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“Asey,” responded Tomlinson quickly, “I guess you weren’t the only one that’s made a mistake.” And he held out his hand.

Fraser grasped it. With his other hand he raised his handkerchief and blew his nose once more, violently–and finally. From this point the smile in his eyes usurped the place of the moisture which had bothered him so unwontedly, and put it quite to rout.

If you imagine that this little drama had escaped the attention of the departing congregation, headed the other way, you are much mistaken. The congregation was not headed the other way. From the moment when Burnett, Fraser and Tomlinson had started toward the pulpit, the congregation, to a man, had paused, and was staring directly toward them. It continued to stare, up to the moment when the handshaking took place. But then–eyes turned and met other eyes. Hearts beat fast, lips trembled, feet moved. Unquestionably something had happened to the people of North Estabrook.

Do you know how sometimes the ice goes out of a river? From shore to shore it has been frozen, cold and hard. For many months it has grown solid, deepening and thickening until it seems as if there could be no life left beneath. Then, at last, comes sunshine and rain and warmth. The huge mass looks as impenetrable as ever, but all at once, some day–crack!–the first thin, dark line spreads across the surface. Then–crack, crack!—crack, crack!–in every direction the ice is breaking up. Look quickly, now, if you would see that frozen surface stretching seamless between shore and shore–for suddenly dark lanes of water open up, which widen while you watch–and soon, incredibly soon, the river has burst its bonds and is rushing freely once more between its banks, with only the ever-diminishing blocks of melting ice upon its surface to tell the story of its long imprisonment.

Even so, on that memorable Christmas night, did the ice in the North Estabrook church break up. Crack!–George Tomlinson and Asa Fraser, old friends but sworn foes, had shaken hands. Crack! Mrs. Tomlinson and Mrs. Fraser, tears running frankly down their cheeks, had followed the example of their husbands–and glad enough to do it, for their homes lay side by side, and each had had a hard time of it getting along without the other. Miss Jane Pollock, seeing Mrs. Maria Hill’s fruitless search for her handkerchief, had long since drawn out one of her own–she always carried two–and had held it in her hand, ready to offer it, if she could just get to the point. But when she saw, upon the pulpit platform, those two gripping hands, somehow she suddenly reached the point. Crack! –With no difficulty whatever Miss Pollock slipped the handkerchief into Mrs. Hill’s hand, whispering commiseratingly: “I presume you’ve got one somewhere, Maria, but you just can’t lay your hand on it. Don’t take the trouble to return it–it isn’t of any value.”

And Mrs. Hill, accepting the handkerchief, wiped away the unmanageable tears, and turning round answered fervently; “I guess I will return it, Jane, if it’s only so’s to come to your house again–if you’ll let me in, after all I’ve said.”

Even as they smiled, shamefacedly but happily, at each other, similar scenes were being enacted. All about them spread the breaking ice. Incredible, that it should happen in a night? Not so. The forces of Nature are mighty, but they are as weakness beside the spiritual forces of Nature’s God.

XI

“Well, Billy Sewall, have you taken your young friend home and put him to bed?”

The questioner was Ralph Fernald, sitting with the rest of the family–or those members of it who were not still attending to the wants of little children–before the fireplace, talking things over. They had been there for nearly an hour, since the service, but Sewall had only just come in.

“I’ve taken him home,” Sewall replied. “But there was no putting him to bed. I think he’ll sit up till morning–too happy to sleep, the fine old man.”