as 
 much money as other people, and more, 
 too, don't have lovely little parties for 
 their young people. So, if the young ones 
 want to have good times, they must go
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 29 
 
 into the homes of members of other 
 churches who are willing to be to some 
 little trouble and expense for the sake of 
 seeing young people happy. 
 
 " So, we haven't many left beside old 
 people and children, and the constant fear 
 is that as soon as the children grow up 
 they'll leave us, too. It's a sorry looking 
 future for a church with the broadest, 
 sweetest creed under the sun." 
 
 I didn't have anything to say that would 
 really touch the p'int ; so I jest took her 
 face between my hands and said: 
 
 " Well, good-by, dearie. Let's hope that 
 things '11 all come 'round right after a 
 spell." Then I went home and set right 
 down and begun to ponder. Seems to me 
 that I'm having a deal of pondering to do 
 lately.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 She Argues the Case, somewhat, 
 of the Church for the Young 
 as well as the Young for the 
 Church 
 
 "\XTELL, I went home, as I said, and set 
 down to ponder onto the subject that 
 seemed to be a-bothering the life out of John 
 Wesley Gray ! After a while I jest made 
 my mind up. Then I had my little brown 
 horse hitched onto the low buggy, and I 
 drove round and invited every one of the 
 older members of the Methodist Church 
 to my house for an early tea on Wednes- 
 day afternoon. 
 
 I told them that, insomuch as my name 
 had been put onto the church roll, I 
 
 wanted to have a little celebration of my 
 3
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 31 
 
 own. And I added, moreover, that if 
 any body staid away I should feel very 
 specially grieved. 
 
 The next morning Martha Ann she's 
 the woman what has lived with me as a 
 sort of housekeeper and general friend 
 for so many years that we've got to think 
 pretty much alike well, she and I set to 
 work a-preparing for my company. Our 
 family was always called good perviders, 
 and I just laid myself out this time. 
 Martha Ann and I didn't leave no stone 
 unturned. 
 
 On Wednesday my visitors come. You 
 should a-seen the buggies unloading 
 at that front gate. We had a old-fash- 
 ioned tea and a good old-fashioned visit. 
 
 Everybody seemed happy. They 
 talked and laughed and told stories of the 
 pranks they cut in their younger days 
 and proved to me, then and there, that 
 Methodists are as good company as any- 
 body needs hanker after. 
 
 And I said, out loud enough for 'em
 
 82 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 all to hear, that I wished the young folks 
 of the church had been invited, 'cause I 
 knew they'd a-liked to a-heard the stories 
 about ole-time doings. 
 
 It was an unfortunate remark. Grand- 
 father Kldredge drew down his face and 
 said that our Church didn't have hardly 
 any young folks, these days ; they was 
 too light an' triflin' to be Methodists. 
 
 He said as how that he'd labored and 
 labored with his grandchildren ; but that 
 nothin' couldn't keep 'em. They'd all 
 gone off into other churches. Then some 
 others took it upon themselves to join in 
 with the same kind of remarks, and my 
 party was fast turning into a funeral. - 
 
 But I didn't care. I'd invited them for 
 this pertickerler thing. So I just plucked 
 up courage and said, says I : 
 
 ' Well, if we " (strange how easy 'twas 
 to go to counting on myself as one of 
 'em) " if we hain't got the knack of 
 keeping young folks with us ain't we to 
 blame 'stid o' them ? Young folks is like
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 33 
 
 bees. They're allers hummin' 'round 
 wherever there's sunshine an' sweets. 
 I've been a-ponderin' onto this thing 
 pretty strong. And I've come to the con- 
 clusion that the reason why we're a-losin' 
 our young folks is, 'cause we make too 
 much of Heaven an' too little of Here. 
 Now eternity ain't good, as a stiddy diet, 
 for strong, healthy, happy young hearts." 
 
 Horrified looks spread like quick 
 thunder clouds over 'most all of the faces. 
 But I saw a wonderful light rising into 
 the one I love best in the world. It shone 
 out till it reflected onto that other face 
 that had been bowed over the desk into 
 the little study. And, somehow, I 
 plucked up courage to go on. 
 
 " Be kinder patient long o' me," I 
 said, " 'cause I've just got myself into the 
 Church, and it's so sweet an' shelt'rin' a 
 feelin' to me, that I just want to be a 
 gettin' every livin' soul, young an' ole, 
 to try it for their own selves. But we 
 must be mighty keerful. We must show 
 3
 
 34 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 that we're a-living into this present world 
 and a working for it reasonable-like if 
 we want to persuade folks to join us in 
 huntin' arter a better one. 
 
 " We must have charity that's softer 
 than swan's-down ; an' we must be care- 
 ful and not call sunny-hearted youngsters 
 light and triflin' if they do hanker arter 
 somethin' a trifle more exciting than a 
 prayer-meeting. Jest let's give 'em some 
 parties the right kind, of course and 
 then go in and help 'em to get a good 
 time out of 'em. We take dancing away 
 from them and give 'em a class-meeting. 
 We won't let 'em play cards ; but we 
 think we're doing mighty fine things for 
 'em when we let 'em work theirselves 
 nigh about to death to a church social. 
 
 " We hain't got no business to make 
 them help raise the church expenses what 
 we'd orter put our hands into our pockets 
 for. Most of us know what a hilarious 
 thing and one to be desired and longed 
 for, the general run of church socials is."
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 35 
 
 Then Mrs. Bemis begun to get riled. 
 'Twas jest a leetle too much for her. " Ef 
 young folks had the love of Christ into 
 their hearts it ud take all desires arter 
 carnal things out of 'em and that with- 
 out no mincin' of matters," says she. 
 
 "But we'd orter be careful," I said 
 again, very tender-like, " and let the in- 
 fluences of our holy Religion drop onto 
 their young lives as soft as the sweet 
 spring showers come down ; when the 
 buds begin to blow and the little birds go 
 out and spread and flutter their pretty 
 wings so as to get all they can of it, and 
 duck their little heads into it when it's a- 
 comin down, we mustn't drownd 'em 
 out with a thunder-shower, what drenches 
 everything, and breaks all the tender 
 branches, and beats down the little posies 
 that would so much ruther look up and 
 smile. 
 
 " A twelve-year-old boy hain't onto the 
 road to perdition 'cause he wants to see 
 the fireworks on a Fourth o' July even in'
 
 36 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 stid o' goin' to class-meetin' ! Bf 
 thing riles me all up it's to hear a woman 
 of sixty year, weighin' nigh onto two 
 hunderd pound, and what's got rheumatiz 
 beside, a-tellin' how thankful she is that 
 the desire to dance has been tooken out of 
 her heart ! " 
 
 Some of them laughed at this little 
 shot, which done more towards setting 
 matters right than you'd imagine. A 
 good hearty laugh, or a smile what goes 
 rippling along across first one face and 
 then another, will do more toward 
 smoothing things up than a sermon, any 
 day. 
 
 So, the first thing we knew, we was 
 really planning to do something. Our 
 young minister and his wife my niece, 
 Bllen Maria said they'd give out invita- 
 tions for everybody to call onto them 
 Monday afternoons and evenings. They 
 said they'd have chocolate, or tea, or 
 coffee something easy done and not too 
 much costing to hand about, and they'd
 
 Tompkin\s Corner. 37 
 
 do all that they could with books and 
 pictures and, may be, a little music to 
 give the folks young and old a happy 
 time. 
 
 " And we want all of you to come in," 
 said Bllen Maria with her face all pink 
 and pretty. " Don't let the young folks 
 think that you don't like to have them 
 'round. Ask 'em to come with you, and 
 you'll soon see how the line between the 
 old and the young will fade away. You'll 
 grow so young, yourselves, and they'll be 
 such charming company, that the mil- 
 lennium will come, in one church at 
 least." 
 
 Everybody loves Ellen Maria. Her 
 mother wasn't a bit like me. So she's 
 already got a strong hold onto their 'fec- 
 tions. And whatever she seems to set 
 her heart onto, they feel willing to, at 
 least, give a trial to. 
 
 There was more talking and planning 
 heaps of it, and everything seemed to 
 be harmonious-like when we said good-
 
 38 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 night to one another, and I was left to 
 sit down afore the old fireplace in the 
 back parlor and to ponder onto what was 
 best for me to do a plain, ornery 
 maiden-woman living lone and lonely 
 toward helping the Methodist Church of 
 Tompkin's Corners to keep its young 
 folks from slipping out of its arms.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 She Begins to Try to Live out 
 some of the Results of her 
 Pondering 
 
 / T > HERE was a pretty long train of 
 results that hitched theirselves onto 
 my ponderings after the Party. I didn't 
 undertake to argufy the point, I just 
 went to living it out as fast as possible. 
 Perhaps I was taking a good deal onto 
 myself; but want meant that way. 
 
 That night, after my visitors had gone 
 I looked all round my house into every 
 room. And I tried to make my eyes any- 
 wheres from sixteen to twenty year old 
 'stid of there, I almost let out my age ! 
 And I couldn't keep from seeing that, 
 
 while things was altogether clean and com- 
 
 39
 
 40 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 fortable they was what you might say, 
 stiff. Black horse-hair furniture must 
 have been first invented for funerals and 
 prisons, and got mixed in their directions 
 and landed into folkses real living-rooms. 
 There was a sort of halo hoverin' round 
 some straight-backed chairs that come 
 under my gaze ; but, in all my last years, 
 .1 couldn't remember as how that a young 
 person had ever chose one of them stiff, 
 hearse-like looking things to set onto when 
 they'd come in to see me. 
 
 The end of that severe glancing 'round 
 was that, instead of using the money that 
 had just been paid in onto one mortgage 
 in buying of another, I went and told 
 Martha Ann to get ready and go with 
 Bllen Maria and me to the city for a day's 
 trading. 
 
 We had a powerful good time. Arter 
 I got that first hundred dollars fairly 
 broke into, my selfishness seemed to get 
 ashamed of itself. It was something real 
 remarkable how them bills slipped through
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 41 
 
 my fingers, and how I corne to enjoy 
 a-letting of em go. 
 
 "Auntie acts like a lover preparing a 
 home for his bride," said Ellen Maria with 
 a little laugh. 
 
 Then I took to it and scolded her for 
 letting me go on so pokey-like during all 
 of her young days. But she said that I 
 kept her away at school so much that any 
 place would have looked beautiful that 
 could be called home. 
 
 We went to a real fashionable place for 
 dinner, and I bought the best things on 
 the list. Then I got Martha Ann a new 
 black silk gownd, and told her not to 
 keep it a-hanging into her clothes-press, 
 but to wear it for there was more where 
 that come from, and I bought Bllen 
 Maria a imported thing very delicate and 
 just the color of her hair and one or two 
 others. And a few necessary articles was 
 tacked onto my own wearing apparel. 
 
 We went home tired ; but we was happy. 
 I'd never spent so much money into my
 
 42 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 whole life. Everything was 'bout the same 
 as when the property come into my hands ; 
 and while I ain't so pesky rich as some 
 folks seem to think I be, 'twas time that 
 things should be furbished up a little. 
 
 For a day or two we jest had to set 
 'round waiting for them things to come. 
 I got to be real kinder restless a-waitin'so 
 long. 
 
 But, when they did come, you can reckon 
 that we was kept pretty lively. There 
 was easy chairs regular-built sleepy-hol- 
 lows to be stowed away into corners, and 
 some pretty willows that had to have 
 bright ribbons run into them and tied 
 into loose bows. It was beautiful to see 
 what the fingers of that niece of mine 
 could do. The new curtains made every- 
 thing look soft and graceful, and the 
 pictures 
 
 It was real extravagant to buy them two 
 pictures at that price. But when the days 
 is dreary, a look at that soft landscape 
 by Mr. Inness is good for tired eyes ;
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 43 
 
 and Ellen Maria said that so good a copy 
 of that particular Madonna and Child 
 would have been cheap at double the 
 money. My own opinion is worth a good 
 deal more about tomato ketchup than 
 about Madonnas; but my heart grew 
 wonderfully tender when I looked into 
 them serious eyes, 
 
 There'd a-been trouble into the choir, 
 and the singing was enough to drive a 
 body distracted. John Wesley Gray, the 
 pastor, had said oncet in my hearing that 
 if he was rich, he'd get a fust-class musi- 
 cianer man to come and train the young 
 people, and then to come to the Sunday 
 meetings and stand up and lead the hull 
 congregation by beating a stick I dis- 
 remember now, jest what he called them 
 kind of musicianer men. 
 
 There wasn't no such to be had in all 
 Tompkin's Corners. Mr. McCheen, who 
 was best, had been hired to play the organ 
 into the Episcopal Church ; and Mr. 
 Noyes, who could do it pretty well, was
 
 44 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 a Presbyterian and had to work into their 
 choir. But I hadn't made all my plans 
 for nothing. I just spunked right up 
 and had John Wesley write up to the city 
 and get a real, regular-built perfessor of 
 music to come to Tompkin's Corners and 
 train our young folks every Saturday 
 night, and then to just come right to my 
 house in my best spare chamber over 
 Sunday, so as to lead the singing of the 
 preaching meetings and the Sunday- 
 school. 
 
 The new Steinway piano that Ellen 
 Maria picked out that day we went into 
 the city, was standing into my big back 
 parlor. I'd made up my mind to have a 
 set of good, jolly, old-fashioned singing- 
 schools to my own house every Saturday 
 night ; and to wind each one up with 
 some good eating things to pass 'round, 
 and a happy social time. 
 
 So, Martha Ann, she brought out the 
 fambly linen what was most as old as I 
 was, and she dusted the mulberry cheeny
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 45 
 
 that was my mother's wedding-present, 
 and both on us rubbed up the silver. And 
 while we was a-doing of all these things, 
 our hum-drum old life got " chocked so 
 full " as Martha Ann said that it was 
 as sweet as a life on earth can possibly 
 be to a body who has seen so many years 
 a-goin' by. 
 
 And while we was a-working, I felt so 
 kind of chipper that, though I can't carry 
 a tune not if it was to save my life if 
 you'll believe me, I'd catch myself hum- 
 ming onto some of them prayer-meeting 
 tunes. The one that staid into my mind 
 the clostest was, 
 
 " One more day's work for Jesus." 
 
 Then I just had to stop and laugh at 
 myself for going round a-singing like 
 any young thing who was getting ready 
 for her first party. But, sure's you're 
 living, 'twouldn't be no time before I'd 
 find myself singing away : 
 
 " Lord, if I may, 
 I'll work another day."
 
 46 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 Then things would kinder grow misty 
 and gray afore my eyes, and there wouldn't 
 be nothing left for me to do but to wipe 
 'em off with a corner of my checkered 
 apron and say : 
 
 " Well, Elvira Hopkins, if you be 
 a-making a fool of yourself, and I really 
 think you be, you must confess to its 
 being a very pleasant and agreeable feel- 
 
 ing." 
 
 I think that, some way, all the pent-up 
 love of my old heart just went and poured 
 itself out like a river. Having been shut 
 up for so long, with only Ellen Maria to 
 coddle, it seemed as if I must take the 
 whole passel of young folks in. And what 
 a merry company they be ! 
 
 I won't trouble to tell you about how 
 that first nor second, nor any of the 
 Saturday evenings at my house went off ; 
 nor how the young ones have got to kinder 
 dropping in onto me, a-most any time o' 
 day or evening, with their plans and their 
 frolics." It's a-getting so that they lead
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 47 
 
 me a pretty crazy life, I can tell you, with 
 their secrets and their lovers' quarrels to 
 be straightened out. 
 
 It was only a quarrel, such a mite of a 
 one, that wrecked my own life and flung 
 it up onto cold and barren rock ! And, 
 with their wanting to be better Christians 
 and to do things for Christ, why, they 
 don't give me time to get into my old 
 shut-up ways not even if I wanted to. 
 
 It's queer, but the Bldridge young folks, 
 and the Wrights have come back again. 
 Mrs. Bemis says they are arter the loaves 
 and fishes that they want the training 
 of that city professor. But, suppose they 
 do ? Loaves and fishes ain't worth noth- 
 ing if they don't get et at the right time. 
 We've got just as good a right to win by 
 music as the vile places have, and a good 
 deal more ; for music was born in Heaven 
 when the stars sung together that morn- 
 ing. And its very being is to bless. 
 
 But we've got the best singing into our 
 church that's going anywhere in Tomp-
 
 48 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 kin's Corners now. The city music-man 
 leads, the youngsters are scattered all 
 over the church, and Martha Ann says, 
 " It's a sight to hear that singing ! "
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 She Quotes from a Sermon 
 Preached by Ellen Maria's 
 Husband 
 
 QUITE a change has come into some 
 f ^ of the homes of our Church not 
 into all of them, bless you ! There is them 
 as would complain of the angel Gabriel. 
 John Wesley preached a sermon that was a 
 word in the nick of time. He said that if 
 we were watching the younger members 
 of the flock we might feel sure that their 
 keener eyes have not looked less closely 
 at us. He asked what we had done to 
 win their love for the Church of our choice, 
 and their love for ourselves as members of 
 that Church. Our words to them have 
 
 been a constant Do not this and that but 
 4 49
 
 50 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 we haven't troubled ourselves to find out 
 any pleasant thing for them to enjoy, and 
 then go and invite them to enjoy it. If 
 we believe that certain things do not aid 
 to spirituality, then we are our brother's 
 keeper, in so far that we should help him 
 to something that will entertain without 
 harming him, and interest without lower- 
 ing the high plane of social intercourse. 
 
 This seems kind o' high-fa-lutin' writ- 
 ing for my goose-quill : but I borrowed 
 the sermon so as to make it read real im- 
 posing-like. 
 
 He said, into that sermon, that we sit 
 calmly by and let others rule the social 
 world ; and, by and by, when our young 
 folks drift away from us, we hold up our 
 hands in shocked amazement at what was 
 the most natural thing in the world. 
 
 " It is as much our duty, "said John Wes- 
 ley Gray in that sermon, " to make people 
 innocently happy as to pray with them. 
 Indeed it would be a good deal easier to 
 pray for some one whose life we have
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 51 
 
 brightened or sweetened. It is not right 
 to sigh over the evils of society and make 
 no effort to change them. How many of 
 our established church-members make an 
 effort to become acquainted with and to 
 encourage the younger ones ; to let them 
 feel that their presence is appreciated at 
 a service or, in a gentle way, that their 
 absence is felt. 
 
