“Then they've got her,” said Bobaday. “We'll never see the pretty little thing again. If I'd been a man I wouldn't let that woman have her, like Grandma Padgett did. Grown folks are so funny. I did wish some grand people would come in the night and say she was their child, and make the show give her up.”
Aunt Corinne arose to fly to her mother and Mrs. Sebastian with the news. But the central door opening on the instant and Mrs. Sebastian, her husband and guest coming out, aunt Corinne had not far to fly.
“The woman is a stealer,” she added to her breathless recital. “She didn't even send my things back.”
“She's welcome to them,” said Grandma Padgett, shaking her head, “but I feel for that child, whether the rightful owners has her or not.”
“This is Lord's Day,” said William Sebastian to the children, “along the whole length of the pike, and across the whole breadth of the country. Thy little friend will get her First Day blessing.”
He wore a gray hat, half-high in the crown, and a gray coat which flapped his calves when he walked. His trousers were of a cut which reached nearly to his armpits, but this fact was kept from the public by a vest crawling well toward his knees. Yet he looked beautifully tidy and well-dressed. His wife, who was not a Quaker, had by no means such an air of simple grandeur.
Grandma Padgett and aunt Corinne, somewhat reluctantly followed by Zene, were going to the Methodist church. Already its bell was filling the air. But Robert hung back and asked if he might not go to Quaker meeting.
“Thee couldn't sit and meditate,” said William Sebastian.
Bobaday assured William Sebastian he could sit very still, and he always meditated. When he ran after his grandmother to get her consent, it occurred to him to find out from Zene how the pig-headed man was, and if he looked as ugly as ever. But aunt Corinne scorned the question, and quite flew af him for asking it.
The Methodist services Robert knew by heart: the open windows, the high pulpit where the preacher silently knelt first thing, hymn books rustling cheerfully, the hymn given out two lines at a time to be sung by the congregation, then the kneeling of everybody and the prayer, more singing, and the sermon, perhaps followed by an exhortation, when the preacher talked loud enough for the boys sitting out on the fence to hear every word. Perhaps a few children whispered, or a baby cried and its mother took it out. Everybody seemed happy and astir. After church there was so much handshaking that the house emptied very slowly.