stairs, and he could shake hands casually, say carelessly, "Well, I'm mighty glad you were here to welcome me, Sister, and I hope I may bring a blessing on the house."
He felt at home now, warmed, restored. His chamber was agreeable—Turkey-red carpet, stove a perfect shrine of polished nickel, and in the bow-window, a deep arm-chair. On the four-poster bed was a crazy-quilt, and pillow-shams embroidered with lambs and rabbits and the motto, "God Bless Our Slumbers."
"This is going to be all right. Kinda like home, after these doggone hotels," he meditated.
He was again ready to conquer Banjo Crossing, to conquer Methodism; and when his bags and trunk had come, he set out, before unpacking, to view his kingdom.
Banjo Crossing was not extensive, but to find the key to the First Methodist Church was a Scotland Yard melodrama.
Brother Fritscher, the shoemaker, had lent it to Sister Anderson of the Ladies' Aid, who had lent it to Mrs. Pryshetski, the scrubwoman, who had lent it to Pussy Byrnes, president of the Epworth League, who had lent it to Sister Fritscher, consort of Brother Fritscher, so that Elmer captured it next door to the shoemaker's shop from which he had irritably set out.
Each of them, Brother Fritscher and Sister Fritscher, Sister Pryshetski and Sister Byrnes, Sister Anderson and most of the people from whom he inquired directions along the way, asked him the same questions:
"You the new Methodist preacher?" and "Not married, are you?" and "Just come to town?" and "Hear you come from the City—guess you're pretty glad to get away, ain't you?"
He hadn't much hope for his church-building. He had not seen it yet—it was hidden behind the school-building—but he expected a hideous brown hulk with plank buttresses. He was delighted then, proud as a worthy citizen elected mayor, when he came to an agreeable little church covered with gray shingles, crowned with a modest spire, rimmed with cropped lawn and flower-beds. Excitedly he let himself in, greeted by the stale tomb-like odor of all empty churches.
The interior was pleasant. It would hold two hundred
