their hands the cold meats, biscuit, cheese, and doughnuts, while pans of
milk and pails of water, provided with tin cups, were set conveniently.
After the Saturday sermon the preacher in charge distributed the guests
among the hospitable homes of the society. But as the Quarterly Conference
was yet to be held the local preachers, exhorters, stewards, and class
leaders, and usually their families, either stayed there or, perhaps, a few
of them, at the nearest neighbors'.

However scattered during Saturday night and Sunday night, they had a
rallying time at the place of meeting before starting for home Monday,
when, by more or less delay, time wore on, and the "lunch" came around
again. Fifty to a hundred meals, and two or more general lunches, were not
remarkable at the cottage chapel; while for lodging, divided bedding and
shawls scantily covered upon beds, benches, and floors, the women and
children in the house, and a little new hay divided among the men and boys
in the barn, made their rest somewhat tolerable.

At this distance of time and custom one would be sure that the hostess,
after such a siege, would be worn down, nervous, and melancholy; but those
who understood her best could have borne witness to a change of spirits, if
any, in the opposite direction. As early as Monday on ordinary occasions,
and Tuesday after the great quarterly visitation, the brick oven was sure
to turn out its usual supplies for the family.

Nor could the holding out of strength and spirits be credited principally
to a good constitution; but while much was due to the pious joy with which
she did all, more, perhaps, is to be laid to what her Yankee friends called
"faculty." Solomon's temple was not more accurately prepared than this
housewife's arrangements for receiving and caring for her meeting guests.
Nor was she less skillful in selecting and directing such youngerly women