CHAPTER XV

NATURE'S BUILDING MATERIALS


Some days after Burt's adventure, Dr. Marvin made his professional call
in the evening. Mr. Alvord, Squire Bartley, and the minister also
happened in, and all were soon chatting around Mr. Clifford's ruddy
hearth. The pastor of this country parish was a sensible man, who, if he
did not electrify his flock of a Sunday morning, honestly tried to guide
it along safe paths, and led those whom he asked to follow. His power lay
chiefly in the homes of his people, where his genial presence was ever
welcomed. He did not regard those to whom he ministered as so many souls
and subjects of theological dogma, but as flesh-and-blood men, women, and
children, with complex interests and relations; and the heartiness of his
laugh over a joke, often his own, and the havoc that he made in the
dishes of nuts and apples, proved that he had plenty of good healthful
blood himself. Although his hair was touched with frost, and he had never
received any degree except his simple A.M., although the prospect of a
metropolitan pulpit had grown remote indeed, he seemed the picture of
content as he pared his apple and joined in the neighborly talk.

Squire Bartley had a growing sense of shortcoming in his farming
operations. Notwithstanding his many acres, he felt himself growing
"land-poor," as country people phrase it. He was not a reader, and looked
with undisguised suspicion on book-farming. As for the agricultural
journals, he said "they were full of new-fangled notions, and were kept
up by people who liked to see their names in print." Nevertheless, he was