“Watch me,” said Jonathan, and he proceeded to explain to me the working of the tackle.
One end had a ring in it, and as nearly as I remember, the plan was to put the rope around her body, under what would be her arm-pits if she had arm-pits,—horses’ joints are never called what one would expect, of course,—run the end through the ring, then forward between her legs and through the bit-ring.
“Then, when she sets back, it cuts her in two,” he concluded cheerfully.
“But you don’t want her in two,” I protested.
“She won’t set back,” he responded; “at least, not more than once. To-morrow’s Sunday; I’ll have to hitch her at church.”
I hoped it would rain, so we needn’t go, but we were having a drought and the morning dawned cloudless. We reached the church just on the last stroke of the bell. The women were all within; the men and boys lounging in the vestibule were turning reluctant feet to follow them.
“You go right in,” said Jonathan, “I’ll be in soon.”
I turned to protest, but he was already driving round to the side, and a hush had fallen over the congregation within that made it embarrassing to call. Besides, one of the deacons stood holding open the door for me.
I slipped into a pew near the back, with the apologetic feeling one often has in an old country church—a feeling that one is making the ghosts move along a little. They did move, of course,—probably ghosts are always [pg 173] polite when one really meets them,—and I sat down. Indeed, I was thinking very little of ghosts that day, or of the minister either. My ears were cocked to catch and interpret all the noises that came in through the open windows on my left. My eyes wandered in that direction, too, though the clear panes revealed nothing more exciting than flickering maple leaves and a sky filmed over by veils of cloud.
The moralists tell us that what we get out of any experience depends upon what we bring to it. What I brought to it that morning was a mind agog, attuned to receive these expected outside sounds. To all such sounds the service within was merely a background—a background which didn’t know its place, since it kept pushing itself more or less importunately into the foreground. I sat there, of course, with perfect propriety of demeanor, but my reactions were something like this:—