ton Hollow had occasionally an evening meeting; this came about
naturally whenever religious zeal burned high, or when the congregation
felt, with some uneasiness, that it had remained too long aloof from
spiritual things. To-night, the schoolhouse had been designated for an
assembling place, and the neighborhood trooped thither, animated by an
excited importance, and doing justice to the greatness of the occasion
by "dressing up." Farmers had laid aside their ordinary mood, with
overalls and jumpers, and donned an uncomfortable solemnity, an enforced
attitude of theological reflection, with their stocks. Wives had urged
their patient fingers into cotton gloves, and in cashmere shawls, and
bonnets retrimmed with reference to this year's style, pressed into the
uncomfortable chairs, and folded their hands upon the desks before them
in a sweet seriousness not unmingled with the desire of thriftily
completing a duty no less exigent than pickle-making, or the work of
spring and fall. Last came the boys, clattering with awkward haste over
the dusty floor which had known the touch of their bare feet on other
days. They looked about the room with some awe and a puzzled acceptance
of its being the same, yet not the same. It was their own. There were
the maps of North and South America; the yellowed evergreens, relic of
"Last Day," still festooned the windows, and an intricate "sum," there
explained to the uncomprehending admiration of the village fathers,
still adorned the blackboard. Yet the room had strangely transformed
itself into an alien temple, invaded by theology and the breath of an
unknown world. But though sobered, they were not cast down; for the
occasion was enlivened, in their case, by a heaven-defying profligacy of
intent. Every one of them knew that Sammy Forbes had in his pocket a
pack of cards, which he meant to drop, by wicked but careless design,
just when Deacon Pitts led in prayer, and that Tom Drake was master of a
concealed pea-shooter, which he had sworn, with all the asseverations
held sacred by boys, to use at some dramatic moment. All the band were
aware that neither of these daring deeds would be done. The prospective
actors themselves knew it; but it was a darling joy to contemplate the
remote possibility thereof.

Deacon Pitts opened the meeting, reminding his neighbors how precious a
privilege it is for two or three to be gathered together. His companion
had not been able to come. (The entire neig