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“Land sakes, I hope there won’t be!” exclaimed Mrs. Sargent. “An’ the Elder never said much of anything either, though he was always preachin’! Now your husband, Mis’ Baxter, always has plenty to say after you think he’s all through. There’s water in his well when the others is all dry!”

“But how about the pews?” interrupted Mrs. Burbank. “I think Nancy’s idea is splendid, and I want to see it carried out. We might make it a picnic, bring our luncheons, and work all together; let every woman in the congregation come and scrub her own pew.”

“Some are too old, others live at too great a distance,” and the minister’s wife sighed a little; “indeed, most of those who once owned the pews or sat in them seemed to be dead, or gone away to live in busier places.”

“I’ve no patience with ’em, gallivantin’ over the earth,” and here Lobelia rose and shook the carpet threads from her lap. “I shouldn’t want to live in a livelier place than Edgewood, seem’s though! We wash and hang out Mondays, iron Tuesdays, cook Wednesdays, clean house and mend Thursdays and Fridays, bake Saturdays, and go to meetin’ Sundays. I don’t hardly see how they can do any more ‘n that in Chicago!”

“Never mind if we have lost members!” said the indomitable Mrs. Burbank. “The members we still have left must work all the harder. We’ll each clean our own pew, then take a few of our neighbours’, and then hire Mrs. Simpson to do the wainscoting and floor. Can we scrub Friday and lay the carpet Saturday? My husband and Deacon Miller can help us at the end of the week. All in favour manifest it by the usual sign. Contrary minded? It is a vote.”

There never were any contrary minded when Mrs. Jere Burbank was in the chair. Public sentiment in Edgewood was swayed by the Dorcas Society, but Mrs. Burbank swayed the Dorcases themselves as the wind sways the wheat.

CHAPTER II

The old Meeting House wore an animated aspect when the eventful Friday came, a cold, brilliant, sparkling December day, with good sleighing, and with energy in every breath that swept over the dazzling snowfields. The sexton had built a fire in the furnace on the way to his morning work–a fire so economically contrived that it would last exactly the four or five necessary hours, and not a second more. At eleven o’clock all the pillars of the society had assembled, having finished their own household work and laid out on their respective kitchen tables comfortable luncheons for the men of the family, if they were fortunate enough to number any among their luxuries. Water was heated upon oil-stoves set about here and there, and there was a brave array of scrubbing-brushes, cloths, soap, and even sand and soda, for it had been decided and manifested-by-the-usual-sign-and-no-contrary-minded-and-it-was-a-vote that the dirt was to come off, whether the paint came with it or not. Each of the fifteen women present selected a block of seats, preferably one in which her own was situated, and all fell busily to work.

“There is nobody here to clean the right-wing pews,” said Nancy Wentworth, “so I will take those for my share.”

“You’re not making a very wise choice, Nancy,” and the minister’s wife smiled as she spoke. “The infant class of the Sunday-school sits there, you know, and I expect the paint has had extra wear and tear. Families don’t seem to occupy those pews regularly nowadays.”

“I can remember when every seat in the whole church was filled, wings an’ all,” mused Mrs. Sargent, wringing out her wascloth in a reminiscent mood. “The one in front o’ you, Nancy, was always called the ‘deef pew’ in the old times, and all the folks that was hard o’ hearin’ used to congregate there.”

“The next pew hasn’t been occupied since I came here,” said the minister’s wife.