E-text prepared by Al Haines Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 18413-h.htm or 18413-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/1/18413/18413-h/18413-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/1/18413/18413-h.zip) PRUDENCE OF THE PARSONAGE by ETHEL HUESTON With Illustrations by Arthur William Brown [Frontispiece: "What did you put in this soup, Prudence?"] New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers Copyright 1915 The Bobbs-Merrill Company TO MY MOTHER WHO DEVOTED HER LIFE TO REARING A WHOLE PARSONAGE-FULL OF ROLLICKING YOUNG METHODISTS CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCING HER II THE REST OF THE FAMILY III THE LADIES' AID IV A SECRET SOCIETY V THE TWINS STICK UP FOR THE BIBLE VI AN ADMIRER VII LESSONS IN ETIQUETTE VIII THE FIRST DARK SHADOW OF WINTER IX PRACTISING ECONOMY X A BURGLAR'S VISIT XI ROMANCE COMES XII ROUSED FROM HER SLUMBER XIII SHE ORDERS HER LIFE XIV SHE COMES TO GRIEF XV FATE TAKES CHARGE ILLUSTRATIONS "What did you put in this soup, Prudence?" . . . . _Frontispiece_ "If you'll shut the door one minute, we'll have everything exactly as you left it." "Yes, and have refreshments for just you two?" "She predicted I'm to fall in love with you." PRUDENCE OF THE PARSONAGE CHAPTER I INTRODUCING HER None but the residents consider Mount Mark, Iowa, much of a town, and those who are honest among them admit, although reluctantly, that Mount Mark can boast of far more patriotism than good judgment! But the _very most_ patriotic of them all has no word of praise for the ugly little red C., B. & Q. railway station. If pretty is as pretty does, as we have been told so unpleasantly often, then the station is handsome enough, but as an ornament to the commonwealth it is a dismal failure,--low, smoky and dust-grimed. In winter its bleakness and bareness add to the chill of the rigorous Iowa temperature, and in summer the sap oozing through the boards is disagreeably suggestive of perspiration. The waiting-room itself is "cleaned" every day, and yet the same dust lies in the corners where it has lain for lo, these many years. And as for the cobwebs, their chief distinction lies in their ripe old age. If there were only seven spiders in the ark, after the subsiding of the waters, at least a majority of them must have found their way to Mount Mark station in South-eastern Iowa.