“The next pew has n't been occupied since I came here,” said the minister's wife.
“No,” answered Mrs. Sargent, glad of any opportunity to retail neighborhood news. “'Squire Bean's folks have moved to Portland to be with the married daughter. Somebody has to stay with her, and her husband won't. The 'Squire ain't a strong man, and he's most too old to go to meetin' now. The youngest son just died in New York, so I hear.”
“What ailed him?” inquired Maria Sharp.
“I guess he was completely wore out takin' care of his health,” returned Mrs. Sargent. “He had a splendid constitution from a boy, but he was always afraid it would n't last him. The seat back o' 'Squire Bean's is the old Peabody pew—ain't that the Peabody pew you're scrubbin', Nancy?”
“I believe so,” Nancy answered, never pausing in her labors. “It's so long since anybody sat there, it's hard to remember.”
“It is the Peabodys', I know it, because the aisle runs right up facin' it. I can see old Deacon Peabody settin' in this end same as if 't was yesterday.”
“He had died before Jere and I came back here to live,” said Mrs. Burbank. “The first I remember, Justin Peabody sat in the end seat; the sister that died, next, and in the corner, against the wall, Mrs. Peabody, with a crape shawl and a palmleaf fan. They were a handsome family. You used to sit with them sometimes, Nancy; Esther was great friends with you.”
“Yes, she was,” Nancy replied, lifting the tattered cushion from its place and brushing it; “and I with her. What is the use of scrubbing and carpeting, when there are only twenty pew-cushions and six hassocks in the whole church, and most of them ragged? How can I ever mend this?”
“I should n't trouble myself to darn other people's cushions!” This unchristian sentiment came in Mrs. Miller's ringing tones from the rear of the church.
“I don't know why,” argued Maria Sharp. “I'm going to mend my Aunt Achsa's cushion, and we haven't spoken for years; but hers is the next pew to mine, and I'm going to have my part of the church look decent, even if she is too stingy to do her share. Besides, there are n't any Peabodys left to do their own darning, and Nancy was friends with Esther.”