Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1920-12-15

ciables'' and mace tlSegM positively
agreeable functions. The choir ceased
from wrangling, the Sunday School
plucked up courage and fiourished like
a green bay tree. She managed the
deacons. she braced up the missionary
societies, she captivated the parish.
she cheered the depressed and de-
pressing old ladies and cracked jokes
with the invalids.
'Ain't she little mite too jolly for
a minister's wife?" questioned Mrs.
Ossian Popham, who was a profess
sional pessimist.
1T this world is a place of want,
woe, wantonness, an wickedness.
same as you claim, Maria. I don't see
how q minister's wife can be too
jolly!" was her husbands cheerful
reply. Look. how she's melted up
the ice in both congregations. soft the
other church is most willin' we should
prosper, so long as Mis- Larrabee
stays here an we don't get too fur
ahead of 'em in attendance Me for
the smiles, Maria!'
And Osh Popham was right; for
Teba Larrabee convinced the members
of the rival church (the rivalry be-
tween the two being in rgiditys of
creed. not in persistency in good
works. that there was room in heaven
for at least two denominations; and
said that IL they couldn't unite in this
world. perhaps they'd get round to it
IN the next. Finally. she saved Letitia
Boynton's soul alive by giving her
warm, understanding friendship and
she even contracted to win back the
minister's absent son some time or
other. and convince him of the error
of his ways.
LET Dick alone little longer, Lu
ther," she would say; don't hurry
him, for he won't come home so long
as he's failure; it would please the
village too much, and Dick hates the
village. He doesn't accept our point
Of view, that we must love our
enemies and bless them that despite
fully use us. The village did despite
fully use Dick, and for that matter,
David Gilman, too. They were criti-
cized. gossiped about, judged without
unity &NoVO0y DClACtCu al IutIII, 1O-
body ever praised them;-and what is
that about praise being the fructifying
sun in which our virtues ripen, or
something like that? I'm not quoting
it right, but wish I'd said it. They
were called wild when most of their
wildness was exuberant vitality; their
mistakes were magnified, their mad
pranks exaggerated. If I'd been mar
ried to you, my dear. while Dick was
growing up, 1 wouldn't have let you
keep him here in this little backwater
Of life: he needed more room, more
movement. They wouldn't have been
so down on him in Racine, Wis
consin."
Mrs. Larrabee lighted her lantern.
closed the door behind her, and
walked briskly down the lonely road
that led from the parsonage at Beulah
Corner to Letitia Boynton's house. 1t
was bright moonlight and the ground
was covered with light-fallen snow.
but the lantern habit was a fixed one
among Beulah ladies. who. even when
they were not widows or spinsters
made their evening calls mostly With
out escort. The light of lantern not
only enabled one to pick the better
side of a bad road. but would illumi-
nate the face of any male stranger
who might be of a burglarious or
murderous disposition. Reba Lar
rabee was not timid person; indeed
she was wont to say that men were
SO scarce in Beulah that unless they
were out-and-out ruffians it would be
an inspiration to meet a few, even if
1t, were only to pass them in the
middle of the road.
There was light in the meeting
house as she passed. and then there
was a long stretch of shining white
silence unmarked by any human habi-
tation till she came to the tumble
down black cottage inhabited by
Door Button" Davis, as the little old
man was called in the village. In the
distance she could see Osh Popham's
two-story house brilliantly illumip-
ated by kerosene lamps, and as
she drew nearer she even deserted
Ossian himself, seated at the cabinet
organ in his shirt-sleeves, practicing
the Christmas anthem, his daughter
holding a candle to the page while
she struggled to adjust a circuitous
alto to her fathers tenor On the
hither side of the Popham house, and
quite obscured by it, stood Letitia
Boynton's one-story gray cottage. 1t
had a clump of tall cedar trees for
background and the bare branches of
the elms in front were hung lightly
with snow garlands. AS Mrs. Lar
rabee came closer, she set down her
lantern and looked fixedly at the
familiar house as if something new
arrested her gaze.
''It looks like little night-light!"
she thought. "And how queer of
Lefty to be sitting at the open win
dow!"
Nearer still she crept, yet not so
near as to startle her friend. A tall
brass candlestick, with lighted tall
low candle in it, stood on the table in
the parlor window; but the room in
which Lefty sat was unlighted save
by the fire on the hearth, which
CLEANED brightly behind the quaint
andirons-Hessian soldiers of iron,
painted in gay colors. Over the mantel
hung the portrait of Letty's mother,
a benign figure clad in black silk, the
handsome head topped by a snowy
muslin cap with floating strings. Just
round the corner of the fireplace was
half open door leading into tiny