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Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches by Sarah Orne Jewett
page 93 of 240 (38%)
after it, but we recollected ourselves and leaned back again in our
places, while the awed children, after keeping unnaturally quiet, fell
asleep, and tumbled against each other helplessly. After a time the man
sat down and wiped his forehead, looking well satisfied; and when we
were wondering whether we might with propriety come away, he rose again,
and said it was a free lecture, and he thanked us for our kind patronage
on that inclement night; but in other places which he had visited there
had been a contribution taken up for the cause. It would, perhaps, do no
harm,--would the sexton--But the sexton could not have heard the sound
of a cannon at that distance, and slumbered on. Neither Kate nor I had
any money, except a twenty-dollar bill in my purse, and some coppers in
the pocket of her water-proof cloak which she assured me she was
prepared to give; but we saw no signs of the sexton's waking, and as one
of the women kindly went forward to wake the children, we all rose and
came away.

After we had made as much fun and laughed as long as we pleased that
night, we became suddenly conscious of the pitiful side of it all; and
being anxious that every one should have the highest opinion of
Deephaven, we sent Tom Dockum early in the morning with an anonymous
note to the lecturer, whom he found without much trouble; but afterward
we were disturbed at hearing that he was going to repeat his lecture
that evening,--the wind having gone round to the northwest,--and I have
no doubt there were a good many women able to be out, and that he
harvested enough ten-cent pieces to pay his expenses without our help;
though he had particularly told us it was for "the cause," the evening
before, and that ought to have been a consolation.



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