e streams, and the sky
over all was serene and blue, and bright with the promise of the summer
days.

The people began to gather about the meeting-house at an early hour. The
women came first, in corn-field bonnets which were scoop-shaped and
flaring in front, and that ran out like horns behind. On these
funnel-shaped, cornucopia-like head-gears there might now and then be
seen the vanity of a ribbon. The girls carried their shoes in their
hands until they came in sight of the meeting-house, when they would sit
down on some mossy plat under an old tree, "bein' careful of the
snakes," and put them on. All wore linsey-woolsey dresses, of which four
or five yards of cloth were an ample pattern for a single garment, as
they had no use for any superfluous polonaises in those times.

Long before the time for the service the log meeting-house was full of
women, and the yard full of men and horses. Some of the people had come
from twenty miles away. Those who came from the longest distances were
the first to arrive--as is usual, for in all matters in life promptness
is proportioned to exertion.

When the Parable came, Thomas Lincoln met him.

"You can't preach here," said he. "Half the people couldn't hear you.
You have a small voice. You don't holler and pound like the rest of 'em,
I take it. Suppose you preach out under the trees, where all the people
can hear ye. It looks mighty pleasant there. With our old sing-song
preachers it don't make so much difference. We could hear one of them
if you were to shut him up in jail. But with you it is different. You
have been brought up different among those big churches over there. What
do you say, preacher?"

"I would rather preach under the trees. I love the trees. They are the
meeting-house of God."

"Say, preacher, would you mind goin' over and preachin' at Nancy's
grave? Elder Elkins preached there, and the other travelin' ministers.
Seems kind o' holy over there. Nancy was a good woman, and all the
people liked her. She was Abraham's mother. The trees around her grave
are beautiful."

"I would like to preach there, by that lonely grave in the wilderness."

"The Tunker will preach at Nancy's grave," said Thomas Lincoln in a loud
voice. He led the way to the great cathedral of giant trees, which were
clouded with swelling buds and old moss, and a long procession of people
followed him there.

Among them was Aunt Olive, with a corn-field bonnet of immense
proportions, an