The moralists tell us that what we get out of any experience depends upon what we bring to it. What I brought to it that morning was a mind agog, attuned to receive these expected outside sounds. To all such sounds the service within was merely a background—a background which didn’t know its place, since it kept pushing itself more or less importunately into the foreground. I sat there, of course, with perfect propriety of demeanor, but my reactions were something like this:—
_Hymn 912_ … seven stanzas! horrors! oh! _omit the 3d, 5th, and 6th_—well, I should hope so!… I can’t hear a thing while this is going on!… He hasn’t come in yet! _Scripture reading for to-day_—why can’t he give us the passage and let us read it for ourselves?—well, his voice is rather high and uneven, I think I could make out Jonathan’s through the loopholes in it.… There! What was that, I wonder! Sounded like shouting,—oh, why can’t he talk softly! _Let us unite in prayer._ Ah! now we’ll have a long, quiet time, anyway!… if only he wouldn’t pray quite so loud! Why pray aloud at all, anyway? I like the Quaker way best: a good long strip of silence, where your thoughts can wash around in any fashion that—There! No—yes—no—it’s just people going by on the road.… Maybe he’s in the back of the church now, waiting for the close of the prayer. Seems as if I had to look.… Well, he isn’t.… _For thy name’s sake, amen._
And then the collection, with an organ voluntary the while—now why an organ voluntary? Why not leave people to their thoughts some of the time?
And at last, the sermon:—_The text to which I wish to call your attention this morning_—my attention, forsooth! My attention was otherwise occupied. Ah! A puff of warm, sweet air from behind me, and the soft, padding noise of the swinging doors, apprised me of an incomer. A cautious tread in the aisle—I moved along a little to make room.
In a city church probably I should have thrown propriety to the winds and had the gist of the story out of him at once, but in a country church there are always such listening spaces,—the very pew-backs and cushions seem attentive, the hymnals creak in their racks, and the little stools cry out nervously when one barely touches them. It was too much for me. I was coerced into an outer semblance of decorum. However, I snatched a hasty glance at Jonathan’s face. It was quite red and hot-looking, but calm, very calm, and I judged it to be the calm, not of defeat nor yet of settled militancy, but of triumph. I even thought I detected the flicker of a grin,—the mere atmospheric suggestion of a grin,—as if he felt the urgent if furtive appeal in my glance. At any rate, Jonathan was all right, that was clear. And as to Griz—whether she was still one mare or two half-mares—it didn’t so much matter. And now for the sermon! I gathered myself to attend.
