"It seems to me that it is so much easier to be good--that is, to be
religious, in the country," Blue Bonnet said as they neared the
meeting-house, and the bell in the small tower rang out slowly. "There's
something comes over you when you hear the bell calling, and see the
people gathering--"
"'A sort of holy and calm delight,'"
Kitty quoted.
Blue Bonnet nodded.
"I reckon so--that's as near as you can come to it. There are feelings
there aren't any words for, you know, Kitty--kind of indescribable."
The sight of seven pretty, attractive girls--city girls--in one pew,
occasioned some comment in church; otherwise there was scarcely a ripple
to disturb the calm that rested upon the congregation.
"Unless some one will kindly volunteer to play the organ to-day," the
minister said, rising in the pulpit, "we shall have to sing without
music. Our organist is sick."
Blue Bonnet glanced about her. No one seemed inclined to offer services.
There was a silence of several seconds. The minister waited. Then
Amanda's aunt leaned over and whispered something in Blue Bonnet's ear.
Blue Bonnet rose instantly and went to the organ.
She was a little nervous. She knew that organs differed somewhat from
pianos, and she wasn't familiar with them, but it never occurred to her
to hesitate when she seemed to be needed. She found the hymn and started
out bravely. Sometimes the music weakened a little when Blue Bonnet,
absorbed in the notes, forgot to use the pedals, but, on the whole, it
was not bad, and the minister's hearty handshake and radiant smile after
the service more than compensated for any embarrassment she had
suffered.
"It has been perfectly glorious," Blue Bonnet declared to Amanda's aunt
as they parted with her at daybreak Monday morning. "We've just loved
every minute of our visit here, and would you mind--all of you--I want
the whole family--standing out there by the big gate while I get a
picture of you? I couldn't possibly forget you after the perfectly
lovely time you've given us, but I'd like the picture to show to
Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda."
"Oh, Blue Bonnet," Kitty complained, "haven't you enough pictures yet?
You've been taking them for a year--and more!"
Blue Bonnet quite ignored the remark as she proceeded to line up
Amanda's aunt and her family. She got several snaps, and as she put away
her kodak she promised to remember the group with pictures--a promise
fulfilled, much to the delight of the farm people, later.
CHAPTER III
IN BOSTON
"I think," Miss Clyde said to her mother one morning late in November,
as she put the last article in her suitcase and snapped it shut, "that
Blue Bonnet and I will go to a hotel this time. We shall be out shopping
all day and making arrangements for Blue Bonnet at school, so that there
will be little time for visiting. If you should need me for anything you
might wire the Copley Plaza."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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