“Once Jedge Blossom traded hosses with ’im when ’e was piped, an’ gave ’im ten dollars to boot. He got a bum animal shifted on ’im, an’ when ’e sobered up, ’e sent Gandy a bill fer fifteen dollars fer legal advice, an’ the advice was not to come into this part o’ the country any more.”
The old man told me that he was born in a small town in Massachusetts.
“I was named after the preacher of our church. He was a great man an’ ’is eloquence was wonderful. His name was the Reverend Elihu Baxter, an’ ’e used to go up into the pulpit, an’ lean ’is stummick ’way out over it, an’ say, _‘Now you listen to me’!_--an’ that’s the way ’e drawed ’em to ’im. When ’e’d first begin, the church ’ud be so still that you could hear the flies buzz, an’ ’is voice would sound all hollow, like ’e was talkin’ into a big dish-pan. We don’t have no more preachers like ’im now days, an’ people don’t go to church no more like they did then. We don’t have no more old-fashioned Sundays. There’s too many newspapers, an’ what they have to say takes the place o’ what we used to hear in the pulpit. What the preachers say now days ain’t interestin’ any more. People rest an’ play on Sunday now, instid o’ bein’ solemn an’ sad an’ settin’ ’round an’ listenin’ over an’ over to somebody tellin’ about them three fellers that was in the fiery furnace.”
He felt deeply his responsibility as a representative of the national government. The post-office department, with its rows of glass-fronted mail boxes, numbered from 1 to 40, was located at the right of the store entrance. The mail bag was brought daily from the railroad station, five miles away, by a fat-faced young man in blue overalls and a hickory shirt. His elbows flopped madly up and down as his horse galloped along the highway with the precious burden across the pommel. He made another trip at night with the out-going mail, and when the hoof-beats were heard on the road, there would be many glances at the clocks in the houses along his route, and the fact approvingly noted, that “Bill’s on time to-night, all right.”
There are many people in the world who win lasting laurels by being “on time.” Some do it quietly, and others by flopping their arms violently, to the accompaniment of resonant hoof-beats, as “Bill” does, but being “on time” is essential to success in life. “Bill” may have no other argument to present for his eventual redemption than the fact that he was always “on time,” but it cannot fail to be powerful and convincing.