Posy was a dear little girl; but Nanty and Nunky had asked each other lately if she wasn’t growing just the least bit vain.
The Quaker meeting-house was brown, and not very pretty. It had no pulpit, but the children did not know there was no minister either. They went in and took their seats, which had very high backs. Pollio sat with Mr. Littlefield, on the men’s side; and Hop-clover and Posy were wedged in between Mrs. Swan and Mrs. Crane, on the women’s side.
They waited and waited for the minister, but he didn’t come. They waited and waited for the music, but nobody sang. Then Pollio observed that the “other men” wore their hats: so he put his on again, and peeped roguishly across the aisle at the little girls, who peeped back again, and tried not to smile.
Then they waited longer, and watched the flies, and wondered why meeting didn’t begin.
Meeting had begun. These good people, with their hats and bonnets on, were talking to God; and that is what they call a Quaker meeting. Perhaps somebody would speak by and by, perhaps not; but, at any rate, it was a Quaker meeting all the same.
It was so warm, and so still, that Pollio fell asleep, but was wakened by hearing a sing-song voice say,—
“‘While I mused, the fire burned.’”
It was Mr. Littlefield. Pollio half rose on his toes, and stared at the stove. Where was the fire?
But Mr. Littlefield meant the “fire of love.” He loved God and all God’s children; and what he said was very beautiful, only Pollio could not quite understand it.
Then he sat down again, and sat so still, that one fly washed its face on his hand, and another walked over his nose and peeped at his eyes, as if to see if he was asleep.