Aunt Martha had killed Adam . He was reposing on a platter in the pantry that very minute , trussed and dressed , encircled by his liver and heart and gizzard . Aunt Martha heeded Faith 's passion of grief and anger not a whit . `` We had to have something for the strange minister 's dinner , '' she said . `` You 're too big a girl to make such a fuss over an old rooster . You knew he 'd have to be killed sometime . '' `` I 'll tell father when he comes home what you 've done , '' sobbed Faith . `` Do n't you go bothering your poor father . He has troubles enough . And I 'M housekeeper here . '' `` Adam was MINE -- Mrs. Johnson gave him to me . You had no business to touch him , '' stormed Faith . `` Do n't you get sassy now . The rooster 's killed and there 's an end of it . I ai n't going to set no strange minister down to a dinner of cold b ` iled mutton . I was brought up to know better than that , if I have come down in the world . '' Faith would not go down to supper that night and she would not go to church the next morning . But at dinner time she went to the table , her eyes swollen with crying , her face sullen . The Rev. James Perry was a sleek , rubicund man , with a bristling white moustache , bushy white eyebrows , and a shining bald head . He was certainly not handsome and he was a very tiresome , pompous sort of person .
But if he had looked like the Archangel Michael and talked with the tongues XXXXX men and angels Faith would still have utterly detested him .
at by for if in of on over than with