quietly
from the pulpit of the old gray stone church.

To this day they tell how without a scrap of paper to look at, without
raising his voice in the slightest, this boy made Green Valley listen
as it had never listened before. For an hour he talked and for that
length of time Green Valley neighbored with India, saw it as plainly as
if it was looking over an unmended, sagging old fence right into
India's back yard.

With the simplicity of a child this boy with Cynthia Churchill's eyes
and smile and voice told of Indian women and children and Indian homes.
The colors, the smells, the mystic beauty and the dark tragedy of it he
painted and then very gently and easily he told of his trip back to his
mother's home town and so without a jar he landed his listeners,
wide-eyed, breathless and prayerfully thankful for their manifold
blessings back in their own sunlit and tree-guarded streets.

For no reason at all seemingly Green Valley began to wipe its eyes and
come out of its trance. Neighbor looked at neighbor and strange things
were seen to have happened.

Old man Wiley, the aged and chronically sleepy janitor was actually
sitting wide awake. Old Mrs. Vingie, who for years annoyed every Green
Valley parson by holding her hand to her right ear and pretending to be
deafer than she really was, was sitting bolt upright, both ears and
hands forgotten. For once Dolly Beatty forgot to fuss with her hat or
admire her hands in the new lavender gloves two sizes too small. The
choir even forgot to flirt and yawn and never once looked bored or
superior.

Jimmy Rand, after having carefully inserted in his hymn book a copy of
Diamond Dick's latest exploits, forgot to read it. And the row of
little boys whose mothers always made them sit in the very first pew
never so much as thought of kicking each other's shins or passing a
hard pinch down the line or even quietly swapping lucky stones and fish
hooks for a snake skin or a choice piece of colored glass.

Why, it was even reported that Mert Hagley so far forgot himself as to
absent-mindedly drop a bill into the basket when it came by. Some
said, of course, that Mert was after the repair work on the old
Churchill homestead but those nearest Mert swore that this could not
be, that Mert had looked as surprised as those around him when he saw
what he had done. Green Valley laughed and said a miracle had
happened. And even Seth Curtis got curious and remarked that he had
hal