“Ho! Why he’s everybody’s minister; he a’n’t yours.”
Kip knew better than that. Did not he remember who always knew him, and stopped to shake hands and say “How do you do, Christopher?”—a name that made him feel nearly as big as anybody. And who always asked after his mother? And did not forget when he told him little Bob was sick? The people in the house hitched up their sleek horses and nice carriage, and drove two miles to the city church every Sunday; but Kip, with freckled face shining from soap, head wet and combed till not a hair could stir from its place, and red hands thrust into his pockets, trudged whistling over the hill to the little frame church where most of the people from the straggling villages and the neighboring farms gathered.
“So he is my minister,” said Kip stoutly as he considered the matter.
He would have liked to share the honor that day, however, with the inmates of the large comfortable farm-house; for they were really the most prosperous family in the village, while he, only a distant relative, was “chore boy and gener’ly useful” as he phrased it. And there was to be a “donation party” at his minister’s home that very evening.
“If they’d just give something handsome!” he said to Nancy the “hired girl,” who was busy in the kitchen.
“They won’t never think of it no more’n they will of flyin’,” replied Nancy, dextrously turning a flapjack, and the subject also, by requesting Kip to “run for an armful of wood.”
Somebody always wanted wood or water, or something from the cellar, or something from the attic, whenever Kip was in sight. But he scarcely thought of the constant calls that morning, so full was he of other thoughts. Nancy might dispose of the question carelessly, but he could not. He was connected with the house, and he felt that the honor of the house was involved. Beside, he wanted his minister well treated and he knew—few knew better than Kip—how sorely the “something handsome” was needed in the shabby little parsonage. He did not mean they should “never think of it” as Nancy had said! he would remind them by bringing up the subject naturally and innocently in some way.
So he lingered in the room a few minutes after breakfast, while Mrs. Mitchel was gathering up the dishes, and Mr. Mitchel consulting the almanac. He coughed once or twice, and then, staring straight out of the window, observed as follows:
“There goes our big rooster! He’s most as big as a turkey, a’n’t he, Aunt Ann? Turkeys always make me think of Thanksgivings, Christmases, Donations and such things—oh yes! there is going to be a donation down to the minister’s to-night!”
Kip considered that very delicately and neatly done!