David did not think of the cards, and he liked the greeting of the
two strangers who guyed him better than the welcome of his old
friends. That hurt: he had never supposed there was anything just
like it in the nature of man. But during the years since he had
seen them, old times were gone, old manners changed. And was it not
in the hemp fields of the father of one of them that he had
meantime worked with the negroes? And is there any other country in
the world where the clean laborer is so theoretically honored and
so practically despised as by the American snob of each sex?

One afternoon he went over to the courthouse and got the county
clerk to show him the entry where his great-grandfather had had the
deed to his church recorded. There it all was!--all written down to
hold good while the world lasted: that perpetual grant of part and
parcel of his land, for the use of a free school and a free church.
The lad went reverently over the plain, rough speech of the mighty
old pioneer, as he spoke out his purpose.

During those early days also he sought out the different churches,
scrutinizing respectfully their exteriors. How many they were, and
how grand nearly all! Beyond anything he had imagined. He reasoned
that if the buildings were so fine, how fine must be the singing
and the sermons! The unconscious assumption, the false logic here,
was creditable to his heart at least--to that green trust of the
young in things as they should be which becomes in time the best
seasoned staff of age. He hunted out especially the Catholic
Church. His great-grandfather had founded his as free for Catholics
as Protestants, but he recalled the fact that no priest had ever
preached there. He felt very curious to see a priest. A synagogue