"'The Lord is my Shepherd—I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me—He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul....'
"An' at the first line, before we'd rilly sensed what it was he said, every one o' them little children in the midst o' their supper slips off the edge o' the cots an' kneeled down there on the bare floor, just like they'd been told to. Oh, wasn't it wonderful? An' yet it wasn't—it wasn't. We found out, when folks come for 'em the next mornin', it was the children's prayer that they sung every day o' their lives at their Good Shepherd's Orphans' Home—soft an' out o' tune an' with all their little hearts, just as they went ahead an' sung it with Abel, clear to the end. I guess they didn't know everybody don't kneel down all over the world when they hear the Twenty-third Psalm.
"Abel seen 'em in the little lookin'-glass over the keyboard. An' when he'd got done he set there perfectly still with his head down. An' Mis' Sykes an' Mis' Holcomb an' Eppleby an' I bowed our heads too, out there in the entry. An' so, after a minute, did Timothy. I couldn't help peekin' to see.
"An' then, when the children was all a-rustlin' up, Mis' Toplady she jus' hands her two pails o' milk over to Timothy.
"'You take 'em in,' she says to him, her eyes swimmin'. 'I've come off without my handkerchief.'
"Timothy looks round him, kind o' helpless, but Eppleby stood there an' pats him on the arm.
"'Go in—go in, brother,' Eppleby says gentle. 'I guess the church's been dedicated. I feel like we'd heard the big wind—an' I guess, mebbe, the Pentecostal tongues.'
"An' Timothy—he's an awful tender-hearted man in spite o' bein' so notional—Timothy just went on in with the milk, without sayin' anything. An' Eppleby side of him. An' we 'most shut the door on Silas Sykes, comin' tearin' up on account o' Timothy leavin' him urgent word to come, without explainin' why. An' when Silas see the inside o' the church, all lit up an' chicken supper for the children an' the other two elders there with the milk, he just rubs his hands an' beams like he see his secunt term. I donno's it'd ever enter Silas Sykes's head't there was anything wrong with anything, providin' somebody wasn't snappin' him up for it. I guess it's like that in politics.
"We took the milk around an', bake' sweet potatoes forgot, Timothy stood up by the stove, between Eppleby an' Silas, an' watched us—an' the Jersey must 'a' picked her way home alone. An' Abel, he just set there to the organ, gentlin' 'round soft on the keys so it made me think o' God movin' on the face o' the waters. An' movin' on the face of everything else too, dedicated or not. It was like we'd felt the big wind, same as Eppleby said. An' somethin' in it kind o' hid, secret an' holy."