The Wades were very strict church-members.

Such a thing as card playing was not to be thought of, and dancing was just as bad.
Both were worldly amusements whose feet took hold on hell.

We have lost this strictness now, and sometimes I wonder if we have not lost our religion too.
The Wades were certainly religious--that is the Governor and Mrs.Wade.
Jack Wade, the John P.Wade who was afterward one of the national bosses of the Republican party, and Bob, the Robert S.Wade who became so prominent in the financial circles of the state, were a little worldly.
A hired hand I once had was with the Wades for a while, and said that when he and the Wade boys were out in the field at work (for they worked as hard as any of the hands, and Bob was the first man in our part of the country who ever husked a hundred bushels of corn in a day) the Wade boys and the hired men cussed and swore habitually.

But this scamp, when they were having family worship, used to fill in with "Amen!" and "God grant it!" and the like pious exclamations when the governor was offering up his morning prayer.

But one morning Bob Wade brought a breast-strap from off the harness, and took care to kneel within easy reach of the kneeling hired man's pants.