one, sir, for mine loves all beautiful things every day
in the year."

There was a moment's silence. For the first time in his life Simeon
Holly found himself without words.

"We won't talk of this any more, David," he said at last; "but we'll
put it another way--I don't wish you to play your fiddle on Sunday.
Now, put it up till to-morrow." And he turned and went down the hall.

Breakfast was a very quiet meal that morning. Meals were never things
of hilarious joy at the Holly farmhouse, as David had already found
out; but he had not seen one before quite so somber as this. It was
followed immediately by a half-hour of Scripture-reading and prayer,
with Mrs. Holly and Perry Larson sitting very stiff and solemn in their
chairs, while Mr. Holly read. David tried to sit very stiff and solemn
in his chair, also; but the roses at the window were nodding their
heads and beckoning; and the birds in the bushes beyond were sending to
him coaxing little chirps of "Come out, come out!" And how could one
expect to sit stiff and solemn in the face of all that, particularly
when one's fingers were tingling to take up the interrupted song of the
morning and tell the whole world how beautiful it was to be wanted!

Yet David sat very still,--or as still as he could sit,--and only the
tapping of his foot, and the roving of his wistful eyes told that his
mind was not with Farmer Holly and the Children of Israel in their
wanderings in the wilderness.

After the devotions came an hour of subdued haste and confusion while
the family prepared for church. David had never been to church. He
asked Perry Larson what it was like; but Perry only shrugged his
shoulders and said, to nobody, apparently:--

"Sugar! Won't ye hear that, now?"--which to David was certainly no
answer at all.

That one must be spick and span to go to church, David soon found
out--never before had he been so scrubbed and brushed and combed. There
was, too, brought out for him to wear a little clean white blouse and a
red tie, over which Mrs. Holly cried a little as she had over the
nightshirt that first evening.

The church was in the village only a quarter of a mile away; and in due
time David, open-eyed and interested, was following Mr. and Mrs. Holly
down its long center aisle. The Hollys were early as usual, and service
had not begun. Even the organist had not taken his seat beneath the
great pipes of blue and gold that towered to the ceiling.

It was the pri