Jocelyn and David stood in the soft shadow of an old elm and while they watched David explained the customers going in and coming out. He told her that the tall straight woman buying the spray of purple lilacs for her last year's hat was the Widow Green. The short, waddly woman trying on the wide hat with the pink roses was Bessie Williams. The tall girl with the pretty braids wound round her head was Bonnie Don, big Steve Meckling's sweetheart. Steve, David explained, was so foolishly in love that he was ready to commit murder if another lad so much as looked at Bonnie.

The tall quiet man buying hats and ribbons for his girls was John Foster. And the little bow-legged one, with the hard hat two sizes too big, was Hen Tomlins who always went shopping with his wife.

So Green Valley made its purchases and hastened home to pack its lunch basket and lay out all its clothes on the spare-room bed. Even as David and Jocelyn walked home through the laughing streets, lights were being winked out in the lower living rooms only to flash out somewhere up-stairs where the family was wisely going to bed early. No one even glanced at the sky, for it was taken for granted that Green Valley skies would do their very best, as a matter of course.

When the last star began to fade and the first little breath of a new morning ruffled the soft gray silence a sudden sharp volley rang out. It was the Green Valley boys setting off cannon crackers in front of the bank. And it must be said right here that that first signal volley was about all the fireworks ever indulged in in Green Valley. This little town, nestling in the peaceful shelter of gentle hills and softly singing woods, naturally disliked harsh, ugly sounds and was moreover far too thrifty, too practical and sane a community to put firearms and flaming death into the hands of its children. Green Valley patriotism was of a higher order.

At that sharp volley Green Valley awoke with a start and a laugh and ran to put flags on its gateposts and porch pillars and loop bunting around its windows. And when the morning broke like a great pink rose and shed its rosy light over the dimpling hills and lacy, misty woodlands the old town was a-flutter with banners, everybody was about through with breakfast and certain childless and highly efficient ladies were already taking their front and side hair out of curl papers.

At eight o'clock sharp the school bell summoned the children. Then a little later the church bell summoned the veterans. And by nine the procession was marching down Maple Street, flags waving, band playing and every face aglow.

First came the little tots all in white, the boy babies bearing little flags and the girl babies little baskets of flowers, with little Eleanor Williams carrying in her tiny hands a silken banner on which Bessie Williams, her mother, had beautifully embroidered a dove and the lovely word, "Peace."

Then came the older children, a whole corps it seemed of Red Cross nurses, followed by a regiment of merry sailor boys. There were cowboys and Boy Scouts, boys in overalls and brownies. There were girls in liberty caps, crinolines and sunbonnets.

So grade after grade Green Valley's children came, a proud and happy escort for the men in blue who followed. Nanny Ainslee's father led the veterans, sitting his horse right gallantly. Nanny and her father were both riding and so was Doc Philipps.

There were plenty of people on horseback but most of the town marched, even The Ladies Aid Society, every member wearing her badge and new hat with conscious pride and turning her head continually to look at the children, as the head of the procession turned corners. The young married women with babies rode in buggies, from every one of whose bulging sides flags drooped and fat baby legs and picnic baskets protruded.

Everything went smoothly, joyously along, though a few incidents in various parts of the procession caused smiles, gusts of laughter and even alarm.

Jimmy Rand had a few anxious moments when the four fat puppies he thought he had shut safely into the barn came yelping and tumbling joyously into the very heart of the marching crowds.

Jim Tumley was down on the day's programme for several numbers. But as the line swung around the hotel and the spring winds stained with the odors of liquor swept temptingly over him he half started to step out of line. But Frank Burton guessed his trouble and ordered Martin's clerk, Eddie, to bring the little chap an extra large and fine soda instead.

Mrs. Hen Tomlins upset things by ordering Hen back home to change his shirt. It seems that Hen had deliberately put on a shirt with a soft collar and in the excitement of getting under way and trying to remember which way her new hat was supposed to set Mrs. Hen had failed to notice the crime until, her fears set at rest by Mary Langeley, she turned around to see if Hen looked all right.

Uncle Tony was in a great state of excitement. He was continually leaving his place in The Business Men's Association to have a look from the side lines at the imposing spectacle.

Here and there mothers close enough to their offspring were suggesting a more frequent use of handkerchiefs and calling attention to traitorous garters and wrinkled stockings. Tommy Downey had forgotten what his mother had told him about being sure to put his ears inside his cap and those two appendages, burned and already blistered by the hot May sun, stood out in solemn grandeur from his small, round, grinning face. The school teachers were keeping anxious eyes on their particular broods and insisting that the eager feet keep solemn step to the music.

Sam Ellis' new greenhorn hired girl, Francy, was sitting in the back seat of the buggy, holding down the brimming baskets and leaning out as far as possible so as not to miss anything that might happen at either end as well as the middle of the procession. She had been utterly unable to pin on her first American hat with hatpins, so had wisely tied it to her head with a large red-bordered handkerchief which she had brought over from the old country.

Jocelyn Brownlee, sitting beside David in his smart rig, had begged him to go last so that she could see everything. This was her first country festival and no child in that throng was so happily, wildly eager to drain the day to the very last drop of enjoyment.

Jocelyn and David however did not end the procession. Behind them, though quite a way back, was Uncle Tony's brother William. William was driving his span of grays so slowly that the pretty creatures tossed their heads restlessly, impatiently, lonely for the companionship of the gay throng ahead.

But though their owner knew what they wanted he held them back sternly. But he looked as wistfully as they at the fluttering flags and listened as keenly to the puffs of music that the wind dashed into his face every now and then.

Every Decoration Day Uncle Tony's brother William rode just so, slowly and alone at the end of the gay procession. On that day he was a lonely and tragic figure. Loved and respected every other day in the year, on this he was shunned. For he was the only man in all Green Valley who, when conscripted, would not go to the war but sent a substitute, one Bob Saunders.

Bob was killed at Gettysburg and nobody mourned him, not even his very own sister though Green Valley was duly proud of the way he died. Only on this one day did Green Valley remember the man whose death was the one and only worth while deed of a misspent life. But on this one day too Green Valley shunned the man who sent him to his death.

So every Decoration Day William came alone to put a wreath on Bob's grave and watch the exercises from a distance. When it was over he went home—alone. And Green Valley let him do it year after year.

He was never known to murmur at Green Valley's annual censure nor did he ever seem to hope for forgiveness. Green Valley had asked him once why he had done it and he said that he would have been worthless as a soldier because he did not believe in killing people and was himself horribly afraid of being butchered.

Green Valley was appalled at this terrible confession, at the absence in one of its sons of even the common garden variety of courage. It did its best for a while to despise William. But it is hard work despising an honest, quiet, just and lovable man. So gradually William was allowed to come home into Green Valley's life. And it was only on this one holiday that he was an outcast. Neither did any one ever remind William's children of what years ago their father had done. But of course they knew. Their father had told them himself. They were in no way cast down. They were all girls who loved their father and did not believe in war.

In that fashion then, and in that order, Green Valley marched down Main Street, up Grove, through lovely Maple and very slowly down Orchard Avenue so that Jeremy Collins, who was bedridden because of a bullet wound suffered at Shiloh, could see his old comrades with whom he could no longer march.

All the way down Park Lane the band played its very best and loudest as if calling from afar to those comrades who lay sleeping beneath the pines and oaks of the little cemetery. And just as the Green Valley folks came in sight of the white headstones the Spring Road procession came tramping over the old bridge, and Elmwood, with its flags and band, was coming up the new South Road. The three towns met nicely at the very gates of the cemetery and together made the sort of sound and presented the sort of sight that lingers in the heart long after other things have faded from one's memory.

Then the bands grew still and there was quiet, a quiet that every minute grew deeper so that the noisiest youngster grew round-eyed and the fat sleek horses moved never a hoof. And then, sweet and soft through the waiting, hushed air, came the notes of Major Rand's cornet. He was playing for his comrades as he had played at Shiloh, at Chickamauga and many another place in the Southland. He played all their old favorites and then very, very softly the cornet wailed—"We are tenting to-night on the old camp ground"—and somewhere beside it little Jim Tumley began to sing.

From the high blue sky and the softly stirring tree-tops the words seem to drop into little hearts and big hearts and the sweet, melting sadness of them misted the eyes. When the last feathery echo had died away the men in blue passed two by two through the cemetery gate. Reverend Campbell, who had been their chaplain, said a short prayer. At its end the children, with their arms full of flowers, crowded up and the men in blue stopped at every grave. The little boys planted their flags at the head and the little girls scattered the blossoms deep.

From beyond the gates Green Valley and Spring Road and Elmwood watched its heroes and its children. In David Allan's smart rig sat a little city girl, her face crumpled and stained like a rain-beaten rose. She was saying to no one in particular, "Oh—my daddy was a soldier too but I know that he never had a Decoration Day like this."

