IV.
Deacon Andrews, in the old farm house still standing on the brink of the little ravine south of the hamlet of Lindenville, had put up his morning prayer for the drowning host of Pharaoh, the Greeks, the Romans and the Jews, said “Amen” and arisen from his knees, when his wife, looking out of the window, exclaimed: “See, husband, there’s the Sutliff team; but who is driving? As I live, if it isn’t a couple of girls, and all the way up from Vernon so early as this! What can they want?”
“Going to the ‘Harbor’ with grain, I presume; likely the men folks are busy.”
“But then I didn’t know the Sutliffs have any girls.”
“Well, wife, likely they’ve hired the team to some of the neighbors. You start the children out after chestnuts, quick.”
There was a lively scampering of young Andrews to the woods; a hasty breakfasting of girls and horses; a close examination of the sacks under the hay to see if all was right; a pleasant “good morning,” and the team went northward and the deacon to his work, mentally exclaiming: “Great and marvelous are the works of the Almighty—and Plumb and Sut—” but he checked the irreverent conclusion.