he bread
an' dished the hot chicken broth an' see how hungry they all seemed, I
declare if one of us could feel wicked. The little things'd begun to
talk some by then, an' they chatted soft an' looked up at us, an' that
little Mitsy--she'd got so she'd kiss me every time I'd ask her. An' I
was perfectly shameless. I donno's the poor little thing got enough to
eat. But sometimes when things go blue--I like to think about that. I
guess we was all the same. Our principal feelin' was how dear they was,
an' to hurry up before Timothy Toplady got there, an' how we wish't we
hed more milk.

"Then all of a sudden while we was flyin' round, I happened to go past
the front door, an' I heard a noise in the entry. I thought o' Timothy
an' Silas, comin' with sheriffs an' firearms an' I didn't know
what--Silas havin' politics back of him, so; an' I rec'lect I planned,
wild an' contradictory, first about callin' an instantaneous
congregational meetin' to decide which was right, an' then about
telegraphin' to the City for constituted authority to do as we was
doin', an' then about Abel fightin' Timothy an' Silas both, if it come
rilly necessary.

"I got hold o' Mis' Sykes an' Mame Holcomb, an' told 'em quiet.
'Somethin's the matter outside there,' I says to 'em, kind o' warnin',
'an' I thought you two'd ought to know it.' An' we all three come 'round
by the entry door, careless, an listened. An' the noise kep' up, kind o'
soft an' obstinate, an' we couldn't make it out.

"'We'd best go out there an' see,' says Mis' Sykes, low; 'the dear land
knows what men _will_ do.'

"So we watched our chance an' slipped out--an' I guess, for all our high
ways, we was all three wonderin' inside, was we rilly doin' right. You
know your doubts come thick when there's a noise in the entry. But Mis'
Sykes acted as brave as two, an' it was her shut the door to behind us.

"An' there, right by that stone just outside the entry o' the church,
set Mis' Timothy Toplady, _milkin' her Jersey cow_.

"We could just see her, dim, by the light o' the transom. She was on the
secunt pail, an' that was two-thirds full. She hed her back toward us,
an' she didn't hear us. She set all wrapped up in a shawl, a basket o'
cups side of her, an' the Jersey standin' there, quiet an' demure. An'
beyond, in the cut an' movin' acrost the Pump pasture, it was thick with
lanterns.

"But before we three'd hed time to burst out like we wanted to, we sort
o' scrooched back ag