Within the Capes

by Howard Pyle

In the old days, as now, when the weather was warm and bright and pleasant, the men used to stand for a while around the door of their side of the meeting, talking and chatting together before they went into the building. Such a group was standing on the grass under the shadow of the elm trees as Tom and his brother Henry came up the steps that led into the meeting-house yard.

Tom knew all of them, and they came forward and shook hands with him and welcomed him heartily. Will Gaines was amongst them, for, though he was not a member of the Society of Friends, he went to meeting as often as he went anywhere else. It might have been that he came on Susan’s account, though I do not say that he did.

He was the first to recognize Tom, and he came forward and shook hands with him and seemed very glad to see him. A young man usually is glad to see the brother of the young woman that he wants to marry, but I think that Will really was pleased to see Tom, for he and Tom had been dear friends from the time that they were children together. There were other young men of Tom’s age amongst the group: John Black, Joseph Sparks, Henry Jackson and others. They too came forward and shook hands with him and seemed glad to see him, though not so glad as Will Gaines had been.

Two men were standing by the open door of the meeting-house, talking earnestly together. One of them was Isaac Naylor, and the other was Mr. Edmund Moor, the real estate agent. As these two men had very much to do with Tom’s life at a later time, it may be well that I should give you a notion of them now.

Isaac Naylor was a young man—not over thirty at that time, I should think. He dressed very plainly, and was so serious of deportment that I do not know that any one ever saw him smile. He never jested himself, and never enjoyed a jest, for he was too practical for such trivial things. It was as though the man of him had been dried into parchment by his continued self-repression. He was well off in the world, for his father had died the year before, and, as Isaac was the only son, he had inherited all the property, which was very large. Although such a young man, he was high in the meeting, sitting in the gallery with men old enough, in some cases, to be his grandfather.

Mr. Moor was not a member of meeting, though he attended pretty regularly. He was a large, fleshy man, not exactly fat, but full looking. He had a smooth, goodly face and straight iron-grey hair, brushed straight back from his forehead and behind his ears. I never heard him say an unkind word or saw him in anything but a cordial mood. He was always full of jests and quaint turns of speech, and never failed to shake Tom heartily by the hand whenever he met him; yet for all that Tom did not like him. He had an oily, unctuous way, that was not pleasing to him; he was always so goodly that he did not seem sincere, and always so cordial that it did not seem as though he meant his cordiality.

Such were the two men that were talking together by the meeting-house door, and each welcomed him in his own manner.

“How is thee, Thomas?” said Isaac, dryly.

“Why! It’s Thomas Granger! Bless my soul! Back again like a bad penny, eh?” said Mr. Moor, and he shook Tom by the hand with great warmth.

In the meantime, Tom’s father and his two brothers, John and William, came over from the horse shed, where they had been hitching their horses, and joined the group, and then they all went into the meeting-house together, taking their seats on the hard wooden benches within.