Clyde was not, like Elmer, educated. He had left high school after his second year, and since then he had had only one year in a United Brethren seminary. Elmer didn't think much, he decided, of all this associating and fellowshiping with a lot of rival preachers—it was his job, wasn't it, to get their parishioners away from them? But it was an ecstasy to have, for once, a cleric to whom he could talk down.
He called frequently on the Reverend Mr. Tippey in the modest cottage which (at the age of twenty-six) Clyde occupied with his fat wife and four children. Mr. Tippey had pale blue eyes and he wore a fourteen-and-a-half collar encircling a thirteen neck.
"Clyde," crowed Elmer, "if you're going to reach the greatest number and not merely satisfy their spiritual needs but give 'em a rich, full, joyous life, you gotta explain great literature to 'em."
"Yes. Maybe that's so. Haven't had time to read much, but I guess there's lot of fine lessons to be learned out of literature," said the Reverend Mr. Tippey.
"Is there! Say, listen to this! From Longfellow. The poet.
And the grave is not its goal,
and this—just get the dandy swing to it:
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
I read that way back in school-reader, but I never had anybody to show me what it meant, like I'm going to do with my congregation. Just think! 'The grave is NOT its goal!' Why, say, Longfellow is just as much of a preacher as you or I are! Eh?"
"Yes, that's so. I'll have to read some of his poetry. Could you lend me the book?"
"You bet I will, Clyde! Be a fine thing for you. A young preacher like you has got to remember, if you'll allow an older
