dmitted that the
"craps were as far on as he'd ever seen them"; but in order that no
one could accuse him of stirring up false hopes, he pointed out that
"the wheat has a long way to go yet before the snow flies, and
there's lots that might happen it."

By half-past two o'clock, the time set for the service, the yard was
well filled with buggies and waggons, while knots of men, looking
uncomfortable in high collars, stood discussing the crops and the
price of horses, all in the best of humour. When they saw the
minister's gray horse coming, the minister himself became the subject
of conversation.

"It beats me," George Steadman said, springing the lid of his pipe
with his thumb as he struck a match on the sole of his boot, "it
beats me what a man sees in preaching as a steady job. It's easy
work, all right, only one day in the week; but there's no money in
it. A man can make more money at almost anything else he goes at"--he
was thinking of short-horns--"and be more independent. It certainly
beats me why they do it."

"Did ye ever hear, George, of greater rewards than money, and a
greater happiness than being independent?" Roderick Ray, the Scottish
Covenanter, asked gently, as he unbuckled his "beast" from the cart.
Roderick Ray had a farm on Oak Creek, three miles east of the
schoolhouse. "Yon man is a Methodist, an' I'm na' sa fond o' them as
o' some ithers, but I can see he has the root o' the matter in him
for all; and I'm thinkin' that he has the smile o' his Lord and
Master on him, an' that's better nor gold, nor siller, nor houses,
nor lands, nor cattle on a thousand hills; for, after all, George,
these things slip frae us easy and we slip away frae them easier
still, an' it's then we'll hear the Good Man ask: 'An' hoo did ye
spend the years I gave ye? Did ye warn the sinner, teach the young,
feed the hungry an' comfort the sad?' An' I'm thinkin', George, that
to all this yon little man, Methoda body though he be, will be able
to give a verra guid answer an' a very acceptable one."

The men sat on one side of the school, and the women on the other.
Even a very small boy, when he found himself sitting with the women,
made a scurry across to the other side. Danny Watson alone of the
male portion of the congregation was unaffected by this arrangement,
and clung to his sister Pearl, quite oblivious of public opinion.

Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne sat beside the window, in the seat ahead
of Danny, Mary, and Pear