I reckon they 're the last you 'll see this spring , for they 're nearly done . '' `` How kind and thoughtful you are , Captain Jim . Nobody else -- not even Gilbert '' -- with a shake of her head at him -- `` remembered that I always long for mayflowers in spring . '' `` Well , I had another errand , too -- I wanted to take Mr. Howard back yander a mess of trout . He likes one occasional , and it 's all I can do for a kindness he did me once . I stayed all the afternoon and talked to him . He likes to talk to me , though he 's a highly eddicated man and I 'm only an ignorant old sailor , because he 's one of the folks that 's GOT to talk or they 're miserable , and he finds listeners scarce around here . The Glen folks fight shy of him because they think he 's an infidel . He ai n't that far gone exactly -- few men is , I reckon -- but he 's what you might call a heretic . Heretics are wicked , but they 're mighty int ` resting . It 's jest that they 've got sorter lost looking for God , being under the impression that He 's hard to find -- which He ai n't never . Most of 'em blunder to Him after awhile , I guess . I do n't think listening to Mr. Howard 's arguments is likely to do me much harm . Mind you , I believe what I was brought up to believe . It saves a vast of bother -- and back of it all , God is good . The trouble with Mr. Howard is that he 's a leetle TOO clever . He thinks that he 's bound to live up to his cleverness , and that it 's smarter to thrash out some new way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common , ignorant folks is travelling . But he 'll get there sometime all right , and then he 'll laugh at himself . '' `` Mr. Howard was a Methodist to begin with , '' said Miss Cornelia , as if she thought he had not far to go from that to heresy . `` Do you know , Cornelia , '' said Captain Jim gravely , `` I 've often thought that if I was n't a Presbyterian I 'd be a Methodist . ''
`` Oh , well , '' conceded Miss XXXXX , `` if you were n't a Presbyterian it would n't matter much what you were .
Cornelia Gilbert Glen Howard Jim Methodist Presbyterian afternoon right sorter