he admired. Young men went into the ministry because they were
timid or lazy and wanted society to take care of them; because
they wanted to be pampered by kind, trusting women like his
mother.

Though he wanted little to do with theology and theologians,
Claude would have said that he was a Christian. He believed in
God, and in the spirit of the four Gospels, and in the Sermon on
the Mount. He used to halt and stumble at "Blessed are the meek,"
until one day he happened to think that this verse was meant
exactly for people like Mahailey; and surely she was blessed!



VIII

On the Sunday after Christmas Claude and Ernest were walking
along the banks of Lovely Creek. They had been as far as Mr.
Wheeler's timber claim and back. It was like an autumn afternoon,
so warm that they left their overcoats on the limb of a crooked
elm by the pasture fence. The fields and the bare tree-tops
seemed to be swimming in light. A few brown leaves still clung to
the bushy trees along the creek. In the upper pasture, more than
a mile from the house, the boys found a bittersweet vine that
wound about a little dogwood and covered it with scarlet berries.
It was like finding a Christmas tree growing wild out of doors.
They had just been talking about some of the books Claude had
brought home, and his history course. He was not able to tell
Ernest as much about the lectures as he had meant to, and he felt
that this was more Ernest's fault than his own; Ernest was such a