"Just see that Aaron gets a white handkerchief: he's fond of gay colors, you know. Two Sundays ago, when I wasn't looking, he carried off to church one of Chloe's turbans, and deliberately shook out the three-cornered article, and never knew the difference till his face told him it was cotton instead of silk."
I promised extra caution on the second point, and had just closed the lower door—Aaron was already holding the gate open for me—when the softly purplish bands of hair came again into the wind.
"One thing more, Anna: do see what he takes for a sermon. The text is in the fifth chapter of First Thessalonians. He will certainly pick up a Fast-day or a Thanksgiving sermon, if you don't put the right one into his hands."
"Hasn't he two sermons on the same chapter?" I asked.
"Yes, half a dozen. You'll know the one for to-day; I wrote it for him the day he had the headache; the text is"—and there was a little moment of thought; then she said—"'Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.' Aaron's waiting; don't keep him; good bye!" and she was closed in.
I felt faint and weary, now that there was no more to be done. The village-people were awake. Village-sounds were abroad in the Sunday atmosphere, vibrant with holiness. The farmers stopped in their care for their animals, and spent a moment in innocent wonder of the reason why their pastor should be abroad thus early.
Chloe's turban welcomed us first, then Chloe's self. Breakfast, that morning, had a rare charm about it for me. I felt that I had a right to it; in some wise it was a breakfast earned. Aaron looked melancholy; his coffee was not charmful, I knew; the chemical changes that sugar and milk wrought were not the same as when Sophie presided over the laboratory of the breakfast-tray. I am not an absorbent, and so I reflected Aaron's discomfort. He was disposed to question me for a reason for Miss Axtell's aberration. I was not empowered to give one, and was fully determined to impart no information until such time as I could with honor tell all. Aaron desisted after a while, and changed interrogation for information.
"We're to have a new sexton," he said.
"Why, Aaron?" I asked,—and, in my surprise, put sugar, destined for my coffee, into a glass of water.
"Because Abraham Axtell has resigned."