"—a very important point indeed; all the year round we receive those greater inner blessings, and it is for them more than for any material, uh, material gains that we should lift our voices in Thanksgiving. Don't you think it might be valuable to all of us if I brought that out?"
"Oh, yes! Indeed I do! I think that's a lovely thought!"
(His arms tingled. He had to slip them about her.)
Frank and Miss Baldwin had sat down, and they were in an intolerably long discussion as to what ought to be done about that terrible little Cutler boy who said that he didn't believe that the ravens brought any bread and meat to Elijah, not if he knew anything about these ole crows! Frank explained that he did not wish to rebuke honest doubt; but when this boy went and made a regular business of cutting up and asking foolish questions—
"Lulu!" Elmer urged. "Skip back in the other room with me a second. There's something about the church work I want to ask you, and I don't want them to hear."
There were two rooms in the Schoenheim church: the auditorium and a large closet for the storage of hymn books, mops, brooms, folding chairs, communion cups. It was lighted by a dusty window.
"Sister Bains and I are going to look over the Sunday School lesson-charts," Elmer called largely and brightly.
The fact that she did not deny it bound them together in secrecy. He sat on an upturned bucket; she perched on a step-ladder. It was pleasant to be small in her presence and look up to her.
What the "something about church work" which he was going to ask her was, he had no notion, but Elmer was a very ready talker in the presence of young women. He launched out:
"I need your advice. I've never met anybody that combined common sense and spiritual values like what you do."
"Oh, my, you're just flattering me, Brother Gantry!"
"No, I'm not. Honest, I ain't! You don't appreciate yourself. That's because you've always lived in this little burg, but if you were in Chicago or some place like that, believe me, they'd appreciate your, uh, that wonderful sense of spiritual values and everything."
"Oh—Chicago! My! I'd be scared to death!"
