The Heart's Kingdom

"No, just prosperous, Mother Elsie," I answered her as I gave her a

large fan and Dabney brought her a tall glass of very cold tea. "Little

old Goodloets is having the same boom that the rest of America is

getting from feeding and furnishing the rest of the warring world."

"Nickols Powers told me just last night that over two hundred thousand

dollars would be spent on the improvements to this town in the next two

months, counting the new schoolhouse, the restoration of the courthouse,

the paving of the public square and the enlargement of the electric

light plant. That doesn't count the money everybody is putting on their

own private homes. That camp of workmen down by the river that Nickols

has had sent down from the city has a hundred men in it now, and that is

one thing that demoralizes the Settlement. Jacob Ensley has had that

dance hall enlarged twice and he has employed George Spain to stand

behind the bar. It is breaking Mrs. Spain's heart, but she is helpless,

for George is being paid three dollars a day for being just where he

wants to be. I don't know what to do. I firmly believe the town is mad,

with only Gregory Goodloe to stand between it and God's wrath."

"What is he doing to stem the joy tide?" I asked with a laugh, for it

did seem in a way funny to see one of the leading citizens of old

Goodloets so distressed over its improvement and modernization through

its enormous prosperity.

"He was down in the workmen's camp last night having a song service and

seventy-five of them stayed there singing until midnight. Jacob had to

put out his lights at eleven o'clock because there were not enough to

pay to keep open. The chapel was full Sunday night and Jacob closed the

Last Chance at six o'clock for the first time in its existence. The men

passed it on to him to do it and he came and sat in a back pew himself.

They all call Mr. Goodloe 'Parson,' and he walks in and around and about

this town night and day shedding a kind of peace and good will even into

the darkest corners. He lends a hand here and there with the work, eats

out of the men's dinner pails when that Jefferson is too lazy to cook

for him, or takes a bite off some stove down in the Settlement out of

some old woman's pork and cabbage pot with just as much grace and

heartiness as he eats at Nell Morgan's or Harriet Henderson's most

elaborate dinners. And outside of his pulpit he never preaches; he just

lives. This is what I heard Jacob say to him just yesterday: "'Sure, and I wint up to set in one of your pews to see if your action

in your own job was as good as it is in the many you lend a hand to week

about.' "'Well?' asked Mr. Goodloe, as he picked up, one of those rosy apples

from the box Jacob keeps out on the sidewalk to blind the Last Chance.