XXI
The Perils of the City
"Roger," remarked Miss Mattie, laying aside her paper, "I don't know as I'm in favour of havin' you go to the city. Can't you get the Judge another dog?"
"Why not, Mother?" asked Roger, ignoring her question.
"Because it seems to me, from all I've been readin' and hearin' lately, that the city ain't a proper place for a young person. Take that minister, now, that those folks brought down for Ambrose North's funeral. I never heard anything like it in all my life. You was there and you heard what he said, so there ain't no need of dwellin' on it, but it wasn't what I'm accustomed to in the way of funerals." Miss Mattie's militant hairpins bristled as she spoke.
"I thought it was all right, Mother. What was wrong with it?"
Everything Wrong
"Wrong!" repeated Miss Mattie, in astonishment. "Everything was wrong with it! Ambrose North wasn't a church-member and he never went more'n once or twice that I know of, even after the Lord chastened him with blindness for not goin'. There was no power to the sermon and no cryin' except Barbara and that Miss Wynne that sang that outlandish piece instead of a hymn.