The bands played again and each class went through its number on the programme with grace and only a very few noticeable blunders. Tommy Downey, ears rampant, a tooth missing and a face radiant with joy and absolute self-confidence, mounted the bunting and flag-draped stage and in a booming voice wholly out of proportion to his midget dimensions and in ten dashing verses assured those assembled that the man who wore the shoulder straps was a fine enough fellow to be sure, but that it was after all the man without them who had to win the day.

The old country roads rippled with applause and Tommy's mother, forgetting for once Tommy's funny ears which were her greatest source of grief, drew the funny little body close and explained to admiring bystanders that Tommy "took" after one of her great-uncles, a soul much given to speech making.

So number after number went off and then there came the speech of the day. It had been decided at the last moment that Doc Philipps must make this, because the specially ordered and greatly renowned speaker, one Daniel Morton from down Brunesville way, had at the last moment and at his ridiculous age contracted measles.

Now Green Valley knew how Doc Philipps hated to talk about almost everything except trees. But Green Valley also knew that Doc could talk about most anything if he was so minded. He was, moreover, as well known and loved in Spring Road and Elmwood as he was in his own town. So Green Valley folks leaned back, certain that this speech would be worth hearing.

The bulky figure in army blue stepped to the edge of the platform and for a silent minute towered above his neighbors like one of the great trees he so loved. Then, without warning or preface, he began to talk to them.

"War is pretty—when the uniforms are new and the band is playing. War is glorious to read about and talk about—when it's all over. But war is every kind of hell imaginable for everybody and everything while it's going on! And they lie who say that it ever was, is, or can be anything else. Every soldier here to-day above ground or below it will and would tell you the same.

"And they are fools who say that wars cannot be prevented. War is the rough and savage tool of a world as yet too ignorant to invent and use any other. But here and there, in odd corners of the world, an ever-increasing number of men are recognizing it as a disease, due to ignorance, as possible to cure and wipe out, as any other of the horrible plagues of mankind.

"When I was twenty-three I too believed in war. I liked the uniform, I liked the excitement of going, I liked the idea of 'fighting for the right.' I was too young and too ignorant to realize that older, better men than I on the other side felt just as right as I did. In those days war was the only tool and we thought it right, and some of us went hating it and some of us went shouting like fools. I went for the lark of it, for I knew no better. I marched away in a new uniform with the band playing and the flags snapping. And on the little old farm my father gave me I left a nineteen-year-old wife with my one-year-old baby.

"Next door to that wife and baby of mine lived a man who did not believe in war, a man who, even when conscription came and he was called, refused to go to war. He hired a substitute and stayed at home. And for that Green Valley has marked that man a coward and every year sits in judgment upon him.

"Yet the man who would not go to war stayed at home to plough my fields and plant them. He it was who saw to it that that wife of mine and the wives of other war-mad boys did not want for bread. He stayed at home here and minded his business and ours as well. He wrote letters and got news for our women when they got to fretting too hard. He harvested our crops, tended our stock, and mended our fences because he is so made that he cannot bear to see things wasted, neglected, ruined.

"As a soldier that man was worthless, for the business of a soldier is to kill, to burn, to waste, to maim. He knew that and he knew that being what he was he could serve his country better doing the things he liked and believed in.

"I came out of that war a physical wreck but with a heart purified. I saw such a hell of evil, such destruction, such misery that to-day I am a doctor and a planter of trees. When I saw men torn to rags and lovely strips of woodland ripped to splintered ugliness I vowed that if I ever came through that madness I would make amends. I swore I would go through the world mending things. So terribly did those war horrors grip me. And I have tried to keep my promise. For every tree I saw splintered I have tried to plant another somewhere. I have been able to do this because of that old neighbor of mine.

"When I came home a wreck and said that I wanted to be a doctor, people laughed at the idea. But the man who does not believe in war came to me at night and offered to help me through the medical school. It was that man who made a doctor of me. He had the courage to believe and trust when every one else laughed.

"Yet that is the man Green Valley has been punishing all these years. You have been counting that man a coward when you know he is no coward. When Petersen's fool hired man let that bull out of its stall to rage through Green Valley's streets it was Green Valley's coward who caught him at the risk of his life. When Johnny Bigelow was sick with smallpox it was the coward who nursed him.

"You know all that. Yet, because of outlived and mossy tradition, you let that man ride alone, keep him out of a Green Valley day, you who count yourselves such good neighbors.

"I tell you we men in blue and gray are dead and our tool of war is a poor and clumsy thing of the past. Ours was a brave enough, great enough day. But it has passed, its story is over and done with.

"It is the new brand of courage that the new generations want and will have. And no old soldier here but is glad to feel that the days of bloodshed are over, that somewhere in the days ahead there is coming the dawn of peace, a world peace forevermore."

As suddenly as he began he stopped, for a long second there was a strange silence. For just the space of ten heart flutters there was amazement at this new style of address. No old soldier had ever talked to them in that fashion. But when they saw him striding over that stage and headed straight for William the storm broke and eddied out to where William sat, holding in the grays, not even dreaming that at last he was understood and forgiven.

After the last songs were sung the sun stood high. So then the great gathering broke into little family groups that strolled off up the roads in every direction. Here in shady spots tablecloths were spread and soon everybody seemed to be opening a basket and the feast was on.

In half an hour all manner of things had happened. The Whitely twins fell into some strawberry pies, and supposedly hard boiled eggs were in many cases found to be extremely soft boiled. Boys of all sizes were beginning to be smeared from ear to ear and two of Hen Tomlin's wife's doughnuts were found to be quite raw inside, a discovery that so stunned that careful lady that she never noticed Hen had taken off his stiff linen collar, opened his shirt and tucked both it and his undershirt into a very cool and comfortable decollete effect.

In another half hour fat babies fell asleep where they sat, their little fat hands holding tight to some goody. Boys old enough to wonder about the contrariness of things mortal looked sadly at the still inviting tables and marveled that a thoughtful and farseeing Providence should have made a boy's stomach in so careless and penurious a fashion.

They made as many as a dozen trials to see if by any chance some corner of the said organ could be further reenforced. But when even ice-cream and marshmallows refused to go down they gave up and dragged themselves away to some spot where a more lucky or efficient comrade was still blissfully busy.

The married men openly loosened their belts and looked about for a quiet and restful spot. The unmarried ones went sneaking off where their mothers and their best girls couldn't see them smoking their cigarettes.

In the general relaxation Dolly Beatty slipped off her tightest shoe, one bunion and four corns clamoring loudly for room. And though nobody saw her do it, everybody knew that Sam Bobbins' wife had gone behind some convenient bush and taken off her new corset.

In this quiet time old friends searched each other out and sat peacefully talking over old times. The married women kept their eyes on the strolling couples, hoping to see a lovers' quarrel or discover a new and as yet unannounced affair. Little by little news was disseminated and listened to that in the elaborate preparations of the past days had been overlooked or unreported.

David and Jocelyn were in the crowd of merrymakers and yet not of it. They had selected a fine old tree a little removed from the thick of things and here Jocelyn spread their luncheon.

"It's a lucky thing," she explained shyly, "that Decoration Day doesn't come earlier in the year or I'd never have dared to go to a party like this and be responsible for lunch. About all I knew how to make when we came to Green Valley was fudge, fruit salad and toasted marshmallows. And before Annie Dolan came to teach me how to do things I nearly died trying. I was all black and blue from falling down the cellar and scarred and blistered from frying things. But now I know ever so much.

"I can make two lovely soups and biscuits and apple pie and gravy. And I know how to clean and stuff a turkey. Only last week Annie taught me how to make red raspberry and currant jell. And my burns are nearly all healed except this one. It was pretty bad, but I was ashamed to go to the doctor's so it's not quite healed yet. That's why I just had to have gloves to cover the bandage. But nobody else seems to be wearing elbow gloves so I guess I'll take mine off and be comfortable. Would you mind putting them in your pocket for me?"

David caught the silken ball she tossed him and carefully tucked it away. He insisted on seeing the burn but Jocelyn waved him aside, declaring that her hunger was worse just then.

So they ate and then sat and talked quietly of everything and nothing. All about them people laughed and chattered. Every now and then some one called to them and they answered correctly enough, yet knew not what they had said. For as naturally as all the simple unspoiled things of God's world find each other, so this sweet, unspoiled little city girl and the big, unspoiled country boy had found each other. And a great content possessed them. They did not know as yet what it was but knew only that the world for them was complete and every hour perfect that they spent together.

They sat under their tree even after the games and races had begun and were rather glad that in the excitement over the afternoon's programme they two were forgotten and free to roam about.

They went down to the creek where the burned arm was unbandaged. Jocelyn was rosily pleased to see David frown at the ugly raw scar. He gathered the leaves of some weed strange to her and when he had pounded them to a cool pulp he laid them on the burn and once more bound up the arm. He was as glad to do it as she was to have him and each knew how the other felt.

