THE GARDEN MISSIONARY MEETING.
Two or three days afterwards Miss Fanny, with one of her young friends, came up to tell the farmhouse people that the box had gone. She said that Mr. Sims had given them a box, and had also kindly attended to sending it off.
The day after the meeting, when Hiram went down to the postoffice, Marty and Evaline had each sent by him a book for the missionary children, and Miss Fanny said that this prompted some of the children at the hotel to send books.
During the remainder of the summer there was frequent intercourse between the hotel and the farmhouse, and the “mission workers,” particularly, learned to love each other very much. Marty felt very proud to be numbered among these workers, though she was only a “twig.” She said,
“I'll have a great deal to tell Miss Agnes and the girls when I go home—sha'n't I, mamma?”
Some new members joined the mountain band, and by the last of August it numbered twenty-one. Ruth said she wished very much that before Mrs. Thurston left they might have her meet with the band. She thought they would all take greater interest in mission work if they could hear something of it from one who had spent so many years in the midst of it. Mrs. Thurston said she would be very happy to attend a meeting and talk with the members. So arrangements were made to have her do so.
It would be impossible for her to reach the grove, as she could not walk so far, and the drive from the hotel to Mr. Campbell's was very rough and quite long.
“Mother,” said Almira, when they were trying to settle the matter, “couldn't we have a meeting here? It would be easier for Mrs. Thurston to get here, and convenient enough for everybody else.”
“Why, of course they may meet here,” her mother replied. “Our parlor's a plenty big enough to hold 'em.”