" said the farmer. "I aint anything of an
exposition. You'll have to ask somebody else. There's some words too
hard for me to spell and pro-nounce. Where have you been?"

"Just to carry Sally Loundes some medicine mother had for her."

"Where are you goin' now?"

"Home."

"Goin' alone?"

"Why, yes. Why not?"

"Don' know," said Mr. Simlins,--"only I'm going part way, and I'll see
nothin' happens to you as long as _I_'m in your consort."

It was a wild place enough to make company pleasant. Dark clumps of
forest-trees on one hand grew near together, and the spaces between,
though cleared, looked hardly less wild; for vines and sumach and ferns
had taken possession. The sun's rays yet lay warm on the rolling downs,
the sere grass and the purplish blackberry vines, and sparkled on the
waves beyond; but when Mr. Simlins and Faith struck into the woods for
a 'short cut,' the shadowy solitude closed them in on all sides. Softly
their steps moved over the fallen pine leaves, or rustled through the
shreds of autumn finery that lay beneath oak and maple, and nothing
else but birds and squirrels broke the stillness till they were near
the further edge of the wood. There they heard a soft murmur of voices.

"Who lives here?" said Mr. Simlins.

But Faith held her breath.

"There's mortality here, where I thought there was nothing but animals
and vegetation," said Mr. Simlins stepping softly and cautiously
forward. "Let's see--don't make no noise more'n the leaves 'll let you.
I shouldn't think anything would come to a meetin' here but a
wood-chuck--and they're skeered if they see a shadow."

On that side the trees ceased abruptly, and the open sunshine of a
little clearing replaced them; and there were the speakers.

Tallest among the group sat Mr. Linden, and around him--in various
attitudes of rest or attention--a dozen boys basked in the sunshine.
Most of them were a size or two smaller than his morning class at the
Sunday school, though several of those were stretched on the grass at
the outskirts of the circle, as honorary members. Little Johnny Fax,
established in Mr. Linden's lap, divided his attention pretty evenly
between the lesson and the teacher; though indeed to his mind the
separate interests did not clash.

The little glade was very green still, but sprinkled with the autumn
leaves which came floating down at every breath; and the bordering
trees stood some in deep green hemlock and some in paler pine,