“I will explain all as soon as I have made these poor sick ones more comfortable.”
No one had suggested that they be taken into the station, so their kindly protector did not offer to do it. But he removed his overcoat and placed it over Mrs. Willet, so as to keep her warm, while he arranged the man so that his position was more easy. Fortunately the day was mild, and as Deacon Cornhill turned to face the half-angry crowd, the setting sun threw a wide bar of golden splendor over the western sky, which halo was reflected on the distant hills, giving to the spring scene a hint of summer. A flaw of April wind stirred the long, thin locks of the gray-haired philanthropist, as he slowly raised his spare right hand to admonish silence.
If a calm had fallen on the scene it was the calm that usually precedes the storm. Deacon Cornhill dreaded it; ’Squire Hardy expected it; and the aroused spectators were anxious to show their willingness in sending out of the town this unexpected addition to their population.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DEACON’S STORY.
“Ahem!” began Deacon Cornhill, clearing his throat, and while he did so looking anxiously over the crowd, wondering still how so many came to be there. “Ahem! I—you see, fri’nds, this is sich a s’prise to me that I hardly know how to begin. You see I got to New York, and I never see sich sights, I swan, I never did! I hadn’t more’n got into town afore a spruce chap stepped up and slapped me on the shoulder, just same’s Sam Williams would, and you all know Sam’s terrible common. Wa’al, he claimed he knowed me up here in Basinburg—told a whopping story ’bout chasin’ a calf out of my garden seven or eight years ago. But all the time he was arter the church money, and ’tween him and ernother and a parcel of boys they eenamost got it, and——”
“Not got the church money, Elihu!” cried a shrill voice from the rear of the throng of spectators, and then Mrs. Cornhill, who had been attracted to the scene the same as the others, pushed her way frantically forward, until she stood on the station platform in front of the abashed deacon. “You don’t say you hev lost the church money, Elihu?”
Several among the spectators groaned.
“Don’t get ’scited, Mandy; don’t git ’scited. I didn’t lose the church money, thanks to this boy here. But if them dog——”
“Hush, deacon! It’s you who is getting ’scited.”
“Wa’al, if you had been where I have, Mandy, and seen what I did you’d get ’scited. But this boy here got my money all back, and then, when he tuk me round and showed me how folks live in that big, wicked city, I swan, I felt like giving ’em all homes right here in Basinburg!”