Part 4 (2/2)

The two boys gazed at each other silently. It was too much for Kent, though, and, to suppress a laugh, he stuffed his handkerchief in his mouth.

Kent pointed to Old Tilly and smiled broadly.

”He promised mother he'd take us to meeting,” he whispered, ”and he's done it!”

”Yes, but she wouldn't like to see him asleep in church!” Jot whispered hack.

Below them the minister's deep voice tolled on solemnly. They could not catch all the words.

”Come on! I'm going to sit up like folks. I want to hear what he's saying,” Jot whispered after awhile.

They smoothed their hair and tried to straighten collars and ties, and then suddenly some of the people down below in the body of the church glanced up and saw two boyish faces, side by side, in the gallery. The puzzle was beyond unraveling. The women prodded each other gently with their parasol tips and raised their eyebrows. The men looked blank.

When had those youngsters got up there in that pew? One of the deacons scowled a little, but the two quiet brown faces allayed his suspicions.

It wasn't mischief--it was mystery.

The sight that had met Jot's astonished eyes in the beginning was a quaint one. This was a new kind of a church! At home there were rows upon rows of red-cus.h.i.+oned seats, with the hymn books and fans in the racks making the only break to the monotony. Here the pews were all little square rooms with high part.i.tions and doors. The hard board seats ran 'way round them all, so that in some of them people were sitting directly ”back to” the minister! Rows on rows of the little rooms, like cells, jutted against each other and filled up the entire s.p.a.ce below save the aisles and the pulpit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: This was a new kind of church.]

And the pulpit! Jot's eyes returned to it constantly in wondering admiration. There was a steep flight of stairs leading up to it on each side, and an enormous umbrella-like sounding-board was poised heavily above it. The pulpit itself was round and tail and hung above the heads of the congregation, making the practice of looking up at the good old minister a neck-aching process. Directly beneath the pulpit was a seat facing the people. It was empty now, but a hundred years ago, had the lads but known it, the deacons had sat there and the ”t.i.thing-man,”

whose duty it was to go about waking up the dozers with his long wand.

It was called the Deacon's Seat, and if sometimes the deacons themselves had dropped off into peaceful naps--what then? Did the ”t.i.thing-man”

nudge them sharply with his stick, or was he dozing, too?

There are still a few of these old landmarks left in the country. Now and then we run across them and get a distinct flavor of old times, and it is worth going a good many miles to see the inside of one of them.

By just shutting one's eyes and ”making believe” a little, how easy it would be to conjure up our dear old grandmothers in their great scoop bonnets, and grandfathers with their high coat collars coming nearly to their bald crowns! And the Deacon's Seat under the pulpit--how easy to make believe the deacons in claw-hammer coats and queer frilled s.h.i.+rt bosoms!

The people Jot and Kent saw were ordinary, modern people, and their modern clothes looked oddly out of date against the quaint old setting.

Jot thought with a twinge of sympathy how hard the seats must feel, and how shoulders must ache against the perfectly straight-up-and-down backs. He felt a sudden pity for his great-grandmother and great-uncles and aunts.

This especial old church, box-like and unchurchly without and ancient within, was rarely used for wors.h.i.+p except in the summer months. Then there were services in it as often as a minister could be found to conduct them. The three young adventurers had stumbled upon it in the dark and overslept out of sheer physical weariness. It was up in one of the old choir pews in the high gallery they had wakened--or Jot had wakened--to the strains of the beautiful hymn his mother loved.

The whole explanation was simple enough when it was explained. Kent and Jot worked it out slowly in their own minds.

Meanwhile Old Tilly slept on, and the sermon came to an end. There was another hymn and then the benediction. The people dispersed slowly, and once more the big house was deserted.

Then Jot woke Old Tilly. ”I say,” he cried, ”I say, old fellow, wake up!”

”Yes, I'm coming in a minute!” muttered Old Tilly.

”You'll be late for church,” remarked Kent dryly, with a wink at Jot.

Old Tilly stirred and rose on his elbow. Then he gave a bewildered look around him.

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