They
talked of religion and seemed singularly curious and interested in what
other men thought on the subject but they did not allow themselves to be
coaxed into a house of worship. To the boy, who had become a fourth member
of the evening gatherings at the back of the grocery store, they would not
talk of God, answering the direct questions he sometimes asked by changing
the subject. Once Telfer, the reader of poetry, answered the boy. "Sell
papers and fill your pockets with money but let your soul sleep," he said
sharply.
In the absence of the others Wildman talked more freely. He was a
spiritualist and tried to make Sam see the beauties of that faith. On long
summer afternoons the grocer and the boy spent hours driving through the
streets in a rattling old delivery wagon, the man striving earnestly to
make clear to the boy the shadowy ideas of God that were in his mind.
Although Windy McPherson had been the leader of a Bible class in his
youth, and had been a moving spirit at revival meetings during his early
days in Caxton, he no longer went to church and his wife did not ask him
to go. On Sunday mornings he lay abed. If there was work to be done about
the house or yard he complained of his wounds.
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