Indelible Author:Elliot Paul Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DIFFERENT KINDS OF CHRISTIANS "there goes poor old Mann Stoddard off to meetin alone," says mother. The Baptist Church is in the next town. Old Mrs. Stodda... more »rd's clothes are black, and she ties her hat tight around her head with black ribbons. Not a bad idea. She carries an umbrella whether it rains or not, and pumps it up and down to stop cars and read the signs on them. Sometimes she gets on the cars. "Mary is a selfish, wicked girl to let her poor mother go to church alone week after week. There she is now, diggin' in that garden." Miss Stoddard wears a big calico hat in the garden, but she does not tie the strings. Her gloves are large and they flop. I cannot understand why mother calls her a girl, but I suppose it is because she has no husband. "What a sight for a Christian neighborhood. — Come away from that window, Samuel. — It seems to me the police ought to stop such goings-on. Workin' right there in plain sight on the Sabbath." "Why should the police take Miss Stoddard if she digs?" I ask. "Do you know what day this is? Thou shall not work, thou shalt not play on this the Holy Sabbath day," says mother like a recitation. "Why not?" "Because the Lord God rested on the seventh day. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. Don't you remember that in Sunday School?" Mother talks like the Bible after she is dressed up on Sunday morning or when there is a funeral. "I thought Sunday was the first day of the week." Chuckles in pipe smoke. Mother turns quick to father. "Now, you need n't laugh, Alec. It's hard enough to bring up a boy without your encouragin his impudence." Mother's face looks stiff as if she smelled elderberry wine. "You go get your collar on for church. We never get there until the minister is started on the sermon." F...« less