 " To be sure it's the duty of every one to 
 work, whether he's appreciated or not. 
 But Duty is a hard task-master. Who of 
 us does not often shirk ? 
 
 u There is no reason why, with proper 
 conditions, we should not have our pro- 
 portion of the intelligent, cultured young 
 people in every hamlet, village and city 
 in the land. But we must look sharply 
 after the conditions. 
 
 " We are a strangely unappreciative 
 church at times. We do not like to flatter 
 people. If we see that one is inclined to 
 a little innocent self-appreciation, instead 
 of gratifying human nature, and at the
 
 52 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 same time turning latent energy into 
 the right channel, we snub him. We 
 wouldn't give him a pleasant office, or an 
 honor, for anything in the world. We ex- 
 pect him to be a saint, while our own hearts 
 keep a little corner for envy and jealousy. 
 
 " ' In honor preferring one another.' I 
 would go a long way to see the faithful 
 old Sunday-school superintendent, or the 
 class-leader, who had sincerely, and with 
 cheerfulness, offered his resignation in 
 favor of some bright young member and, 
 afterward, continued to throw all his 
 energies toward making the new man a 
 success. It would be worth a pilgrimage 
 to clasp the hand of such a man ! " 
 
 It was a risky thing for a young preacher 
 to say. But he didn't do it like a scold. I 
 saw some of the folks nodding their 
 heads to each other, and talking, when 
 meeting was over. Some of 'em said that, 
 being as they wasn't millionaires, they 
 wasn't up to giving " high teas " and the 
 other new-fangled way of doing things.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 53 
 
 But some of 'em was willing to give the 
 matter a trial. They had, first, a real old- 
 fashioned quilting bee, and the one who 
 give it found out that real heart hospi- 
 tality can charm even those who are used 
 to the most fashionerable Tompkin's 
 Corners society. 
 
 One of the class-leaders had a literary 
 society in which one hour was given to 
 facts and one to fun. And, every meeting 
 they took fifteen minutes of the first hour 
 to study up the history of Methodism. 
 And you'd a-been real surprised to know 
 how very interested we all got, and how 
 much just this one church has done for 
 history, liberty, and the general uplifting 
 of folks everywhere. Why, we got to 
 loving it as if it was something to be 
 proud on. We begun to realize that we 
 was honored in belonging to it. 
 
 Old Mr. Beers cut down two favor-//*? 
 fruit trees when the warm weather come, 
 and laid out a tennis-court onto his lawn, 
 and invited players to come and enjoy it.
 
 54 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 Old Mrs. Martin started the pretty old 
 game of battledore and shuttlecock. 
 You'd be astonished to find how many 
 ways was got up to make life look bright 
 to young eyes that hadn't seen too much 
 sorrow. 
 
 And them what done these new pranks 
 was showed so much respect and love by 
 them as they was trying to please, that 
 their own lives grew younger every day. 
 As for me, why, I talked so much about 
 the young folks that smiles begun going 
 'round whenever I begun it. Martha Ann 
 said to me one morning : 
 
 " You was always real sfiry, Miss 
 Hopkins. But I do believe you're gittin' 
 twenty year younger, in your face, in 
 your voice, your eyes an' your smile. 
 You 'pear to be gladder than you're use 
 to bein'." 
 
 I've dwelt onto the pleasant side be- 
 cause it was pleasant to do it. But, pos- 
 sible, I'd better give a peep onto the other, 
 least some as reads this book and tries to
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 55 
 
 work in the same spirit, may get dis- 
 couraged. If anybody is fool enough to 
 think that, just because he is trying to do 
 right, he'll find plain sailing, he's greatly 
 mistaken, that's all. 
 
 First of all, our young minister got 
 himself into immejit trouble with that 
 sermon. Old Mr. Wisner, who's been 
 class-leader ever since I can remember, 
 didn't come nigh a meeting. When his 
 pastor called onto him, he said that old 
 folks wasn't of no 'count, 'cept to be 
 kicked to one side, nowadays. That it 
 use to be different in his younger days ; 
 but that the church was being " run" by 
 a lot of boys and girls ; and that the solid 
 members 'ud best lay back and jest see 
 where they'd bring up. Josiah Wisner is 
 a man double the age of his young minis- 
 ter. And the help 'ud orter a come from 
 the other side. 
 
 John Wesley didn't say anything to me ; 
 but he must a-found it pretty stiff work 
 a-trying to win a man back what showed
 
 56 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 sech a spirit. But he brung it about, 
 somehow, though it took a deal of 
 struggle. 
 
 This and some other things set me to 
 pondering. I've arriv to the conclusion 
 that while some Episcopals seem to 
 magnify their love for the church too 
 much, some Methodists love their own 
 selves too much, and are not willing to do 
 big things, or little ones, for the church's 
 own sake. They only do things to please 
 their own selves. 
 
 Jest give a man some public thing to 
 do that he likes, and ministers may come 
 and ministers may go, but that man will 
 hold on with a death grip even if it ain't 
 no more than passing the collection basket. 
 He's like a Canada thistle ; once get him 
 into a place and it's a life-and-death 
 struggle to get him out. 
 
 This doesn't seem to be a pleasant 
 spirit in which to write, so I'll stop my 
 book for the present.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 In Which She Relates Some of 
 Martha Ann's Sayings 
 
 LLEN MARIA said, says she to me 
 the other day : " Auntie, John and I 
 have thought that some bright newspaper 
 man might win fame and perhaps money 
 by writing what you've been doing and 
 saying." She laughed when she said it. 
 'Twas a sort of joke. 
 
 But I said, " Well, / don't want any 
 newspaper money, and I don't have any 
 pertickerler use for fame, either. It'll 
 last just as long as you tickle folkses 
 fancies ; and . when you begin to show 
 that you've a mind of your own} you 
 must look out. Fame may be a very 
 beautiful damsel for a young poet what
 
 58 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 is filled full of longings ; but she ain't 
 no kind of company for a respectable 
 maiden woman to keep, what's got prop- 
 erty that pays a stiddy income." 
 
 Well, after a hull week of pondering, 
 I've come to the opinion that no harm 
 will be done and, possible, some good may 
 come by writing out some of the things 
 said to me and about me and them par- 
 ticular young people. Mrs. Bemis didn't 
 believe in " caterin' to young folks." Per- 
 haps she ain't so much to blame, for her 
 sister, Mrs. Butterworth, is a Free Metho- 
 dist and is continually harping on world- 
 liness into the Church. 
 
 Well, them two felt it to be their 
 bounden duty to come and labor with me. 
 I wasn't to home and they was unwise 
 enough to begin onto Martha Ann. Says 
 Mrs. Butterworth, says she: 
 
 " Bf religion is goin' to make folks so 
 kind o' light an' triflin' as you an' Miss 
 Hopkins is a-gettin' to be, an so bent on 
 carnal pleasures, why, I can't recommend
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 59 
 
 it no more to a dyin' world. You an' she 
 are a-inakin' of them young folks so gay, 
 and vain, and frivolous that it makes my 
 heart bleed over the waste places of Zion. 
 Probable you don't realize, but it's only 
 Satan a-deckin' himself out like a angel 
 of light. A few of us is a tryin' to get folks 
 out of the world into the Church ; but 
 Miss Hopkins is a-bringin' of the world 
 right into the Church with her carryings 
 on." 
 
 Martha Ann said that she thought, in a 
 minute, of that prayer that always sets 
 my heart to throbbing : " Father, I 
 pray not that Thou shouldst take them 
 out of the world, but that Thou shouldst 
 keep them from the evil." But she 
 didn't mention it because she verily be- 
 lieves yet, that there is such a thing as 
 casting pearls afore swine. 
 
 So she just said some words of her own 
 that sounded almost like poetry when she 
 tole 'em over to me. I didn't know that 
 there was so much into Martha Ann.
 
 60 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 But she asked them women what they 
 supposed the Lord, hisself, would think 
 of a girl what He'd made with a forehead 
 like a lily and cheeks like a pink ; with 
 hair like summer dusk, and eyes runnin' 
 over with sweetness what would He 
 think of her if she didn't wear pretty 
 clothes, not vain-like nor puffed up, as 
 they might say but with an innocent 
 joy in bein' something that's pleasant for 
 world-weary old eyes to turn theirselves 
 onto. 
 
 She told them that young folks was just 
 livin' an' walkin' posies ; and that she 
 liked to see the old house bright with 
 them and echoing with their pretty voices. 
 She told them that, maybe, Miss Hopkins 
 and all the young folks was on their way 
 to perdition, and that them two and their 
 cronies was the kind of stuff Heaven 
 would be made up of ; but that 'twould 
 take somebody else to make her believe 
 it. 
 
 I was quite shocked when she told me
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 61 
 
 this but she, lowed that I'd best wait till 
 I'd heard the rest, before saying too 
 much. 
 
 It seems that these women went on to 
 say that there'd best be only three people 
 in the church, and them three perfect, 
 than to have it crowded full of pride and 
 vanity. 
 
 Then Martha Ann felt that the time 
 had come when she could quote Scripture. 
 She told them that St. Paul had advised 
 us to set our faces toward the mark, but 
 that he didn't say anything about our 
 letting on that we thought we'd got there. 
 Paul, hisself, 'lowed that he wan't per- 
 fect ; but that he was a-" following after." 
 And she didn't think it was a pertickeler 
 modest thing to set a body's self up over 
 St. Paul. 
 
 She said that taking off from other 
 folkses piety never hadn't been knowed 
 to add any onto a body's self, and, as for 
 the Church, it wan't no great, cold, white 
 individooality set up for us to fall down
 
 62 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 before, as ef 'twas a Hindoo idol. The 
 Church is ourselves each other. And 
 Christ said : " Little children, love one 
 another." He didn't say : " Pick one 
 another to pieces." 
 
 " Mis' Butter worth," says Martha Ann, 
 "you call yourself a Free Methodist, an' 
 so fur as I kin see, that simply means 
 that you're free to find fault with the 
 members of the old church you've left." 
 
 Then they thought they would go 
 home. Mrs. Butterworth said : " We 
 didn't come here to talk to you. Will 
 you jest tell Miss Hopkins, fur me, that 
 she'd a great deal better be havin' prayer- 
 meetings over the immortal souls of these 
 young folks every Saturday night, than 
 to be a-filling of their heads with all sorts 
 of vanities. She is a-lovin' on 'em in a 
 weak, carnal way ; and carin' for their 
 bodies instid of feelin' anxious over their 
 souls." 
 
 Then Martha Ann lost all of her re- 
 ligion for a short spell. And she said
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 63 
 
 that it would be a good deal better for 
 some folks that she knew on, if they'd 
 jest let their souls and other folkses souls 
 rest for a spell, and go to feedin' the 
 hungry, an' smilin' into the eyes of them 
 that weep, an' speakin' bright an' sun- 
 shiny to them what had lost out of their 
 hearin' the dearest voices on earth. 
 
 " The trouble with you is," says she, 
 " that you've been fussing 'round over 
 your soul till you've got it into a morbid 
 state like a baby what's cuddled to death, 
 and waked up every little while to see ef 
 it's asleep. You are tryin' your soul to 
 see how it feels, each pertickerler minute. 
 Sometimes, you go ravin' distracted try- 
 in' to get it blessed so 't you kin work 
 fur th' Lord ; when all that you or any- 
 body else has to do, is to take hold of the 
 nighest thing that 'dorter be done, and 
 simply do it as well as you can, with the 
 help of the Lord." 
 
 I felt it to be my duty to look very 
 severe when Martha Ann repeated that
 
 64 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 conversation. But I couldn't get her to 
 own up that she'd oughtn't to a-said it. 
 She just told me that a religion was fust- 
 class that made fust-class men and 
 women ; and that she hadn't one bit of 
 patience with a religion that made folks 
 cantankerous. She said they was better 
 off without it. That 'twasn't Jesus they'd 
 got, 'twas somebody else ! Then she 
 went and left me. 
 
 No, things ain't easy : but I've made 
 up my mind to keep up courage and go 
 ahead. 
 
 The first thing I did the next afternoon 
 was to make a neighborly call onto Mrs. 
 Bemis. I knew that she thought I'd come 
 to answer back about her call onto me of 
 the day previous ; for she greeted me very 
 stiff, and settled her mouth as if she'd 
 made all up what she was going to say. 
 
 But I didn't give her no chance, I 
 talked about the commonest things, until 
 the look onto her face faded into her 
 natural expression. Then, as I got up to
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 65 
 
 go, I asked her to come over and help me 
 mother all those young folks next Satur- 
 day evening. That I was certain, from 
 her having had children of her own, that 
 she could teach me some excellent lessons, 
 and that I'd been thinking of asking 
 some one about my own age to come and 
 help me. 
 
 I seen in a minute that she thought 
 Martha Ann hadn't told me a word. And 
 a relieved and comforted look came over 
 her. She held back a good deal ; but I 
 said I should expect her. 
 
 And, if you'll believe me, when Satur- 
 day night come, she come too. I was 
 real glad, but Martha Ann, she couldn't 
 speak for amazement. 
 
 'Twasn't long 'fore some of the most 
 talkative ones was close up to her. Nellie 
 Ray's long braid was loosened at the end, 
 and she asked Mrs. Bemis to finish it out 
 for her, 'cause she didn't know how to 
 braid in four strands. 
 
 Mrs-. Bemis just took a hold, like a
 
 66 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 fancy hair-dresser. She patted and 
 smoothed it, and said that she liked to see 
 hair done that way, for she used to do 
 her little daughter's so ; and it was just 
 the color of this, when she died. 
 
 The next thing I knew, Nellie had one 
 arm around Mrs. Bemis' neck and was 
 kissing her and wiping her eyes with a 
 pretty lace handkercher. I stole away 
 jest 's ef I hadn't seen it. But, taking 
 hold of that shiny hair, was better for her 
 than a dozen talkings to.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 In Which She Tells of her First 
 Visit to an Annual Confer- 
 ence and an Interview with 
 the Bishop. 
 
 "POLLEN MARIA and I have been to 
 * ' Conference. I wa'n't much set on 
 going ; but she said I must know some- 
 thing about the machinery that run our 
 Church. So we went up for two or three 
 days. John Wesley met us at the train 
 and, when we was safe into the omnibus, 
 he let fall that he was stopping with a 
 Episcopal fambly. 
 
 I asked him how that come about, and 
 he said that hospitable members of other 
 churches opened their homes at such 
 
 times, as the members of the church 
 
 67
 
 68 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 where the conference was held could not 
 entertain so many. 
 
 I wondered why ministers didn't go to 
 a respectable tavern or boarding-house and 
 pay for their own keep,, like respectable 
 men. I forgot, for the minute, that John 
 Wesley was one of 'em, but when the 
 color flamed into his face, I felt like 
 apologizing. 
 
 Ellen Maria's gentle voice came to the 
 rescue. She said that many of the min- 
 isters couldn't afford to pay a hotel bill 
 and the expense of coining to the con- 
 ference too. I felt sure that this couldn't 
 be the case with my niece's husband ; so 
 I said it must be a pretty poor lot of 
 men who couldn't stand that. And John 
 Wesley said, quite bitter, that that was 
 just what they were a very poor lot of 
 men. 
 
 We didn't say anything more onto the 
 subject, just then. Someway, none of us 
 seemed to feel like talking. That old 
 omnibus a-rumbling over the stones
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 69 
 
 wasn't a good place for pondering. I 
 couldn't get hold of a pleasant thought. 
 
 When we reached the hotel I pulled 
 John Wesley's sleeve and asked him to 
 get two of the very best rooms. He 
 opened his eyes ; but done so, and we was 
 taken to as good rooms as I was ever into. 
 
 When we'd got b}^ ourselves, I went up 
 to my niece's husband and says I : " John 
 Wesley, remember that I hain't been into 
 the church long, and that while I'm a good 
 deal older than you be, I've got lots of 
 things to learn. You took a good deal 
 onto 3^our hands when you wrote me down 
 as a probationer into your church." 
 
 Well, he looked at me in a way that 
 made it perfectly plain to my mind how 
 Hllen Maria should have deliberately mit- 
 tened that rich young Hastings, who was 
 wild after her, to take up with a man what 
 hadn't a acre of ground to his name. 
 
 " You dear Auntie," says he, taking 
 my hands. " It isn't you. It's the thing 
 itself that stirred me up."
 
 70 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 I passed it off by saying that if he 
 wasn't stirred up at me he must prove it 
 by presenting his respects to the folks 
 where he'd been a-stopping at, and telling 
 them that his wife had come and he was 
 going to stay at the hotel with her. So, 
 he come along. And I felt better when 
 I knew that Hllen Maria's husband wasn't 
 a ministerial tramp, accepting board and 
 lodging. I just took solid comfort paying 
 that hotel bill. 
 
 But, when John Wesley wasn't around, I 
 kept at Ellen Maria till I found out that 
 the things I'd noticed in her house and 
 hadn't liked because they seemed too sav- 
 ing, had been matters of up and down 
 necessity. You can imagine how I felt. 
 Bvery thing I've got goes to her, some 
 day, and she could have a yearly allow- 
 ance if it seemed best. 
 
 But I found out some things that morn- 
 ing that was good for me to know. You 
 see, the last minister had seven children 
 and, because John Wesley didn't have
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 71 
 
 any, the church just cut his salary down, 
 according. Then, on top of that, they 
 paid him so slow that 'twas next to onpos- 
 sible for him to get through. And he'd 
 come to conference with two hundred dol- 
 lars back on his salary that he'd never 
 get not because he wasn't liked, for they 
 owned up that the church had growed 
 more than it had in many a year, but 
 because they was usually back about that 
 sum. 
 
 I was perfectly shocked and asked her 
 how they ever expected to get another 
 minister if they cut up in that way. And 
 she said that no one knew of it. The 
 church wouldn't tell, and the minister 
 was too proud and made a gift of the two 
 hundred dollars, so as to have it go onto 
 the records that his church was as good 
 as the rest. 
 
 "And it is," she said. "They are 
 nearly all so, Auntie. That's what dis- 
 courages John so." 
 
 Then I said that I'd like to know what
 
 72 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 business a church had, anyway, in estimat- 
 ing a man's salary according to the size 
 of his fambly. 
 
