All evening James heard nothing but praise and admiration for his black sunset. By bed time he was beginning to feel pretty good, but then he reached his hand in his pocket and felt that old candy bar.
Sunday was always a quiet time at the lake. The grown folks sat around reading and taking naps, and even the children quieted down. Jane drove to church with Daddy and Aunt Claire. She wore her white dress, and her wide-brimmed floppy hat. All the way along there were folks going to church. Cars slid out of side roads and chortled and wheezed down farm lanes. They streamed up hill and down on the road to Deerpath. It would be fun, thought Jane, to watch them from a plane. They would look like a procession of shiny-backed beetles.
The church was crowded with summer people, and Daddy stopped at the door to speak to some folks he knew. Inside, it was dark and cool. The altars were filled with beautiful garden flowers. There were roses during June, and larkspur, then white gladioli and lilies, making the air heavy with their perfume. When the phlox and asters appeared Janie always knew it was time to start thinking about going back to town.
The windows were swung open, and inquisitive sparrows came to the ledge and looked in. Sometimes a fat bee would lumber about in the roses, and then take off, heavily, for the summer world outside. Janie thought of the psalm:
“I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house,
And the place where Thy glory dwelleth.”
This must be the place, she thought, looking around her, here in a country church, with the doors and windows flung wide, filled with music, and fragrant with the flowers of a country garden.
On the way home they stopped at the drug store to buy a paper. Later breakfast was served on the terrace at the back of the cottage. It was another one of Mom’s romantic ideas. It wasn’t entirely practical. You see, the terrace wasn’t screened. Birds and butterflies entered at their will, also dogs and mosquitos and ordinary flies.
Buick, the neighbor’s dog, always enjoyed having breakfast on the terrace with the Murrays. He strolled over on this particular morning looking around for his old enemy, Butch. Not seeing him, he made straight for Janie’s chair. She absently gave him a piece of her coffee cake, and went on reading the funnies. Aunt Claire was always generous, so Buick looked pathetic and waited. Another piece of coffee cake dropped into his jaws, and he said “Thank-you” in dog fashion, and strolled over to Daddy’s chair.