d mumbled
something about "hypocritters," as she seized her broom and began to
sweep imaginary tracks from in front of the door.

Many times she had made up her mind to let the next caller know just
what she thought of "hypocritters," but her determination was usually
weakened by her still greater desire to excite increased wonder in the
faces of her visitors.

Divided between these two inclinations, she gazed at Julia now; the
shining eyes of the deacon's daughter conquered, and she launched forth
into an eager description of how she had just seen a "wondeful striped
anamule" with a "pow'ful long neck walk right out of the tent," and how
he had "come apart afore her very eyes," and two men had slipped "right
out a' his insides." Mandy was so carried away by her own eloquence and
so busy showing Julia the sights beyond the window, that she did not
hear Miss Perkins, the thin-lipped spinster, who entered, followed by
the Widow Willoughby dragging her seven-year-old son Willie by the hand.

The women were protesting because their choir practice of "What
Shall the Harvest Be?" had been interrupted by the unrequested
acompaniment{sic} of the "hoochie coochie" from the nearby circus band.

"It's scandalous!" Miss Perkins snapped. "Scandalous! And SOMEBODY ought
to stop it." She glanced about with an unmistakable air of grievance at
the closed doors, feeling that the pastor was undoubtedly behind one of
them, when he ought to be out taking action against the things that her
soul abominated.

"Well, I'm sure I'VE done all that _I_ could," piped the widow, with
a meek, martyred air. She was always martyred. She considered it an
appropriate attitude for a widow. "He can't blame ME if the choir is out
of key to-morrow." "Mercy me!" interrupted the spinster, "if there isn't
Julia Strong a-leaning right out of that window a-looking at the circus,
and her pa a deacon of the church, and this the house of the pastor.
It's shocking! I must go to her."

"Ma, let me see, too," begged Willie, as he tugged at his mother's
skirts.

Mrs. Willoughby hesitated. Miss Perkins was certainly taking a long
while for her argument with Julia. The glow from the red powder outside
the window was positively alarming.

"Dear me!" she said, "I wonder if there can be a fire." And with this
pretext for investigation, she, too, joined the little group at the
window.

A few moments later when Douglas entered for a fresh supply of paper,
the backs