they fell, and turned
each into a tiny mirror fit for fairy faces. The trees were raining too,
showers of willow-catkins and cherry-bud calyxes, which fell noiselessly
and strewed the ground. The children kicked the soft brown drifts aside
with their feet as they walked along.

The doors of the Methodist meeting-house at Valley Hill stood open, and
crowds of men and women and children were going into them. It was not
Sunday which called the people together: it was the annual Conference
meeting; and all the country round was there to hear the reports and
learn where the ministers were to be sent for the next two years.
Methodist clergymen, you know, are not "called" by the people of the
parish, as other clergymen are. They go where the church sends them, and
every second year they are all changed to other parishes. This, it is
thought, keeps the people and pastors fresh and interested in each
other. But I don't know. Human beings, as well as vegetables, have a
trick of putting down roots; and even a cabbage or a potato would resent
such transplanting, and would refuse to thrive.

Sometimes, when a parish has become attached to its minister, it will
plead to have him stay longer. Now and then this request is granted;
but, as a rule, the minister has to go. And it is a hard rule for his
wife and children, who have to go too.

The Valley Hill people "thought a heap" of their minister, Mr. Forcythe,
and had begged hard that he might stay with them for another term.
Everybody belonging to the church had come to the meeting feeling
anxious, and yet pretty certain that the answer would be favorable. All
over the building, people were whispering about the matter, and heads
were nodding and bowing. The bonnets on these heads were curiously
alike. Mrs. Perry, the village milliner, never had more than one pattern
hat. "That is what is worn," she said; and nobody disputed the fact,
which saved Mrs. Perry trouble. The Valley Hill people liked it just as
well, and didn't mind the lack of variety. This year Mrs. Perry had
announced yellow to be the fashion, so nine out of ten of the hats
present were trimmed with yellow ribbon crossed in just the same way
over a yellow straw crown; and the church looked like a bed of sisterly
tulips nodding and bowing in the wind.

Bishop Judson was the person to read the announcements. He was a nice
old man, kind at heart, though formal in manner, and anxious eyes were
fixed on him as he got up w