ma in human affairs whose crowning act shapes human
destinies.

XII

THIS SIDE OF THE RUBICON

In the late afternoon of a July Sabbath Jerry Swaim had gone for a
stroll along the quiet outskirts of New Eden. Laura was napping in the
porch swing, and York had gone to his office in answer to a telephone
call. Jerry was rarely lonely with herself and she was a good walker.
She was learning, too, the need for being alone with herself, for there
were many things crowding into her mind that demanded recognition.

Jerry attended church with the Macphersons every Sunday, but it was a
mere perfunctory act on her part. To-day the minister was away. He had
gone to the upper Sage Brush to officiate at the funeral of Mrs. Nell
Belkap that had been Nell Poser, she of the tow hair and big-lunging
baby. She had died of congestion, following over-heating in cooking for
threshing-hands for her mother, her father being the kind of man that
objected to hired help for "wimmin folks." All that was nothing to
Jerry, who found herself wondering, in a vague sort of way, just where
that baby would sprawl itself, unattached to its mother's anchorage.
Babies were not in Jerry's scheme of things at all.

The substitute minister was more interesting to think about. He had a
three-piece country charge over which to spread the Gospel, "Summit
School-House," "Slack Crick Church," and "Locust Grove Grange." He said
"have went" and he called the members of one of Saint Paul's churches
"The Thessalonnykins." And he really didn't know the Lord's Prayer
correctly, for he said "forgive us our trespasses," instead of "our
debts," as dear accurate Saint Matthew has written it.

Jerry's mind was on him as an aside, on him, and that Paul Ekblad whom
she caught sight of in the Ekblad car with Thelma. They had stopped a
minute to speak with York Macpherson as they were on their way to that
up-country Poser funeral. Why should Paul Ekblad go so far to a funeral?

Jerry strolled aimlessly along the smooth road leading out to the New
Eden cemetery, her bead-trimmed parasol shading her bare head, and her
pale-green organdie gown making her appear very summery. Jerry had the
trick of fitting all weather except the heated, sand-filled days of
mid-June on a freight-train, which condition Junius Brutus Ponk declared
"was enough to muss a angel's wings an' make them divine partial-eclipse
angel draperies look dingier than dish-rags."

There were half a doz