"All husbands who possess wives in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society kindly step forward. Make way there, you people,—let 'em through. This way, Newt,—an' you, Alf,—come on, Elmer K.,—I said 'wives,' Mrs. Fry, not husbands. All husbands please congregate in the alley back of the Banner office an' wait fer instructions. Don't ask questions. Just do as I tell you. Hey, you kids! Run over an' tell Mort Fryback an' Ed Higgins an' Situate M. Jones I want 'em right away,—an' George Brubaker. Tell him to lock up his store if he has to, but to come at once. Now, you women keep back! This is fer men only."
In due time a troubled, anxious group of men sallied forth from the alley back of the Banner office, and, headed by Anderson Crow, marched resolutely down Sickle Street to Maple and advanced upon the house of Deacon Rank.
The song service was in full blast. The men stopped at the bottom of the yard and listened with sinking hearts.
"That's my wife," said Elmer K. Pratt, the photographer, a bleak look in his eyes. "She knows that tune by heart."
"Which tune?" asked Mort Fryback, cocking his ear.
"Why, the one she's singin'," said Elmer. "Now listen,—it goes this way." He hummed a few bars of 'The Rosary.' "Don't you get it? There! Why, you must be deef. I can't hear anything else."
"The only one I can make out is 'Tipperary.' Is that the one she's singin'?"
"Certainly not. I said it goes this way. That's somebody else you hear, Mort."
"Hear that?" cried Ed Higgins excitedly. "That's 'Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt!' My wife's favourite. My Lord, Anderson, what's to be done?"
"Keep still!" ordered Anderson. "I'm tryin' to see if I c'n make out my wife's singin'!"