Cora turned to her mother, appalled. “He’ll be sick!” she said.
Mrs. Madison shook her head and smiled sadly.
“He helped to wait on all of us: he must have been doing something awful.”
“More likely he wants permission to do something awful.”
Laura looked out of the window.
“There, Cora,” said Hedrick kindly, when he brought the toast; “you’ll find that nice and hot.”
She regarded him steadfastly, but with modesty he avoided her eye. “You wouldn’t make such a radical change in your nature, Hedrick,” she said, with a puzzled frown, “just to get out of going to church, would you?”
“I don’t want to get out of going to church,” he said. He gulped slightly. “I like church.”
And church-time found him marching decorously beside his father, the three ladies forming a rear rank; a small company in the very thin procession of fanning women and mopping men whose destination was the gray stone church at the foot of Corliss Street. The locusts railed overhead: Hedrick looked neither to the right nor to the left.
They passed a club, of which a lower window was vacated simultaneously with their coming into view; and a small but ornate figure in pale gray crash hurried down the steps and attached itself to the second row of Madisons. “Good-morning,” said Mr. Wade Trumble. “Thought I’d take a look-in at church this morning myself.”