se their folks work at it, same as Living and I used to make
believe be blacksmiths when we were little."

"It must be nicer missionarying in those foreign places," said Persis,
"because on 'Afric's shores and India's plains and other spots where
Satan reigns' (that's father's favorite hymn) there's always a heathen
bowing down to wood and stone. You can take away his idols if he'll let
you and give him a bible and the beginning's all made. But who'll we
begin on? Jethro Small?"

"Oh, he's entirely too dirty, and foolish besides!" exclaimed Candace.
"Why not Ethan Hunt? He swears dreadfully."

"He lives on nuts and is a hermit, and it's a mile to his camp through
the thick woods; my mother'll never let me go there," objected Alice.
"There's Uncle Tut Judson."

"He's too old; he's most a hundred and deaf as a post," complained Emma
Jane. "Besides, his married daughter is a Sabbath-school teacher--why
doesn't she teach him to behave? I can't think of anybody just right to
start on!"

"Don't talk like that, Emma Jane," and Rebecca's tone had a tinge of
reproof in it. "We are a copperated body named the Daughters of Zion,
and, of course, we've got to find something to do. Foreigners are the
easiest; there's a Scotch family at North Riverboro, an English one in
Edgewood, and one Cuban man at Millkin's Mills."

"Haven't foreigners got any religion of their own?" inquired Persis
curiously.

"Ye-es, I s'pose so; kind of a one; but foreigners' religions are never
right--ours is the only good one." This was from Candace, the deacon's
daughter.

"I do think it must be dreadful, being born with a religion and growing
up with it, and then finding out it's no use and all your time wasted!"
Here Rebecca sighed, chewed a straw, and looked troubled.

"Well, that's your punishment for being a heathen," retorted Candace,
who had been brought up strictly.

"But I can't for the life of me see how you can help being a heathen if
you're born in Africa," persisted Persis, who was well named.

"You can't." Rebecca was clear on this point. "I had that all out with
Mrs. Burch when she was visiting Aunt Miranda. She says they can't help
being heathen, but if there's a single mission station in the whole of
Africa, they're accountable if they don't go there and get saved."

"Are there plenty of stages and railroads?" asked Alice; "because there
must be dreadfully long distances, and what if they couldn't pay the
fare?"

"That part