, it had been the custom in the village to
celebrate the Holy Eve with a special service and a Christmas tree;
and preparations had been going forward for it all the afternoon. It
was noticeable that the fighting in the congregation in no wise
interfered with the observance of the established forms of worship;
rather, it seemed to lend a keener edge to them. It was only the
spirit that suffered. Jack, surveying the road from the porch, saw
baskets and covered trays carried by, and knew their contents. He had
watched the big Christmas tree going down on the grocer's sled, and
his experience plus his nose supplied the rest. As the lights came out
one by one after twilight, he stirred uneasily at the unwonted
stillness in his house. Apparently no one was getting ready for
church. Could it be that they were not going; that this thing was to
be carried to the last ditch? He decided to go and investigate.

His investigations were brief, but entirely conclusive. For the second
time that day he was spurned, and by a friend. This time it was the
deacon himself who drove him from his wife's room, whither he had
betaken him with true instinct to ascertain the household intentions.
The deacon seemed to be, if anything, in a worse humor than even Jack
himself. The doctor had told him that afternoon that Mrs. Pratt was a
very sick woman, and that, if she was to pull through at all, she must
be kept from all worriment in an atmosphere which fairly bristled with
it. The deacon felt that he had a contract on his hands which might
prove too heavy for him. He felt, too, with bitterness, that he was an
ill-used man, that all his years of faithful labor, in the vineyard
went for nothing because of some wretched heresy which the enemy had
devised to wreck it; and all his humbled pride and his pent-up wrath
gathered itself into the kick with which he sent poor Jack flying back
where he had come from. It was clear that the deacon was not going to
church.

Lonely and forsaken, Jack took his old seat on the porch and pondered.
The wrinkles in his brow multiplied and grew deeper as he looked down
the road and saw the Joneses, the Smiths, and the Allens go by toward
the church. When the Merritts had passed, too, under the lamp, he knew
that it must be nearly time for the sermon. They always came in after
the long prayer. Jack took a turn up and down the porch, whined at the
door once, and, receiving no answer, set off down the road by himself.