They strolled through the now deserted cemetery and read the epitaphs on the mossy stones and yet nothing seemed old or sad or caused them the least surprise. They saw Nanny Ainslee standing with Cynthia's son before a stone that had neither name nor date but only the love-sad words:

"I Miss Thee So."

But they thought nothing of it. The world was far away and they were serenely happy in a rarer one of their own.

Slowly the golden afternoon was waning. Little children were beginning to pull on their stockings, mothers began packing up the baskets and fathers were harnessing the horses. Soon everybody was ready and Green Valley, Spring Road and Elmwood, with many waves of flags and hands, each started down its own road toward home.

It was a tired, happy town that straggled down Main Street just as the sun was gilding it with his last rays. Green Valley mothers were everywhere hurrying their broods on to bread and milk and bed. In the sunset streets only the little groups of grown-ups lingered to talk over the day and exchange last jokes before going on toward home and rest.



CHAPTER X

THE KNOLL

There were whole days when Cynthia's son did nothing but loaf,—whole days when he went off by himself into the still corners of his world and let the whole wide universe talk and sing to him and awe him with its mystery.

He would lie for hours in some cool, shady fern nook under a sheltering road hedge or in the shade of some giant tree friend. At such times he scaled the thinking, wondering part of himself and opened wide his heart to the great whisper that rippled the grain, to the sweet song that swelled the throat of the oriole and lark, to the beauty that dyed the heavens and the earth, to the glad struggle for life everywhere.

In this way he had always healed all his griefs, freed his soul from doubts and stilled the many strange longings that made his heart ache for things whose name and nature he knew not.

He had discovered many of these still, restful corners from which to watch life as it went by. But his favorite spot was right on his own farm.

At the very end of the Churchill estate, as if thrown in for good measure, was a little knoll, smooth and grassy and crowned with a little grove of God's own planting.

For there were gathered together big gnarled oaks, maples, old hickory trees and many poplars. There were on that knoll three snowy, bridal birches, the rough trunks of horse-chestnuts and a few solemn pines. As if that were not enough, in the very heart of this woody temple were two shaggy old crab-apple trees and one stray wild plum.

In the spring here was fairyland. And into it Cynthia's son retired at every fair opportunity. Here he sat and looked off at the dimpling, rippling farmlands, the wandering old roads and at Green Valley roofs nestling so securely in their setting of rich greens and dappled sunshine.

From his seat beneath an oak he could see Wimple's pond with its circle of trees and through the far willow hedges caught the glittering sheen and sparkle of Silver Creek. And there before and below him lay the mellow old farm that his grandfather had left him.

The warm brick walls with their wide brick chimneys already had a welcoming look. For the tenant was gone and the old home was being repaired for its owner. But from the knoll no sound of hammer or sight of workmen marred the soft silence and sunny peace of the day. So Green Valley's young minister sprawled comfortably down, closed his eyes and let the earth music wrap him round.

He was not even day dreaming the day Nan Ainslee stumbled on him there under the oaks and pines. She had discovered the knoll when she was six years old and claimed it for her very own, sharing its beauties with no one, not even her brother. When she grew to young ladyhood she often left Green Valley for wonderful trips to the ends of the world. But she always came back to the lilacs and the seat under the great oak.

At every return she hastened out to see anew her home valley as it looked from her grove. So it was with something very close to annoyance that she looked at the sprawling figure of the usurper.

"Well, for pity sakes! What are you doing here?" she demanded.

He opened his eyes slowly and looked at her. She fitted in so well with the velvet whisper of the wind, the cool blue of the sky and the world's fresh beauty that he took her appearance as a part of the picture and was silent. It was only when she repeated her question rather sharply that he sat up to explain.

"Why, I found this spot months ago! It is the stillest, most heavenly nook in Green Valley. I come up here whenever I'm tired of thinking."

"Well—I found this place years and years ago," Nanny complained.

"What's the matter with us both using it?" he said very civilly.

"But," objected Nan, "this is the sort of a place that you want all to yourself."

"Yes, it is," he agreed and did not let the situation worry him further. He didn't offer her a seat or give her a chance to take herself off gracefully. And Nanny was beginning to feel a little awkward. She wasn't used to being ignored in this strange fashion.

"Are you very old?" the minister asked suddenly and looked up at her with eyes as innocent and serene as a child's.

"I'm twenty-three," Nan was startled into confessing.

"Why aren't you married?"

As she gasped and searched about for an answer he added:

"In India a girl is a grandmother at that age."

"This isn't India," smiled Nan good-naturedly, for she saw quite suddenly that this big young man knew very little about women, especially western women.

"No—this isn't India." He repeated her words slowly, little wrinkles of pain ruffling his face. For his inner eye was blotting out the Green Valley picture and painting in its stead the India of his memory, the India of gorgeous color, the bazaars, the narrow streets; the India that held within its mystic arms two plain white stones standing side by side and bearing the inscriptions "Father" and "Mother."

Nan, not guessing what was going on in his heart, took advantage of his silence to get even.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight."

"Why aren't you married?"

"Why in the world should I be?" he wanted to know.

"Green Valley men are usually the fathers of two or three children at your age," she informed him calmly.

"Oh," he smiled frankly, "of course I shall marry some day. But a man need never hurry. He, unlike a woman, can always marry. And I intend to have children—many children, because one child is always so lonely. I know because I was an only child."

This astounding piece of confidence kept Nan's tongue tied and for a few seconds all manner of funny emotions fought within her. She wanted to laugh, to get angry at the lordly superiority of the idea that a woman must hurry to the altar. She felt that she ought to feel embarrassed but the innocent sincerity with which it was all uttered kept her from blushing and her eyes from snapping. She told herself instead that of all man creatures she had ever encountered, this boy from India was certainly the weirdest. And she wondered what a woman not his mother could do with him.

After a while she tried again.

"Don't you feel rather guilty loafing here in the sunshine?"

"No. Why—what should I be doing?"

"These beautiful afternoons you ought to be devoting to pastoral calls."

"But I attended to all the day's work this morning. I helped Uncle Roger Allan build a fence and doctored up David's pet horse, Dolly. I spaded up a flower plot for Grandma Wentworth and visited little Jimmy Trumbull who's home from the hospital. Doc Philipps says he won't be up for some time yet, so to cheer him up I've promised him a party. I also drove to the station with Mrs. Bates' ancient horse and brought home her new incubator. While I was there Jocelyn Brownlee came down to get a box she said she had there. Some teasing cousin sent her a little live pig and when she found out what was in the box she didn't know what to do. So I put the pig beside the incubator and sat Jocelyn beside me and we proceeded on our way.

"That horse belonging to Mrs. Bates is certainly a solemn, stately beast but Jocelyn's little pig was anything but stately. We made an interesting and a musical spectacle as we went along, and I know that one little red-headed boy in this town was late for school because he followed us halfway home. We passed the Tomlins place and Hen was sitting at the window, propped up with pillows. It was his first day up and we made him laugh so hard that his wife was a little worried, I think."

"Agnes is rather good to Hen these days, isn't she?" Nan ventured to ask, for the whole town knew how Agnes had gone to the minister with her domestic troubles and how in some mysterious fashion this young man had worked a miracle. For both Agnes and Hen were as suddenly and happily in love with one another as though they were newly married instead of being a middle-aged and childless couple.

But that was all the town did know about the matter. For strange to say Agnes, who had talked loud enough and long enough before about her unhappiness, now was still, with never a word to say about what made her so contented and happy. Green Valley saw her look at Hen as if he were suddenly precious and smooth his pillow and wait on him. And Green Valley wanted to know all about it. But so far nobody knew but Agnes, Hen and the new minister and he didn't seem inclined to speak about it. Not even to satisfy Nanny Ainslee's curiosity.

Once more Nanny was embarrassed and a little angry. She swung up her sunshade and started to go. This minister man with his ignorance of women and his knowledge of Hen's domestic affairs was, she told herself, a crazy, impossible creature and he could sit in his little grove on his little knoll till he died for all she cared. She'd take mighty good care never again to stray into his domain.

But just as she really got up speed the big chap under the oak stood up and spoke.

"Don't go, Nan."

The shock of hearing him say that stopped her and turned her sharply around, so that she looked straight at him and found him looking at her in a way that made the whole green world suddenly fade away into misty insignificance. Something about that look of his made her walk back.

But she trailed her sunshade a little defiantly and kept her eyes down carefully. She was a little frightened too. Because for the first time in her life she was conscious of her heart. She felt it beating queerly and almost audibly. With every step that she took back toward him she grew strangely happy and strangely angry.

He silently arranged a seat for her beside him and she sat down, folded her hands in her lap, looked off at the village roofs and waited.

