Look at the lights and the crowd! If only the federal census taker
could count us now! Hear them calling and shouting back and forward
from the deck to the shore! Listen! There is the rattle of the
shore ropes as they get them ready, and there's the Mariposa
band,--actually forming in a circle on the upper deck just as she
docks, and the leader with his baton,--one--two--ready now,--

"O CAN-A-DA!"



FOUR

The Ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Drone

The Church of England in Mariposa is on a side street, where the
maple trees are thickest, a little up the hill from the heart of the
town. The trees above the church and the grass plot that was once the
cemetery, till they made the new one (the Necropolis, over the brow
of the hill), fill out the whole corner. Down behind the church, with
only the driving shed and a lane between, is the rectory. It is a
little brick house with odd angles. There is a hedge and a little
gate, and a weeping ash tree with red berries.

At the side of the rectory, churchward, is a little grass lawn with
low hedges and at the side of that two wild plum trees, that are
practically always in white blossom. Underneath them is a rustic
table and chairs, and it is here that you may see Rural Dean Drone,
the incumbent of the Church of England Church, sitting, in the