“There’s nothing at all ostentatious about the girls’ dressing, dear,” said his mother’s voice in his ear. “And I noticed they all put on their simplest clothes for to-night—as they should.”
“Oh, yes,” Edson chuckled. “That’s precisely why they look so prosperous. That elegant simplicity—gad!—you should see the bills that come in for it. Jess isn’t an extravagant dresser, as women go—not by a long shot—but!” He whistled a bar or two of ragtime. “I can see myself now, as a lad, sitting on that fence over there—” he indicated a line of rails, half buried in snow, which outlined the borders of an old apple orchard— “counting the quarters in my trousers pockets, earned by hard labour in the strawberry patch. I thought it quite a sum, but it wouldn’t have bought——”
“A box of the cigars you smoke now,” interjected Ralph unexpectedly, from behind. “Hullo—there’s the church! Jolly, but the old building looks bright, doesn’t it? I didn’t know oil lamps could put up such
an illumination. —And see the folks going in!”
“See them coming—from all directions.” Nan, farther down the line, clutched Sam Burnett’s arm. “Oh, I knew they’d come out—I knew they would!”
“Of course they’ll come out.” This was Mrs. Oliver. “Locks and bars couldn’t keep a country community at home, when there is anything going on. But as to the feeling—that is a different matter. —Oliver, do take my muff. I want to take off my veil. There will be no chance once I am inside the door. Nan is walking twice as fast now as when we started. She will have us all up the aisle before——”
“Where’s Billy Sewall bolting to?” Guy sent back this stage-whisper from the front of the procession, to Margaret, his wife, who was walking with Father Fernald, her hand on his gallant arm. In John Fernald’s
day a man always offered his arm to the lady he escorted.
“He caught sight of Mr. Blake, across the road. They’re going in together,” Margaret replied. “I think Mr. Blake is to have a part in the service.”
“Old Ebenezer Blake? You don’t say!” Father Fernald ejaculated in astonishment. He had not been told of Sewall’s visit to the aged minister. “Well—well—that is thoughtful of William Sewall. I don’t suppose Elder Blake has taken part in a service in fifteen years—twenty, maybe. He used to be a great preacher, too, in his day. I used to listen to him, when I was a young man, and think he could put things in about as interesting a way as any preacher I ever heard. Good man, too, he was—and is. But nobody’s thought of asking him to make a prayer in public since—I don’t know when.