cking chair, a very straight larger chair, and a mirror
hanging over a table that was covered with fancifully notched blue
paper. The other was the living room, and contained a cedar piggin and
gourd on a shelf; a bread tray, dishpan, a pot and two skillets on
another shelf near the fireplace, two split-bottom chairs, a table, and
a cat. The cat was a large, gray agnostic. He never admitted
William's presence by so much as a purr or a claw, and I have noticed
that the agnostic is the only creature living who can treat a preacher
with so much contempt. We found him curled up on the window sill next
to the milk pitcher, sunning himself.

William went out to put up his red-headed horse, and I drew a chair
before the shelf containing the bread tray, the dishpan, pot and
skillets, and stared at them with horror and amazement. Why had
William not mentioned this matter of cooking? I had never cooked
anything but cakes and icings in my whole life! I was preparing to
weep when a knock sounded upon the door and immediately a large, fair
woman entered. She wore the most extraordinary teacup bonnet on her
huge head that was tied somewhere in the creases of her doubled chin
with black ribbons. And, on a blue plate, she was carrying a stack of
green-apple pies nearly a foot high. Catching sight of the
half-distilled tears in my eyes as I arose to meet her, she set the
pies down, clasped me in her arms and whispered with motherly
tenderness: "I know how you feel, child; it's the way all brides feel
when they first realize what they have done, and all they've done to
theirselves. But 'tain't so bad; you'll come down to it in less 'an a
week; and you mustn't cry now, with all the folks comin' in. They
won't understand."

She pointed through the open door and I turned in the shelter of her
arms to see down the road a strand of people ascending the hill,
dressed like fancy beads, each behind the other, and each bearing
something in her hands or on his shoulders--and William standing at the
gate to welcome them.

"Who are they?" I asked in astonishment.

"It's a donation party. I come on ahead to warn you. Them's the
members of the Redwine, Fellowship and Macedonia churches, bringin'
things to celebrate your weddin'. I'm Glory White, wife of one of the
stewards at Redwine, and we air powerful glad to have you. So you
mustn't cry till the folk air all gone, or they'll think you ain't
satisfied, which won't do your husba