s'pose they could make foldin' pulpits, if there was
a call."

"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