“Father came up then and, putting an arm around Betty, he said, ‘Let us pray,’ and everybody bowed his head and Father prayed. He prayed a long time, and at the last there were lots of ‘Amens’ and ‘Praise the Lords’ just as in big meeting.
“The second Father finished, an old man stepped out in front and said in a halting way that he would like every one to know that when his cow died in the winter Preacher Bard had bought him another. That started things. A young man said the preacher had sat up with him every other night for six weeks when he had typhoid fever. A boy said the preacher had bought him school books, and the Widow Spears said he had given her twenty dollars when her house burned. An old lady told how he read one afternoon a week to her husband who was blind, and so on and on and on. Everybody wanted to tell something good about Preacher Bard.
“Before the meeting broke up a big donation party was planned for Monday night, and Mother got Mrs. Bard to let Betty come home with us so she wouldn’t give it away. Monday was a busy day. While the women baked and cooked for the party, the men raised money to put a new roof on the parsonage, to buy a suit of clothes for Brother Bard, a black silk dress for Mrs. Bard, so stiff it would stand alone, and a blue delaine for Betty.
“How we surprised the Bards that night when we all went in, and what a good time we had! But the best part was when Deacon Orbison, who had been opposed to the preacher from the first, got up on a chair and made a speech. He said it seemed to him Redding circuit could not afford to lose a man like Reverend Bard, that his salary and benevolences had been made up in full, and that a letter would be sent the Presiding Elder asking that he be returned for another year. He was returned, and Betty and I sat together at school that winter, so you see I got my wish.
“Well, well, if it isn’t bedtime for three little children I know. Pass the apples, Bobby, please, and next time I’ll tell you—well, I just don’t know what I shall tell you next time, but I’ll have something for you.”
JOE’S INFARE
“I think tonight I’ll tell you about my brother Joe’s infare,” said Grandma one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink had come to her room for their usual good-night story. “But first,” she went on, before the children had time to ask any questions, “I’d better tell you what an infare was. It was a sort of wedding reception which took place at the bridegroom’s home, usually the day after the wedding. It was the faring or going of the bride into her husband’s home and was celebrated with great rejoicing and a big feast.
“Joe had married Sally Garvin, who lived four miles from us by the road but only two miles through the fields. They had been married the day before, and we were to have the infare.