The Wades had a vineyard and made wine.

The Flemings lived in the next farm-house down the road, and when our party took place, the families were on fairly good terms; though the governor and his wife regarded the Flemings as beneath them, and this idea influenced the situation between the families when Bob Wade began showing attentions to Kittie Fleming, a nice girl a year or so older than I.Charlie Fleming, the oldest of the boys, was very sick one fall, and they thought he was going to die.

Doctor Bliven prescribed wine, and the only wine in the neighborhood was in the cellar of Governor Wade; so, even though the families were very much at the outs, owing to the fuss about Bob and Kittie going together, Mrs.Fleming went over to the Wades' to get some wine for her sick boy.
"We can't allow you to have it," said the governor, with his jaws set a little closer than usual.

"We keep wine for sacramental purposes only." This proves how straight they were about violating their temperance vows, and how pious.

Though there are some lines of poetry in the _Fifth Reader_ which seem to show that the governor missed a real sacrament.
They read: "Who gives himself with his alms feeds three-- Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me;" but Governor Wade was a practical man who made his religion fit what he wanted to do, and what he felt was the proper thing.