 She said as how that it begun when 
 folks first come to America, and were so 
 poor that they could hardly get food 
 enough to put into their mouths. That 
 ministers used to meet with the members 
 of the scattered churches and sit down and 
 plan as to the very least they could get 
 along on. They done it cheerily and lov- 
 ingly, because they wanted to help souls. 
 
 But when the times changed, this cus- 
 tom didn't, and while the peoples' purses 
 got full, the ministers' stayed empty. 
 They kept up the old farce of estimating 
 how little he could get along on though the 
 necessity of it had passed "away. That 
 the Methodist Church was very broad 
 about missionary work and church exten- 
 sion and such like, but that it was very 
 narrow and inquisitive about the expenses 
 of its ministers' families. 
 
 Being a business woman I naturally
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 73 
 
 got excited ; and, though Ellen Maria 
 had spoke very calm, as if it was a thing 
 to be regretted but could not be helped, I, 
 not having the sweet temper of her 
 mother, didn't feel so like a Lamb. I 
 said, right out that a church had about as 
 much occasion to reckon onto the least 
 possible number of its minister's needs as 
 it had to decide upon the family expenses 
 of the man what put up its lightning rods. 
 The work of the lightning-rod man was 
 to keep the building from fire. And the 
 work of the minister was to help save 
 their everlasting souls, according to their 
 own creed, from a fire that meant a good 
 deal more. (This about the rods come 
 into my mind because I'd just paid out 
 a good deal to have 'em put onto my 
 house and barn.) 
 
 Another thing that added to John Wes- 
 ley's sensitiveness, said Ellen Maria, was 
 that, just now, his father was a wornout 
 minister, and he wanted him to stop 
 preaching and let him take care of him
 
 74 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 and the mother, if he could. But that 
 while the places giveu to young men 
 weren't all missionary places, the mem- 
 bers wanted all the self-denial to come 
 out of the minister. They was com- 
 fortable : but he must take what he 
 could get. 
 
 John Wesley said that if 'twan't for his 
 father and mother and his wife he'd go 
 out onto the borders and do genuine 
 pioneer work ; that it wasn't heroism that 
 made a man stand by a comfortable-off 
 church and take just whatever they had 
 a mind to hand out to him. He said 
 that such folks didn't buy books nor take 
 expensive periodicals and they wasn't 
 qualified to decide onto a man's intellec- 
 tual needs let alone anything else. 
 
 Then, I thought of how he'd had to 
 lift some folks in Tompkin's Corners, al- 
 most with a jack-screw, so as to get 'em 
 up to taking a church paper. And I said 
 to myself that a common chore-boy stood 
 a better chance for his rights.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 75 
 
 Well, we was kept so busy 'tending the 
 anniversaries of the societies that these 
 things laid quiet into a corner of my mind. 
 My heart was made to swell with pride over 
 our greatest religious publishing house in 
 the world, and over the three churches 
 every day that Methodism is a-building. 
 
 My soul was swung away up to the 
 gates of Heaven by the singing of a man 
 who had the blackest eyes, and the whit- 
 est smile, and the most heaven-born en- 
 thusiasm of any man I had ever seen. I 
 shan't never forget the song where he 
 spoke of Christ's image being smiled onto 
 our hearts. It was real good for me to be 
 there, and I had sense enough to know it. 
 
 Well, I was present, likewise, at the 
 close of the conference, when the Bishop 
 read off the appointments. I was just 
 fool enough to up and cry when he talked 
 so appealing to them meek-faced men, 
 about not minding what kind of a place, 
 in the proverdence of God, they was sent 
 to, because they should be thankful to
 
 76 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 be permitted to preach at all. That their 
 Master hadn't a place to lay his head ; 
 and a lot more of such teching stuff. 
 
 Well, after he'd got 'em all mellered 
 up, and kind of anxious to go out and 
 have a hard time, he begun reading off 
 'n some long papers he held into his 
 hands. 
 
 " Sech a deestrick, sech a man, presiding 
 elder. Sech a place, so and so ; sech a 
 place, so and so," and so on. 
 
 There was a man with a anxious face 
 onto him who set next me. When " sech 
 a place, so and so," was read, he caught 
 his breath and gave a little groan, and 
 bent his head in a little and a little more, 
 until it got away down. And then I saw 
 some shiny drops fall onto the floor. 
 
 I didn't hear any more of the appoint- 
 ments. My heart jest set itself a-listen- 
 ing to that man's slow sighs. Finally, 
 when it was over and I got a chance, I 
 said to him, quiet like. 
 
 " Tell it to me. I'm old enough to be
 
 Tornpkin's Corner. 77 
 
 your aunt. And maybe 'twill be easier 
 to take home after you've onloaded part 
 of it onto me." 
 
 He held up his head a little proud. 
 But, after he'd seen into my face, he 
 seemed to relent. " I don't mind for my- 
 self," said he. "But for her and the boy. 
 She's set her heart onto his going to col- 
 lege he's such a bright lad, and she's 
 prepared him in Greek, Latin and mathe- 
 matics. And his heart is set on it, too. 
 And I'm afraid, he's so high-spirited and 
 has worked so hard, that he'll drop away 
 down and give up trying to be somebody. 
 It's been a hard fight. I've been asked for 
 at a place where they pay two hundred 
 dollars more and was expecting to go ; 
 but the Bishop has read me off to a place 
 what pays two hundred less than I've 
 been getting. They're building a church. 
 Their minister has just died. And they 
 expect me to go there and finish that 
 church. I don't see how I'm going to 
 tell her and the boy ! "
 
 78 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 It showed the power of grace, that this 
 man could take another man's commands 
 without even thinking of a refusal. But 
 I only said : 
 
 " Hearten up if you possibly can. 
 Things most always come out better than 
 they look. I've got a relation who's a 
 member of the church you was read off to. 
 And I'll stir him up. He's close on money 
 matters : but I know how to stir him up ! " 
 
 Then I gave him a handshake and 
 went away. But all night long I seen 
 them tears a-dropping, and heard that 
 smothered-up sighing. And I thought of 
 that mother, so proud of her boy and, be- 
 fore I knew it, I was wandering away 
 back into a time when I thought that I 
 might have a boy of my own, maybe. I 
 couldn't help it. The night didn't give 
 me a wink of sleep. Them early memories 
 was a-telling on me. 
 
 The next morning, when we went to 
 the station, there was the Bishop a-wait- 
 ing for the train that went just after ourn.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 79 
 
 Seeing him quite upset me, I couldn't 
 help going up and speaking to him. I 
 said I hoped he'd excuse me. I hadn't 
 a college education and didn't know any- 
 thing about presiding over conferences. 
 But it seemed to me that it would have 
 been a good deal more to the point, if, in- 
 stead of exhorting all them care-worn 
 ministers to take whatever was in store 
 for them thankfully, he had added a little 
 to the store, and done some real up-and- 
 down work for the Lord by straightening 
 out some of them laymen who set around 
 so kind of serene, to listen. 
 
 " Jest tell 'em oncet," I said, " how 
 mis'able stingy the most of 'em is, when 
 it comes to paying for the church of God, 
 and for the minister's services into His 
 Holy Temple." 
 
 This sounded as though I was warming 
 up into eloquence : but I wasn't going to 
 stop on that account. The Bishop just 
 put back his head and fixed his spectacles 
 and looked.
 
 80 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 " But," says I, going right on, " just 
 tell 'em once, that they've no business 
 to let their church look like a barn and 
 their parsonage like a poor-house ; and go 
 to estimating just how miserably little 
 the minister and his fambly can live on : 
 and then a-holding on to the miserable 
 pittance just as long as they posserble can : 
 and handing it out to him grudgingly ; 
 and making him feel that him and his 
 fambly hasn't a right to anything that 
 they are just reg'lar built paupers. And 
 besides that," says I, " I don't think 
 anything of your cast-iron rules in this 
 nineteenth century. If a place wants a 
 man and the man wants the place, you 
 ought to bring it around, somehow, it 
 'pears to me." 
 
 " My good sister," says the Bishop, 
 very polite, " where has your husband 
 been sent, or your son, maybe ? If you 
 had come to me sooner, perhaps it could 
 have been arranged." 
 
 I told him that I wan't pleading for my
 
 Tompkiri's Corner. 81 
 
 own self. I was a respectable, comfor- 
 table-off maiden woman with a stiddy 
 income that had lately been consercrated 
 to the Lord. But that my heart could be 
 touched by a sight of somebody's else's 
 troubles. 
 
 Just then I heard the train whistle, 
 and said " good morning," and went 
 away. 
 
 The Bishop took off his hat and bowed 
 real low, for a Bishop. After we'd got 
 into the cars I explained things to John 
 Wesley and Hllen Maria. They smiled 
 sort of queer and John Wesley said, in a 
 grim way, that he shouldn't wonder if 
 the Bishop might find it convenient to do 
 
 some pondering. 
 6
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Aunt Blvira Ponders onto the 
 Division Bxisting between 
 the Young and the Old in 
 the Spiritual Life at Tomp- 
 kin's Corners 
 
 OENCB going to work in the church, 
 ^ there ain't so much time as you might 
 think left for me to go a-courting of the 
 muses as folks say when they turn lit- 
 erary. 
 
 The thing that's troubled me lately, is 
 the regular Thursday night prayer-meet- 
 ing. To my mind, this meeting ought to 
 belong to old and young alike : but some 
 way it don't seem to. 
 
 After the young folks had got to be 
 
 more interested into the church because 
 82
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 83 
 
 the old folks begun to be more interested 
 in them, they went to talking about hav- 
 ing a young folks' prayer-meeting for 
 Tuesday nights. It troubled me a good 
 deal and I just asked them not to start 
 that meeting for a few weeks, but to come, 
 regular, to the Thursday night meetings, 
 and take hold and help and see if they 
 couldn't worry along. 
 
 Well, they done so ; but 'stid o' things 
 coming out as I had hoped, they turned 
 exactly the other way. And that Tues- 
 day night meeting is going on. One 
 gulf has been bridged over between the 
 old and the young, but another has been 
 dug. And there hain't nothing left to me 
 but to go wandering 'round, all smiley 
 and chirruppy outside, trying to make 
 the best of it, and excuse each side to the 
 other ; but with my heart all sore and 
 grieving down out of sight. 
 
 Not that I mind the young folkses 
 having meetings by themselves if they 
 can only come with all the church on to
 
 84 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 common ground in the middle of the week. 
 But I can see that this step means a growth 
 that is separate and not side by side, as 
 the young oaks over on the hills grow up 
 under shelter of the staunch old ones that 
 have weathered many a blast. 
 
 Well, while the young folks was a-going 
 to the Thursday night meetings, as I asked 
 them to, it was quite natural that I should 
 begin trying to look through young eyes 
 and to listen with young ears. As I done 
 so, my heart kept growing heavier and 
 heavier, till, at last, when they come to me 
 and said: 
 
 " Aunt Elvira, do you blame us ? " I 
 had to swallow pretty hard, but I couldn't 
 say that I did. 
 
 I was coming, against my will, to fear 
 that some of our members forget that 
 " Christ calls us to simple service instead 
 of to certain set ways." I begun to see it 
 more clear-like after Nellie Ray come 
 to me one day and said says she : 
 
 " Auntie, I'm having a lot of trouble.
 
 TompkirTs Corner. 85 
 
 I want some one " she didn't say who it 
 was, but she blushed real pretty and, 
 bless you, I read the name all over her 
 face " who is a friend of mine, to be a 
 Christian. He seemed to think very 
 seriously about it until he went once with 
 me to prayer-meeting. Then he said 
 that if that meant religion he thought 
 people were better off without it. And 
 I can't do anything with him any 
 more." 
 
 Well, after she'd gone, I set to ponder- 
 ing. I'd heard Methodists called noisy 
 and old-fashioned and such like names all 
 my days. And I'd grown to expect that a 
 regular-built Methodist meeting would 
 have more or less racket crowded into it. 
 
 But, listening in my heart with young 
 ears, I began to wonder concerning the 
 why of this, until it begun having my 
 attention so called onto it to seem to me 
 that the old members kept the meetings 
 noisy because they thought they must ; 
 and that, somehow, they felt they wasn't
 
 86 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 doing their whole duty unless they give 
 matters a general stirring up. 
 
 I jest thought I'd look into the liberary 
 of my niece's husband and see if there 
 was good and sufficient reason for such 
 earrings on. If there was, I made up 
 my mind to stand by it till grim death. 
 
 Well, I looked into them books and, 
 amongst other things very strong against 
 vehemence in meetings, I found that 
 John Wesley, the founder of Methodism 
 said : 
 
 " Only see that your heart be right 
 toward God, that you know and love the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, that you love your 
 neighbor, and walk as your Master 
 walked, and I desire no more. I am sick 
 of opinions. I am weary to hear them. 
 I\f|fc6oul loathes this frothy food. Give 
 me solid and substantial religion ; give 
 me an humble, gentle lover of God and 
 man." 
 
 In addition to this, I found a letter he'd 
 wrote to a minister reproving him for
 
 TompkirTs Corner. 87 
 
 using violence in his religious exercises. 
 You can't imagine how beat out I was ! 
 It took my breath all away. I just set 
 before my back-parlor fire that night with 
 such a bewildered air that Martha Ann 
 was scared nigh about to death. She 
 went and brought me in a bowl of bone- 
 set tea, and insisted upon my taking of 
 it before I went to bed. 
 
 I seen that there wan't nothing left 
 but just to tell her what I was think- 
 ing onto, or else to drink that bowl of 
 boneset. So I dog-nosed my case, as it 
 were, and proved to her that it was some- 
 thing that couldn't be reached by boneset 
 tea. 
 
 I begun by calling up our labors hern 
 and mine to get the young folks inter- 
 ested into the church. Then I told her 
 that it had suddenly come over me, as I 
 set pondering one day, that the young 
 and the old was leading their spiritual 
 lives along different lines ; and as far 
 apart as morning is from evening, with
 
 88 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 the dawning-glory of Heaven into one 
 and into the other, a fading light. 
 
 I read out loud to her some of the 
 words of the great founder of Methodism 
 that had so upset me. Well, she just got 
 up out of her chair and set that bowl of 
 boneset tea onto the mantel, and stood 
 bolt upright afore me and says she : 
 
 " Miss Hopkins, you've made me a 
 happy woman." She stopped and swal- 
 lered real hard, and looked into the fire- 
 and shet her eyes over and over again. 
 Then she fired up and says she : " Bf 
 that's so, then how should the common 
 idee of Methodism be so different ? Who's 
 been lying about a church for all of these 
 years, I'd like to know ? Bf what you've 
 read to me is true, then Methodism is 
 suffering cause there's a big misunder- 
 standing into the minds of most folks, as 
 to what its real sperret is. And it's our 
 business to go to work a-correctin' of them 
 wrong impressions to oncet ! Why, it's 
 the blessedest, sweetest creed under the
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 89 
 
 sun. A baby could see straight through 
 it. It ain't the kind that 'ud orter go 
 'long with uproar." 
 
 I tried to quiet her, but 'twan't any use. 
 If Martha Ann once gets started, she 
 will have her say out, and there's no 
 standing in the way of it. 
 
 " Now, there's old Mr. Harpending," 
 says she, agoing right on, " who's always 
 praying on top of his voice for the ' peace 
 that floweth like a river,' and the 'joy 
 that is onspeakable.' Now, his peace 
 couldn't flow like a river, ef it wanted to. 
 It's a reg'lar hot spring, or a spoutin' 
 geyser like them what the Geography 
 tells 'bout 'way down there in Arkansas. 
 An' I jest thought last Thursday night 
 when he was prayin', an' I seen the sex- 
 ton keepin' a kind o' anxious eye onto 
 the cracked plas'tring just over his head, 
 I thought to myself, thinks I, Ef there 
 is a joy what it ain't posserble fur^?# to 
 speak of, Hezekiah Harpending, then it 
 must be a climaxer ! "
 
 90 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 Martha Ann knowed that I wouldn't 
 like such goings on, and after she'd freed 
 her mind, she didn't give me no chance to 
 say a word. She jest took that bowl of 
 boneset tea off'n the mantel, and went out 
 as fast as her legs would carry her. 
 
 After she'd gone I set still till the fire 
 went out, and my rheumatiz begun to 
 call my mind offen th' church and fasten 
 it onto myself. But, all the while, I 
 couldn't help owning up that Martha Ann 
 had expressed my feelings 'long side o' 
 hern. 
 
 If the Thursday night meeting is for 
 prayer, and if prayer means that we are 
 asking things of the Lord, then we'd orter 
 come into His house and speak to Him as 
 respectful as we would to our next-door 
 neighbor. If I wanted to borrer some 
 sugar of Mrs. Bates, now which I never 
 do, being forehanded in perviding fur my 
 table would I go and stand into the 
 middle of the floor, and stamp and wring 
 my hands and scream on to the top of my
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 91 
 
 voice ? Why I'd scare her to death. 
 She'd think me a gone lunatic. And 
 she'd have a right to think so, too. 
 
 I don't know what to do. It's my na- 
 ture not being one of the clinging sort, 
 from never having had nobody to cling to 
 to feel drawn to do whatever seems to 
 need doing. But it'll take a deal of ponder- 
 ing to screw up my courage to the sticking 
 point, this time.
 
 CH AFTER X 
 
 She is of the Opinion that 
 Christians, Taking Them as 
 They Run, Are about as 
 Touchy as Musicians ever 
 Thought of Being 
 
 A FTBR I'd had that narrer escape from 
 the boneset tea, Martha Ann's words 
 kep' a-ringing into my ears, " It is our 
 business, as Methodists, to go to work 
 a-correcting of them wrong impressions to 
 once ! " 
 
 Somehow, I begun to feel more and more 
 tender-like toward the great Church, and 
 toward the little circle at Tompkin's 
 Corners, as being the part that I was, as 
 far as one name on the church record can 
 
 go, pertickeler responsible for. It begun 
 92
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 93 
 
 to kind o' hurt my feelings to know that 
 anybody could see things in its methods 
 of religious service what they could laugh 
 at or make sort o' slighting remarks 
 onto. Queer, but that's come to be my 
 feelings straight along. 
 
