'd do it. Mary was all the child I had in
the world, and I had to see her once more before she died. I've been a
member of this church for twenty years,' says she, 'but I reckon
you'll have to turn me out now.'

"The pore thing stood there tremblin' and holdin' out the check as if
she expected somebody to come and take it. Old Silas Petty was
glowerin' at her from under his eyebrows, and it put me in mind of the
Pharisees and the woman they wanted to stone, and I ricollect
thinkin', 'Oh, if the Lord Jesus would jest come in and take her
part!' And while we all set there like a passel o' mutes, Sally Ann
got up and marched down the middle aisle and stood right by 'Lizabeth.
You know what funny thoughts people will have sometimes.

"Well, I felt so relieved. It popped into my head all at once that we
didn't need the Lord after all, Sally Ann would do jest as well. It
seemed sort o' like sacrilege, but I couldn't help it.

"Well, Sally Ann looked all around as composed as you please, and says
she, 'I reckon if anybody's turned out o' this church on account o'
that miserable little money, it'll be Jacob and not 'Lizabeth. A man
that won't give his wife money to go to her dyin' child is too mean to
stay in a Christian church anyhow; and I'd like to know how it is that
a woman, that had eight hundred dollars when she married, has to go to
her husband and git down on her knees and beg for what's her own.
Where's that money 'Lizabeth had when she married you?' says she,
turnin' round and lookin' Jacob in the face. 'Down in that ten-acre
medder lot, ain't it?--and in that new barn you built last spring. A
pretty elder you are, ain't you? Elders don't seem to have improved
much since Susannah's times. If there ain't one sort o' meanness in
'em it's another,' says she.

"Goodness knows what she would 'a' said, but jest here old Deacon
Petty rose up. And says he, 'Brethren,'--and he spread his arms out
and waved 'em up and down like he was goin' to pray,--'brethren, this
is awful! If this woman wants to give her religious experience, why,'
says he, very kind and condescendin', 'of course she can do so. But
when it comes to a _woman_ standin' up in the house of the Lord and
revilin' an elder as this woman is doin', why, I tremble,' says he,
'for the church of Christ. For don't the Apostle Paul say, "Let your
women keep silence in the church"?'

"As soon as he named the 'Postle Paul, Sally Ann give a kind of snort.
Sally Ann wa