"I think we must make a real funny show," exclaimed Ruth, as she lifted her head out of the feathers again, and gave orders to Billy and Satan and Turk.
"Get up there, boys!" she said to this remarkable team. And then they were all in motion,—the billy-goat and the black cat and the dog, the seven bicycles, the little closet with the baby in the blue envelope, the second closet with Ruth in a feather-bed, the third closet with the Judge in a white flannel-bag and a handkerchief over his head, and Mrs. "Judge," done up in red paper, wearing a postage stamp for a bonnet, followed by fifty-seven closets of all shapes, sizes, patterns, conditions. There was a banging of wood, a slamming of doors, a creaking of windows, a dancing of shoes, a rattling of dishes, a rustling of clothes (starched clothes), a fluttering of sermons, a pounding of pots and kettles and pans, a rolling about of fruit glasses and jelly jars and canned food, a falling of hams, and a rising of flour, and a decline in vegetables simply frightful.
"This is a very fine road," observed the Judge. "It's just as smooth as a floor. What an improvement over the roads in our day!"
"Yes," answered Ruth as she peered out from her feathers, "we are very proud of our roads. They are—what is it you call them? Adam, cadam, oh! I've got it now, macadam roads. They cost thousands of dollars. But we've some very good men in town, just the kind you are, I suppose, and they've given us miles and miles of it. You ought to see how we skim along the road now on a bicycle. It would fairly make your head swim."
"My head does swim," whispered Mrs. "Judge." "It's so long since I took a ride in the fresh air, and I've staid such a time in the picture and become so stiff, that the motion makes me dizzy. I think we'd better stop for a few minutes."
"What is this?" exclaimed the Judge. They had gone only to the corner of the Green. There was a very thin covering of fluffy snow on the ground. Suddenly the clouds broke away, and the moon flooded the scene with light. And there, standing distinct and stately against the black background, glistening and shimmering in the mild radiance, was the church.
"Where is the old meeting-house?" and the Judge rubbed his eyes, and got the handkerchief loose upon his head; and Mrs. "Judge" in her agitation dislocated the postage-stamp that served for a bonnet so that she felt a cold draught in her left ear.
"Why, Judge, we aren't here, are we? We must be somewhere else." Then Ruth uncovered her head, and let a few feathers fly back in the face of her guest and laughed merrily.
"That's the new church. Our new stone church. Isn't it lovely? Did you ever see anything like it? Whoa, Billy and Satan and Turk! Wait a minute! We want to take a look at things."