 Well, I was considable wrought up, in 
 a quiet way. Nobody but Martha Ann 
 guessed of the fires within ; and she didn't 
 let on. Only she begun to look at me, as 
 the days went by and nothing wan't done, 
 with a sort of disappointed look onto her 
 face, as though I wasn't coming up to the 
 mark, for once. 
 
 But, you see, I know my failings 
 better 'n anybody else except the Lord 
 and I just waited and prayed for a calm 
 sperit not being so sweet-hearted an' 
 gentle-spoken as Ellen Maria's mother 
 was so that I shouldn't disgrace my 
 perfession, even if the pressure was pretty 
 heavy. 
 
 As last I felt that the time had come. 
 It was my usual custom to stay into Sun-
 
 94 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 day school after the morning preaching, 
 and go into Mr. Pease's Bible class. He's 
 an ole man. But he's growed ole like a 
 great pine, and though he's strong in 
 thought, he's so quiet-like in speech that, 
 whenever he gets up in meeting, the noisi- 
 est of 'em have to keep still, because they 
 know they'll lose something wuth hear- 
 ing ef they don't. 
 
 Sometimes, because the members urge 
 it on me so, I've gone into the Sunday 
 noon class, led by Hezekiah Harpending. 
 I'd pondered this subjick and made up 
 my mind that this class-meeting was the 
 place for me to speak out into, about our 
 not being too free in our carrying of the 
 Ark of the Lord. 
 
 I'd came to this conclusion because, 
 the Sunday before, when the superintend- 
 ent of the Sunday School had said, 
 " Let us bow our heads in silent prayer 
 for a moment," at the opening of the 
 school, there had come such waves of up- 
 roar from that class-room, two doors away,
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 95 
 
 as must have druv all feelings of devotion 
 from every heart but the most saintly 
 and mine wasn't one of 'em. 
 
 I had seen the young folks nudge each 
 other and smile : the small boys snick- 
 ered, and a sort of baffled look came over 
 the superintendent's face, as though it 
 would be hard to get the school in hand 
 again for that day. 
 
 So, I made up my mind, as the uproar- 
 ious ones was in the habit of stopping in 
 that class, that I'd just go in there and, 
 while they was feeling blessed, 'twould be 
 good a time to speak to them on the subjick 
 that was so near my heart. It wan't wise. 
 I see it now. But human nature is a 
 harder thing to study out and make sure 
 on than any sum that ever come into a 
 college course anywhere. 
 
 Providence seemed to favor my plans, 
 for John Wesley Gray, our young 
 preacher, preached as I'd never hearn 
 him before. The subjick was Christian 
 Sacrifice. The heart of every one was
 
 96 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 tender. Some of 'em was ready to break 
 down with feeling. So the noon class 
 was bigger than usual, for I've noticed 
 that if they get something pretty good 
 from the pulpit, they usual go into the 
 class to talk onto it and to have a good 
 time. 
 
 Well, it was most special that day. 
 I had to learn that most of the human 
 race enjoy being made martyrs of ; and the 
 thought of Christian sacrifice laid along 
 that line. They opened up the meeting by 
 starting the hymn what has into it 
 
 " We should expect some danger near 
 Where we possess delight." 
 
 And while a few of 'em sung, the heft 
 of 'em groaned. But I hoped and prayed, 
 silent-wise, in my heart. 
 
 We knelt down. Old Mr. Storms was 
 asked to lead. I pondered onto his prayer 
 and, to save my life, I couldn't help a- 
 saying over to myself them words from 
 Scripture, " as one who beateth the air,"
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 97 
 
 because it didn't seem possible that the 
 man could feel that his words was going 
 straight to a great Heart that was so ten- 
 der and loving that it poured out its life- 
 blood for mistaken and wandering souls. 
 If he had felt that, it would a-seemed 
 more kinder natural if he'd sort of nestled 
 close up to that great heart, and had a- 
 had something like awe in his manner 
 because he was a-daring to draw nigh to 
 something what was 'way beyond his com." 
 prehension. 
 
 We rose from our knees and some one 
 struck up, in a voice that would have 
 woke up them seven Greek sleepers in 
 less than no time, 
 
 " My drowsy powers why sleep ye so ? " 
 
 The leader gave in his testimony first 
 of all. He talked about the blessedness 
 of Christian sacrifice, and every once in a 
 while, he rose up onto his toes and then 
 let himself down, suddint, onto his heels 
 with a jar that rattled the window. And 
 7
 
 98 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 whenever he done so, a passel of 'em 
 cried out. 
 
 The Bible asks twice, clost together in 
 the Psalms, " Preserve me, oh Lord, from 
 the violent man ! " and, in the New 
 Testament, the apostle says, " Bodily ex- 
 ercise profiteth nothing." I ain't very 
 well up in Scripture quoting, but the lit- 
 tle I do know, had an oncomfortable way of 
 turning up that morning. I shet my 
 eyes hard and when they opened they fell, 
 by chance, onto Jane BUsworth. She's 
 fifty ef she is a day. But she looked so 
 holy and sweet that I forgot that her 
 cheeks had lost their color and that the 
 dimples about her mouth had turned into 
 lines long ago. 
 
 I jest couldn't keep my eyes off'n her. 
 And I thought, " Now she's going to 
 shout." But she didn't. There was the 
 rim of a smile that meant Heaven 'stid of 
 earth a-glimpsing out of her eyes and 
 mouth and shining all over her face as 
 ef she was kinder circled 'round with peace.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 99 
 
 And when somebody near her hollered 
 right out, I seen a kind of sudden shiver 
 come over her. Thinks I to myself, 
 " She ain't that kind. It was left out en 
 her constitution." 
 
 Just then come my turn. Feeling 
 strengthened by her look I got up and 
 told them, in the gentlest way that a stiff 
 maiden-woman can who's got to be sort of 
 hard-mannered through doing her own 
 battling through life, that I'd missed so 
 many years of working for the Church that 
 I'd got to work the harder the rest of my 
 days. Then I spoke of the young folks, 
 and the smile onto Jane Ellsworth's face 
 got whiter and sweeter, and my own voice, 
 that carries me straight through most 
 everything, sort of bent and weakened till 
 I thought I'd never get out what I'd 
 started to say. 
 
 And I told 'em how I'd felt about the 
 young folks going off by theirselves to 
 pray and to speak. And I said a word or 
 two about John Wesley, the founder, that
 
 100 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 seemed to put an awful feeling around 
 onto the meeting. It struck like an 
 ague chill. 
 
 But I went on and told them that Christ 
 himself said, over and over, " Feed my 
 lambs," but that we couldn't get near 
 enough to them, spiritually, if we went to 
 work and scairt 'em to death. Then I 
 stopped by saying that I wasn't nothing 
 but a blunderer, any way, and that most 
 probable, I hadn't said things as I'd 
 ought to ; but that my heart was getting 
 tenderer every day. And when they 
 talked of Christian sacrifice, it looked to 
 me 's if here was a chance to sacrifice our 
 own good times in the social meetings, 
 and not ask for all the sacrifice to be done 
 by them as was so young and childlike 
 in the way. 
 
 I told them that I believed the Lord 
 would help us to grow spiritually just 
 the same, because he let other things 
 grow without their making any fuss about 
 it. The flowers never make a noise when
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 101 
 
 they bloom out, and the great trees just 
 reach and reach their branches up toward 
 the sun and get stronger every day. And 
 they don't make the least bit of a racket 
 about it. 
 
 I set down. It didn't take near so long 
 for me to say it as to write it. But I was 
 clean beat out. Then Hezekiah Har- 
 pending cleared his throat and perceeded 
 to exhort me. He said that he'd felt for 
 some time that I was " a stone of stumb- 
 ling and a rock of offense" to the further 
 progress of this church. That I hadn't 
 no right to critercize their ways of doing 
 things, for I wasrft nothing but an old 
 warmed-up Presbyterian, any way. 
 
 I don't know another thing that was 
 said or spoke. When the meeting broke 
 up, Jane Ellsworth came up to me and 
 took both my hands into hern and kissed 
 me on the cheek. She didn't say a word, 
 but went out with me, and walked clost to 
 me all the way to my gate though her 
 own home is on the other side of the
 
 102 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 corners. And she ain't strong enough to 
 walk fur. I tried to be perlite and ask her 
 to come in ; but she just took my hand 
 agin and squeezed it and went away. 
 
 Well, I got through the day and the 
 other days next onto it. My young 
 pastor hearn about it and come to get my 
 side. I told him jest the wust that I really 
 said and I wound up by saying : " You 
 took a good deal onto your hands when you 
 wrote me down as a member into your 
 church." 
 
 And what do you s'pose he said? 
 " Why," says he, " Aunt Elvira, if there 
 were more like you in the church, the 
 kingdom of Christ would come several 
 thousand years sooner than it is expected 
 now, God bless you ! ): 
 
 I was clean beat out. 
 
 But I've gone right on acting as ef 
 nothing hadn't happened. Some was 
 'feard that I'd withdraw^and go to the 
 Presbyterians. But, bless you, I ain't 
 that kind. I don't go and git a divorce
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 103 
 
 from a church, just 'cause everybody into 
 it don't do as I want 'em to. I meant it 
 for life when I joined. And I'll stay 
 through life if they'll let me. 
 
 But, when I set pondering by my back 
 parlor fire, the thought that comes to my 
 mind is that we ought to live and act, in 
 the church as well as out of it, with the 
 beautiful dignity of king's sons and 
 daughters. We hain't got no right to do 
 otherwise, we hain't. It's a sweet and 
 sacred thing to be allowed to come nigh 
 to the great Ruler of Heaven and Earth. 
 And we ought, at least, to use as nice 
 manners as we would if we was going to 
 the White House to ask a favor of the 
 President. 
 
 We wouldn't go there without behaving 
 our very prettiest. We'd go in quiet-like. 
 Maybe we'd smile, gladly, at any others 
 what was there a-asking, too, 'cause 
 'twould be pleasant to find 'em there, 
 'n, maybe, we'd shake hands and speak 
 to 'em, kind o' cheery.
 
 104 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 And when it come our turn to speak to 
 the President, we'd be sort of respeckful. 
 We'd want to get his good opinion as we 
 went along in our petition. And if we 
 had something very particular like ask- 
 ing for the pardon of some friend we'd 
 be real earnest and we'd cry some, per- 
 haps ; but we'd be awful keerful to re- 
 member that we was asking for great 
 things from somebody what was able to 
 give or to refuse. And we'd be awful keer- 
 ful not to give him, nor nobody else, the 
 idea that we was bent onto having our 
 own way ; anyhow we'd be mighty keerful 
 not to rile the President. 
 
 I've heern about a book what a big 
 Perfessor from Kurope wrote onto " Nat- 
 ural Law in the Spiritual World." I 
 hain't read it, not being no book-worm : 
 yet many's the time that I've just said 
 them words over to myself, " Natural Law 
 in the Spiritual World." We hain't got, 
 nowheres else to learn heavenly manners 
 'cept on earth. Christ knew we hadn't.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 105 
 
 So He come to teach us how to forget 
 ourselves in remembering to try to help 
 others. But I'm afeard a lot of us forget 
 what we call high-breeding when we 
 come into the court of Heaven. And it 
 don't seem the properest thing to do, and, 
 as you may believe, I've give to this 
 pertickerler subjick a good deal of honest 
 pondering.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Martha Ann Shows her Affec- 
 tion in a Peculiar Manner, 
 and Afterward Expatiates 
 upon the Liability of Man- 
 kind to Misunderstand Each 
 Other 
 
 T WAS surprised and disturbed, a few 
 weeks ago, by the queer goings on of 
 Martha Ann. This is the way the matter 
 come about : You see I simply went out 
 one afternoon to look after a fambly what 
 had been having a deal o' trouble one 
 way and another who needed hearten- 
 ing up a little with some of the sub- 
 stantials of life. 
 
 Now, it seems that whilst I was gone, 
 
 Martha Ann remembered that it was the 
 1 06
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 107 
 
 day of the week when my church paper, 
 onto which I set much store, was in the 
 habit of coming. So, when it was time 
 for the stage, she just clapped on her 
 bunnit and went to fetch it, so as to have 
 it ready fur me when I'd drunk my tea. 
 
 I was a spec later a-coming than she 
 expected owing to my staying by the 
 sick baby while its mother took a little 
 rest. And while Martha Ann was a- 
 waiting, she thought she'd take a dip into 
 the paper to while away time. She didn't 
 hear me when I come, till I opened the 
 dining-room door sudden-like, being that 
 I was late when she give a jump, and I 
 noticed that she crumpled up something 
 she had into her hands, and went out into 
 the kitchen as if I'd a-ketched her doing 
 of something wrong. 
 
 She come in after quite a spell and 
 brung my tea. But she spilt it onto the 
 tablecloth as she was a-setting of it down. 
 I didn't notice that, particular; but she 
 begun to talk surprisin' fast. And when
 
 108 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 I looked up I seen that her eyes was 
 snappiii' and her cap was onto one side 
 of her head. 
 
 I was sure something was up. And I 
 waited for her to tell. I give to her 
 several real good chances. But she 
 didn't tell. Then I went to feeling 'round 
 with some questions as to whether any- 
 body had called for, you see, I remem- 
 bered how the so-called Free Methodists 
 had been there once when I was away, 
 and how they'd fired her all up. 
 
 But she said as how't uobody'd been in. 
 Then I asked if she'd been out ; and she 
 said she had. She'd been to the post- 
 office and had a letter for me and forgot 
 to hand it to me. She sprung up with a 
 sort of relieved fling to her head, and 
 handed me the letter. 
 
 Arter a while, I begun to miss my 
 paper. So I asked her if she hadn't got 
 it from the office. Then she asked me 
 what I wanted of that old paper, anyway. 
 That it wan't of no account, noway, and
 
 TompkirTs Corner. 109 
 
 I'd good deal better be reading of my 
 Bible ! 
 
 I looked at her, stiddy, for a minute, 
 and then said : " I don't understand you, 
 Martha Ann. I think a good deal of you 
 and of your advice, but I don't like to 
 have it flung at me this way." 
 
 She didn't say anything. She just 
 went out and shut the door harder than 
 was at all necessary. She was feeling 
 very uncomfortable ; and it upset me a 
 good deal. 
 
 The next afternoon, when the stage 
 come in, I went over after the mail ; and 
 not finding this pertickerler paper, spoke 
 of it to the postmaster. Now he's a very 
 careful man about the mail. He said 
 that he'd gave it to Martha Ann the day 
 afore. He remembered special, 'cause she 
 said I was allers so glad to get it, 
 
 I went home with my mind made up 
 to have it out with her. She tried to put 
 me off. I wouldn't be put off. Finally 
 she said, with a little shake into her
 
 110 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 voice, that she was jest a-trying to save 
 me from feeling bad. But that if I would, 
 I would, and she might a knowed it ! 
 
 Then she went out and, after a long 
 spell, brung me the paper. It had been 
 wrinkled all up and then ironed out again. 
 As I unfolded it she sort of hovered around 
 me till I looked up with a smile. 
 
 " Well, what is it, anyway? I don't 
 see anything that makes me feel bad." 
 
 Then she laid her long finger onto a 
 place on the front page. " There's some- 
 body as has been writin' a piece to sort o- 
 anser what you said into the class-meetin'," 
 she said. " There's a man by the name 
 of Galusha Goings and I can't see how 
 a mother with a heart into her buzzum 
 could name her innercent boy Galusha. 
 Still, I don't know but what you'd orter 
 expect almost anything from a woman 
 who was fool enough to marry herself to 
 a man by the name of Goings. 
 
 " Well, this brother is a-takin' of you 
 to do, because he thinks you don't see the
 
 TompkirTs Corner. Ill 
 
 precise saving quality there is in a religion 
 what consists, mostly, of racket.* And he 
 says you'd better try to keep church 
 members away from the theatres and 
 shows, an' stop 'em of their card playin' 
 'stid of tryin' to quiet of 'em down. 
 
 " Jest's if we hain't worked, 'n contrived, 
 'n spent money, 'n urged other members 
 to open their housen, an' all fur th' special 
 purpose of giving the young folks of 
 Tompkin's Corners somethin' to do 'side 
 from playin' cards 'n sech truck. It all 
 jest goes to show how't a man will mis- 
 understand everything, anyway. I don't 
 set no stock by men. They're the most 
 misunder standing est set I ever hearn tell 
 on!" 
 
 I didn't say anything immediate, for 
 those words of Martha Ann's about its 
 being easy for a man to misunderstand 
 things, took my thoughts too fur away to 
 care about the paper or what anybody 
 could say now, into a time when my life 
 was young and my words come straight
 
 112 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 outen a merry heart. And when some- 
 thing I said once in the happy twilight 
 was misunderstood by the one man whose 
 right thought of me made all my joy ; 
 and how I could not set the matter 
 straight, though I tried as well as I could 
 with a heart that was breaking. 
 
 After a little, I said to Martha Ann, 
 " Well, never mind. We are not to 
 blame for being misunderstood. We are 
 only to blame if we don't do ou^ best 
 with all our might." 
 
 Then I read the letter into the paper, 
 and it surprised me a good deal. The 
 writer of it seemed to show very little 
 knowledge of the ways of such churches 
 as ours at Tompkin's Corners. I don't 
 set up to being much of a traveler, but 
 I've seen quite a number of churches 
 offen the same piece as a portion of ourn 
 is. And that is, having a set of folks who 
 seem to measure their own spiritual stature 
 by their ability to make prayer-meet- 
 ings and class-meetings oncomfortable
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 113 
 
 for other folks. I wouldn't a-been sur- 
 prised if some college perfessor or doctor 
 of divinity had a-criticized my way of 
 talking about what we wanted into the 
 church : but to hev a man setting up in 
 the church paper to please the Hezekiah 
 Harpending folks, 'stid o'gently nourish- 
 ing the lambs and shy ones of the flock, 
 beat me clean out. 
 
 Trying to help somebody else sort of 
 dignifies anybody's life makes it seem 
 more worth while to keep on a-living. 
 Being simply sot on gitting saved our- 
 selves in jest the pertickerler way that 
 gratifies our feelings without thinking 
 that, may be, we're kind o' upsetting some- 
 body's else faith in the unselfishness of 
 Christians that's what I call crippling 
 to the soul. 
 
