The next morning after breakfast John Webb met Mostyn as he stood smoking on the front porch.
"If you haven't got nothin' better to do," he said, "you might walk down with me to Dolph Wartrace's store, at the cross-roads. Thar will be a crowd thar to-day."
"Anything special going on?" Mostyn asked.
"If the feller keeps his appointment we'll have a sermon," John smiled. "For the last seven or eight years a queer tramp of a chap-- John Leach, he calls hisself--has been comin' along an' preachin' at the store. Nobody knows whar he is from. Folks say he makes his rounds all through the mountains of Tennessee, Georgia, an' North Carolina. He won't take a cent o' pay, never passes the hat around, an' has been knowed to stop along the road an' work for poor farmers for a week on a stretch for nothin' but his bed an' board. Some say he's crazy, an' some say he's got more real Simon-pure religion than any regular ordained minister. I love to listen to 'im. He tells a lot o' tales an' makes a body laugh an' feel sad at the same time."
"I certainly would like to hear him," the banker declared, and with Webb he turned toward the gate.
"Are you a member of any church?" he inquired, when they were in the road.
"No, I never jined one," Webb drawled out. "I'm the only feller I know of in this country that don't affiliate with some denomination or other."
"That is rather odd," Mostyn remarked, tentatively. "How did you manage to stay out of the fold among so many religious people?"
"I don't exactly know." Webb's freckled face held a reflective look. "I kept puttin' it off from year to year, thinkin' I would jine, especially as everybody was constantly naggin me about it. Seems to me that I was the chief subject at every revival they held. It bothered me considerable, I tell you. The old folks talked so much about my case that little boys an' gals would sluff away from me in the public road. But I wasn't to blame. The truth is, Mr. Mostyn, I wanted to give 'em all--Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians--a fair show. You see, each denomination declared that it had the only real correct plan, an' I'll swear I liked one as well as t'other.
When I'd make up my mind to tie to the Methodists, some Baptist or Presbyterian would ax me what I had agin his religion, an' in all the stew an' muddle they got me so balled up that I begun to be afeard I wasn't worth savin' nohow. About that time this same tramp preacher come along, an' I heard 'im talk. I listened close, but I couldn't make out whether he stood for sprinklin', pourin', or sousin' clean under. So after he finished I went up an' axed 'im about it. I never shall forget how the feller grinned--I reckon I remember it because it made me feel better. He ketched hold o' my hand, he did, an' while he was rubbin' it good an' kind-like, he said: 'Brother, don't let that bother you. I'm floatin' on top myself. In fact, my aim is to stay out o' the jangle so I kin jine all factions together in brotherly bonds.' As he put it, the light o' God was shinin' on every earthly path that had any sort o' upward slope to it."