And then we both got to our feet deliberate, Silas having glared at us and all but beckoned to us with his neck. He was singing the song, too--negligent, in his throat. And while he did so, I knew Mis' Toplady and I were both thinking how Silas, a while ago, had done the town out of twice the worth of the property we'd bought from him, for a Humane Society home. And that we'd be paying him for ten years to come. I couldn't help thinking of it. I'm thinking of it now. Before they were done playing the piece, the train whistled. We lined up, or banked up, or whatever you want to call it. And there we stood when the train slowed and stopped. And not a soul got off. No; Jeffro wasn't on that train. He didn't come that night at all. And when the next night we all got down there to meet the Through again, in the same grand style, the identical same thing happened. He didn't come that night, either. And we trailed back from the train, with our spirits dampened a little. Because now he couldn't come till Monday night, being the Through only run to the city on Sundays and didn't come out to Friendship Village at all. So I had that evening to put my mind on the children, and finish up what I had to do for them. And I was glad. Because the service that I was planning for that night grew on me. It was a Spring festival, a religious festival--because I always think that the coming of Spring is a religious ceremony, really--in the best sense. It's when the new birth begins to come all over the earth at once, gentle, as if somebody was thinking it out, a little at a time. And as if it was hoping and longing for us to have a new life, too. And yet I was surprised that they'd leave me have the festival on Sunday. We've got so used to thinking of religion--and one or two brands of patriotism--as the only holy things there are. I didn't know but when I mentioned having Science and Art and Friendship and Beauty and Plenty and Understanding and Peace at my Sunday evening service, they might think I was over-stepping some. I don't know but they did, too. Only they indulged me a little. So everybody came. The churches had all agreed to unite, being everybody's children were in the festival. And by five o'clock that Sunday afternoon the whole of Shepherd's Grove was full of Friendship Village folks, come from all over the town and out on the edges, and in the country, to see the children have their vesper festival. That's what I'd called it--a vesper festival, so it'd help them that had their doubts. There weren't any seats, for it wasn't going to be long, and I had them all stand in a pleasant green spot in the grove, on two sides of the little grass-grown road that wound through the wood, and down which, pretty soon, I was going to have Joseph come, carrying the globe of the world.