"Break thou the bread of life To me, to me--" but, "That's it," he thought, "that's it. Break it to him--I can't. All I can give him is stuff in a paper bag, an' not always that. Now you break it to him--" "Dad-_ee_!" cried the child. "You!" Startled, the man looked down at him. It was almost like a counter charge. But the child was merely holding out to him half his store. The man shook his head and went down the steps to the sidewalk and turned to look back at the child munching happily from the paper sack. "Break it to him--break it to him--God!" the father muttered, as he might have used a charm. Again the child looked out expectantly. "Did he say anything back?" he asked eagerly. "Not a word--not a word," said the man again. This time he laughed, nervously and foolishly. "But mebbe he will," he mumbled superstitiously. "I dunno. Now, you set there. An' then you give 'em the paper--an' go with anybody out o' the church that asks you. Dad may not get back for--quite a while...." The man went. The child, deep in the delight of a cream puff, wondered and looked after him troublously, and was vaguely comforted by the murmur of voices beyond the doors. "Why, God didn't answer back because he was to the church meeting," the child thought, when he heard the people moving about within. I "Inside the church that night," Calliope Marsh is wont to tell it, "the Friendship Married Ladies Cemetery Improvement Sodality was having one of our special meetings, with hot chocolate and ice lemonade and two kinds of wafers. There wasn't a very big attendance, account of the rain, and there was so much refreshments ready that us ladies was urgin' the men to have all they wanted. "'Drink both kinds, Timothy,' Mis Toplady says to her husband, persuadin'; 'it'll have to be throwed away if somebody don't drink it up.' "'Lord, Amandy,' says Timothy, testy, 'I do hate to be sicked on to my food like that. It takes away my appetite, same as poison would.' "'They always do it,' says Jimmy Sturgis, morose. 'My wife'll say to me, "Jimmy, eat up them cold peas. They'll spoil if you don't," and, "Jimmy, can't you make 'way with them cold pancakes?" Till I wish't I could starve.' "'Well, if you hadn't et up things,' says Mis' Sturgis, mild, 'we'd of been scrappin' in the poor-house by now. I dunno but I'd ruther scrap where I am.' "'Sure!' says Postmaster Silas Sykes, that always pours oil on troubled waters except when the trouble is his own; and then he churns them. "'I dunno what ailed me in business meeting to-night,' says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. 'I declare, I was full as nervous as a witch. I couldn't keep my feet still anywheres.' "'The fidgets,' comprehends Mis' Uppers, sympathetic. 'I get 'em in my feet 'long toward night sometimes. Turn an' twist an' shift--I know the feeling. Whenever my feet begin that, I always give right up an' take off my shoes an' get into my rubbers.'