He looked at her a long time. For Nanny was good to look at. Then he began to talk in an odd, quiet way as if they two were at home alone and the world was shut out and far away. And he told her the story of that locked drawer in Hen Tomlins' chiffonier.

That drawer and Hen's growing stubbornness, due no doubt to the gradual coming on of his serious illness, had very nearly been the death of poor, dictatorial Agnes Tomlins. She had always picked out Hen's shirts, bought his ties and ordered his suits and Hen had never rebelled openly. Nor did he, so far as she knew, ever dare to have a thought, a memory or a possession of which she was not fully informed.

But this last year Hen had become secretive, openly rebellious, strangely despondent, with now and then flashes of a very real and unpleasant temper. Agnes, baffled, curious, hurt, angry and afraid, had at last taken her burden to the boyish minister and then went in trembling triumph to Hen and told him what she had done.

"Yes," Hen told her quietly, "I know. He was in here when you went to the drug store and told me. He advised me to open that drawer and let you see what's in it. And I'll do it to please him. But I won't open it myself and he's the only one I'll let do it. So just you send for him. As long as you told him, I want him to see there's nothing in that drawer that I need to be ashamed of."

At this point in the story Cynthia's son paused and looked so long at the sun-splashed village roofs that.

Nan stirred impatiently.

"Well—what was it that Hen was guarding so carefully from Agnes?" she wanted to know.

"Oh—just odds and ends—mostly trifles. There was a dance programme, a black kid glove of his wife's, some letters from a chum that's dead, an old knife his grandfather once gave him when he was a boy, the last knit necktie his mother had made him and a box of toys, beautiful, hand-carved toys.

"It seems that the Tomlinses had a baby a long time ago and all the time they were expecting it Hen was carving it these beautiful toys. It was a boy and, lived to be a year old, just old enough to begin to play with things. Then it died. And nobody, it seems, knew how Hen missed that baby, not even his wife. But he had kept that box of toys in his tool shed all those years and in the last year had put it in the drawer with a few other treasures which he had had hidden in odd crannies without anybody suspecting. It was all he had, he said, that was his very own. And he showed me the handle of the little hammer where the baby's playing hands had soiled it."

It seems that Hen explained the other things too. The dance programme he saved because that was where he first knew that his wife cared about him. She had selected him for the lady's choice number. The other things Hen kept because they were given to him by people who had all sincerely liked him.

"You see," Hen had said, "nobody knows how hard it is to be a little man. Nobody respects you. Your folks always apologize and try to explain your size or tell you not to mind. And strangers and friends poke fun at you. After a while, of course, you learn to laugh at yourself on the outside and folks get to think that it's all a joke for you too and that you don't mind. But you never laugh on the inside or when you're by yourself. And you get awful tired of looking up to other people all the time and you begin to wish somebody'd look up to you once in a while.

"I used to think Aggie thought a heap of me even if I wasn't as tall as other men. Grandfather and mother and Bill Simons cared a whole lot and they didn't mind showing it often. I banked an awful lot on that baby. And he did sure like me. He followed me all around and minded me better than Aggie. It was me that always put him to bed and took him up in the morning. And he'd look up at me and raise his little hands to me and—"

Cynthia's son looked steadily at Nan.

"Do you want to hear any more?" he asked gently.

"No—no—I don't. Oh, you shouldn't have told me. I'm not good enough to be trusted with things like that," Nanny said brokenly and winked and winked her long lashes to shake off the tears.

"You wanted to be told. You were going away because I didn't want to tell you," he reminded her quietly.

"I know, but I'm just naturally spoiled and mean and wicked. But oh, won't I be nice to poor Hen Tomlins after this!"

"I'm going to have him take charge of a class in wood-carving as soon as we can get one together. He's a master hand at that sort of work and there are any number of boys in this town who will love it and look up to Hen," said the man who did not understand women. The sun was slipping low in the west, pouring a flood of mellow gold over the landscape. It caught the attic windows of the old brick farmhouse that was so nearly ready for its new and young owner.

"Look," exclaimed Nan, pointing down toward it, "there is fairy treasure in your attic."

"Yes," he smiled, "there is. There are trunks up there full of all manner of things that five generations of Churchills could not bear to burn or give away. Some day when the rain is drumming on the roof and the gutters are spouting and all the birds are tucked away in dripping trees and the world is misty with tears, I'm going up there and just revel in second-hand adventure, dead dreams and cobwebs."

"Oh, my gracious, how I'd like to be there too," enviously cried Nanny Ainslee and the next moment crimsoned angrily at herself.

"If you won't mind coming to my house in the rain," said the man who did not understand women—but Nanny wasn't listening. The setting sun flared into a last widespread glory that bathed every grass blade in Green Valley and in this strong and golden light Nan saw the 6:10 pulling in and Fanny Foster hurrying home. Jessup's delivery boy, driving back from his last trip, was larruping his horse and careful Ellen Nuby was taking in her clotheslines.

On the back porch of the Brownlee bungalow Jocelyn was shaking a white tablecloth, for the Brownlees had supper early. Jocelyn flapped and flapped, then folded the cloth neatly as she had seen Green Valley matrons do. That done, she waited.

David Allan was coming home over the hills with his team and Jocelyn was waiting till he came closer before she waved to him and greeted him. All Green Valley knew of these sunset greetings and approved.

So now Nan, with a smile of understanding sympathy, watched and waited too. She could almost see Jocelyn's happy, eager child face. David slowly drew nearer. But after one careless look at the little figure on the porch, his fine head drooped and he went on without a word and left Jocelyn standing there.

From her tree shelter Nan could see the little city girl standing very still, staring after David. Then slowly the little figure went down the steps and into the back garden. There it stood motionless again, staring into the fading sky as if seeking an explanation for David's strange conduct.

But up on the hilltop Nanny beat her hands softly and cried out in pain for Jocelyn. For Nanny knew her Green Valley and she knew that the story of Jocelyn's morning ride with the minister in the Bates' ancient carryall had already gone the rounds, even finding David in the furrows of the fields. And now the big boy was worried and wretched and perhaps angry at the little city girl whom he had so openly courted.

"Oh, dear!" Nanny began to speak her mind but stopped abruptly. For how could she tell this young man from India that he had that morning spoiled forever perhaps a lovely romance. She knew that he was innocent, as innocent as Jocelyn. And she knew that Green Valley meant no harm. It was nothing. And yet so often trouble, sorrow and heartache start in just that kind of nothingness. Out of playful little whirlwinds of careless laughter cruel storms are born.

When Cynthia's son turned to walk home with her Nanny waved him back and spoke curtly.

"My goodness—no! You mustn't. I never let anybody escort me about this foolish little town."

Then she hurried home alone and left John Knight standing on his hilltop.



CHAPTER XI

GETTING ACQUAINTED

Nobody but a Green Valley man would have dared to do the things that the new minister did in those first months, when even the most daring of reverend gentlemen is apt to be a bit careful and given to the tactful searching for the straight and narrow path which is the earthly lot of pastors.

Cynthia's son however was one of those unconsciously successful men who are so simply true to life and life's laws that the world joyously meets them halfway. And then too his was a rich heritage.

From his great preacher father he had the power of seeing visions and dreaming dreams and the still greater gift of making and persuading other people to see them too. From his mother he had the comrade smile and warm intuitive heart that brought him close to even little souls. And from old Joshua Churchill came that rock-like determination, the uncompromising honesty and, better than all else, that rare common sense touched with humorous shrewdness without which no man can greatly aid his fellows or enjoy life.

All this the new Green Valley minister had, besides bits of very valuable and legal papers and the old porticoed homestead dozing on a hill and waiting for the touch of a young hand to wake it into vigorous and new life. Such parts of Green Valley as failed to appreciate the more spiritual qualifications of the tall young man from India were properly impressed with his worldly possessions.

So it was that armed with these advantages Cynthia's son went his way, smashing hoary precedents and the mossy conventions that will spring up and grow fibrously strong even in so sunny a spot as Green Valley.

Nobody was surprised, of course, to see little Jim Tumley in the choir; nor to hear that the minister was giving him lessons on the new piano whose arrival the prophetic soul of Fanny Foster had predicted. People passing the Tumley house did however stop beside the hedge and listen in amazement to the minister playing, for he played surprisingly well. When complimented on this accomplishment he explained that his mother had had a piano in India and had taught him how.

But nobody in Green Valley dreamed of seeing old Mrs. Rosenwinkle marketing right in the madly busy heart of town all on a Saturday morning. But there she was in her wheel chair, with the minister alongside to see that the road was safe and clear.

And they say that every little while, right in the midst of her bargaining, she would look around and say:

"My, but the world is big and pretty."

And when somebody reminded her of her belief that the world was flat and ended on the far side of Petersen's pasture she never argued the matter fiercely, as was her wont, but said instead that it had ended for her with Petersen's pasture until the day the new minister came.

