ny waved him back
and spoke curtly.

"My goodness--no! You mustn't. I never let anybody escort me about
this foolish little town."

Then she hurried home alone and left John Knight standing on his
hilltop.

CHAPTER XI

GETTING ACQUAINTED

Nobody but a Green Valley man would have dared to do the things that
the new minister did in those first months, when even the most daring
of reverend gentlemen is apt to be a bit careful and given to the
tactful searching for the straight and narrow path which is the earthly
lot of pastors.

Cynthia's son however was one of those unconsciously successful men who
are so simply true to life and life's laws that the world joyously
meets them halfway. And then too his was a rich heritage.

From his great preacher father he had the power of seeing visions and
dreaming dreams and the still greater gift of making and persuading
other people to see them too. From his mother he had the comrade smile
and warm intuitive heart that brought him close to even little souls.
And from old Joshua Churchill came that rock-like determination, the
uncompromising honesty and, better than all else, that rare common
sense touched with humorous shrewdness without which no man can greatly
aid his fellows or enjoy life.

All this the new Green Valley minister had, besides bits of very
valuable and legal papers and the old porticoed homestead dozing on a
hill and waiting for the touch of a young hand to wake it into vigorous
and new life. Such parts of Green Valley as failed to appreciate the
more spiritual qualifications of the tall young man from India were
properly impressed with his worldly possessions.

So it was that armed with these advantages Cynthia's son went his way,
smashing hoary precedents and the mossy conventions that will spring up
and grow fibrously strong even in so sunny a spot as Green Valley.

Nobody was surprised, of course, to see little Jim Tumley in the choir;
nor to hear that the minister was giving him lessons on the new piano
whose arrival the prophetic soul of Fanny Foster had predicted. People
passing the Tumley house did however stop beside the hedge and listen
in amazement to the minister playing, for he played surprisingly well.
When complimented on this accomplishment he explained that his mother
had had a piano in India and had taught him how.

But nobody in Green Valley dreamed of seeing old Mrs. Rosenwinkle
marketing right in the madly busy heart o