For sick, still minutes Green Valley watched little Jim stumble about and fumble for his handkerchief. They stared at the stricken face of their minister and at the laughing face whose memory they had come to honor.
And then, when the deathly silence was becoming unbearable, a girl in a dress like pink sea foam rose from her chair and stepped quietly, daintily down the room until she stood beside the swaying figure of Jim Tumley. She placed her hand gently on the little man's arm and turned to her Green Valley neighbors.
"I shall sing the old songs with him," she said quietly.
She found an armchair and put the docile Jim into it. Then she smiled at Nan Ainslee and told her what to play.
Nan's fingers touched the keys softly and from the slim throat that rose like a flower stem from the pink sea foam there rolled out a great, deep contralto.
It was unbelievable, that rich deep voice. It blotted out everything—little Jim, the room, all sense of time and place—and brought to the listeners instead the deep echoes of cathedral aisles, the holy peace of a still gray day and the joy of coming sunshine. She sang all the old songs, tenderly, softly. When she could sing no more and they showered her with smiles and tears and applause, she raised her hand for silence, for she had something to say.
"I am glad you liked the songs. I always sang them for father. I am glad that I could do something for you, for you have all been so wonderfully kind to me from the very first day that I came to Green Valley. But why are you not kinder to Jim Tumley? Why don't you vote the thing that is hurting him out of your town? If the women here could vote that's what they would do. But surely you men will do it to save Jim Tumley."