They were nodding on either side of a radiator unheated for months.
"All right, Emmy," piped the ancient.
"Say, Papa— Tell me: I've been thinking: If you were just a young man today, would you go into the ministry?"
"Course I would! What an idea! Most glorious vocation young man could have. Idea! G'night, Emmy!"
But as his ancient wife sighingly removed her corsets, she complained, "Don't know as you would or not—if I was married to you—which ain't any too certain, a second time—and if I had anything to say about it!"
"Which is certain! Don't be foolish. Course I would."
"I don't know. Fifty years I had of it, and I never did get so I wa'n't just mad clear through when the ladies of the church came poking around, criticizing me for every little tidy I put on the chairs, and talking something terrible if I had a bonnet or a shawl that was the least mite tasty. ''Twa'n't suitable for a minister's wife.' Drat 'em! And I always did like a bonnet with some nice bright colors. Oh, I've done a right smart of thinking about it. You always were a powerful preacher, but's I've told you—"
"You have!"
"—I never could make out how, if when you were in the pulpit you really knew so much about all these high and mighty and mysterious things, how it was when you got home you never knew enough, and you never could learn enough, to find the hammer or make a nice piece of corn-bread or add up a column of figures twice alike or find Oberammergau on the map of Austria!"
"Germany, woman! I'm sleepy!"
"And all these years of having to pretend to be so good when we were just common folks all the time! Ain't you glad you can just be simple folks now?"
"Maybe it is restful. But that's not saying I wouldn't do it over again." The old man ruminated a long while. "I think I would. Anyway, no use discouraging these young people from entering the ministry. Somebody got to preach the gospel truth, ain't they?"
"I suppose so. Oh, dear. Fifty years since I married a preacher! And if I could still only be sure about the virgin birth! Now don't you go explaining! Laws, the number of
