Part 35 (2/2)

He looked rather disconcerted a moment, and then grinned, though sheepishly.

”Heat makes other people sleepy too,” he said defensively.

I chaffed him a little, and told him I should send a couple of loads of wood to the vestry, and that if it were necessary I would give him a bottle of smelling-salts to keep him awake, but certainly the room must be warmer. I declared I would not have dear old lady Andrews exposed to the danger of pneumonia, even if he was like a kitten. It is really quite as touching as it is absurd to think of his sitting in prayer-meeting s.h.i.+vering and uncomfortable because he feels it his duty to keep awake. In biblical times dancing before the Lord was a legitimate form of wors.h.i.+p; it is almost a pity that sleeping before the Lord cannot be put among proper religious observances. Dear Miss Charlotte always sleeps--devoutly, I am sure--at every prayer-meeting, and then comes out declaring it has been a beautiful meeting. I have no doubt she has been spiritually refreshed, even if she has nodded. Father used to say that no religion could be permanent until men were able to give their deity a sense of humor; and I do think a supreme being which could not see the humorous side of Deacon Richards' pathetic mortification of the flesh in his frosty vestry could hardly have the qualifications necessary to manage the universe properly.

October 12. Ranny Gargan has settled the question of marriage for the present at least. He has remarried his first wife to prevent her from bringing suit against him. As Miss Charlotte rather boldly said, he has legitimized the beating by marrying the woman.

Rosa takes the matter coolly. She says she is glad to have things so she can't think of Ranny, for now she can take Dennis, and not bother any more about it.

”It's a comfort to any woman not to have to decide what man she'll marry,” she remarked with her amazing philosophy.

”Then you'd like to have somebody arrange a marriage for you, Rosa,” I said, rather for the sake of saying something.

”Arrange, is it?” she cried, bristling up suddenly. ”What for would I have somebody making my marriage? I'd like to see anybody that would dare!”

The moral of which seems to be that if Rosa is so much of a philosopher that she sometimes seems to me to be talking sc.r.a.ps out of old heathen sages, she is yet only a woman.

October 20. Aunt Naomi had about her when she came stealthily in this afternoon an air of excitement so evident as almost to be contagious. I could see by the very hurry of her sliding step and the extra tightness of her veil that something had stirred her greatly.

”What is it, Aunt Naomi?” I asked at once. ”You fairly bristle with news. What's happened?”

She smiled and gave a little cluck, but my salutation made her instantly moderate her movements. She sat down with a composed and self-contained air, and only by the unusually vigorous swinging of her foot showed that she was not as serene as on ordinary occasions.

”Who said anything had happened?” she demanded.

I returned that she showed it by her looks.

”Something is always happening, I suppose.”

I know Aunt Naomi well enough to understand that the quickest way of coming at her tidings was to pretend indifference, so I asked no more questions, but made a careless remark about the weather.

”What made you think anything had happened?” persisted she.

”It was simply an idea that came into my head,” was my reply. ”I hope Deacon Daniel keeps the vestry warm in these days.”

Aunt Naomi was not proof against this parade of indifference, and in a moment she broke out with her story.

”Well,” she declared, ”Tom Webbe seems bound to be talked about.”

”Tom Webbe!” I echoed. ”What is it now?”

I confess my heart sank with the fear that he had become desperate with the pressure of weary days, and had somehow defied all the narrow conventionalities which hem him in here in this little town.

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