d wuz so
sot on havin' the Sabbath kep strict as a day of rest.

"Now I believe in goin' to meetin' as much as anybody, and always have
been regular. But I say Jane hain't consistent." (They don't agree.)

Arvilly stopped here a minute for needed breath. Good land! I should
have thought she would; and Lophemia Pegrum spoke up--she is a dretful
pretty girl, but very sentimental and romantic, and talks out of poetry
books. Sez she:

"Another thought: Nature works all the Sabbath day. Flowers bloom, their
sweet perfume wafts abroad, bees gather the honey from their fragrant
blossoms, the dews fall, the clouds sail on, the sun lights and warms
the World, the grass grows, the grain ripens, the fruit gathers the
sunshine in its golden and rosy globes, the birds sing, the trees
rustle, the wind blows, the stars rise and set, the tide comes in and
goes out, the waves wash the beach, and carries the great ships to
their havens--in fact, Nature keeps her World's Fair open every day of
the week just alike."

"Yes," sez Miss Eben Sanders--she is always on the side of the last
speaker--she hain't to be depended on, in argument. But she speaks quite
well, and is a middlin' good woman, and kind-hearted. Sez she--

"Look at the poor people who work hard all the week and who can't spend
the time week days to go to this immense educational school.

"Them who have to work hard and steady every working day to keep bread
in the hands of their families, to keep starvation away from themselves
and children--clerks, seamstresses, mechanics, milliners, typewriters,
workers in factories, and shops, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.

"Children of toil, who bend their weary frames over their toilsome,
oncongenial labor all the week, with the wolves of Cold and Hunger
a-prowlin' round 'em, ready to devour them and their children if they
stop their labor for one day out of the six--

"Think what it would be for these tired-out, beauty-starved white slaves
to have one day out of the seven to feast their eyes and their hungry
souls on the _best_ of the World.

"What an outlook it would give their work-blinded eyes! What a blessed
change it would make in all their dull, narrow, cramped lives! While
their hands wuz full of work, their quickened fancy would live over
again the too brief hours they spent in communion with the World's
best--the gathered beauty and greatness and glory of the earth. Whatever
their toil and weariness, they _had_ lived fo