And her daughter told how the paralyzed old body prayed day and night for this new minister's salvation, he being other than a Lutheran. Somebody thought that too good a joke to keep and told Cynthia's son how hard old Mrs. Rosenwinkle was praying for his soul. They expected him to laugh. But he didn't. He looked suddenly serious just as his mother used to do when something touched the deep down places in her heart.

All he said was that no man could ever have too many women praying for him and that he was grateful as only a man whose mother was sleeping thousands of miles away in a foreign land could be grateful.

He had his mother's trick of letting people look quite suddenly into that part of his soul where he kept his finest thoughts and emotions. And people looked and saw and then usually tiptoed away in puzzled awe or a dim sympathy. And he had such a habit of turning common sense and daylight on matters which seemed so baffling until he explained them.

It was just the minister's plain, common sense that finally got Hank Lolly into the church. When the minister first suggested that Hank ought to attend church services that worthy stared in amazed horror at his new friend. And he gave his perfectly good reasons why the likes of him had no right to step on what was Green Valley's sacred ground.

"Hank, you are entirely mistaken. I have seen you go into Green Valley parlors and every other room in the house. I watched you move that clumsy old sideboard of Mrs. Luttins down that narrow stairway and then through the little side gate. You never chipped a bit of plaster or trampled a flower beside the walk. Why, you never even tore a bit of vine off the gate. And yesterday I saw you walking your horses ever so carefully to the station because inside the van little Jimmy Drummond was lying on stretchers, going to the hospital. And I was told that Doc Philipps said he wouldn't have trusted another driver with Jimmy."

"But," groaned Hank, "people like me don't go to church."

"Hank, most ministers don't ride around the country on a moving dray. But I rode out with you many a time and I sort of feel that you might come along with me now and then and see the people and things along my route. You've given me a good time and I'd like to pay back. You'll like the music and I'm sure you'll understand it all, because I talk English you know. And anyhow, things get as lonesome sometimes for a minister in the pulpit as the roads get for a dray driver and I'd appreciate it to have a friend like you along. I never know when I'll need a lift and a little help that you could give. Sometimes we have to move the Sunday-school organ about and there are windows that stick and all manner of things about a church that only a practiced mover and driver could do. You know the janitor is rather old and infirm and as for me—well, Hank, when you come down to it, that's about all we ministers are, just movers. Our business is to help find just the right and happiest places for people, to show them their part in the game of life and keep them from bruising themselves and others. I'm doing about the same sort of work as you are; that's why I'm asking you to come along with me."

"Well—if you put it that way,—" murmured Hank, still miserable, "why, maybe I could drop in. Billy's ordered me a new suit and so—"

"That settles it then, Hank. For there's no sense in getting a new suit unless you go out in it. And there's no sense in going out unless you have some definite place to go to. Why, half the people get clothes just to go to church and the other half go to church just to wear their clothes. I'll expect you. You can sit comfortably in the back and watch things and tell me later what you think of the way things are managed here. You'll see things from the door that I never see from the pulpit."

Hank went to church in a pair of shoes that squeaked agonizingly and a suit of clothes that was a marvel of mail-order device. He also wore a Stetson hat that was new when he entered the church door but which, through nervous manipulation, aged terribly in that first half hour.

He came early because he felt that he could not endure the thought of entering a crowded church and then suffered torment as one by one the congregation nodded to him or addressed him in sepulchral whispers. When, however, Grandma Wentworth sat down beside him and visited comfortably before services, and Nan Ainslee stopped to thank him for something or other he had done for her the week before, he felt better.

As soon as Jim Tumley began to sing and the minister to talk Hank forgot about himself and became absorbed in the proceedings. He told the minister later that he'd meant to keep an eye on things for him but that he got so interested he'd forgotten. About all that he had observed was that Mrs. Sloan passed her handkerchief a little too frequently and publicly to the little Sloans. Hank said he thought they were old enough to have handkerchiefs of their own. He also felt sure, he said, that Mrs. Osborn and Mrs. Pelham, Jr. were on the outs again, because of the fact that though Mrs. Pelham's switch was falling loose and Mrs. Osborn sitting right behind her saw it, she made no effort to repin it or tell the unfortunate woman about it. Hank further informed the minister that that second Crawley boy was a limb and closed his observations by asking the Reverend John Roger Churchill Knight if he didn't think Nanny Ainslee was the prettiest girl in church? Whereupon the minister promptly agreed with him.

That, then, was Hank Lolly's introduction to a proper and conventional religious life. Hank, as soon as he felt sure that he was going to survive the experience, became wonderfully interested and the next Sunday reappeared with Barney in tow. It seems that Barney also had been provided with a new suit and accessories and Hank had promptly demanded his presence in church.

"You ought to go once, Barney, if only to show the minister that you're rightly grateful to him for showing you about them there books and figures and a-pointing out your mistakes to you. And anyhow, if you don't go, you'll be hanging out in that there pool-room, and first thing you know you won't be decent and respectable and Billy'll have to fire you."

"What do you know about that there poolroom, Mr. Lolly?" demanded Barney.

"Never mind. I know what I know. You're trying to be smart and I'm surprised. I've heard of your kid doings in that place and I'm surprised, that's what I am. You don't see Billy Evans trying to make money in cute ways over night. No, sir! He does a day's work for a man and throws in a little for good measure before he takes a day's wages. And he don't do business behind closed doors and thick curtains, neither. So just you keep out of that there poolroom or I'll take you over to Doc Mitchell's and have every one of them there crooked teeth of yourn straightened out."

"All right, Mr. Lolly, I'll do just as you say and go to church. It ain't as hard as it sounds, that ain't. Because, honest, Hank, ain't that there minister a fine guy? He's as good, I believe, as Billy. He asked me to come on and be in his Sunday-school class and get in on some fun. And he says to wait until he gets his barn fixed; that he'll show us boys something. And I bet he will. Why, say, Hank, maybe he kin do all sorts of circus stunts. You know he's from India and that's where all the snake charmers and sword swallowers come from, ain't it?"

In this perfectly simple and artless fashion Cynthia's son went about the creation of his own special Sunday-school class and when he got through the result was startling. It was the largest and somebody said the weirdest Sunday-school class ever seen in Green Valley. Indeed, when Mr. James D. Austin, who was about the most respectable man in town, saw it he grew quite distressed and suddenly very tired.

He had tried, since the age of ten when he had formally and publicly joined the church on the very crest of a great religious wave, to do his part towards making and keeping the Green Valley church on a high spiritual plane. He felt at times that he was close to success and now here from the very ends of the earth came a boy to upset all his plans.

So Mr. Austin suddenly felt ill and old and he went to see Doc Philipps about a tonic. Doc Philipps, who could have been as good a lawyer as he was a doctor, asked a few questions about politics, religion and Mrs. Austin's lumbago and knew exactly what was the matter with James D. Austin. The next time he ran across Cynthia's son he hailed him.

"Look here, Knight, what you been doing to James D. lately? Been turning his nice little church all upside down, ain't you? Driven him right into a fearful case of grouch and an I-am-through-with-the-things-of-this-world attack, that's what you have."

Cynthia's son looked very soberly and very directly at his friend the doctor and turned on his heel.

"Doc, I'm going to see that poor man right now," said he and Doc Philipps, in telling Nan Ainslee about it afterwards, swore that not only the minister's two eyes but his very voice twinkled.

Cynthia's son found Mr. Austin in his proper and neat office. He went straight to the point.

"Mr. Austin, I've just heard that you were not feeling well, that you were seriously ill from overwork. I can readily believe that. You need rest and a change and freedom from wearisome responsibilities. I think I know just how you feel. Sort of tired and listless. Mother used to get that way in India. Even father used to say sometimes that things did every once in a while look mighty hopeless and useless, but that they'd look bright again after a week or two in the hills. So then we went off for a vacation. That's just what's the matter with you. You need a vacation. And in so far as I can I want to help you get one. You work too hard for the church. Keeping track of accounts and generally managing church matters is always a trying matter. Father always found it so.

"So I have been thinking of getting you an assistant, some one to look after things while you take a rest. Why, they tell me you have shouldered church responsibilities since you were a child."

"Yes," modestly admitted the most respectable Mr. Austin. "I have worked for the church these many years and I do need a vacation. But who is there to attend to these matters? I know of no one in Green Valley who could fill my place."

So in complacent, pathetic self-conceit said poor Mr. Austin. And he was utterly unprepared for what followed.

"Why," said Green Valley's new minister without so much as winking an eyelash, "I've been thinking of Seth Curtis for the place. I have been wondering just how I could interest Seth in his town church, how to make him see that its business is his business, and this is my opportunity. Seth, they tell me, is very good at figures. Somebody said that Seth could figure to live comfortably on nothing if he found he had to. Now most churches are perilously near the place where they have to live on nothing and so, if any one can steer our finances in an exact and careful manner, Seth can. And it is the only, absolutely the only way in which he can be interested."

