Theron felt bound to exhibit a grin in acknowledgment of this pleasantry.The lawyer's change of position had involved some shifting of the others' chairs, and the young minister found himself directly confronted by Brother Pierce's hard and colorless old visage.Its little eyes were watching him, as through a mask, and under their influence the smile of politeness fled from his lips.
The lawyer on his right, the cheese-buyer to the left, seemed to recede into distance as he for the moment returned the gaze of the quarryman.He waited now for him to speak, as if the others were of no importance.
"We are a plain sort o' folks up in these parts,"said Brother Pierce, after a slight further pause.
His voice was as dry and rasping as his cough, and its intonations were those of authority."We walk here,"he went on, eying the minister with a sour regard, "in a meek an' humble spirit, in the straight an'
narrow way which leadeth unto life.We ain't gone traipsin'
after strange gods, like some people that call themselves Methodists in other places.We stick by the Discipline an'
the ways of our fathers in Israel.No new-fangled notions can go down here.Your wife'd better take them flowers out of her bunnit afore next Sunday."Silence possessed the room for a few moments, the while Theron, pale-faced and with brows knit, studied the pattern of the ingrain carpet.Then he lifted his head, and nodded it in assent."Yes," he said;"we will do nothing by which our 'brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.'"Brother Pierce's parchment face showed no sign of surprise or pleasure at this easy submission."Another thing:
We don't want no book-learnin' or dictionary words in our pulpit," he went on coldly."Some folks may stomach 'em; we won't.Them two sermons o' yours, p'r'aps they'd do down in some city place; but they're like your wife's bunnit here, they're too flowery to suit us.What we want to hear is the plain, old-fashioned Word of God, without any palaver or 'hems and ha's." They tell me there's some parts where hell's treated as played-out--where our ministers don't like to talk much about it because people don't want to hear about it.Such preachers ought to be put out.They ain't Methodists at all.