"The sergeant pushed and the corporal pulled, And the three they wagged along." But I did not quote these to Jonathan until afterwards. There was something else, too, that I did not quote until afterwards. This was the remark of a sailor uncle of mine: "A man never tackled a job yet that he didn't have to have a woman to hold on to the slack." * * * * * So much for Sunday business. But it should not for a moment be supposed that Sunday is full of these incidents. It is only for a little while in the morning. After the church hour, about eleven o'clock or earlier, the farm settles down. The "critters" are all attended to, the chicks are stowed, the cat has disappeared, the hens have finished all their important business and are lying on their sides in their favorite dirt-holes enjoying their dust-baths, so still, yet so disheveled that I used to think they were dead, and poke them to see--with what cacklings and flutterings resulting may be imagined. I have often wished for the hen's ability to express indignation. Yes, the farm is at peace, and as we sit under the big maples it seems to be reproaching us--"See how quiet everything is! And you couldn't even manage church!" Other people seem to manage it very comfortably and quite regularly. On Sunday morning our quiet little road, unfrequented even by the ubiquitous automobile, is gay with church-goers. "Gay" may seem the wrong word, but it is quite the right one. In the city church-going is rather a sober affair. People either walk or take cars. They wear a certain sort of clothes, known as "church clothes," which represent a sort of hedging compromise between their morning and their afternoon wear. They approach the church in decorous silence; as they emerge they exchange subdued greetings, walk a block or two in little companies, then scatter to their homes and their Sunday dinners. But in the country everybody but the village people drives, and the roads are full of teams,--buggies, surreys, phaetons,--the carriages newly washed, the horses freshly groomed, the occupants scrupulously dressed in the prettiest things they own--their "Sunday-go-to-meeting" ones, which means something quite different from "church clothes." As one nears the village there is some friendly rivalry between horses, there is the pleasure of "catching up" with neighbors' teams, or of being caught up with, and at the church door there is the business of alighting and hitching the horses, and then, if it is early, waiting about outside for the "last bell" before going in.