"But," the horrified Mr. Austin found his voice at last, "Seth Curtis is impossible. Even if he joined the church he would be an unbeliever. I have heard him criticize churches. Why, it can't be thought of! Why, what would people say if you were to put a man like that right into church work? It would be sacrilege."

There was a little pause and when the minister spoke again there was the unmistakable ring of cool authority in his voice. Mr. Austin suddenly realized that he was speaking to his pastor, the Reverend John Roger Churchill Knight. And as Mr. Austin himself worshipped authority and always saw to it that in his little sphere his own slightest word was obeyed, he listened respectfully.

"I think, Mr. Austin, you are mistaken about Seth Curtis. Seth does not make fun of religion. He merely criticizes churches and their management. Seth is what in these times we call an efficiency expert. And it always makes such a man impatient to watch waste of money and effort.

"Seth must think well of the church for he sends his wife and children. And no sane man sends what is dearest to him to a place he does not approve of. Besides, Seth has a very high opinion of you, Mr. Austin."

Which of course had nothing to do with the case. Yet it may have been this irrelevant, human little touch that settled it. For after a little more talk Mr. Austin gave in and, figuratively speaking, turned his face to the wall and hoped to die. And the minister went off to persuade Seth Curtis that his church needed his services.

And that was not nearly as difficult a matter as Green Valley thought it was. For Seth had sense and a love of order and economy and the minister talked to all that was best and wisest in Seth. Though Seth's head was growing bald and Cynthia's son was just a youngster, yet the boy seemed to take Seth's heart right into the hollow of his hand and talk to it as no one but Seth's wife Ruth talked. So to the amazement of himself and family and all of Green Valley Seth Curtis went into the church for the very quality in his make-up that his neighbors were in the habit of ridiculing.

It was amazingly funny, Seth's conversion. But when Green Valley heard how the minister got acquainted with Frank Burton Green Valley laughed and laughed and forgot to eat its meals in telling and retelling it.

Frank Burton, besides being, according to his neighbors, a hopeless atheist, was unlike other Green Valley men in that he had to take a much earlier train to the city mornings and came home two trains later than the other men. Grandma Wentworth always said that it was that difference in Frank's train time that made him so bitter at times.

Frank did, however, have his Saturday afternoons and Sundays, and these he spent almost entirely with his chickens and garden and strange assortment of books. He was a man who did his own thinking, never gave advice, never took it and believed in all creatures tending strictly to their own affairs.

Every once in a while, perhaps from a sudden heart hunger, Frank would select from a whole townful of human beings some one soul for friendship. Frank never got acquainted accidentally. He picked out his few friends deliberately and loved them openly and forever.

Of course, Frank's oldest and dearest friend was Jim Tumley. People said they were born friends. Their mothers had been inseparable, the boys were born within a few days of each other and seemed to be marked with a passion of loyalty for one another. Only in their love for music were they alike however.

Frank was a big, square, burly man who went his way surely, confidently, though a little belligerently. Jim was little and fair and ever so gentle. There was never a harsh word in Jim's mouth or a bitter thought in his heart against the world that often bruised him because of his gentleness and frailty. Jim had had only one fight in his life.

When he and Frank were about twelve years old, strange to say, Jim was the taller and stronger. And it was then that Jim fought and vanquished a bully who for months had been making Frank miserable.

Frank never forgot that one fight of Jim's. He shot head and shoulders over his friend and filled out beyond all recognition and took his turn at fighting. And most of his battles then as now were over little Jim Tumley.

To Frank, Jim was the one great friend life had given him. To very many people in Green Valley Jim was just a gentle, frail little chap with a beautiful, golden voice and a miserably weak stomach.

When the new minister put Jim in the choir, Green Valley was mildly surprised though it quickly saw the common sense of the arrangement. But Frank Burton was for the first time, to Green Valley's certain knowledge, wholly pleased. And he showed his pleasure by never once saying one single, scathing, cynical thing, even when told that Seth Curtis was keeping the church books and getting religion on the side. And he could have said so much.

What he did say was that he wouldn't mind seeing this kid minister from India. For though months had passed since Cynthia's son arrived Frank had never seen him. His unfortunate train time and his home-staying habits kept him from meeting the newcomer. He pictured him as a rather immature, likable, enthusiastic young person whom it might not be a trial to meet once and then forget. And Frank made up his mind that if he ever ran into the boy he would be sincerely courteous to him in payment for his kindness to Jim. Then he promptly forgot everything in his plans for a new chicken house.

He was reading his favorite poultry journal on the train one night when the tall stranger accosted him. Frank didn't remember meeting the man, but the stranger seemed to know him, so without hardly knowing why or how Frank began to talk. And it was surprising how much the stranger knew about chickens, pheasants and wild game. Indeed, he knew so much that five stations from the city Frank was showing him diagrams of his new chicken house and explaining how anxious he was to get at it before the fall rains commenced but that he had so little time, only his Saturday afternoons and Sundays.

"Let me give you a hand then Saturday, Mr. Burton. I need outdoor work and I'd enjoy building a chicken house and neighboring properly with you Green Valley folks. You know I'm new to Green Valley and as long as I intend to spend the rest of my life here I've a lot to learn."

"Well, there are worse places than Green Valley," admitted Frank, thinking that the man must be the occupant of some one of the new bungalows that had gone up that spring and summer.

"Green Valley," continued Frank, "has its faults and its fools and bad spots here and there in the roads and entirely too much back-fence and street-corner gossip. But I've seen days here in Green Valley that just about melt all the meanness out of one, they're so fine; and moonlight so soft and pure and holy that you wouldn't mind dying in it. And Green Valley folks are ornery enough on top and when things are going smoothly for you. But just let there be a smash-up or a stroke of bad luck and their shells crack and humanness just oozes out of them. They're about as decent a lot as you'll find anywhere."

This, after a hard day and on an empty stomach, was a remarkable speech for Frank Burton. He was not much given to voicing his real feelings and showing his heart to light-hearted Green Valley and usually covered his deeper sentiments with a sturdy flow of fault-finding.

But there was something magnetic about the young stranger and to his own growing surprise Frank talked on and enjoyed doing it. The two men left the train together and parted at Martin's drug store with the understanding that if it didn't rain they would on the coming Saturday start on that chicken house.

And they did. Frank came home that evening in unusually fine spirits and asked his wife about the various new people. He told her of his meeting with the stranger who seemed to know him but whom he did not remember ever seeing before.

Jennie guessed him to be, "Mrs. Hamilton's husband. I've never seen him either but they say he's such a pleasant man. They're both Christian Scientists or something like that and she's ever so nice a woman. They've only been here a few months but everybody likes them."

"Well," spoke up Frank, still thinking of the pleasant passing of what was usually a tiresome train trip, "if Christian Science makes a man as likable and neighborly as that I, for one, approve of Christian Science. What did you say his name was—Hamilton?"

It was because Frank was so willing to let every man worship his God in his very own way that Green Valley, that is the religiously watchful part of it, had decided that Frank was an atheist. For, said these cautious children of God, "He who is willing to believe in all things believes in nothing."

But it wasn't religion that the two men talked that Saturday afternoon. The sun was warm, the lumber dry, the saws sharp and with the work going smoothly along there was plenty of time for talk, talk on all manner of subjects.

Frank's wife had gone over to Randall's to a special meeting of the sewing society. Not only were the women going to cut out and make up little aprons and dresses for the inmates of the nearest orphanage but they intended to discuss several new social problems that confronted Green Valley. The two most vital being "What do you make of that new saloon keeper and his wife?" and "What goes on behind those poolroom curtains, especially nights?"

Not that there was in Green Valley any interfering Civic League or any such thing as a Pure Morals Society. Green Valley had never had to resort to such measures. It had hitherto trusted human nature, Green Valley sunshine and neighborliness to do whatever work of social mending and reforming had to be done.

But something had happened to the big city to the east, some new mayor or some new civic force had stirred things up in that huge caldron of humanity and slopped it over so that it had begun to trickle away into such quiet little hollows as Green Valley. It trickled so slowly and was as yet so thin a stream that the little towns were hardly aware of it as yet.

Green Valley was only just beginning to itch and wiggle and search and wonder what the matter could be. It was the women, the mothers, who scented trouble first. The men were still placidly doing the same old Saturday afternoon tasks, mowing lawns, talking road improvements, swapping yarns and brands of tobacco or, like Frank Burton, doing various building jobs about their premises.

Frank and his helper were certainly enjoying themselves. When the skeleton of that hen house was half up Frank thought it was about time to call a halt for refreshments. He went to the ice-box and brought out a nice home-boiled ham, commandeered a golden loaf of fresh bread, searched about for pickles, mustard, preserves and butter. Then they sat down. And as he ate Frank again waxed talkative.

