eld a smoking skillet extended like a votive
offering in her right hand. She was busy preparing breakfast for Mrs.
Cudlip, whose husband's funeral we had attended the day before, and as
usual when any charitable mission was under way, her manner to my father
and myself had taken a biting edge.

"Don't talk foolishness, Benjy," she replied, stopping to push back a
loosened wiry lock of hair; "it's time to think about growin' up when
you ain't been but two years in breeches. Here, if you're through
breakfast, I want you to step with this plate of muffins to Mrs. Cudlip.
Tell her I sent 'em an' that I hope she is bearin' up."

"That you sent 'em an' that you hope she is bearin' up," I repeated.

"That's it now. Don't forget what I told you befo' you're there. Thomas,
have you buttered that batch of muffins?"

My father handed me the plate, which was neatly covered with a
red-bordered napkin.

"Did you tell me to lay a slice of middlin' along side of 'em, Susan?"
he humbly enquired.

Without replying to him in words, my mother seized the plate from me,
and lifting the napkin, removed the offending piece of bacon, which she
replaced in the dish.

"I thought even you, Thomas, would have had mo' feelin' than to send
middlin' to a widow the day arter she has buried her husband--even a
one-legged one! Middlin' indeed! One egg an' that soft boiled, will be
as near a solid as she'll touch for a week. Keep along, Benjy, an' be
sure to say just what I told you."

I did my errand quickly, and returning, asked eagerly if I might go out
all by myself an' play for an hour. "I'll stay close in the churchyard
if you'll lemme go," I entreated.

"Run along then for a little while, but if you go out of the churchyard,
you'll get a whippin'," replied my mother.

With this threat ringing like a bell in my ears, I left the house and
walked quickly along the narrow pavement to where, across the wide
street, I discerned the white tower and belfry which had been added by a
later century to the parish church of Saint John. Overhead there was a
bright blue sky, and the October sunshine, filtering through the bronzed
network of sycamore and poplar, steeped the flat tombstones and the
crumbling brick vaults in a clear golden light. The church stood upon a
moderate elevation above the street, and I entered it now by a short
flight of steps, which led to a grassy walk that did not end at the
closed door, but continued to the brow of the hill