Divided between these two inclinations, she gazed at Julia now; the shining eyes of the deacon's daughter conquered, and she launched forth into an eager description of how she had just seen a "wondeful striped anamule" with a "pow'ful long neck walk right out of the tent," and how he had "come apart afore her very eyes," and two men had slipped "right out a' his insides." Mandy was so carried away by her own eloquence and so busy showing Julia the sights beyond the window, that she did not hear Miss Perkins, the thin-lipped spinster, who entered, followed by the Widow Willoughby dragging her seven-year-old son Willie by the hand.

The women were protesting because their choir practice of "What Shall the Harvest Be?" had been interrupted by the unrequested acompaniment{sic} of the "hoochie coochie" from the nearby circus band.

"It's scandalous!" Miss Perkins snapped. "Scandalous! And SOMEBODY ought to stop it." She glanced about with an unmistakable air of grievance at the closed doors, feeling that the pastor was undoubtedly behind one of them, when he ought to be out taking action against the things that her soul abominated.

"Well, I'm sure I'VE done all that _I_ could," piped the widow, with a meek, martyred air. She was always martyred. She considered it an appropriate att.i.tude for a widow. "He can't blame ME if the choir is out of key to-morrow." "Mercy me!" interrupted the spinster, "if there isn't Julia Strong a-leaning right out of that window a-looking at the circus, and her pa a deacon of the church, and this the house of the pastor.

It's shocking! I must go to her."

"Ma, let me see, too," begged Willie, as he tugged at his mother's skirts.

Mrs. Willoughby hesitated. Miss Perkins was certainly taking a long while for her argument with Julia. The glow from the red powder outside the window was positively alarming.

"Dear me!" she said, "I wonder if there can be a fire." And with this pretext for investigation, she, too, joined the little group at the window.

A few moments later when Douglas entered for a fresh supply of paper, the backs of the company were toward him. He crossed to the study table without disturbing his visitors, and smiled to himself at the eager way in which they were hanging out of the window.

Douglas was a st.u.r.dy young man of eight and twenty, frank and boyish in manner, confident and light-hearted in spirit. He had seemed too young to the deacons when he was appointed to their church, and his keen enjoyment of outdoor games and other healthful sports robbed him of a certain dignity in their eyes. Some of the women of the congregation had been inclined to side with the deacons, for it hurt their vanity that the pastor found so many other interests when he might have been sitting in dark, stuffy rooms discussing theology with them; but Douglas had been either unconscious of or indifferent to their resentment, and had gone on his way with a cheery nod and an unconquerable conviction of right, that had only left them floundering. He intended to quit the room now unnoticed, but was unfortunate enough to upset a chair as he turned from the table. This brought a chorus of exclamations from the women, who chattering rushed quickly toward him.

"What do you think of my naughty boy, Willie?" simpered the widow. "He dragged me quite to the window."

Douglas glanced amusedly first at the five-foot-six widow and then at the helpless, red-haired urchin by her side, but he made no comment beyond offering a chair to each of the women.

"Our choir practice had to be entirely discontinued," declared Miss Perkins sourly, as she accepted the proffered chair, adjusted her skirts for a stay, and glanced defiantly at the parson, who had dutifully seated himself near the table.

"I am sure _I_ have as true an ear as anybody," whimpered the widow, with an injured air; "but I defy ANY ONE to lead 'What Shall the Harvest Be?' to an accompaniment like THAT." She jerked her hand in the direction of the window. The band was again playing the "hoochie coochie."

"Never mind about the choir practice," said Douglas, with a smile. "It is SOUL not SKILL that our congregation needs in its music. As for that music out there, it is NOT without its compensations. Why, the small boys would rather hear that band than the finest church organ in the world."

"And the SMALL BOYS would rather see the circus than to hear you preach, most likely," snapped Miss Perkins. It was adding insult to injury for him to try to CONSOLE her.

"Of course they would; and so would some of the grown-ups if they'd only tell the truth about it," said Douglas, laughing.

"What!" exclaimed Miss Perkins.

"Why not?" asked Douglas. "I am sure I don't know what they do inside the tents, but the parade looked very promising."

"The PARADE!" the two women echoed in one breath. "Did YOU see the parade?"

"Yes, indeed," said Douglas, enthusiastically. "But it didn't compare with the one I saw at the age of eight." He turned his head to one side and looked into s.p.a.ce with a reminiscent smile. The widow's red-haired boy crept close to him.

"The Shetland ponies seemed as small as mice," he continued, dreamily, "the elephants huge as mountains, the great calliope wafted my soul to the very skies, and I followed that parade right into the circus lot."

"Did you seed inside de tent?" Willie asked, eagerly.

"I didn't have enough money for that," Douglas answered, frankly.

He turned to the small boy and pinched his ear. There was sad disappointment in the youngster's face, but he brightened again, when the parson confessed that he "peeped."

"A parson peeping!" cried the thin-lipped Miss Perkins.

"I was not a parson then," corrected Douglas, good-naturedly.

"You were GOING to be," persisted the spinster.

"I had to be a boy first, in spite of that fact."

The sudden appearance of Hasty proved a diversion. He was looking very sheepish.

"Hyar he is, Mars John; look at him!" said Mandy.

"Hasty, where have you been all day?" demanded Douglas, severely.

Hasty fumbled with his hat and sparred for time. "Did yo' say whar's I been, sah?"

"Dat's what he done ast yo'," Mandy prompted, threateningly.

"I bin 'ceived, Mars John," declared Hasty, solemnly. Mandy snorted incredulously. Douglas waited.

"A gemmen in de circus done tole me dis mawnin' dat ef I carry water fo' de el'phants, he'll let me in de circus fo' nuffin', an' I make a 'greement wid him. Mars John, did yo' ebber seed an' el'phant drink?" he asked, rolling his eyes. John shook his head.

"Well, sah, he jes' put dat trunk a'his'n into de pail, jes' once an--swish--water gone."

Douglas laughed; and Mandy muttered, sullenly.

"Well, sah," continued Hasty, "I tote water fo' dem el'phants all day long, an' when I c.u.m roun' to see de circus, de gemmen won't let me in.

An' when I try to crawl under de tent, dey pulls me out by de laigs an'

beats me." He looked from one to the other expecting sympathy.

"Serves you right," was Mandy's unfeeling reply. "If yo's so anxious to be a-totin' water, jes' yo' come along outside and tote some fo' Mandy."

"I can't do no mo' carryin', Mandy," protested Hasty. "I'se hurted in mah arm."

"What hurt yo'?"

"Tiger."

"A tiger?" exclaimed the women in unison.

"Done chawed it mos' off," he declared, solemnly. "Deacon Elverson, he seed it, an' he says I's hurt bad."

"Deacon Elverson?" cried the spinster. "Was Deacon Elverson at the circus?"

"He was in de lot, a-tryin' to look in, same as me," Hasty answered, innocently.

"You'd better take Hasty into the kitchen," said Douglas to Mandy, with a dry smile; "he's talking too much for a wounded man."

Mandy disappeared with the disgraced Hasty, advising him with fine scorn "to get de tiger to chew off his laigs, so's he wouldn't have to walk no mo'."

The women gazed at each other with lips closed tightly. Elverson's behaviour was beyond their power of expression. Miss Perkins turned to the pastor, as though he were somehow to blame for the deacon's backsliding, but before she could find words to argue the point, the timid little deacon appeared in the doorway, utterly unconscious of the hostile reception that Hasty had prepared for him. He glanced nervously from one set face to the other, then coughed behind his hat.