her own rich voice, "and to think that pretty soon seventeen of 'em
will be mine!"

And it was an hour or two later that the old red sun had reluctantly
departed across the west meadows, just as a soft lady moon rose
languidly over Providence Nob. Providence suppers had all been
served, the day's news discussed with the men folk, jocularly eager
to get the drippings of excitement from the afternoon infair, and
the Road toddlers put to bed, when the soft-toned Meeting-house bell
droned out its call for the weekly prayer meeting. Very soon the
Road was in a gentle hum of conversation as the congregation issued
from their house doors and wended their way slowly toward the little
church, which, back from the Road in an old cedar glade, brooded
over its peaceful yard of graves. The men had all donned their coats
and exchanged field hats for stiff, uncomfortable, straight-brimmed
straw, and their wives still wore the Sewing Circle gala attire. The
older children walked decorously along, each group in wake of the
heads of their own family, though Buck Peavey had managed to annex
himself to the Hoover household.

"Well, I don't know just what to do with you all," said Mother
Mayberry, as she came out on the front porch, sedately bonneted,
with her Bible and hymn-book under her arm and fortified with a huge
palm-leaf fan. "It's my duty to make you both come with Cindy and me
to prayer meeting, but I don't hold with a body using they own duty
as a stick to fray out other folks with. I reckon I'll have to let
you two just set here on the steps and see if you can outshine the
moon in your talk, which you can't, but think you can."

"Oh, we'll come with you! I was just going to get my hat," exclaimed