"His subject is interesting," Flossy said.
"I don't think it is," said Eurie. "Not to me, anyhow. Nature and I have nothing in common, except to have a good time together if we can get it. She is a miserably disappointed jade, I know. What has she done for us since we have been here except to arrange rainy weather? I'm going to visit his honor the mummy this morning, and from there I am going to the old pyramid; and I advise you to go with me, all of you. Talk about nature when there is an old fellow to see who was acquainted with it thousands of years ago. Nature is too common an affair to be interested in."
"Oh, are you going to the museum?" said Flossy. "Then please get me one of the 'Bliss' singing books, will you? I want to secure one before they are all gone. Girls, don't you each want one of them to take home? The hymns are lovely."
"I don't," said Eurie, "unless he is for sale to go along and sing them.
I can't imagine anything tamer than to hear some commonplace voice
trying to do those songs that he roars out without any effort at all.
What has become of the man?"
"He has gone," said Marion. "Called home suddenly, some one told me. His singing is splendid, isn't it? I don't know but I feel much as you do about the book. Think of having Deacon Miller try to sing, 'Only an armor-bearer!' I don't mind telling you that I felt very much as if I were being lifted right off my feet and carried up somewhere, I hardly know where, when I heard him sing that. I was coming down the hill, away off, you know, by the post-office—no, away above the post-office, and he suddenly burst forth. I stopped to listen, and I could hear every single word as distinctly as I can hear you in this tent."
"Hear!" said Eurie, "I guess you could. I shouldn't be surprised if they heard him over at Mayville, and that is what brings such crowds here every day. Did you ever see anything like the way the people come here, anyhow?"
"I don't feel at all as you do," said Flossy, going back to the question of singing-books. "After we get let down a little, 'Only an armor-bearer' will sound very well even from common singers. It has in it what can't be taken out because a certain voice is lost; and the book is full of other and simpler pieces, and lovely choruses, that people can catch after one hearing."
"Flossy is going home to introduce it into the First Church," Eurie said, gravely.
Flossy's cheeks flushed.
"I had not thought of that," she said, simply; "perhaps we can. In any case get me a couple, Eurie."