 I've found out, to my sorrer, that it's 
 dangerous ground onto which I'm tread- 
 ing. I'm tender in my heart toward all 
 the members ; and surely tender to those 
 who seem, to me to be misguided some-
 
 114 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 what, when they can so blindly shut 
 their eyes to the number of lambkins 
 what are scairt away from our church, 
 every year, by being made to think that 
 if they hope to be counted amongst the 
 saved ones, they must get into working 
 themselves up into a certain pitch of ex- 
 citement in every social religious meeting. 
 
 There be times God be praised for 
 'em ! when the most timid would rejoice 
 in hallelujahs. But we'd orter be real 
 careful not to set others to believing that 
 our pertickerler denomination understands 
 that the meeting-house and not the secret 
 place, is where we can give unbounded 
 vent to our feelings and emotions. 
 
 It's easy enough to cry, " O, how I love 
 Thy Church ! " but we should take spe- 
 cial pains not to let anyone get to think- 
 ing that our love for the Church means 
 simply our love for a certain effusive way 
 of doing things a way that, mostly, 
 wastes itself in cries. We don't want them 
 to hear only great big prayers for grace
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 115 
 
 to do God's work with, and then, if they 
 happen to look at us outside of the meeting, 
 let them get sad at heart a-seeing of what 
 paltry work follers onto them prayers. 
 
 May I be forgave by Him of whom the 
 prophet wrote that He should not cry, 
 neither should His voice be heard in the 
 streets, if I love the mellow, steady light 
 of God's grace shining morning, noon and 
 night, through every day of the year out of 
 a Christian life, better than I can love the 
 blazing and cracking of fireworks that 
 are just let off at odd spells, whenever 
 folks happen to feel in the cracker and 
 rocket mood. 
 
 Perhaps it's foolish, and I may be into 
 my second childhood, but, because I'm 
 laying out on the Church the love that I 
 would have give to husband and children 
 and toddling grandchildren, I say to my- 
 self whenever I see a young man what's 
 losing interest because of certain cast- 
 iron ways of conducting prayer-meeting, 
 says I, " What ef he was my son ? " And
 
 116 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 then I think as how't I couldn't stand by, 
 peaceable, and see the Church a-losing of 
 its hold onto him. 
 
 Or, whenever a light-hearted, gentle 
 young woman, who has loving friends all 
 circling 'round her in this beautiful world, 
 conies to me and says that she likes to go 
 to a church where God's service seems to 
 be something fair and lifting up, instead 
 of long-faced and crucifying all of the 
 time, why I just think, " Suppose this was 
 my own daughter? " 
 
 And I can't go and tell her that this 
 world is a wilderness of woe that Christ 
 won't help her through if she goes to 
 Him reverent-like and frank, like a loving 
 child and asks for His help. I just tell 
 her that nobody on earth has got so good 
 a right to be happy and content as a 
 Christian has. And we look into each 
 other's faces and smile till our eyes 
 get full. And we say that it's blessed to 
 be His'n, and we'll be careful to live un- 
 spotted.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 117 
 
 I didn't mean to run on so, and not 
 being much used to literature writing, 
 maybe I don't make myself real clear. 
 But the more I ponder onto this subjick 
 the more seriouser it gets.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Aunt Blvira has Heard Some 
 Criticism of Sunday-school 
 Music and Writes Concern- 
 ing the Singing at the 
 Tompkin's Corners Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church 
 
 OOME folks has been saying a good 
 S-' deal about singing them ole hymns 
 and nothing else. Maybe they're right, 
 I don't know. But, as fur me, I hain't 
 got no fault whatever to find about the 
 Sunday-school singing in Tompkin's Cor- 
 ners. 
 
 Some of the pieces don't have any too 
 much theology crowded into 'em, I know. 
 The grand old hymns are like rocks what 
 
 uv been use ter weathering the waves. 
 n8
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 119 
 
 But 'twould seem mighty queer to see a 
 passel o' young folks a-gitting saved at 
 the altar by singing, " Hark from the 
 tombs a doleful sound ; " or to any words 
 that could be got into a tune like Wind- 
 ham. 
 
 It's true that Christ is a covert from 
 the tempests of life. But I don't hanker 
 arter church members who was druv into 
 the church by fear and not drawed there 
 by love. 
 
 They sing out of the Epworth singing- 
 book to our Sunday-school ; and some of 
 the pieces begin like this : 
 
 " O, scatter seeds of loving deeds," 
 " Pass me not, oh, gentle Saviour," 
 "One more day's work for Jesus," 
 " Abide with me," 
 
 " Dare to do right, dare to be true ! " 
 "All the way my Saviour leads me," 
 " Gather them in, for there yet is room," 
 "Break, Thou, the bread of life," 
 '* Yes, for me, for me He careth." 
 
 I could give a good many more, but
 
 120 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 <* 
 
 these answer the purpose. After going 
 into Sunday-school and listening to old 
 and young singing such words, along with 
 the sunny-faced young man what leads 
 the singing, I go home in a kind of cir- 
 cling peace what helps nie in my living 
 for a good spell.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Aunt Elvira is a Methodist 
 Heart, Soul and Pocket- 
 book and in her Love for 
 the Church she is Troubled 
 at Some of its Methods in 
 Revival Meetings 
 
 F T is quite a spell sence I have wrote on 
 to this book. Fact is, I give it up 
 once and made up my mind to let book- 
 making out to them what was more 
 competenter. 
 
 But, some way a-nother, the sperrit's 
 took hold onto me again with a firm 
 grip. Maybe nothing won't come of this 
 writing neither, but I'll be more apt to 
 feel better if I set about it once more : 
 
 because, if you'll believe it, I've set to 
 
 121
 
 122 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 pondering again. And, really, it 'pears 
 to me that a few more words wouldn't be 
 out of the way. 
 
 You recomrnember that I joined onto 
 the Church rather late in life. It all come 
 about through my favorite niece, Bllen 
 Maria, going and marrying herself to a 
 young minister named John Wesley Gray ; 
 and then they two a-leading such sweet 
 lives as to make my ole heart hungry after 
 the heavenly something that I could see 
 shining into all their doings and that went 
 singing through all their sayings. 
 
 John Wesley was 'pointed to a church 
 in New York City arter he'd sarved his 
 term out in Tompkin's Corners and I 
 was, oh, so lonesome arter they'd gone 
 away. He and Bllen Maria has been 
 a-urging of me and Martha Ann I can't 
 do nothing nor go anywheres without 
 Martha Ann, you know to come down to 
 the city and make them a long visit. 
 
 Nacherly, we being plain folks from 
 Tompkin's Corners was a bit nervous.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 123 
 
 But you'd a-thought we was kings and 
 queens by the way they welcomed us. 
 We felt pretty much to home the fust 
 day ; and we was well onto the ways of 
 city folks in less than no time. 
 
 Then I, nacherly, begun a-looking into 
 this city church and a-pondering onto it. 
 And I'm getting to be awful 'fraid that my 
 nephew-in-law and his church is a-making 
 of a big mistake. 
 
 Sech hundreds and hundreds of folks 
 old and young, to say nothing of the little 
 children all around, under the very 
 church walls, and so few come inside of it. 
 And Christ is just as sweet and helpful and 
 powerful to draw men now, as He was on 
 the shores of Galilee. 
 
 Hearts is just as hungry now as they 
 could possible a been then. I know it, for 
 my own old heart wakes up, sometimes, 
 and cries till nothing but Jesus's love can 
 still it. And if folks don't come to Him 
 now, it must be because them what are 
 echoing the " Follow me ! " what was
 
 124 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 spoke on the shores of Galilee are a-mak- 
 ing some little mistake in their way of 
 doing it. 
 
 We went to church last Sunday evening 
 Martha Ann and me. A revival is 
 a-going on and, nacherly, we was 
 interested to see if it was carried forard in 
 the same way as we do at Tompkin's 
 Corners. 
 
 In the church to which we have the 
 honor to belong a week of prayer always 
 begins with the first Sunday of the New 
 Year. This means that every evening of 
 that week there must be services of special 
 prayer for special subjicks. This most 
 allers is the beginning of a revival a time 
 when church members take new interest 
 into spiritual things and when men and 
 women are invited to begin leading a 
 Christian life. 
 
 That evening John Wesley preached a 
 sermon what showed to us, who know him 
 best, just h'ow earnest and sincere he is 
 a loving, pleading, reaching-out sermon
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 125 
 
 that seems as would a melted a heart of 
 stone. 
 
 And he closed up by asking of the 
 Official Board to come into the altar, 
 while he begged, tender-like, of them who 
 wasn't Christians to come forreds and 
 make their peace with God. 
 
 There was deep feeling all over the 
 church. The Official Board nice, quiet, 
 stiddy-looking men went inside o' the 
 altar rail ; but nobody else moved toward 
 it. 
 
 Then a very learned man got up and 
 give a tech ing exhortation. He tole how 
 he'd sought into the schools here and in 
 Europe for them things invisible which 
 gives meaning to life. And he, too, 
 asked men and women to come and kneel 
 down to the altar and be blessed of God. 
 
 He asked if they was going to quibble 
 about logic and fail to grasp the only 
 thing that could fetch beauty and peace 
 into their lives. 
 
 He was real airnest, though he just
 
 126 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 talked gentle-like and self-controlled. 
 The feeling was strong over the people. 
 I believe that a good many hearts was 
 open to the Heaven influence that seemed 
 to fill the air like wings of unseen angels. 
 
 But when he set up a testing of the 
 people by asking if they didn't have the 
 moral courage to get up and come to the 
 altar ; and went on a-picturing of it as 
 sech a trifling thing to do, there seemed 
 to come a sort of disturbing spirit over 
 everything. 
 
 And, somehow, the time when I joined 
 onto the Church come into my mind. 
 How I jest put on my bunnit and went 
 straight over to the parsonage and into 
 John Wesley's study and said to him, 
 then and there, that I was tired of my 
 way of living and wanted to begin a new 
 and better way. 
 
 And how he jest said a-taking both 
 of my hands into hisn, " I'm glad. And 
 Ellen Maria, she'll be glad, too." And 
 with his eyes shining and soft-like, he
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 127 
 
 just took down the record book and en- 
 tered my name as a probationer into the 
 Church. 
 
 Sometimes I'm feared that if he'd in- 
 sisted onto my going forreds afore a 
 church full of folks, I might a gi'n out 
 and so would a-missed more than I can 
 tell. 
 
 So, it seemed to me, that the folks 
 wasn't a-quibbling at logic so much as they 
 was wondering why on airth they must be 
 called upon to do that particular public 
 thing, if they wanted to get saved in 
 Heaven at last. 
 
 John Wesley asked the choir and some 
 of 'em is real pretty - singers to sing a 
 verse of " Almost Persuaded," while he 
 waited for some one to come to .the altar 
 seeking Christ. 
 
 Now I've allers been persuaded 'cept- 
 ing to revival meetings that Christ is 
 lovingly seeking to save the world and 
 not setting Himself down inside of any 
 church altar a-insisting that the world
 
 128 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 must come there in order to find Him 
 and be saved. 
 
 I'm allers a-picturing of Him as a- 
 coming arter them, and wanting them 
 just to be willing to let Him find them, 
 without insisting that they should come 
 even the length of a church if the church 
 is full of people, 'cause it's hard for some 
 timid folks to do any public thing. 
 
 Now, John Wesley and some of the 
 brethren went, soft-like all around 'mong 
 the folks they knew wasn't church mem- 
 bers, a-asking of 'em in whispers to let 
 them lead 'em to the altar. 
 
 The choir sung another verse very 
 feeling-like, and ended with this one : 
 
 41 Almost persuaded now to believe, 
 Almost persuaded Christ to receive, 
 Almost will not avail, 
 Almost is but to fail, 
 Sad, sad that bitter wail, 
 
 Almost, but lost ! " 
 
 Now I've 'tended a good many revival 
 meetings in my day, but I've never tended
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 129 
 
 one so quiet as this one. No groans, 
 no fuss, no noise. Nobody even said 
 " Amen ! " Brother Harpending wasn't 
 there with his loud voice a-shouting out 
 his prayer as if the Lord had been struck 
 stone deaf ; or as ef Heaven was miles 
 and miles away and must be took by a 
 storm of noise. 
 
 It was quiet as a funeral. I uster long 
 for sech ; but arter getting of it the tears 
 that rose into my eyes turned theirselves 
 into magnifying glasses, as it were. 
 
 Martha Ann begun to see different, too. 
 When we'd got home and was taking of 
 our things off I noticed the set of her 
 mouth. And it meant something. When 
 we'd set down by the fire into our room 
 and was a-taking our little bite before 
 going to bed, I found out what was be- 
 hind them lips.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Martha Ann Speaks 
 her Mind 
 
 " "^THERE'S a pretty big sum for some- 
 body to work what knows figgers," 
 said Martha Ann, a-looking at me outen 
 the corner of her eye as she poured me 
 a fresh cup of bwu-yong beef-tea is what 
 we call it at Tompkin's Corners " and 
 somebody'd better git to work onto it at 
 oncet. 
 
 " 'Sef goin' up to that altar in the face 
 of a hull congergation was going to turn 
 anybody into a Christian ! " 
 
 Then I told her that it was simply a- 
 asking of 'em to take a little step towards 
 
 Christ. And she said : 
 130
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 131 
 
 " Well, who's to know that such a 
 step is necessary, and that Christ is 
 toward the altar any more'n He's toward 
 the door ? " 
 
 Then I said what I'd heern told over 
 and over, that it was a very little thing 
 to do for the One what had come all the 
 way from Heaven to save 
 
 And she interrupted me, then and 
 there, by saying, " Well, ef He's come 
 all the way from Heaven, He won't be 
 likely to stop sech a little way offen them 
 what He's come arter. 
 
 " The church folks hain't got no right," 
 says she, " to set up too many rules nor 
 to put any distance, howsomever short, 
 atween Jesus Christ and a man's heart. 
 He said ( Foller me ! ' in the olden time : 
 and they jest done it. And that was all. 
 There want no gettin' ready to foller, nor 
 gittin fit to foller ; no kneelin' and prayin' 
 over Matthew and James an' John. 
 When Andrew brought Peter, his brother, 
 to Christ, the other disciples didn't have
 
 132 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 to get down and pray over him before 
 Christ would take him. 
 
 " And if folks to-day hear Christ a- 
 callin' of 'em, I don't know why they 
 should be made to think that the Lord 
 ain't ready and a-waitin' to take 'em. 
 Their wantin' to come is proof that 
 they're fit to come. And He'll take men 
 now jest as He took them others hunderds 
 an' hunderds of years ago. He's jest 
 the same. Ain't His love an unchang- 
 ing kind of love ? 
 
 " He'll tend to their sins He an' they, 
 by theirselves. There don't 'pear to me 
 to be any pertickerler need fur a hull 
 church official board to git 'round a man 
 what's felt the gentle hand of Jesus 
 a-knockin' at his heart, with their prayers 
 an' sighs in order to fix him up so's 
 Jesus'll take him. 
 
 " Don't look so shocked. I'm all riled 
 up, and I don't want to say anything 
 sassy. Well, what if I am overthrowin' 
 a old established custom in the church ?
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 133 
 
 Who's established it, I'd like to know ? 
 Jest weak, failin' folks like ourselves. 
 Jesus never did. 
 
 " The good Samaritan didn't make 
 that poor, dyiii' creetur go and kneel at 
 any altar before he'd pour the oil into his 
 wounds. The poor creetur was too * weak 
 and wounded, sick an' sore.' And, may- 
 be," here Martha Ann's voice got to be very 
 gentle, " maybe some of them there to- 
 night was too weak and wounded, too, away 
 down deep into their hearts. 
 
 " I jest felt sorry fur that young man 
 a-settin' 'longside of you. The minister 
 and the 'sistant minister, and one or two 
 others, come and talked to him, a-tryin' 
 to git him forred. He didn't go. And 
 arter they'd left him, his face was all on 
 fire an' he looked 'round, kind o' furtive- 
 like, 's ef he was a culprit and fit only 
 to be singled out as a special object of 
 prayer. 'Tain't right ! No, 'taint ! " 
 
 Martha Ann flourished her nightcap 
 vigorously. " 'Tain't Christlike," says
 
 134 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 she. " Why don't them good people go 
 quietly 'round in the daytime to the 
 homes of sech, and do a little simple, 
 lovin' talkin', and then put the names 
 onto the church record and read the list 
 out loud to some official meetin' ? 
 
 " Many's the body what might be won 
 in that way. It's mostly the best souls 
 what's likely to be 'feared o' theirselves. 
 They hain't got the face to git up and go 
 forred 'mongsthunderds of people, fur fear 
 that they mightn't allers be found doin' 
 jest's they'd advertised by sech a dis- 
 play. 
 
 " No, dearie, I won't keep still. Why 
 hain't the churches full, when there is so 
 many folks with unsatisfied lives goin' 
 'round every day under their very eaves ? 
 It's the Church's own fault. The 
 ' holier than you be ' air that breathes 
 whether anybody knows it or not out uv 
 all sech perceedin's as this un to-night. I 
 don't see the use of making sech a fuss. 
 Jesus didn't make no fuss at sech times.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 135 
 
 " Then there was that hymn-singing ! 
 Wan't it jest a sight to hear that ! Sakes 
 alive ! It nigh about druv me crazy. I 
 remembered the pictures in an old book 
 of my grandfather's, ' Emblems an' Al- 
 legories ' was the name of it. And there 
 was devils a-poking the souls of sinners 
 down into big kittles o' fire. That ain't 
 the Christ-love ! 
 
 " I don't approve of that hymn, an', 
 what's more, I never did. * Almost, but 
 lost ! ' Is that the way the thief was 
 treated when he was a-hanging onto the 
 very cross ? Is that the way the Samari- 
 tan done with the one who'd fell 'mong 
 them thievin' Jericho folks ? 
 
