In the seats behind him a titter arose. A young woman sitting among the
singers in the choir put her handkerchief to her face and throwing back
her head rocked back and forth. A man near the door guffawed loudly and
went hurriedly out. All over the church people began laughing.

Sam turned his eyes upon his mother. She was staring straight ahead of
her, and her face was red. "I'm going out of this place and I'm never
coming back again," he whispered, and, stepping into the aisle, walked
boldly toward the door. He had made up his mind that if the evangelist
tried to stop him he would fight. At his back he felt the rows of people
looking at him and smiling. The laughter continued.

In the street he hurried along consumed with indignation. "I'll never go
into any church again," he swore, shaking his fist in the air. The public
avowals he had heard in the church seemed to him cheap and unworthy. He
wondered why his mother stayed in there. With a sweep of his arm he
dismissed all the people in the church. "It is a place to make public
asses of the people," he thought.

Sam McPherson wandered through Main Street, dreading to meet Valmore and
John Telfer. Finding the chairs back of the stove in Wildman's grocery
deserted, he hurried past the grocer and hid in a corner. Tears of wrath
stood in his eyes. He had been made a fool of. He imagined the scene that
would go on when he came upon the street with the papers the next morning.
Freedom Smith would be there sitting in the old worn buggy and roaring so
that all the street would listen and laugh. "Going to lie out in any green
pastures to-night, Sam?" he would shout. "Ain't you afraid you'll take
cold?" By Geiger's drug store would stand Valmore and Telfer, eager to
join in the fun at his expense. Telfer would pound on the side of the
building with his cane and roar with laughter. Valmore would make a