"'It's not easy telling this,' he said, 'but I put my daughter-in-law in wrong in this neighborhood, and I am going to make it right if I can. She is a noble, brave woman,' he said, 'and I am proud of her. I lost the election,' he continued, 'but I am glad of it, for in losing it, I found a daughter and a grandson,' and then he put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'and here's the deepest conspirator in the country, who managed the whole thing. This is the girl who made fun of me, and lambasted me, but who brought my daughter-in-law and me together, and when she runs for the Legislature, I promise I will get out and campaign for her.'
"Every one laughed then, and the people crowded up around him, and Annie, and you never saw so many people laughing and crying at the one time in your life.
"We had a big boiler of coffee on the little tin stove in the trees, and I grabbed off the white pitchers, and the biggest girls from the school helped serve, and we got the people all started in to eat, for it doesn't do to let people's feelings go too far.
"When they had quieted down a little, and were nearly through eating, the minister, who was at the other end of the table, got up and said he had an idea he wanted to pass on.
"'I'm ashamed,' he said—and I know he was—'of the way this community has treated Mrs. Gray and Jimmy,'—he didn't seem able to call her anything else either. 'On behalf of the district of Purple Springs, I apologize. We'll show our apology in something better than words, too, I hope,' he said, kind of swallowing his Adam's apple. 'We denied her child the right to play with our children, through our stupid and cruel thoughtlessness, now let us apologize by doing something for all the children of this neighborhood. This is a beautiful spot, a natural park; let us make it the Jim Gray Playgrounds, with swings, and sand-pile and acting bars and swimming pool, with a baseball ground up on the hill; where all our children, young people and old people too, can gather and be young and human and sociable together.'
"The people broke out into cheers and cries of 'We'll do it!' It seemed to relieve them.
"'And let us hold our church service here on Sundays, too, when the weather is fine. Our religion has been too stuffy, too mouldy, too damp, too narrow. It needs the sunshine and the clear air of heaven to sweeten it and revive it. I feel it today, that God is in the sunshine more than in the narrow limits we have tried to set upon Him.'
"'We sometimes deplore the tendency of our young people to go to the city,' he continued, 'but I don't know as I blame them. We've been living dull, drab lives for sure. Let us liven things up a bit, and give our people something to look forward to during the week, and something pleasant to remember. It's the utter dreariness of life that kills people—not hard work.'
"And then," said Pearl, "I could see the people wanted to sing or cry, or dance, or something, to work off their emotions; so I signalled to Bessie Cowan, who is one of our best singers, to start a hymn that the children sing every morning. They knew it well, and the people had learned it from them. I never heard anything like it. It flashed up through the highest branches of the trees, into the blue air. I am sure God heard it, and was pleased:
"God is in His temple
Let the earth keep silent."