Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish.Abbott, Lyman
Religion
Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish.
Abbott, Lyman
Christian fiction; New York (State) -- Fiction; Parishes -- Fiction
To make a long story short, the result of Miss Moore's energetic
endeavors was seen the next Sabbath, in part, in an entirely new
aspect of affairs, which has been constantly improving since. The
board of trustees, moved thereto partly by the energies of Miss
Moore, partly by those of their Baptist neighbors who have just got
into a new church, have commenced to build a new fence. A graveled
walk, free from dust in drought and from mud in rainy weather, leads
up to the church-door. A border of sod on either side melts
gradually away into the beginning of a lawn of grass which will be
fuller and better next year than this. On a couple of fan shaped
lattices, in which I take a little pride as my own handiwork, a
honey-suckle on one side of the church-door and a prairie rose on
the other are planted. In imagination I already see them reaching
out their tendrils in courtship over the door. I should not wonder
if next Spring should celebrate their nuptials. Some ivy, planted by
Miss Moore, on the eastern side of the church promises in time to
embosom it in green. A parterre of flowers in the rear, has already
helped to furnish the pulpit every Sunday with a bouquet, and, Miss
Moore declares, will, another summer, give the minister a bouquet on
his study table all the week, and messengers of beauty to add to the
comfort of many a sick-room. And in the Fall Deacon Goodsole and I
with half a dozen young men from the pastor's Bible-class are going
up into the woods for some maples to set out in the place of the
dead sticks which served only as monuments of the departed.
But Miss Moore is in a quandary. She does not know what to do with
her ten dollars. All the work was given. Even Pat Maloney, Roman
Catholic though he is, would not take anything for spading up the
ground for "our church garden."
I am a conservative man. But I do wish Miss Moore could be chairman
of our board of trustees for a year or two.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Our Temperance Prayer-Meeting.
IT is late in the fall. The summer birds have fled southward. The
summer residents have fled to their city homes. The mountains have
blossomed out in all the brilliance of their autumnal colors; but
the transitory glory has gone and they are brown and bare. One
little flurry of snow has given us warning of what is coming. The
furnace has been put in order; the double windows have been put on;
a storm-house has enclosed our porch; a great pile of wood lies up
against the stable, giving my boy promise of plenty of exercise
during the long winter. And still the summer lingers in these bright
and glorious autumnal days. And of them the carpenters and the
painters are making much in their work on the new library-hall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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