The Country of the Pointed Firs

Mrs. Caplin looked bewildered and blank. “Well, all I know is, last year he worked out some kind of plan so's to parade the county conference in platoons, and got 'em all flustered up tryin' to sense his ideas of a holler square,” she burst forth. “They was holler enough anyway after ridin' 'way down from up country into the salt air, and they'd been treated to a sermon on faith an' works from old Fayther Harlow that never knows when to cease. 'Twa'n't no time for tactics then,--they wa'n't a'thinkin' of the church military. Sant, he couldn't do nothin' with 'em. All he thinks of, when he sees a crowd, is how to march 'em. 'Tis all very well when he don't 'tempt too much. He never did act like other folks.” “Ain't I just been maintainin' that he ain't like 'em?” urged Mrs. Todd decidedly. “Strange folks has got to have strange ways, for what I see.” “Somebody observed once that you could pick out the likeness of 'most every sort of a foreigner when you looked about you in our parish,” said Sister Caplin, her face brightening with sudden illumination. “I didn't see the bearin' of it then quite so plain. I always did think Mari' Harris resembled a Chinee.” “Mari' Harris was pretty as a child, I remember,” said the pleasant voice of Mrs. Blackett, who, after receiving the affectionate greetings of nearly the whole company, came to join us,--to see, as she insisted, that we were out of mischief.