s a battle-cry of defiance.

II

She had no time to organize a campaign, forced as she was to begin
fighting at once. Reaching wildly for any weapon at hand, she rushed to
the front, as grim-visaged a warrior as ever frightened a peaceable,
shiftless non-combatant "Joel Barney!" she cried, storming up his front
steps. "You're a trustee of the church, aren't you? Well, if you don't
vote against selling the church, I'll foreclose the mortgage on your house
so quick you can't wink. And you tell 'Lias Bennett that if he doesn't do
the same, I'll pile manure all over that field of mine near his place, and
stink out his summer renters so they'll never set foot here again."

She shifted tactics as she encountered different adversaries and tried no
blackmail on stubborn Miles Benton, whom she took pains to see the next
time he came back to Greenford for a visit. Him she hailed as the
Native-Born. "How would you like to have brazen models and nasty statues
made in the building where your own folks have always gone to church?"

But when the skirmish was over, she realized ruefully that the argument
which had brought her her hard-won victory had been the one which, for a
person of such very moderate means as hers, reflected the least hope for
future battles. At the last, in desperation, she had guaranteed in the
name of the Ladies' Aid Society that the church, except for the minister's
salary, should thereafter be no expense to the trustees. She had invented
that source of authority, remembering that Molly Leonard had said she
belonged to the Ladies' Aid Society, "and I can make Molly do anything,"
she thought, trusting Providence for the management of the others.

As a matter of fact, when she came to investigate the matter, she found
that Molly was now the sole remaining member. Her dismay was acute,
Molly's finances being only too well known to her, but she rallied
bravely. "They don't do much to a church that costs money," she thought,
and, when Molly went away, she made out her budget unflinchingly. Wood for
the furnace, kerosene for the lamps, wages to the janitor, repairs when
needed--"Well, Abigail Warner," she told herself, "it means nothing new
bought for the garden, and no new microscope--the roof to the library
costing more than they said 'twould and all."

But the joy of triumphant battle was still swelling her doughty old heart,
so that even these considerations did not damp her exultation over her
artis