"I've heard people," he said, "both men and women, talk about marriage being slavery and a lottery and not worth the price folks have to pay for it. But I'm freer as a married man than ever I was single. Why, where I boarded before I married Jennie, you couldn't get a slice of bread and butter or a toothpick between meals even if you'd been a growing kid. And in those days I was always hungry. And I've always hated restaurants where food is cooked in tanks instead of nice little home kettles in a blue and white kitchen. And I hate restaurant dishes. There's never anything interesting about them. And most waitresses are discouraging sort of girls. I just kind of existed in those days.

"But ever since I've married Jennie I've lived. Jennie never talks much about what she's cooking. But she'll let you come in the kitchen and lift the kettle lids if you want to and poke around and never once let on that you're a nuisance. And she never gets angry if you dig into the fresh bread or crack the frosting on the new cake. So take it all in all I've always considered all this talk about married life being nothing but self-sacrifice just so much rot—why—hello, Sammy!"

This to a little overall-clad figure that was pressing itself insinuatingly against the back gate.

"Want to come in and help with the tools?" called Frank, well knowing that that jar of Jennie's preserves was perfectly visible from that back gate.

Sammy said hello and sure he'd come in and help, and did with remarkable speed. When he came up to the two men he looked shyly at Frank's assistant and said, "Hello! What are you doing around here?"

And the tall stranger laughed and said he was helping with the tools too.

And then Frank asked Sammy if his mother allowed him to eat between meals and Sammy said, "Oh, sure—I kin eat any time at all—it never hurts me." So Frank got him nicely started.

In no time at all however two other figures appeared and swung themselves up on the back fence. They sat quietly, at first waiting for some one to discover them. Both men had their backs to the fence now and Sammy, though perfectly aware of the new arrivals, was selfishly busy.

So presently two pair of bare feet began to swing harder and harder and a careless but piercing whistle began to challenge a selfish world's attention.

Frank winked at his helper and said nothing nor moved.

The whistle became shriller. And then came a sudden suspicious silence that evidently made Sammy a little uncomfortable. He knew just about what was coming.

"Hello—Pieface," came one gentle greeting.

"Hello—Dearie," chirped the owner of the second pair of bare feet.

"Look at Mother's Darling feeding his face!"

"Isn't he cunning! Isn't he cute!"

A third figure swung itself to the top of the fence.

"Don't fill your little tummy too full, Sammy dear," it contributed dutifully.

At the malice and scorn that fairly dripped from the words Sammy raised resentful eyes from his slice of bread and jam. Frank smiled hopefully.

"Oh, Frank, Sammy goes to Sunday-school he does."

"Every Sunday—don't ya, Sammy?"

"Bet he goes to Sunday-school just to sponge. Bet he's a grafter—bet he—"

But at this point Frank's helper turned about and faced the fence. And a strange thing happened. The three little figures sitting in a row gave one look, one shout of, "Holy gee—it's him!" and vanished as suddenly as they had come.

Frank laughed and then grew puzzled.

"Some friends of mine and Sammy's. I wonder what made the little imps bolt like that. They usually sit on that back fence till every bit of language is used up. Why, they hadn't got more than started and Sammy here hadn't even begun. What ailed you, Sammy?"

"Oh, I rather think I frightened them," said Frank's assistant. "But I think that before long they will feel enough at home with me to come and sit on my back fence."

Sammy was left to clear up while the men went back to work. Both hammers were merrily ringing when old man Vingie strolled by and stopped to visit. He went on presently but before he was out of sight Bill Trumbull and Old Peter Endby came up.

There was a worried look in Bill's large florid face and the light of utter unbelief in Peter's eye. They both laid their arms neighbor fashion along the fence and watched the toilers silently for a few seconds. Then Peter spoke up in grieved tones:

"Seems like you might have asked old neighbors to give you a hand, Frank. I had no notion you was in any such turrible hurry to start this here new chicken house of yourn. It don't look respectable or kindly, you acting that way, neglecting to tell old neighbors—"

"It's a slander on this here neighborhood, that's whot it is, Frank," Bill Trumbull complained. "Here's Peter and me both old-time carpenters, full of energy and advice and ripe years and experience, and you don't drop so much as a hint. Why, I remember the time when we put up barns with wooden pegs and durn good barns they were and are, for there's some of them still standing as strong as the day they were built. There's the Churchill barn. That's our work, Peter's and mine. Seems you've forgotten considerable, Frank. Why, your father wouldn't have thought of starting a chicken house without first talking it over with us."

When they had passed on, Bill supporting Peter's left elbow so's to case the rheumatism in his partner's left knee, Frank turned amazed eyes to his assistant.

"Now what in time," he wanted to know, "is the matter with those two precious old lunatics? Why, Pap Trumbull and Dad Endby are both over eighty. Dad's so twisted with rheumatism that he couldn't bend to pick up his pipe if he dropped it. And Pap's got asthma so bad that it's all he can do to draw his breath on the installment plan. Why, I've never consulted them in all my born days though I always let them come over and criticize my work to their heart's content. But something's eating them to-day."

"Perhaps they're surprised at seeing me, a comparative stranger here, helping you. They may even be a bit jealous, you know."

Frank's assistant volunteered this explanation wonderingly as if he too were puzzled about something.

"Well—it gets me," murmured Frank, then added under his breath, "well, by jinks—if here ain't old Knock-kneed Bailey and Shorty Collins going by. And they're looking this way. And by the Lord Harry—there's Curley Anderson. Why, Curley hasn't been over on this side of town since he sold that little house of his that he built all by himself, working nights, with nothing but an old saw and a second-hand hammer. His wife was left a fortune right after and made Curley sell and build her a cement block villa over on Broadway. She won't even let Curley walk down this way, though they say he hates her villa and just hankers for this little bit of a home he built himself here ten years ago.

"Well—by the holy smoke—look yonder! I'm seeing things to-day. Why there's Dudley Rivers and James D. Austin, that holy man, and he's actually bowing to me. Now what do you know about that? What's going on in this town to-day, anyhow? It must be something unusual to bring out a crowd like that."

Frank's lower jaw suddenly dropped. Sudden suspicion leaped into his gray-blue eyes. He turned to the man who all afternoon had been helping him build his chicken house.

"Say—who in hell—are you anyhow?"

And Cynthia's son mopped his thick hair and looked as suddenly dumfounded. After that he grinned.

"For pity sakes—don't you know me? Why, you were pointed out to me the very second week I came as the town atheist. I supposed of course I had been pointed out to you. I'm Cynthia Churchill's son. I buried father and mother in India and then came home, as they wanted me to. And I'm glad I came. It's home and these Green Valley folks are my people. They have made me feel welcome. I supposed everybody knew me from seeing me about town."

For a long while Frank said nothing. With the explanation his momentary anger and amazement died away. He was remembering, remembering Cynthia Churchill. Why, he remembered as though it was yesterday that when she was twenty he was ten. And he had loved her because she had once helped him to tie up his pet chicken's broken leg.

And so this tall big chap with the glad eyes was Cynthia's son! Years ago the mother had tied up his pet hen's leg. And to-day her son had helped him build his most pretentious hen house.

"No," said Frank at last, "I didn't know you were the chap from India. I thought you belonged up in one of those new bungalows. Of course, that accounts for the crowd. Why, we've been making history here in this back yard this afternoon. The atheist and the preacher building a chicken coop! Oh, say, John, Green Valley will be talking about this fifty years from now. Let's have some buttermilk. This thing has just about knocked me over."

When they had had two glasses apiece Frank again inspected his assistant.

"But say—do ministers in India do such darn common things as building chicken houses? I can't remember ever seeing a minister mixing so carelessly with us low-down sinners or standing around in public with his sleeves rolled up and his frock coat off. Aren't you a queer breed of parson?"

"Maybe," Cynthia's son admitted, "but so was father. He could help bring a baby into the world, could wash and dress it, cure it if it was sick, bury it if it died. He could teach a woman how to cook a meal and cut out a dress. He knew how to heal a horse's sore back and how to help a man get over needing whisky. He used to brush my mother's hair nights when her head ached and make whistles for me and tell the little brown children stories, study the stars with the old men and coax the women into using his medicines instead of their charms."

"For heaven's sake! When did your father get time to talk religion?" wondered Frank.

"Oh, he never talked religion much. He just sort of lived and neighbored with his people and just laughed most of the time at mother and me. He was always busy and never took care of himself. Just before he died he explained things to me. He said:

"'Son, I came out of the West to bring a message to the East. You go back to the West with a message from the Orient. Tell them back home there that hearts are all alike the world over. And that we all, white men, black men, yellow men and brown men, are playing the very same game for the very same stakes and that somehow, through ways devious and incomprehensible, through honesty and faith, failure and perseverance, we find at last the great content, the peace that passeth understanding.'

