Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-14

81 hate to have nothing but cedar-this
hard winter has made II so red and
fuzzy" Mrs Gray said regretfully, looking
at the prickly twig she held. Still there
seems to be nothing else. Easter falls just
too late for the plum blooms-the rain last
night washed them all ragged And the
pear and peach trees are just fairly budded
and not even a jonquil blooming in the
garden"
1t beats me clean and clear" Mrs.
Murdoch returned discontentedly, why the
good LORD should send us this late cold
season. I've heard ever since l was knee
high to a grasshOpper: Early Easter,
early spring Still l can't say as I mind
about the blooms you've named over. l
amt deceitful to man-why should I try
ter be ter my God? And l know He knows
fruits amt the same as flowers, however
you may talk about 1t. Don't you agree He
oughter have always the very best we can
giye?'
surely" Mrs. Gray said. making a faint
sigh with lambert smile.
The set Of Mrs. Murdoch's mouth was
portentious-by 1t she knew some daring
thought lowered in that lady's mind. But
for little while it was left unspoken, Mrs.
Murdoch rambling on: Il amt for denyin'
the chapel looked pretty. all right, lined
and punched up with dogwood blooms, the
way you would have it last year-but l told
Mist Murdoch then, and 1 think so yet it
put folks so much in mind of the bush
arbor at a Methodist big meetin' my con-
science wouldn't never let me help you do
II again. And Mist Murdoch said l was
right-for putin religion all aside, only
think of the nail holes you made tackin'
up them big boughs. Everybody knows
sweat-bees air shore to find some of them
holes and creep in through EN- to destroy
II 10 - 4 ~
upbuild."
20 l hope not. 1 can't think the nails
did real harm. They were small-sO small
] can't see mark" Mrs. Gray answered.
her transparent face flushing as she
scanned the church walls.
They were log walls, of fine straight yell
low poplar timbers hewn to a smooth face,
carefully laid up, and the cracks between
pointed neatly with mortar almost match
ing the wood color. They supported hewn
poplar rafters of almost gothic pitch, which
came out between ceiling panels of narrow
matched poplar boards. No profaning
brush had touched the wood Every year
i got softer, richer, mellower, in tone.
Yet it was Mrs. Murdoch's plan to get the
sdiflce weather-boarded without painted
within. She liked TO have things finished,
she subsequently, churches. 1t was a
plumb shame downright unreligious. to
leave Gods house naked as you wOuldn' t
leave your own.
The chapel had begun existence as a mis-
for being. Virginia bred and devoutly
Episcopal, she had married one of the
Tennessee soldiers who marched and
fought four years with Lee, and had come
with him, smiling and unafraid. back to the
hin farm on which he was born. Life
there had been hard-harder, narrower
than she had dreamed existence could be-
But she had faced hardship bravely as
became thoroughbred, clinging and hold
Ing fast to but one part of the old life
That was her church, Notwithstanding the
nearest Episcopal parish lay fully twenty
miles away. Its church was in the county
town, it had been doubIy hard to go
there at Easter in piteously faded gar
ments and the most ramShackle of equip
ages. yet she had gone. Further, she had
taken her children for baptism, and when
one after another they died 1T had been
her chiefest comfort that they were laid TO
rest with the ritual of her faith.
st. Georges had received her with open
arms and tried delicately to help her 1t
had planned to make a minister of the one
son left her, her eldest, but just as he came
to seventeen his father fell sick OK old