Chapter II. Grant Makes Two Business Calls

Deacon Gridley had a small farm, and farming was his chief occupation, but he had a few thousand dollars laid away in stocks and bonds, and, being a thrifty man, not to say mean, he managed to save up nearly all the interest, which he added to his original accumulation. He always coveted financial trusts, and so it came about that he was parish treasurer. It was often convenient for him to keep in his hands, for a month at a time, money thus collected which ought to have been paid over at once to the minister, but the deacon was a thoroughly selfish man, and cared little how pressed for money Mr. Thornton might be, as long as he himself derived some benefit from holding on to the parish funds.

The deacon was mowing the front yard of his house when Grant came up to his front gate.

"Good-morning, Deacon Gridley," said the minister's son.

"Mornin', Grant," answered the deacon. "How's your folks?"

"Pretty well in health," returned Grant, coming to business at once, "but rather short of money."

"Ministers most gen'ally are," said Deacon Gridley, dryly.

"I should think they might be, with the small salaries they get," said Grant, indignantly.

"Some of 'em do get poorly paid," replied the deacon; "but I call six hundred dollars a pooty fair income."

"It might be for a single man; but when a minister has a wife and three children, like my father, it's pretty hard scratching."

"Some folks ain't got faculty," said the deacon, adding, complacently, "it never cost me nigh on to six hundred dollars a year to live."

The deacon had the reputation of living very penuriously, and Abram Fish, who once worked for him and boarded in the family, said he was half starved there.

"You get your milk and vegetables off the farm," said Grant, who felt the comparison was not a fair one. "That makes a great deal of difference."

"It makes some difference," the deacon admitted, "but not as much as the difference in our expenses. I didn't spend more'n a hundred dollars cash last year."

This excessive frugality may have been the reason why Mrs. Deacon Gridley was always so shabbily dressed. The poor woman had not had a new bonnet for five years, as every lady in the parish well knew.

"Ministers have some expenses that other people don't," persisted Grant.

"What kind of expenses, I'd like to know?"

"They have to buy books and magazines, and entertain missionaries, and hire teams to go on exchanges."

"That's something," admitted the deacon. "Maybe it amounts to twenty or thirty dollars a year."

"More likely a hundred," said Grant.

"That would be awful