 " And jest to see John Wesley Gray 
 sech a gentle, pityin' man as he is a- 
 standin' there 's ef he believed in sech 
 wickedness ! When the very last quarter 
 of a instant, ef a soul turns to Christ, do 
 you s'pose John Wesley'd expect Him 
 to say : 
 
 " * You want me, I know, and I died to
 
 136 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 save you. But there is something wrong 
 about my dying. It hain't quite strong 
 'nough to save you now. You come jest 
 a little too late ! ( Almost, but lost / ' 
 
 " I never spoke in meeting, though I've 
 been a Methodist as long as you have, 
 Miss Hopkins. And, what's more, I 
 never wanted to speak afore. But I come 
 nigh onto gittin' right up, then an' there, 
 in that church an' say in' : 
 
 " ( You're a-puttin' a libel onto my 
 Saviour. He's mighty 'nough to save 
 anybody, ANYWHERE AN' ANYHOW ! He 
 don't set up no rules. An' the great 
 founder of this Church didn't set none. 
 He jest said that if anybody believed in 
 God and desired to flee from the wrath 
 to come which I s'pose is the separation 
 from God he will be saved. An', ef he's 
 goin' to let folks into Heaven that way, 
 why must they do any more in order to 
 git into a church ? That's what I'd like 
 to have you tell me you or any other 
 preacher or bishop.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 137 
 
 " P'r'aps I'd best to shet up, now. But, 
 I tell you, Miss Hopkins, you've got a 
 duty to do, an' whether you see it or not, 
 you'd orter do it." 
 
 Then she went off to bed, after making 
 me as comfortable as possible. For, spite 
 of her sharp tongue, Martha Ann has got 
 the gentlest hands in the world an' the 
 lovingest. 
 
 So she left me to think it all over and 
 to git out of my daze ef I could. For I 
 know's well as she does, that John Wes- 
 ley Gray is all that he makes out to 
 be. And his wife and children know it 
 too for there are children now. One is 
 named after me, and is called Vera, for 
 short. And the little fingers fumble 
 'round 'niong the chords of my old heart 
 till they waken throbs of 'mazin' tender- 
 ness. 
 
 His home life is most beautiful. Saint 
 John is what Ellen Maria calls him, in 
 private, to me, sometimes. And the 
 children mind him because they love him.
 
 138 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 How he does romp with 'em sometimes ! 
 It's wonderful pretty! 
 
 So, you see, I know his outside life's 
 jest the fragrance wafted out of the flower 
 in his home. If any one has a right to 
 stand up and urge men to come to Jesus, 
 it's John Wesley Gray, my nephew-in- 
 law. 
 
 But is he a-doin' of it in the best way ? 
 And is he a-expecting of men to do the 
 things they'll be liable to do I mean the 
 real, sound men, what thinks a good deal, 
 and are worth so much to the world. The 
 others the tinkling cymbal kind 
 would be more likely to. 
 
 I set there alone and pondered onto 
 these things until the gaslight was 
 swallered up in the light of the next 
 morning. And Martha Ann came tip- 
 toeing in with a scairt look onto her face, 
 fearing that my heart had gi'n out and 
 that the end she fears had come. And 
 she made me a bowl of boneset tea and 
 made me drink it, and begged my par-
 
 Tompkln's Corner. 139 
 
 don for getting so stirred up the night 
 afore. 
 
 I forgave her. There wasn't anything 
 to forgive. For it was her love for the 
 Church speaking out even in that sharp 
 way. But I'm not yet settled in my mind 
 as to what I'd ought to do.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Aunt Elvira Thinks the Church is 
 Taking too Much upon its 
 Shoulders and Accomplish- 
 ing too Little 
 
 R nigh onto a week now, I've been 
 doing some pretty heavy pondering, 
 and Martha Ann, she's been saying 
 some pretty hinting things about " them 
 as knowed their duty and didn't go to 
 doing of it." 
 
 I just ventured to make a little remark 
 to her one day about my unworthiness 
 how that it got to be real late in life be- 
 fore I turned myself 'round so that the 
 light from Heaven could shine into my 
 face, and by so doing, make all the 
 
 shadows of earth go stretching out straight 
 
 140
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 141 
 
 behind me where I couldn't see them 'less 
 I took pains to turn clear 'round and look 
 for them. 
 
 And I talked, real well, about my lack 
 of education how that I'd never even 
 been to a seleck school and of the hungry 
 feeling there is into my heart arter the 
 knowledge that makes a body sure about 
 their nomatives and negatives. 
 
 And I took pains to remind her of the 
 numbers of years I had lived with the 
 hills 'round Tompkin's Corners a-holding 
 into their little circle all I'd ever seen of 
 the whole big, round world. Then I 
 wound up by saying that it would look 
 mighty peart in me a middle-age maiden 
 woman from Tompkin's County to come 
 right into the heart of the biggest city 
 in our whole big country and go to setting 
 myself up as a sort of dictating agency to 
 them as had allers been walking into big, 
 broad paths, with great stretches of learn- 
 ing right in plain sight before their very 
 eyes.
 
 142 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 But she wasn't convinced Martha Ann 
 wasn't. She just poked her hand 'way 
 down into the foot of the long black 
 stocking she was a-darning she don't 
 believe in using darning balls and sech 
 like and, pointing her long needle at 
 me, she said, very slow and soluinn-like, 
 says she : 
 
 " Miss Hopkins, you're a reg'lar built 
 Moses. That's who you be. 1 1 pray 
 thee send by some other : for thy servant 
 hath a stammering tongue.' If you'd 
 a-lived in this 'ere city you'd a been blinded 
 like the rest uv 'em. They hain't to 
 blame ; but they don't see clear. An' ef 
 you'd a had that thare college eddication 
 you're allers a-pinin' arter, you'd a been 
 full o' other matters. 
 
 " Tompkin's Corners ain't no very 
 sightly place bein' set so in a holler, 
 just'sef some big angel had a-let his hand 
 down and was a-holdin' of us up careful 
 so's we wouldn't tumble over. 'Sef he 
 was a-pennin' of us in close by the hills,
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 143 
 
 so's to lead our thoughts upards, stid o' 
 outards, so's they couldn't git thin a-trying 
 to spread over all creation. An' stid o' 
 listenin' to any Bishop or preachin' I ever 
 seen, I druther hear you a-sayin' them 
 lovin' little things you do sometimes, 
 when we're a-settin' out onto the pie-azza, 
 an' it's still-like, an' the twilight's bein' 
 drawed up over our feet 'sef some lovin' 
 hand was tryin' to keep us from ketchin' 
 our deaths o' cold. 
 
 " An' I hain't so terribul diffrunt from 
 other folks I hain't. City folks has got 
 hearts into their bodies 's well as other 
 folks. Jest a-comin' from the country 
 needn't make any sound, sensible woman 
 go to settin' herself up for a fool ! " 
 
 Then she waved her long arm, that had 
 the stocking pulled over it, and looked 
 straight at me while she druv the darn- 
 ing-needle into it with that look onto 
 her face that I've got pretty well learnt 
 by this time, you may believe. 
 
 Well, we went to another revival meet-
 
 144 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 ing that very evening. It was held into 
 the prayer-meeting room, and was more 
 homeliker than the other one. Still, it 
 kep' me a-ponderin'. 
 
 They opened np first with a season of 
 prayer followed by testimonies. Some of 
 them who'd been won into the Christian 
 life was coaxed into saying a few words, 
 which seemed to be very sweet and pleas- 
 ant to the others. 
 
 Then their pastor my nephew-in-law 
 done a little exhorting. And he asked 
 .the congregation to bow their heads while 
 the choir sung a piece alone. 'Twas all 
 about ninety and nine safe- sheltered 
 sheep and about another, what had been 
 one of 'em, but had got wandered off and 
 lost onto the " mountains wild and bare, 
 away from the tender Shepherd's care." 
 
 Then the singers told us very soft- 
 like, as soft as a mother hushes her baby to 
 sleep how deep the waters was and how 
 dark the night was, too, through which 
 He went a-seeking the one who was " sick
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 145 
 
 and helpless and ready to die." And the 
 pastor lovingly begged of them who 
 hadn't yet give their hearts to God to lift 
 up their hands. 
 
 A few done so. 
 
 It was solemn, very. It was too solemn. 
 It was like a funeral like a good many 
 funerals crowded into one great, big 
 funeral 'stead of being the glad, sweet 
 thing it ought to be to get found and 
 brought in out of the cold and dark into 
 the sunshine and warmth of peace and 
 forgiveness. To leave off hunting after 
 what don't and can't satisfy, and be found 
 yourself by the only One whose love can 
 make life so full and sweet that trials be- 
 gin to lose their sting, and the bitterness 
 of heart-stabs is blunted. 
 
 The meetings has been going on for 
 a good spell five weeks or thereabouts, 
 now and sixty-seven souls has been won 
 into the Church. Most of them are chil- 
 dren out of the Sunday-school. They 
 come in little huddles, with tender hearts. 
 
 10
 
 146 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 Some of them are folks that has got to be 
 so old that the world deceitful as it is 
 don't dare to promise much to them. A 
 few sweet young girls has come too, and 
 four or five young men. Perhaps, with- 
 out knowing it, they come because the 
 girls did. I don't blame 'em. Why 
 shouldn't they ? 
 
 But there is hardly any regular-built, 
 go-ahead business men, of the kind that 
 keeps the world a-moving with their 
 energy and push. 
 
 All of these here five weeks a-working 
 and a-praying and a-singingand a-weeping 
 of a hull church for sixty-seven souls ! 
 Not but what I know all the Bible has to 
 say about the worth of one soul. And not 
 but what I feel that the poorest is of more 
 value than all the stars of Heaven would 
 be if they was strung into one long, shin- 
 ing string. 
 
 But, though I kept saying over to my- 
 self, " Sixty-seven safe ! Sixty-seven 
 safe ! " I couldn't keep from thinking onto
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 147 
 
 all the others what is a keeping on stay- 
 ing out in the dark and a-going on in the 
 cold ; till, somehow, the sixty-seven didn't 
 'pear to comfort me as much as they'd 
 ought to a done. 
 
 Christ spoke, in the parable, as if there 
 wasn't only a hundred sheep in the hull 
 world. And as if ninet} 7 -and-nine of 'em 
 was all safe. And as if only one of 'em 
 was lost. And He pictured the Shepherd 
 as leaving all of them safe ones and not 
 feeling satisfied till He'd come back with 
 that one lost sheep in His arms / 
 
 Somehow, things seem to be all turned 
 'round, nowadays. There seems to be a lot 
 of ninety-and-nines ; but they're out into 
 the darkness ; and there's only a few ones, 
 as you might say, and they're into the fold. 
 
 When we got home that night, John 
 Wesley Gray, the pastor, asked me to 
 come into the study for a little old- 
 fashioned visit. I began to make an ex- 
 cuse, but Martha Ann whispered into 
 my ear :
 
 148 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 " Jest you go right along in. Don't go 
 to doin' any more Mosesin'. I'll bring 
 you both a good hot bowl o' ginger tea. 
 It's warmin' to the stummick." 
 
 So I shut my hands tight and went in. 
 And some way, t'wan't no time afore I'd 
 told him everything that I'd been writ- 
 ing to you, of all that's been moving 
 into my mind since I've been going to his 
 new city meeting-house. And when I'd 
 got all through and was beginning to get 
 scairt to death at what I'd done, he just 
 leant over and put his head onto his 
 hands. 
 
 " I've felt it myself all along." He 
 said it as if he was a-carrying of a tremen- 
 dous load. And I've talked to my Official 
 Board about it. But they want to keep 
 to the old paths of Methodism. They 
 are afraid of being swept away into for- 
 malism. So, they hold me down to the 
 old methods. I would prefer to have these 
 extra services during Lent, when the 
 whole of Christendom, devoutly or other-
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 149 
 
 wise, turns its thoughts toward the relig- 
 ious life. But they think that would be 
 losing their denominational individuality ; 
 and that must be maintained at any cost. 
 As if it made any difference to the great 
 Head of the Church ! " 
 
 Martha Ann come in just then with 
 two steaming bowls of ginger tea. And, 
 as he looked up at her inquirin' like, 
 because he always likes to hear what he 
 calls her " crisp opinions," she spoke right 
 up and said, says she : 
 
 " 'Pears to me that you an' your Church 
 is a-undertakin' of too much. The 
 Church 'dorter 'dapt itself to the needs of 
 the people, ef it expects to draw 'em to it. 
 Stid o' that, it's a-tryin' to 'dapt the 
 people to the Church. Them ole paths 
 you spoke of, is very good. But, some- 
 how, it don't 'pear to me 's ef we'd got to 
 go generations back'ards in order to walk 
 into them paths. 
 
 " They come a-stretchin' right up into 
 the present. An' they'll go a reachin'
 
 150 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 clean through all the future. What we've 
 got to do is to hunt them paths up, git 
 into 'em an' go trampin' straight forreds 
 a-doin' of our very best. An' the paths 
 '11 change 'cordin' to the times. You 
 won't find no ole corduroy roads a-run- 
 nin' through New York City. 
 
 " How much sense would there be in 
 your insistin' onto preachin' off un a 
 tombstone, jes' cause John Wesley 
 preached off'n his father's tombstone arter 
 them Church o' Bngland folks wouldn't 
 let him preach into their meeting-housen 
 any more. An' it looks jes' the same to 
 me when you set up to insist on folkses 
 going forreds an' bein' prayed fur now, 
 jest like they used ter do when they was 
 livin' in log housen, an' meetin's was held 
 into barns, an' school-housen, an' folks 
 lived miles away from each other, an' 
 couldn't git together often, an' needed 
 jest that pertickerler kind o' spiritual 
 help. 
 
 " The Salvation Army is a-doin' of
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 151 
 
 that pertickeler kind of religious business 
 now, an' a-doin' of it 'mong the folks 
 what kin be teched by it, an', mebbe, can't 
 be teched by anything else. An' when 
 the Salvation Arm}'- raised theirselves up 
 an' went 'into that way of doin' things, 
 they took it off'n your shoulders. You're 
 left to do good, sound, sober, reasonable 
 kind of work. 
 
 " Them as comes into meetin' housen 
 nowadays, is reasonin' folks. Them as 
 jest wants to be moved in their feelin's can 
 go to the meetin's of the Army folks. 
 The Church 'dorter encourage thinkin'. I 
 hearn a man say, yisterday, in the street- 
 car he was talkin', quiet-like, to a friend, 
 but I couldn't help a-hearin' of what he 
 said, bein' set 'long side of him ' The 
 Church,' says he, ' is a tryin' to blindfold 
 men and to keep them from investigation. 
 What has the Church got to be afraid of, 
 ef she's all she claims to be ? ' 
 
 " An' I thought, right away, about that 
 time when Nicodemus come to Christ.
 
 152 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 An' liow't Christ let him set down an' 
 talk to Him, jest like a friend. Christ 
 didn't go an' call up the disciples an' set 
 them to prayin' over Nicodemus. An' He 
 didn't git no folks a-singin' of things that 
 ud make him cry. He jest set up, 'way 
 inter the night a-answering of Nicode- 
 muse's questions Jesus did. None of 
 your tryin' to make feelin' do the work of 
 thinkin' in that meetin' ! 
 
 " An' when the learned ruler of the 
 Jews went to pryin' too clost into spiritual 
 things, an' a makin' of 'ein too much like 
 the things what you buys an' sells in the 
 market, I kin jest shet my eyes, now an' 
 hear them words spoke so gentle, but 
 'sef 'twas a king what said 'em ' The 
 wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
 hearest the sound thereof, but canst not 
 tell whence it cometh nor whither it 
 goeth.' 
 
 " Kf the church wouldn't try to tickle 
 folkses feelin's, but would talk straight 
 up and down reason to 'em, 'twould 'peal 
 
 ii
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 153 
 
 to some what hain't never paid much 
 'tention. Some men, an' women, too, 
 who wouldn't be seen a-cryin' fur the 
 hull world, would set right down an' 
 talk, reasonable, 'bout religious things. 
 Some of 'em would admire to do it. 
 They'd feel that they was bein' treated 
 with proper respeck fur their intelleck. 
 
 " 'Pears to me that when things has 
 been tried an' tried without bringin' 
 round anything like what the tryin' is 
 fur, that it's about time to hunt up some 
 other way o' doin'. Wa'n't it th' 'postle 
 Paul what said that he was all things 
 to all men, if by chance he might win 
 some ? " 
 
 I'd been noticin' that John Wesley'd 
 been getting paler and paler while Martha 
 Ann was talking. Just then, he undertook 
 to get up, and swung 'round, instid, and 
 fell onto the floor. Martha Ann sprung 
 and straightened him out and undid his 
 cravat. 
 
 " I'm dretful sorry," she said. " But
 
 154 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 don't you go to worriting, Miss Hopkins. 
 He'll come round in no time. All of this 
 meetin' work has got his system out o' 
 kilter. 'Tain't to be wondered at, nuther. 
 Jest you bring me that bottle of camphire 
 off'n the mantle-piece in your bedroom. 
 Revival meetin's is worritin' 'nough to 
 floor a bigger man 'n he is." 
 
 'Twas over in a few minutes, and John 
 Wesley Gray laughed away my fears. 
 " Something else must be done," he said, 
 a-thinking of the church and not of him- 
 himself. " My eyes have been opening 
 slowly for some time. The thing to do 
 now is to look in the right direction." 
 
 What with Martha Ann a-stirring of 
 me up, and with a preacher a-fainting 
 away at my very feet, things look pretty 
 well mixed up. It appears to me that I 
 shan't never git through with my ponder- 
 ings.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Aunt Elvira Finds a new Plan 
 for Adding to the Church 
 which is Acted Upon with 
 Certain Results 
 
 TTTELL, after that last experience, I 
 had ruther a bad turn. And, 
 while I was setting 'round doing nothing, 
 I had time to think that the 'Rithmetic 
 of Life had got some real hard sums 
 crowded into it. 
 
 Laying awake nights to ponder didn't 
 seem to shed the least light onto the way 
 of doing this pertickerler sum that, 
 through my own foolishness bein' so 
 set on by Martha Ann had got wrote 
 out onto my slate for me to work out. 
 
 It seemed jest like it use ter in the
 
 156 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 yellow school-house at Tompkins Corners, 
 when I'd set and nibble my slate pencil, 
 an' make little marks all 'round, and 
 write my name over and over, and take 
 my sponge and wipe it all out again, 
 without finding out whether I'd ought to 
 divide or multiply, or subtract, or just 
 plain add. 
 
 Nothing seemed to come plain. No 
 matter how steady I set gazing onto that 
 slate. And there wasn't any big, kind 
 teacher a-coming 'round and a-helping of 
 me this time. 
 
