r, the
farm settles down. The "critters" are all attended to, the chicks are
stowed, the cat has disappeared, the hens have finished all their
important business and are lying on their sides in their favorite
dirt-holes enjoying their dust-baths, so still, yet so disheveled that I
used to think they were dead, and poke them to see--with what cacklings
and flutterings resulting may be imagined. I have often wished for the
hen's ability to express indignation.

Yes, the farm is at peace, and as we sit under the big maples it seems
to be reproaching us--"See how quiet everything is! And you couldn't
even manage church!"

Other people seem to manage it very comfortably and quite regularly. On
Sunday morning our quiet little road, unfrequented even by the
ubiquitous automobile, is gay with church-goers. "Gay" may seem the
wrong word, but it is quite the right one. In the city church-going is
rather a sober affair. People either walk or take cars. They wear a
certain sort of clothes, known as "church clothes," which represent a
sort of hedging compromise between their morning and their afternoon
wear. They approach the church in decorous silence; as they emerge they
exchange subdued greetings, walk a block or two in little companies,
then scatter to their homes and their Sunday dinners.

But in the country everybody but the village people drives, and the
roads are full of teams,--buggies, surreys, phaetons,--the carriages
newly washed, the horses freshly groomed, the occupants scrupulously
dressed in the prettiest things they own--their "Sunday-go-to-meeting"
ones, which means something quite different from "church clothes." As
one nears the village there is some friendly rivalry between horses,
there is the pleasure of "catching up" with neighbors' teams, or of
being caught up with, and at the church door there is the business of
alighting and hitching the horses, and then, if it is early, waiting
about outside for the "last bell" before going in.

Even in the church itself there is more freedom and variety than in our
city tabernacles. In these there are always the same memorial windows to
look at,--except perhaps once in ten years when somebody dies and a new
one goes in,--but in the country stained glass is more rare. In many it
has not even gained place at all, and the panes of clear glass let in a
glory of blueness and whiteness and greenness to rejoice the heart of
the worshiper. In others, more ambitious, alas! th