"Jabe explained it all out to him after supper. It beats all how he gets on with children."
"I'd ruther hear how he explained it," answered Samantha sarcastically. "He's great on expoundin' the Scripters jest now. Well, I hope it'll last. Land sakes! you'd think nobody ever experienced religion afore, he's so set up 'bout it. You'd s'pose he kep' the latch-key o' the heavenly mansions right in his vest pocket, to hear him go on. He couldn't be no more stuck up 'bout it if he'd ben one o' the two brothers that come over in three ships!"
"There goes Elder Nichols," said Miss Vilda. "Now there's a plan we hadn't thought of. We might take the children over to Purity Village. I think likely the Shakers would take 'em. They like to get young folks and break 'em into their doctrines."
"Tim 'd make a tiptop Shaker," laughed Samantha. "He'd be an Elder afore he was twenty-one. I can seem to see him now, with his hair danglin' long in his neck, a blue coat buttoned up to his chin, and his hands see-sawin' up 'n' down, prancin' round in them solemn dances."
"Tim would do well enough, but I ain't so sure of Gay. They'd have their hands full, I guess!"
"I guess they would. Anybody that wanted to make a Shaker out o' her would 'a' had to begin with her grandmother; and that wouldn't 'a' done nuther, for they don't b'lieve in marryin', and the thing would 'a' stopped right there, and Gray wouldn't never 'a' been born int' the world."
"And been a great sight better off," interpolated Miss Vilda.
"Now don't talk that way, Vildy. Who knows what lays ahead o' that child? The Lord may be savin' her up to do some great work for Him," she added, with a wild flight of the imagination.
"She looks like it, don't she?" asked Vilda with a grim intonation; but her face softened a little as she glanced at Gay asleep on the rustic bench under the window.
The picture would have struck terror to the sad-eyed æsthete, but an artist who liked to see colors burn and glow on the canvas would have been glad to paint her: a little frock of buttercup yellow calico, bare neck and arms, full of dimples, hair that put the yellow calico to shame by reason of its tinge of copper, skin of roses and milk that dared the microscope, red smiling lips, one stocking and ankle-tie kicked off and five pink toes calling for some silly woman to say "This little pig went to market" on them, a great bunch of nasturtiums in one warm hand and the other buried in Rags, who was bursting with the white cat's dinner, and in such a state of snoring bliss that his tail wagged occasionally, even in his dreams.