d
with their two little girls, and a few people J.W. did not know--perhaps
twenty-five altogether. No wonder the preacher was disheartened, and
preached a flavorless sermon.

Where were the boys and girls of even a dozen years ago? where the
children who began their Sunday school career in the little recess back
of the curtain? and where the whole families that once filled the place?
Surely, old Deep Creek Church had fallen on evil days.

It was a dismal service, with its dreary sermon and its tuneless hymns.
After the benediction J.W. shook hands with the preacher, whom he knew
slightly, and exchanged greetings with all the old friends.

"Well, John Wesley," said Father Foltz, with glum garrulity, "this ain't
the church you used to know when you was little. I mind in them times
when you folks lived on the farm how we thought we'd have to enlarge the
meetinghouse. But it's a good thing we never done it. There's room
enough now," and the old man indulged in a mirthless, toothless grimace.

The Shenks didn't invite him to dinner; their understanding was finer
than that. Pa Shenk just said, "Let me drive out first, John Wesley;
I'll go on ahead and open the gate," And J.W. said to Jeannette, "Jump
into my car, Jean; it isn't fair to put everybody into Pa Shenk's Ford
when mine's younger and nearly empty."

So that was that; all regular and comfortable and proper. If Mrs. Newell
smiled as she watched them drive away, what of it? She was heard to say
to Mrs. Bellamy, "I've known for three years that those two ought to
wake up and fall in love with each other, and they've been slower than
Father Foltz's old gray mare. But it looks as though they were getting
their eyes open at last."

At the farm Mrs. Shenk hurried to finish up the dinner preparations,
with Jeannette to help. Ben and little Alice contended for J.W.'s favor,
until he took Alice on his knee and put one arm about her and the other
about her brother, standing by the chair. And Pa Shenk talked about the
church.

"I reckon I shouldn't complain, John Wesley," he said, "seeing that our
Marty is a country preacher, and maybe he'll be having to handle a job
like this some time. But I can't believe he will. His letters don't read
like it."

"But, Pa Shenk," said J.W., "don't you suppose the trouble here in Deep
Creek is because you're so near town? Nine miles is nothing these days,
but when you first came to the farm there was only one automobile in the
townsh