"So I have come home to preach that. But I haven't had time as yet to do much. I've been getting up a Sunday-school class and getting Seth Curtis interested in the church finances and getting acquainted with Hank Lolly and Mrs. Rosenwinkle and—atheists."

"Yes—and among other things you've put Jim into the choir."

"Oh, that was easy—just common sense. It's going to be ever so much harder though to get at Jim Tumley's generous friends and convince them that Jim's stomach won't stand their friendly donations.

"I don't know how I'm going to show them that if they love him they must protect him from themselves. It's going to be hard work. But he's worth saving, that little man with the lark's voice and the gentle heart."

When Jennie, hearing the news, hurried home from the other end of town, really frightened for the first time in her married life, the young minister was gone and Frank was sitting out on the back porch staring at nothing.

"Frank," Jennie began breathlessly, "is he gone?"

"Yes—he's gone."

"Frank—you—I hope you didn't get mad at him. He's different—not like other ministers—and he's really a boy in some things."

"Jennie," and Frank reassured her, "you're darn right that boy is different. He's so darn different from all the rest of them I've met that I'm going to church next Sunday. James D. and Dudley and others of that stripe will probably die of shock but just you press your best dress, Jennie, for we're surely going. Why that man's no minister. Don't slander him. He's a human being."

Jennie's eyes grew a bit misty, for with no babies to love, Frank was her all in all and her one great sorrow was that so few people knew the real Frank.

"And come to think of it, Jennie," Frank mused, "you weren't so far wrong in thinking that it was a Christian Scientist who was coming. I guess that's just about what he is—a Christian scientist."



CHAPTER XII

THE PATH OF TRUE LOVE

Nanny was cross. She had lost her bubbling merriment and her family wondered.

"Sis, I believe you will be an old maid, all right. I'm beginning to see the signs already," her brother lazily told her one day when to some innocent remark of his she made a snapping answer.

Mr. Ainslee laughed.

"You aren't reading the signs correctly, Son," he said. "Nan's crossness can be interpreted another way. It's my private opinion that Nanny's in love."

Whereupon Mr. Ainslee dodged for he fully expected that Nanny would hurl a pillow his way. But Nanny didn't. She turned a little white, caught her breath a little hurriedly and then stood looking quietly at the two men. When she left the room her father was a little worried and her brother a little uncomfortable.

"I guess we'd better let up on the teasing, Dad," the boy suggested in the serious, soft voice that had been his mother's, the mother who had never teased.

"I wouldn't hurt Nanny for the world," penitently murmured Mr. Ainslee. "I had no idea—oh, Son," he suddenly groaned, "I wish your mother was here to look after us all."

And the great diplomat who was known and welcomed at the courts of great nations was suddenly only a plain man, crying out his heart's need of the loved woman he had lost so many years ago.

And because the boy was the son of the woman for whom his father grieved he knew how to sympathize and comfort the man.

"I've missed her too—lots of times—even though, Dad, you've been the most wonderful father two kids ever had."

The man stared out into the sunny world outside the windows and all unashamed let the tears fill his fine eyes.

The boy, seeing those tears, all at once remembered now many times, when he was an unheeding youngster, he had seen this same father sitting at the departed mother's desk with his head pillowed in his arms.

"Dad," the boy's awed voice questioned, "is love a thing as big and terrible and lasting as that?"

The man wiped his eyes and smiled.

"Yes, Son, love is as wonderful and lasting and in a way as terrible as that. It was wrong of me to tease Nanny. But I have been worried about my motherless girl. I'd like to see her happily settled. Somehow I've never worried about you."

"No," and the boy smiled an odd little smile that showed just how he had missed a mother's petting, "it's always mothers that worry about the boys, isn't it?"

At this second revelation and blunder Mr. Ainslee was so startled that he forgot to go in search of Nanny.

As a matter of fact Nanny had left the house. She wanted to go to the knoll and think over carefully certain matters that had been puzzling her of late. But she dared not go to the grove on the hilltop. For only half an hour before she had seen Green Valley's young minister walking up to her old seat under the oaks. Perhaps if her father had not said what he did—Nanny frowned impatiently, then sighed and walked down the road to Grandma Wentworth's. She told herself that she was going down to visit Grandma and tell her the week's news. But she was really going to find heartease and because at Grandma's she would hear oftenest the name that now had the power to quicken her heart beats and bring her a pain that was strangely edged with joy.

Grandma was weeding her seed onions and very sensibly let Nanny help. Nanny's fingers flew in and out and because she dared not tell her own heart troubles she told Grandma about Jocelyn and David and the foolish bit of gossip that had come between them.

"I think, Grandma, somebody ought to do something about it. Can't you—"

Grandma shook her head.

"Nanny," Grandma mourned, "I'm afraid to meddle in things like that. Love is a wonderful strange thing for which there are no rules. And the hearts of men and women must all have their share of sorrow. For it's only through pain and endless blunders that we human folks ever learn. I've seen strange love history in this town and lots of it. And I've learned one thing and that is that each heart wants to do its loving in its own way without help or hindrance from the rest of the world. So we'd best say nothing and let David and Jocelyn find a way out of their trouble and misunderstanding."

But Nanny, with all the impatience of youth, rebelled.

"It's foolish," she stormed, "when just a dozen frank words would straighten it out."

"Yes—a dozen words would do it," sighed Grandma, "But think, Nanny, what it would cost David to say those dozen words—or Jocelyn."

"Conventions are foolish. Honesty is better."

"Yes, honesty is always best. But truth is something that lovers find hardest to manage and listen to. And you know, Nanny, even a happy love means a certain amount of sorrow."

"Does it?" the girl wondered.

"Yes," said Grandma softly, "it does, as I and many another woman can testify. I'm only hoping that a love great and fine will come to Cynthia's boy and that it won't cost him too much."

"Why," asked Nanny carelessly, "should life be easier and richer for him?"

"Because long before he was born his mother paid for his birthright and happiness with part of her own, and if God is just and life fair then her courage and sorrow ought to count for something and her loss be his gain."

"Hadn't you better tell me the whole story, Grandma?" begged Nan.

"It isn't exactly all mine to tell. But some day I dare say I shall."

Grandma rose and glanced mischievously at the girl.

"Nanny, I'll tell you the day you come to me and tell me you're in love. Not engaged, you understand, but in love."

Again Nanny whitened and caught her breath and then looked quietly at Grandma in a way that made the dear old soul say hurriedly:

"There, there, child, I didn't mean to meddle or hurt."

To herself she added, "We're all blundering fools at times. And why is it that youth always thinks that all the world is blind and stupid?"

Grandma's penitent mind then recalled the box of pictures that Cynthia's son had brought down to show her the night before. It still stood on the living-room table. So the wise and tender soul sent Nanny in to fetch it.

They sat on the back steps and looked at pictures of Cynthia in her far-away home in India. There were pictures of her husband and the brown babies and of their neighbors. But mostly the pictures were of a boy, a drolly solemn little fellow. Nanny exclaimed again and again over these and the one of the boy holding a pet hen in his arms she fairly devoured.

"What a darling kiddy he was," she laughed tenderly. "No wonder his mother loved him so."

"He ought to be a fine boy. His mother paid a big price for him," Grandma told her.

But Nanny didn't hear. She had just discovered that there were two of those boy and hen pictures and she wondered if—

Just then Grandma spied a hen in her lavender bed and went off to shoo her out. And while her back was so providentially turned Nanny Ainslee, an honorable, world-famous diplomat's only daughter, coolly and deliberately tucked the picture of a little boy and his pet hen down into the bosom of her gown.

Shortly after Nanny said she guessed she'd have to be going, that it was getting late and that she had had an argument with her father just before she came and had been short an answer. But that she had just this minute thought of something to say.

Grandma let her go without a word because she thought that, like herself, the girl had seen Cynthia's boy coming down the hill and wished with girlish shyness to be out of the house when he came. But Nanny had not seen him, had not been watching the roads, so taken was she with her guilty secret. Her surprise when she almost ran into him was genuine enough.

His face lighted at sight of her.

"I spent the afternoon up on the hill. I thought maybe I should find you there. It was rather lonesome."

He had evidently forgotten and forgiven her rudeness on the hilltop that day when they had been up there together. Nanny was suddenly so happy and confused that she could think of nothing to say except to make the formal little confession:

"I have been visiting Grandma Wentworth and looking at pictures of you. You were a mighty nice little boy in those days."

The new softness in her words made him look at her wistfully for a second but the hint of laughter that went with it made him cautious. This lovely, laughing girl had hurt him several times and had laughed at him. He meant to be careful. So he said gravely and politely:

"Did you see the pictures of my mother?"

"Yes. She must have been a wonderful and an adorable mother."

That made him happy. He wanted very much to turn and walk back with her, this girl whose presence always brought him such pleasure. But she had forbidden him to do this. It seemed that in his home land women were wonderfully independent creatures.