 I begun to think that there must be 
 Greatest Common Divisors and Least 
 Common Multiples and Integers and such 
 like, into the doing of it. And, being of 
 no account in fractions, it began to seem 
 as if I'd never be able to figure my way 
 out. 
 
 Jest at this very identical time I come 
 onto a little piece into a church paper 
 that I was a-looking over one day, that 
 'peared to meet the case exactly kind of
 
 Tompkinte Corner. 157 
 
 a providential find, as you might say, of 
 one of them " solutions " that use to be 
 scattered 'round in the school 'Rithmetics. 
 Leastways, that's what I thought then. 
 And John Wesley he thought so, too. 
 So did Ellen Maria. But Martha Ann, 
 she didn't let on as to what her thinking 
 was. 
 
 The piece which took such a hold onto 
 my mind and John Wesley's mind, too 
 was about getting of the whole world 
 saved, and a-getting of it saved in short 
 order. 
 
 It said the piece did that the Church 
 was working too easy like. That it was 
 too much engaged in the feeling of its 
 own spiritual pulse and in coddling its 
 own little sicknesses leastways, that's 
 what all the high-flown words meant 
 and that it should stop fussing over itself 
 and go to work for others, and not feel 
 satisfied until the whole world was took 
 for Jesus. 
 
 Then it went on to say that if every
 
 158 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 perfessiug Christian would persuade only 
 one person a year to come into the church 
 or to be a Christian, which is the same 
 thing ; and if each new one would go on 
 and do the same thing, that even allow- 
 ing for the natural increase in population 
 even then the whole world would be 
 Christianized in twenty years! 
 
 It took my breath clean away. Twenty 
 year ! I begun to think over the ones I 
 would try to win. First, there was Bsther 
 Hadden, who'd been so true to her old 
 father and mother that her sweetheart 
 had got tired of waiting, and had gone 
 off and married another woman. Seemed 
 to me 's ef nothing but the love of heaven 
 could comfort her. I begun to think of 
 how I'd send some more of Martha Ann's 
 jellies 'round there, even if she didn't 
 'pear to 'predate them, when we got back ; 
 and of how I'd tell her that she needn't 
 bother 'bout the rent no more, 'cause that 
 piece of property wasn't worth much to 
 me, anyhow.
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 159 
 
 And, possible, with life made easier, 
 slie might lose the hard look that had 
 never left her face since she hearn the 
 bells ring for that wedding, ten long 
 year ago. And perhaps she might be 
 won to give her heart to Him whose 
 love is unchanging and outlasts death 
 itself. 
 
 And then I thought well, no matter. 
 It's easy to find names to work for when 
 a body's heart is tender. And I felt that, 
 even suppose the end of this life was to 
 come for me before it had all been brung 
 about as, pretty likely, it would I might 
 possibly be let to come back sometimes, 
 when some big, glad angel was a-coming 
 on an errand of joy and peace, just to look 
 on while the angel was a-doing of that 
 errand, and see how sweet and beautiful 
 it had all got to be when that happy time 
 had arrove. 
 
 And then I told it out to Martha Ann. 
 And she didn't believe it at all. She said 
 it didn't look likely. That she wasn't
 
 160 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 nothing at figures, but she knew enough 
 to disbelieve that. Although she did allow 
 that the man who wrote it had the right 
 idea. 
 
 " Bf the church is the salt of the airth," 
 says she, " it ain't a-doing of the work what 
 it's been set to, and a salting of the hull 
 airth. It's jest a-staying all by itself, in 
 little private lumps, and a-admirin' of its 
 own pertickerler little shiny crystals. 
 When I put a sprinkle o' salt into a pud- 
 din', I put it there 'cause I want it to work 
 its way 'round so's every single swaller of 
 that hull puddin' '11 taste of it. I want 
 every one of them little shiny crystals, 
 that look so pretty in the sun, to jest for- 
 git all about their own good looks, and 
 melt right up and go 'round a-seasoning 
 an* a savin' of everything that's in reach 
 of 'em. 
 
 " I ain't no preacher, nor bishop, nor 
 nobody," Martha Ann says, says she, " an' 
 I don't know how the thing 's goin' ter be 
 done. But the man what wrote that piece
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 161 
 
 has got the right idee into his head. 
 I wish to the Ian' sakes some other folks 
 would think of doing what he calls * ni- 
 di vidooal work.' 
 
 " It's easy 'nuff to shift responsibility 
 off onto the preacher ; an' then to set by 
 an' see him a-strugglin' with somethin' 
 that's too big for one man to handle. 
 Plenty of folks is willin' to go to meetin' ; 
 mighty willin' to talk, 'n pray, 'n mebbe, 
 to cry a little when they're inside uv the 
 meetin'. But they wont do a whimper o' 
 work, outside, by theirselves. 
 
 " But I'm a-workin' of you up into a 
 reg'lar stew, Miss Hopkins, an' that ain't 
 no way to help you. Bf I only had some 
 yarrer, now, out o' that bunch I dried last 
 year an' hung in the northeast corner o' 
 the attic, I could fix you up in no time. 
 You're all out o' kilter with the noise an' 
 commotion uv city livin'." 
 
 And, as she went down the stairs, I 
 heard her saying to herself, says she : 
 " You don't ketch me 'way from home 
 
 ii
 
 162 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 agin without some of that yarb into my 
 satchel." 
 
 I set still a spell after she'd gone. Then 
 I got up and went into the study, and 
 showed the little piece that I'd been and 
 cut out of the paper to John Wesley 
 Gray. 
 
 He read it clean through, real careful. 
 Then he looked into a book of church 
 statistics and took a pencil and done some 
 figgering. And as he figgered, and as the 
 answers to his sums kept a-getting longer 
 an' longer, his face begun to get brighter 
 and brighter. Till, at last, he said : 
 
 " The man is right. It's a simple 
 thing. The wonder is that it hasn't been 
 thought of before. And it seems to be 
 the least thing an earnest Christian can 
 pledge himself to undertake. Perhaps 
 we've found our way-out of the difficulties 
 that have been rising so high of late." 
 
 That night in the prayer-meeting, when 
 the feeling was deep, and two or three 
 sisters and one long-favored brother had
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 163 
 
 wept " over the waste places in Zion," 
 and bemoaned the lack of zeal in the 
 church, and sighed after the old paths of 
 Israel, John Wesley got up. 
 
 His face was all glowing. He seemed 
 like a doctor what had come to the friends 
 of some dying person, and had brought a 
 medicine that could not fail, noways. 
 
 And he said that he quite understood 
 all the heart sorrow of which the last tes- 
 timonies had been the expression. But 
 that he believed light was ready to dawn. 
 Then he read, out loud to the whole 
 meeting, that same little piece that I've 
 told you about. And, after reading of it, 
 he set out to them, in real bright colors, 
 with pretty words that 'peared tooken out 
 uv poetry, how beautiful and blessed 
 everything would be when the world had 
 been all redeemed to Christ. 
 
 " There will be no more oppression," 
 says he. " No need of trades unions and 
 such like, because the spirit pervading 
 every place will make life easier and
 
 104 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 brighter to every living soul. There 
 will be no more disunited families, 
 because all will be walking in the same 
 direction. 
 
 " Bvery one of you has probably some 
 dear friend whose welfare lies heavily 
 upon your heart. Many of you have 
 come to me with this burden. You have 
 told me, in confidence, how earnestly you 
 desire the salvation of your brother, your 
 sister, your husband, son or friend. You 
 have asked me to converse with these 
 that I might help you to win them, not 
 necessarily into this church, but into the 
 number of those who are saved. 
 
 " Suppose, now, that each of you take 
 the matter up seriously. Give this year 
 to its accomplishment. Work, pray, 
 speak, when occasion requires, to the 
 person ; be silent when the time is not 
 fitting ; but, with God's help, pledge 
 yourself to Him and your own heart that 
 you will not rest satisfied until, with His 
 help, the desired object is accomplished."
 
 TompkirTs Corner. 165 
 
 He said a lot more that sounded real 
 inspiring, but that is kind of evading 
 when I try to write it out. And he 
 pressed it home, loving and airnest, that 
 every one of them had some serious thing 
 to do. 
 
 And I set there a-expecting of seeing a 
 spirit of real revival and rejoicing break 
 out into that meeting. I don't think I'd 
 a-been. put out if some of them had hol- 
 lered a little, a-anticipating of the final 
 jubilee. 
 
 But if you'll believe it I couldn't at 
 first there wa'n't no such glad respond- 
 ing to the appeal as I'd been led to expect 
 by John Wesley's talking so glowing- 
 like. There wasn't even an " Amen ! " 
 And somebody in the amen corner started 
 up a regular " Hark-from-the-Tombs-a- 
 Doleful-Sound " hynin after he had set 
 down. 
 
 But John Wesley didn't 'pear to mind. 
 On the way home he said that it was a 
 very serious matter, and he was glad that
 
 166 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 they felt the weight of it. Martha Ann. 
 and I went upstairs pretty quick after 
 we'd got to the parsonage, and, when we'd 
 took off our things, she just faced round 
 and looked at me. Then says I : 
 
 u That was a real good exhortation of 
 John Wesley's, now, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " Good ? " says she. " Yes, it was ; real 
 good, and gen-u-eyne. But 'twan't no use. 
 Didn't you see it wa'n't from the first 
 minute they began to understand that he 
 was a-setting of somethin' fur them to do, 
 's well as his own self? Didn't the room 
 have a different /<?<?/ to you in less 'n no 
 time ? An' arter he'd talked a spell, didn't 
 you shiver 's if a wet blanket was a-bein' 
 drawed up close and tucked in all 'round ? 
 Do you s'pose they're a-goin to set to an' 
 work on their own hook a-tryin' to save 
 them ' lost sheep o' Israel ' that they're 
 allers a-grievin' over ? I wish to the land 
 sakes they would. Mebbe some of 'em 
 will. We'll see ! " 
 
 Then she went to folding up our things
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 167 
 
 and putting of them away. And it kind 
 of come over me that very minute that 
 maybe the day of jubilee was more than 
 twenty years away.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Martha Ann Gives Her Opin- 
 ion as to the Value of Some 
 Prayers 
 
 OINCE a-writing of that last letter I've 
 v -^ been into quite a state of mind. And 
 Martha Ann, she's been a-trying her very 
 best to help me out by showing how sort of 
 on-reasoning I was to go on a-expecting of 
 much from other folks. But all of her 
 doings and sayings only showed up to 
 me more clear and plain-like that in 
 some ways, the Church herself is her own 
 biggest hindrance. She showed it out to 
 me real plain Martha Ann did. And, 
 'stead of being willing to stop a-worriting 
 and just take things as they be, its kinder 
 broke my heart and tooken the spirit all 
 
 out of me, as you might say. 
 168
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 169 
 
 One day when we two had been a-set- 
 ting real still for quite a spell she a- 
 mending stockings and I a-doing of some 
 fancy work for the church fair she spoke 
 out, sudden-like, Martha Ann did, and 
 says she : 
 
 " I don't blame you. An' nobody what's 
 got a heart into their body can't blame you 
 for goin' an' buildin' air castles an' sech. 
 Anybody's likely to git excited, ef he's 
 interested into humanity at all, when he 
 finds a piece printed out clear an' plain 
 into a newspaper so's 'at everybody kin 
 read it, what sez as how the hull world 
 can be took by Christianity in jest twenty 
 years' time. 
 
 " Mebbe it's easy 'nuff to say a thing 
 like that, but when the piece goes on to 
 explain how the thing can be done, it's 
 more interestin'. Seems 's ef every perfes- 
 sin' Christian might set to an' bring jest 
 one outsider a year into the fold, fur as 
 long as twenty year, at least. An' it does 
 seem 's ef all on them new ones what hev
 
 170 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 been fetched in might begin an' do the 
 same ; an' all of 'em keep on a-doin' uv 
 it, clean on down to the very end uv that 
 twenty year, when the hull world would 
 be took for Christ. 
 
 " An' John Wesley Gray, he wouldn't a 
 been the airnest, interested pastor that he 
 is ef he hadn't a felt, fur a minute, at least, 
 a sort of heart lift when you went an' 
 showed to him that piece what you cut out 
 of the paper 'specially arter he'd been an' 
 figgered it all out an' found that the sum 
 would come true an' prove itself. 
 
 " I kin see him, now, a-readin' uv it ; an' 
 I kin hear his voice, all full o' feelin', a- 
 askin' uv 'em to do a little real live work 
 along with their prayin'. 
 
 " An' you felt the change what come 
 over that thar meetin' while he was 
 a-talkin' you felt it jest ez bad ez I did. 
 It's real pitiful, I know. But it's true ez 
 th' Gospel, an' it can't be helped. I don't 
 believe that some hull prayer meetin 's 
 would weigh very heavy if they was
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 171 
 
 hooked onto the steelyards in heaven, or 
 laid onto the heavenly scales. I don't 
 see how some folks dast to pray as they 
 do. No, I don't. 
 
 " And you're a-gittin' into a state nv 
 mind over it all, an' a-look-in' pale an' 
 sort o' limp. An' it's a-worritin' uv me 
 dretful." 
 
 But John Wesley Gray wasn't a bit 
 discouraged. Leastways, he didn't show 
 it if he was. He got out little letters in 
 printed writing and sent them to every 
 member of the church. I'll write out one 
 of them, so that you can see how dignified 
 and serious he took it. 
 
 Dear Friend You are a member of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church of this city, 
 and have taken upon yourself the solemn 
 vows of discipleship. The Lord Jesus 
 expects the best service that you can 
 render. Individual work is the necessity 
 of the hour. Are you, therefore, willing 
 to pledge yourself to the utmost effort
 
 172 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 toward bringing one soul to Christ during 
 the next twelve months ? If so, be kind 
 enough to sign the inclosed, and return it 
 as soon as convenient to one of the under- 
 signed. Yours faithfully. 
 New York, Feb. 18, 1898. 
 
 And here was put the name of the 
 pastor, of the Sunday School superintend- 
 ent and the class leaders. And, somehow 
 his airnest way of looking at the matter 
 kind of set me up again, till it began to 
 seem once more as if the end was pretty 
 near in sight. 
 
 And he planned to have encouragement 
 meetings for " them Oneses," as Martha 
 Ann called them. The little letters was 
 all sent out. Not a single member of the 
 church was missed rich or poor, high or 
 low, young or old every single body had 
 a little letter sent to their own individual 
 selves. 
 
 Then we set down and waited, as you 
 might say, John Wesley, Ellen Maria
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 173 
 
 his wife, and my favorite niece and I. 
 Martha Ann, well, she had to wait ; but 
 there wasn't any loving expectancy wove 
 like gold and silver threads through any 
 of her waiting. She's real shrewd, Martha 
 Ann is. And I've often wished I was a 
 little shrewder after I've been took in by 
 some inade-up tale of woe that's been told 
 to me. And, then, again, I'm real glad 
 that I ain't so shrewd. Suppose I do get 
 fooled pretty often, and I do, why, there's 
 the pleasure of thinking, at least for a 
 little spell, that things are all right. And 
 when they really do come out so, it's very 
 comforting to a body's feelings. 
 
 " They are weighing the matter," said 
 John Wesley one day after he'd been set- 
 ting real still for a long time. He spoke 
 it right out, as if we'd been talking about 
 it. And we hadn't said a single word in 
 two or three days. "It's a serious thing 
 to promise," says he, " and I'm glad that 
 they don't do it hastily." 
 
 Then he got up and went and put on
 
 174 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 his overcoat and hat and went out to make 
 some calls onto the church mission folk. 
 
 And after he'd went out Martha Ann 
 turned her eyes after him and said : 
 "Humph!" 
 
 That was all she said, every word. I 
 think it would a-ben easier to a-bore if 
 she'd said more. There's a good deal 
 that's discouraging to a body in one of 
 Martha Ann's " Humphs ! " I didn't feel 
 so comfortable and satisfied like after 
 hearing of it. And I began to think that 
 maybe the finding of that piece in the 
 paper wasn't so very providential after all. 
 
 Somehow, waiting didn't seem so easy 
 after that. Still, there wasn't nothing 
 else to do. We had to wait till, finally, 
 John Wesley spoke to one of his class 
 leaders about it. And the class leader 
 hemmed two or three times before he give 
 an answer. And then he said, says he : 
 
 " I can talk easy enough in my class 
 meeting when the members are all there. 
 And, when each one has set down after
 
 TompkirTs Corner. 175 
 
 giving their testimony, it's got to be real 
 easy for me to give a little exhortation to 
 that particular one, or a little encourage- 
 ment, as the case may be. But I can't 
 take one person alone and talk to him. I 
 hain't never had the face to do that special 
 kind of work. You'll have to count me 
 out. I'm sorry, but I'm not built that 
 way, you know, and can't help it, though 
 I've been a class leader for twenty odd 
 years." 
 
 John Wesley must have felt that the 
 man who couldn't speak loving and gentle 
 to one person about Christ was hardly fit 
 to stand up before a whole meeting and 
 talk. But, if he did, he kept from saying 
 of it. He's real peaceable. There ain't 
 any stirring up of wrath in his ways and 
 in his speakings. 
 
 The richest man in the church some 
 of them call him the Bishop, because he 
 seems so to expect that everything will 
 go as he wants it to go, from the preacher 
 to the penny collection he finally can 1 .?
 
 176 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 over to the parsonage and spoke to my 
 nephew-in-law. And the summing up of 
 what he said was, that it was all right to 
 generalize, but that the people didn't like 
 special things laid out for them to do. 
 That, as for the pastor and the deaconesses, 
 'twas their business to go round doing 
 such kind of work. But that outsiders 
 would think that the church had gone 
 stark staring mad if they all took to turn- 
 ing of theirselves into evangelists. 
 
 John Wesley felt a sort of homesick- 
 ness creep into his heart, and go winding 
 its cold and clammy length all through 
 it, as he tried to explain that it was not 
 expected that they should work, except 
 most quietly, with no fuss nor pretense. 
 
 But the church bishop shook his head 
 serious like, and said that it might do in 
 some little out-of-the-way mission, but 
 that wasn't the thing for a church like 
 theirs. 
 
