dle an'
doin' all the little nice things music can. An' with that Mis' Sykes,
she throws open the church door.

"I'll never forget how it looked inside--all warm an' lamp-lit an' with
them little things bein' fed an' chatterin' soft. An' up in the loft set
Abel, playin' away on the foreign organ before it'd been dedicated. An'
then he begun singin' low--an' there's somethin' about Abel 't you just
_haf_ to listen, whatever he says or does. Even Timothy hed to
listen--though I think he was some struck dumb, too, an' that kep' him
controlled for a minute--like it will. An' Abel sung:--

"'The Lord is my Shepherd--I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me--He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul....'

"An' at the first line, before we'd rilly sensed what it was he said,
every one o' them little children in the midst o' their supper slips off
the edge o' the cots an' kneeled down there on the bare floor, just like
they'd been told to. Oh, wasn't it wonderful? An' yet it wasn't--it
wasn't. We found out, when folks come for 'em the next mornin', it was
the children's prayer that they sung every day o' their lives at their
Good Shepherd's Orphans' Home--soft an' out o' tune an' with all their
little hearts, just as they went ahead an' sung it with Abel, clear to
the end. I guess they didn't know everybody don't kneel down all over
the world when they hear the Twenty-third Psalm.

"Abel seen 'em in the little lookin'-glass over the keyboard. An' when
he'd got done he set there perfectly still with his head down. An' Mis'
Sykes an' Mis' Holcomb an' Eppleby an' I bowed our heads too, out there
in the entry. An' so, after a minute, did Timothy. I couldn't help
peekin' to see.

"An' then, when the children was all a-rustlin' up, Mis' Toplady she
jus' hands her two pails o' milk over to Timothy.

"'You take 'em in,' she says to him, her eyes swimmin'. 'I've come off
without my handkerchief.'

"Timothy looks round him, kind o' helpless, but Eppleby stood there an'
pats him on the arm.

"'Go in--go in, brother,' Eppleby says gentle. 'I guess the church's
been dedicated. I feel like we'd heard the big wind--an' I guess, mebbe,
the Pentecostal tongues.'

"An' Timothy--he's an awful tender-hearted man in spite o' bein' so
notional--Timothy just went on in with the milk, without sayin'
anything. An' Eppleby side of him. An' we 'most shut the door on Silas
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