Annie Kilburn | Page 5

Italian statuary with her fellow-townsmen's letter, and
getting him to make the figure they wanted, she doubled the money and
gave the commission to a young girl from Kansas, who had come out to
develop at Rome the genius recognised at Topeka. They decided
together that it would be best to have something ideal, and the sculptor
promptly imagined and rapidly executed a design for a winged Victory,
poising on the summit of a white marble shaft, and clasping its hands
under its chin, in expression of the grief that mingled with the popular
exultation. Miss Kilburn had her doubts while the work went on, but
she silenced them with the theory that when the figure was in position
it would be all right.
Now that she saw it in position she wished to ask Mr. Bolton what was
thought of it, but she could not nerve herself to the question. He
remained silent, and she felt that he was sorry for her. "Oh, may I be
very humble; may I be helped to be very humble!" she prayed under
her breath. It seemed as if she could not take her eyes from the figure; it
was such a modern, such an American shape, so youthfully inadequate,
so simple, so sophisticated, so like a young lady in society indecorously
exposed for a tableau vivant. She wondered if the people in Hatboro'
felt all this about it; if they realised how its involuntary frivolity

insulted the solemn memory of the slain.
"Drive on, please," she said gently.
Bolton pulled the reins, and as the horses started he pointed with his
whip to a church at the other side of the green. "That's the new
Orthodox church," he explained.
"Oh, is it?" asked Miss Kilburn. "It's very handsome, I'm sure." She
was not sensible of admiring the large Romanesque pile very much,
though it was certainly not bad, but she remembered that Bolton was a
member of the Orthodox church, and she was grateful to him for not
saying anything about the soldiers' monument.
"We sold the old buildin' to the Catholics, and they moved it down ont'
the side street."
Miss Kilburn caught the glimmer of a cross where he beckoned,
through the flutter of the foliage.
"They had to razee the steeple some to git their cross on," he added;
and then he showed her the high-school building as they passed, and
the Episcopal chapel, of blameless church-warden's Gothic, half hidden
by its Japanese ivy, under a branching elm, on another side street.
"Yes," she said, "that was built before we went abroad."
"I disremember," he said absently. He let the horses walk on the soft,
darkly shaded road, where the wheels made a pleasant grinding sound,
and set himself sidewise on his front seat, so as to talk to Miss Kilburn
more at his ease.
"I d'know," he began, after clearing his throat, with a conscious air, "as
you know we'd got a new minister to our church."
"No, I hadn't heard of it," said Miss Kilburn, with her mind full of the
monument still. "But I might have heard and forgotten it," she added. "I
was very much taken up toward the last before I left Rome."

"Well, come to think," said Bolton; "I don't know's you'd had time to
heard. He hain't been here a great while."
"Is he--satisfactory?" asked Miss Kilburn, feeling how far from
satisfactory the Victory was, and formulating an explanatory apology to
the committee in her mind.
"Oh yes, he's satisfactory enough, as far forth as that goes. He's talented,
and he's right up with the times. Yes, he's progressive. I guess they got
pretty tired of Mr. Rogers, even before he died; and they kept the
supply a-goin' till--all was blue, before they could settle on anybody. In
fact they couldn't seem to agree on anybody till Mr. Peck come."
Miss Kilburn had got as far, in her tacit interview with the committee,
as to have offered to replace at her own expense the Victory with a
Volunteer, and she seemed to be listening to Bolton with rapt attention.
"Well, it's like this," continued the farmer. "He's progressive in his
idees, 'n' at the same time he's spiritual-minded; and so I guess he suits
pretty well all round. Of course you can't suit everybody. There's
always got to be a dog in the manger, it don't matter where you go. But
if anybody was to ask me, I should say Mr. Peck suited. Yes, I don't
know but what I should."
Miss Kilburn instantaneously closed her transaction with the committee,
removed the Victory, and had the Volunteer unveiled with appropriate
ceremonies, opened with prayer by the Rev. Mr. Peck.
"Peck?" she said. "Did you tell me his name was Peck?"
"Yes, ma'am; Rev. Julius