Page a minute, and then he slapped him on the shoulder, and says he: 'Parson, you may not know it, but we're pardners in this game. If it wasn't for the church, we wouldn't need the circus, and if it wasn't for the circus, we wouldn't need the church.' Says he: 'You belong to the church, and I belong to the circus; but maybe, after all, there ain't so very much difference betwixt an honest preacher and an honest showman.' And then he bowed to Mis' Page like she'd been a queen, and took Parson Page by the hand, and the next minute he was gone like he had a heap o' business to see to. And Sam Amos laughed, and says he: 'Well, Parson, circus-goin' and bettin' is enough for one day. You and me'd better go home now, before the world, the flesh, and the devil lay hold of you again.'

"So they all started for town, Parson Page talkin' about how kind and polite the showman was, and how his conscience was clear since he'd offered to pay for his seat, and how glad he was that he hadn't taken the five dollars the showman wanted him to take. Sam said he waited till they got to the drug store, and then he told Parson Page to put his hand in his coat pocket,—he had on a black luster coat with the pocket outside,—and Parson Page put his hand in, and there was the five-dollar gold piece. Sam said that while the showman was shakin' hands he slipped the money in the pocket as quick as lightnin', and of course Sam wouldn't tell on him, because he was glad to git another joke on Parson Page.

"Well, it was all Mis' Page and Sam could do to keep him from goin' back to the show grounds to try to find the showman and give him back his money. Mis' Page told him it was gittin' on toward night, and they had to go home, and Sam told him that the show was most likely on its way to the depot. But Parson Page shook his head, and says he: 'I can't go home with this money in my possession.' And Mis' Page reached out and took the gold piece out o' his hand and slipped it into her reticule, and says she: 'Well, now you can go home. That gold piece won't bother you any more, for it's in my possession, and I'm goin' to put it in the treasury of our Mite Society,' and that's what she did the very next meetin' we had.

"Mis' Page said that Parson Page could hardly git to sleep that night, he was so troubled and so upset, and he kept talkin' about the things he'd done because he thought they was right, and how they'd led him into doin' wrong, and says he: 'This morning when I set out for town, I thought I knew exactly what was right and what was wrong, but now I'm so turned and twisted,' says he, 'that if anybody asked me whether the ten commandments ought to be observed, I believe I'd stop and think a long time before I answered, and then like as not I'd say, "Sometimes they ought, and sometimes they oughtn't."'

"Well, of course the news went all over the country that Parson Page had gone to the circus, and everywhere Brother Page went he was kept busy explainin' about the rain and the crowd and how he got in by accident and couldn't git out, and by the time the Presbytery met, all the preachers had got wind of the story, and some of 'em laughed about it, and some of 'em said it was a serious matter. Brother Robert McCallum did more laughin' than anybody. He used to say that next to savin' souls he enjoyed a good joke more than anything in the world, and Sam Amos used to say that if Brother McCallum ever wanted to change his business, he could be the end man in a nigger minstrel show without any trouble.

"Brother McCallum and Parson Page 'd been schoolmates, so they both felt free to joke with one another; and the minute they'd shook hands, Brother McCallum begun laughin' about Parson Page goin' to the circus, and says he: 'Brother Page, I wish I'd been in your place.' Says he: 'I've always thought a man loses a heap by bein' a preacher. If anybody ought to be allowed to go to the circus,' says he, 'it looks like it ought to be us preachers, that's proof against temptation and that's strong to wrestle with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Instead o' that we send the poor, weak sinners into the temptation and lead the preachers away from it.' Says he: 'I went to that very show, but I wasn't so lucky as you, for it was clear weather, and I didn't have a chance to see anything but the animals.'

"And then, after sayin' all that, what did Brother McCallum do but git up the last day of Presbytery and read a paper with a lot of 'whereases' and 'be it resolveds', chargin' Brother Page with conduct unbecoming to a minister and callin' on him to explain matters. And Parson Page he had to own up to everything and explain again jest how he happened to git caught in the circus tent, and says he: 'It was a strange place for a minister of the gospel to be in, but my rule is to see what I can learn from every experience that comes to me, and I believe I learned from the circus something that, maybe, I could not learn anywhere else.' Says he: 'As I lay that night on a sleepless pillow, the Lord gave me an insight into the great mystery of predestination. I traced up the events of the day one after another. There was my betting with the showman, and I felt sorry for that. But that would not have happened if I had not sought out the showman to pay my just debt to him, and that was a right act and a right intention, yet it led me into wrong; and I saw in a flash that our own acts predestine us and foreordain us to this thing or to that. We are like children, stumbling around in the dark, taking the wrong way and doing the wrong thing, but over us all is the pity of the Father who "knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust."'

"Says he: 'I went into that tent a Pharisee, and I wrapped the mantle of my pride around me and thought how much holier I was than those poor sinful show people. But,' says he, 'I talked with the showman, and I found as much honesty and kindness of heart as I ever found in any church member, and I left the show grounds with a wider charity in my heart than I'd ever felt before, for I knew that the showman was my brother, and I understood what the Apostle meant when he said: "Now are they many members; yet but one body."'

"And Brother McCallum he got up, and says he: 'Well, that's more than I ever learned from any of Brother Page's sermons,' and everybody laughed, and that ended the matter so far as the Presbytery was concerned.

"But Sam Amos never got through teasin' Parson Page, and every time he'd see him with a passel o' church members, he'd go up and tell some story or other, and then he'd turn around and say: 'You ricollect, Parson, that happened the day you and me went to the circus.'"

MARY CRAWFORD'S CHART

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