``We have nine hundred and eleven members in our charge,'' Mama announced, ``and three hundred and eighty Sunday-school scholars.''

When Papa went out to do God's work, Stevie often accompanied him in the buggy, which was drawn by Violet, the new black mare. Although they journeyed westerly as far as Germantown, beyond the Erie roundhouse and the machine shop, and along the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and northward to Brooklyn, below Point Peter, he could see the church spire wherever he looked back. Sometimes they went south and rolled past the tollhouse -- ``Afternoon, Reverend!'' - and crossed the suspension bridge to Matamoras; that was Pennsylvania.

In the Delaware River, three long islands were overgrown with greening trees and underbrush. South of Laurel Grove Cemetery, and below the junction of the Neversink and the Delaware, was the Tri-State Rock, from which Stevie could spy New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as New York, simply by spinning around on his heel.

On these excursions, Papa instructed him on man's chief end, which was his duty to God and his own salvation. However, a boy's lively eyes might rove. Where Cuddleback Brook purled into the Neversink was a magnificent swimming hole. Papa pointed a scornful finger at the splashing youth: ``Idle recreation!'' Stevie saw no idols; it troubled him that he couldn't always see what Papa saw. He was torn between the excitement in the sun inflamed waters and a little engine chugging northward on the Monticello Branch.