 After he'd gone away, Martha Ann 
 said to me: " Don't think I'm tickled,
 
 Toinpkin's Corner. 177 
 
 'cause I ain't. I want things bettered just 
 as bad as you do. But human natur is 
 human natur, here as well as in Tompkins 
 Corners. And you know that them what 
 do the most work in the meetin's ain't 
 them as does the most outside. It 'd orter 
 be so, but it ain't." 
 
 Some more days went by. The church 
 didn't seem at all leaning toward making 
 hasty promises, such as John Wesley 
 'peared to be afraid that they would at 
 first. 
 
 Still, there was a few bright spots. One 
 poor woman brought her daughter to the 
 study one day and with tears into both 
 their eyes, they asked the pastor to add 
 the girl's name onto the church record. 
 And he done it most willing. 
 
 And a few children sent word about 
 their Ones. And, one day, just as even- 
 ing was a-setting in, we heard a boy's 
 voice in the hall a-asking for the minister. 
 
 John Wesley went out ; and there stood 
 a little fellow a-holding onto another little 
 
 12
 
 178 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 fellow. And lie smiled right up into 
 John Wesley's face, and says he : 
 
 " He's Jimmy. He's my One. He's a 
 square-dealin' feller. That's why I've 
 brung him. And he said he'd come, 
 'cause he likes you. You buys his papers, 
 an' you speaks kind to him, and Jimmy, 
 he's a-going to hunt up a One, too." 
 
 John Wesley took them into his study 
 and had some nice things to eat brought 
 in to them. And he told them some 
 stories. And after he'd let them go and 
 had come back into the setting-room, he 
 says, says he : " Into the byways and 
 hedges." 
 
 That was all that he said. Martha Ann 
 looked over at me, and there was tears 
 into her sharp little gray eyes. And she 
 made a great fuss a-wiping of her spec- 
 tacles. 
 
 And here we are, just about where we 
 was before. Pondering don't seem to do 
 much good no more. Still, I can't seem 
 to be able to stop a-doing of it.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Martha Ann Expresses Some 
 Pretty Lively Convictions 
 Concerning the Renting of 
 Pews. She Wonders as to 
 the Real Ownership of the 
 Lord's House, and Suggests 
 "The Church of the Pew- 
 Holder "as an Appropriate 
 Name for Some Places of 
 Worship 
 
 " T WAS kind o' hankerin' to set my 
 eyes onto Tompkins Corners agin," 
 says Martha Ann, says she to me one 
 day, " till I got that letter from Melvina 
 Mellings yisterday. 'N sense readin' uv 
 that, I've been feelin' a heap more recon- 
 ciled about snippin' a few more weeks 
 
 179
 
 180 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 off'n real life an' a-tackin' uv 'em onto 
 our stayin' here." 
 
 I took off my specs and waited, 'cause 
 the look onto Martha Ann's face showed 
 that something real kind of interesting 
 was likely to come. But I had to set 
 quite a spell afore she opened her 
 lips. 
 
 " 'Twas kind o' bore in onto my mind 
 when I fust read that letter," says she at 
 last, " as how't I'd best not let on to you 
 nothing 'bout it, till you'd got back, an' 
 seen fur yourself how things is. An' 
 then, agin, thinks I to myself, l When a 
 blow is a-comin', sartin sure, an' there 
 hain't no way o' dodging it, ifs best to be 
 prepared.' 1 A body may be sommat stag- 
 gered, but they hain't near so apt to git a 
 real knock-down ef they knows aforehand 
 and kind o' braces theirselves agin it. 
 
 " 'N ef you was to go back to Tonipkins 
 Corners to-morrer, a-expectin' uv findin' 
 things in statter quo, you'd git a mighty 
 set-back. An' I hain't a-takin' uv no
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 181 
 
 sech responsibility onto my shoulders. 
 Not ef I knows myself." 
 
 There was a clap-o'-doom tone into them 
 words of Martha Ann's that set me all of 
 a tremble. If this was the preparing, 
 then what on earth must the blow be ! 
 
 Perhaps there'd been a fire to Tompkins 
 Corners, and all of my building-property 
 had been swep' away. And the old house 
 what I'd been born into (and my mother 
 before me), and the garret where I played 
 when a wee thing ; and the great, pleasant 
 living-room where after I'd growed up 
 into a happy young girl I use to set with 
 him close beside me during them, long 
 winter evenings by the blazing chimbly 
 .fire, when the rest uv 'em didn't 'pear to 
 see if his hand did use ter steal over and 
 draw mine down, for a minute or two, 
 from the long lambs'-wool stocking I was 
 always a-knitting. 
 
 And the little trinkets he give to me ! 
 And the one letter he wrote and brought 
 to me, himself, just because he couldn't
 
 182 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 somehow tell to me when we was together 
 quite all that he wanted to. I come nigh 
 onto bringing that letter and them trinkets 
 with me to New York. But, what busi- 
 ness has a maiden woman of my age got 
 with such things stowed away into her 
 satchels and reticules. 
 
 So, they was all swep' away. And I 
 hadn't no home to 
 
 Then Martha Ann, she set off a-talkin' 
 once more. 
 
 " Your heart," says she, " was so ter- 
 rible sot onto this pertickerler thing." 
 
 " Yes, it was," thinks I, though not a- 
 saying it "silly or not, it was awful 
 set." 
 
 " An' you'd put your hand inter your 
 pocket so liberal an' oncoinplainin' ! 
 They'd orter a-had the decency to a- 
 waited till you got back afore doin' of it. 
 But seems they didn't. So I thought best 
 to begin a-preparin' uv you for the wust ! " 
 
 She stopped again, and leant back into 
 her chair and waited. I seen from her
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 183 
 
 words that ray property was safe. But I 
 couldn't for the life of me make out what 
 she was a-tryiug to get at. I begun to 
 think that a body 'd best have less pre- 
 parin'. Being prepared for bad news is 
 most as uncomfortable as hearing of 'eni. 
 
 " 'Pears like some folks mostly goes 
 forreds by goin' backerds," Martha Ann 
 went on a-saying. "An' churches is moslly 
 folks, arter all. We look onto the Church 
 as being a Divine Instertootion. P'raps 
 there is a sort uv kernel uv divine sperret 
 into it. Most likely there is. Now that 
 I think on it, of course there is. 
 
 " But the biggest part of the Church is 
 jest nothin' but folks. An' folks is mostly 
 mighty human be they inside or be they 
 outside uv the Church. An' human stands 
 mostly for selfish jest as narves does. 
 Narvous folks gits their own way. An' 
 them what owns up to bein' human, does 
 it cause they wants to hev things fixed to 
 suit their own selves. 
 
 " They hain't no use uv my talkin'
 
 184 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 round Robin Hood's barn no longer. I 
 may jest as well let the cat out of the bag 
 to oncet. I never could let folks down 
 easy-like." 
 
 She gave a little flirt to her cap-strings. 
 " The differkilty^s jest here. Them church 
 trustees has been an* 1 gone an 1 rented the 
 pews agin all uv the best on ''em. Ad 
 they've left jist a string across the fur-back 
 part, an* a few up inter the loft on-rented. 
 Left ''em fur them as haitft got no money 
 to pay fur the privilidge tiv worshippiri* 
 the Lord in His own tabernickle.' 1 '' 
 
 I was took back. There w'an't no 
 denyin' uv it. Next to losin' uv my 
 childhood's home, this was the heaviest 
 blow that could a-been struck at me out of 
 Tompkins Corners. Next to my joy at 
 being counted one of His own, had been 
 my desire to make the House of the Lord 
 free to all who could be won to come inside 
 of its walls. And I'd doubled and trebled 
 my subscription so as to bring it about. 
 
 " I couldn't never onderstand," Martha
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 185 
 
 Ann she went on a-saying, " where any- 
 body gits the right to pick an' choose fur 
 the best place into the church, an' then 
 'fur to go an' have their name printed onto 
 it, like a door-plate, as some folks does. 
 
 " I kin onderstand that it's real kind uv 
 comfortable I've tried it and know to 
 hev allers the same cushioned corner 
 ready fur a body's back, an' the same little 
 stool ready to their feet, an' their own 
 hymn and sam-books with their names 
 printed onto 'em in gold letters a-waitin'. 
 
 " Mighty comfortable to go a-rustlin' 
 up, out uv your easy week-day life, with 
 your Sunday satin gown an' your best 
 bunnit all brushed free from a single 
 speck o' dust, an' a-givin' little pious 
 nods 'round to the few other comfortable 
 ones near, who're enjoyin' the same 
 blessin'. 
 
 " But what about them what hain't come 
 up out uv a easy week? Them who's 
 struggled to git there out uv a week what's 
 been crowded full o' trouble an' leetle
 
 186 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 snarlin' bothers; an' into which, p'raps, a 
 few tears has been a-droppin' ? Them 
 what needs the divine peace and stillness, 
 an' sweetness, an 1 the comfort, too. Bf 
 there is any outside thing that kin make 
 them comfortable any seat into God's 
 house that'll help them to forgit the hard- 
 ships o' life, they'd orter hev it. 
 
 " P'raps they've had crowded onto their 
 minds all durin' the week, the difference 
 there is atween them a-battlin' agin the 
 stream an' some other folkses easy sailin'. 
 An' when they come up into the Lord's 
 House arter a little strength to bear their 
 burdensome lot, the old difference a-twixt 
 them and others is pressed in onto 'em 
 harder'n ever. 
 
 " An' they begin to kinder feel that the 
 church hain't nothin', arter all, but- a kind 
 o' Sunday club-house ; an' they loses 
 their faith an' their hold onto God's lovin' 
 an' leadin' hand. 
 
 " You remember James Martin's wife 
 her as was Molly Doolittle, an' had a com-
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 187 
 
 fortable home, an' use ter be druv to 
 church with her own father's team, till 
 she went agin the fambly an' married 
 herself to James, what was a real hard 
 drinker, an', finally, went off in a fit o' 
 tremers, an' things went from bad to wuss 
 with Molly an' her children ? 
 
 " Well, she tole me herself, Molly did, 
 that she didn't so much mind the differ- 
 ence 'twixt her life an' that uv some other 
 folkses, till she got inside uv the church 
 onto a Sunday mornin', an' seen the bet- 
 terance that money made fur some folks 
 there. 
 
 " She knew, Molly did, that their hun- 
 derd dollars wa'n't no more in the sight 
 uv the Lord than her widder's mite. But 
 she was made to feel that a hunderd dol- 
 lars cut a heap sight bigger figger into 
 the eyes of the church trustees. That's 
 why she stopped off a-goin' to church. 
 An', sumhow, though I never let on to 
 her, I couldn't blame her fur a-doin' 
 uv it.
 
 188 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 " It 'pears that they had a pretty lively 
 time to the church meetin', that was called 
 to talk up the matter uv makiii' the 
 change. Melviny says that class-leader 
 Green said that nobody went to a concert 
 a-expectin' of settin' into a box-seat if 
 they only paid fur the gallery. An' he 
 didn't see why the meetin'-house wasn't 
 the same. 
 
 " An' Mary Ann Bardeen, she spoke 
 right out an' tole him that she'd no objec- 
 tion to his hevin' uv the box-seat most uv 
 the time ; but that she did want a occa- 
 sional chance at it. She said that when 
 her rich cousin was up from Jersey, she'd 
 a-been willin' to a-paid for a box-seat fur 
 them two Sundays. 
 
 " She thought Mary Jane did that 
 ef they was a-goin' to put the church 
 service onto a level with a concert, they 
 orter give notices, an' hev the seats sold 
 oncet a week. She'd a-been more'n willin' 
 to a-stood in line an' a-took her chance 
 with the rest uv 'em ; an' to hev paid a
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 189 
 
 pretty considerable sum fur them thar 
 two Sundays." 
 
 I hadn't nothin' to say. So I didn't 
 say it. Martha Ann 'peared to have a 
 good deal to say. And I just set still an' 
 let her keep on a-sayin' uv it. 
 
 " An' we'd been an' got it all frescoated 
 onto the walls into the vesterbule : 
 
 1 SEATS FREE WELCOME TO ALL ! ' 
 
 Just where anybody, in passin' by, could 
 see the invitin' words a-standin' there in 
 bright, glad-colored letters. I s'pose 
 they've got the frescoaters to go an' wipe 
 them words all out by this time. 
 
 " Melviny says as how that Sunday- 
 school Superintendent Mortimer has got 
 into his ole seat on the middle aisle agin, 
 he has. You remember how kind o' crazy 
 he's allers^been over that one pertickerler 
 seat in the sanctuary. An' how that 
 oncet, when John Westfall a real likely 
 sort o' man, with a clean, decent fambly,
 
 190 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 who'd had some money left to him, an' 
 took his fust step to'ards advancing of 
 hisself an' them by goin' an' hirin' a 
 good pew into the church you remember 
 how that, through some mistake in Sun- 
 day-school Superintendent Mortimer's not 
 havin' notified the pew-letters, they gave 
 that pew to John Westfall, don't you ? 
 An' what a pretty row was kicked up by 
 the superintendent ! He didn't go to 
 Sunday services for six weeks ! An' the 
 'ficial board had to patch it up by gittin' 
 John an' his fambly to set into another 
 pew. 
 
 " Talk about a * whip o' small cords ' 
 being used into the temple ! 'Pears to me 
 that one wouldn't be much out o' place in 
 these here days." 
 
 She stopped to take breath. And I 
 says, says I, " Did Melviny say as how 
 they come to to doin' of it ? " 
 
 " Why, 'cause they can't git the money 
 to run the church in no other way so 
 they say. Folks won't pay reasonable
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 191 
 
 unless they gits summat as snows how 
 much they pays. There's mighty few 
 who love the Lord's service enough to pay 
 as much's a good seat is wuth, an' then 
 take their chance a-gittin' in/0 it. 
 
 " Then the' was danger o' losin' the 
 Stebbinses an' the Perkinses. They was 
 a-talkin' uv goin' summers else. They 
 didn't like bein' pew-tramps a-goin' fust 
 here an' then there, wherever they could 
 git a chance. 'Cause the church really 
 had bigger crowds than afore ; an' a body 
 had to be on time ef he struck a fust-class 
 middle-aisle seat. 
 
 " An' Square Granby said that he felt 
 like a stranger into a strange land, when 
 he didn't see the ole familiar faces 'round 
 him. 'Twas real disturbin' to his sperrit 
 to set next to nobody didn't know who. 
 
 " So the change was brung about. An' 
 I hope to the Ian' sakes alive that they 
 feel better. Though a sort uv curus thing 
 happened the very next Sunday. 
 
 " You know Mis' Humble? An' how
 
 192 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 thet she's tried to disbelieve in everything 
 sence she had that trouble ? Well, it 
 'pears that something happened to soften 
 her heart. I believe that her run-away 
 son, who she worshipped, had wrote a lov- 
 in' letter to her all the way from Injy, 
 sayin' as how't he was comin' back to ask 
 her to forgive him fur breakin' uv all their 
 hearts. 
 
 " An' Mis' Humble, she was that happy . 
 that she wanted to go into church an' 
 kneel down an' whisper out her thanks 
 fur this great joy that was comin'. So, 
 the very next mornin', bein' Sunday, sfye 
 put on her bunnit an' took her Bible, an' 
 went over into the Methodist church an' 
 walked up the aisle an' knelt down into 
 the very forredest pew an' begun prayin' 
 in her heart over the joy that was come into 
 her life. When the usher a new man 
 what didn't know her went up an' teched 
 her shoulder and says, says he : 
 " ' This pew is rented, ma'am.'' 
 " Mis' 1 Humble she looked at him an'
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 193 
 
 then got up, slow-like, an' took her Bible 
 an' umberell an' walked straight down the 
 aisle, past the usher, who was a-trying to 
 show her into a unrented pew at the back, 
 straight out uv the church door an' over 
 into the Unitarian church across the 
 road, that church where they don't set so 
 much store by the Lord Jesus, but where 
 their seats is really free. 
 
 " Hverybody was scairt nigh about to 
 death. Mis' Humble is real desirable fur 
 any church. An' to let her slip through 
 their fingers that way was pretty bad 
 policy. So, the leadin' members, an' the 
 parson, they all called onto her durin' the 
 week. An' they said that 'twas the fault 
 of the new man. That he wouldn't a-done 
 it ef he'd a-knowed who she was ! 
 
 " But Mis' Humble jest said to them 
 that they was only makin' uv the matter 
 wuss by their excusin' uv it. That the 
 poorest woman in all Tompkins Corners 
 needed a chance to pray in the Lord's 
 house jest as much as she did. An' that 
 '3
 
 194 Elvira Hopkins of 
 
 she'd made tip her mind to go to a church 
 that was really like the great God no 
 respecter of pussons." 
 
 I didn't have nothing to say, I was that 
 beat out and weak at the heart over what 
 I'd hearn. And Martha Ann she didn't 
 have nothing to say for quite a spell. 
 She rocked back'ards and for' wards, and 
 back'ards and forwards, real swift-like. 
 Then she stopped all of a sudden, and 
 says, says she : 
 
 " I've been mighty took with some of 
 the names to the churches here. ' The 
 Church of the Messiah/ ' The Church of 
 the Redeemer,' an' sech like. But arter 
 gittin' that letter uv Melviny's, an' readin' 
 uv it, an' thinkin' uv my own beloved 
 little place uv worship 'way off up into 
 the little country village, it seems to me 
 that 'stid uv it's bein' the House uv the 
 Lord, it's got to be simply an' only * The 
 Church of the Pew-Holder.' " j 
 
 And my own heart growed heavier. 
 For, in visiting 'round 'mong them as
 
 Tompkin's Corner. 195 
 
 needs a comfortin' word occasional, an' a 
 little money slipped into their hands on 
 the sly, an' a few quiet unbeknownst 
 things done for 'em oncet in a while, I'd 
 found out how some of them hankered 
 arter the church services, an' how glad 
 they was when the seats was all free no 
 ushers an' nobody to pester 'em, 'less 
 they wanted to be took to a seat. They 
 could come in and go and set wheresom- 
 ever they wanted to. 
 
 I thought of them, and was real sorry. 
 It 'pears like as if I shall never get 
 through having to ponder onto real hard 
 and troublesome sums. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 ELVIRA HOPKINS. 
 
 From Tompkins Corners.
 
 ,C SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000126243 5