“Yes. My papa had to work hard, and awful long hours, too. But when he was away from the newspaper office he said he always left business behind him. He looked up at the sky and listened to the birds sing. Leastways,” said Carolyn May honestly, “he listened to the sparrows quarrel. There weren’t many other birds on our block, ’cept a parrot; and he scolded awfully.”
At any rate, she was quite sure that Uncle Joe ought to be interested in something besides his hardware store. She thought about this a good deal. And, finally, she laid an innocent little trap for him.
Of one tenet of the Friends’ belief Aunty Rose was thoroughly convinced: no cooking went on in the Stagg kitchen after breakfast on the Sabbath. Of course, they had dinner, but save for hot tea or coffee or soup the viands at that meal and at supper were cold.
Sometimes during the warm weather there were heaps of Aunty Rose’s flaky-crusted apple turnovers, baked the day before, to crumble into bowls of creamy milk, or there were piles of lovely sandwiches and eggs with mayonnaise, and suchlike delicacies.
Aunty Rose, however, removed her work apron when the breakfast dishes were washed and put away and the kitchen “ridded up,” and for the remainder of Sunday she did only the very necessary things about the house.
If she did not walk to town to attend the Friends’ Meeting House, she sat in a straight-backed chair and read books that—to Carolyn May—looked “awfully religious.” However, she did not make the day of rest a nightmare to the child. The little girl had her picture books, as well as her Sunday-school papers, and she could stroll about or play quietly with Prince.
The Corners was not burdened with the arrival of Sunday papers from the city, with their blotchy-looking supplements and unsightly so-called “funny sheets.” Almost everybody went to church, and all the children to Sunday-school, which was held first.
The Reverend Afton Driggs, though serious-minded, was a loving man. He was fond of children, and he and his childless wife gave much of their attention to the Sunday-school. Mrs. Driggs taught Carolyn May’s class of little girls. Mrs. Driggs did her very best, too, to get the children to stay to the preaching service, but Carolyn May had to confess that the pastor’s discourses were usually hard to understand.
“And he is always reading about the ‘Begats,’” she complained gently to Uncle Joe as they went home together on this particular Sunday—the one following the presentation of Prince’s new collar—“and I can’t keep interested when he does that. I s’pose the ‘Begats’ were very nice people, but I’m sure they weren’t related to us—they’ve all got such funny names.”
“Hum!” ejaculated Uncle Joe, smothering a desire to laugh. “Flow gently, sweet Afton, does select his passages of Scripture mostly from the ‘valleys of dry bones,’ I allow. You’ve got it about right there, Carolyn May.”