Only an Incident | Page 5

understand, to fill an Episcopalian pulpit." (Nobody had ever yet
been able to teach the good dame the difference between Episcopal and
Episcopalian, and she preferred the undivided use of the latter word.)
"Any thing will go down with them."
"Yes, my dear Mrs. Upjohn. It's undeniably a poor Church, a poor
Church, and I hope we may all live to witness its downfall. It must have
been a hard day for you, Mrs. Lane, when Phebe went over to it. I never
forgave old Mr. White for receiving her into it; I never did, indeed."
Phebe only smiled.
"Humph!" said Mrs. Lane, biting off a thread. "Phebe may go where
she likes, for all me, so long as only she goes. Baptist I was bred, and
Baptist I'll be buried; but it's with churches as with teas, I say. One's as
good as another, but people may take green, or black, or mixed, as best
agrees with their stomachs."
"That's a very dangerous doctrine," said Mrs. Upjohn. "Push it a little
further, and you'll have babes and sucklings living on beef, and their
elders dining on pap."
"Humph!" ejaculated Mrs. Lane again. "If they like it, what's the
odds?"
"He-he!" snickered Miss Brooks.
"Well, now," resumed Mr. Hardcastle, "it stands to reason children
should learn to like what their elders have liked before them. That's the
only decent and Christian way of living. And as I said to my son,--to
my Dick, you know" (Mr. Hardcastle had a son of whom he always
spoke as if sole owner of him, and indeed solely responsible for his

being),--"'Dick,' I said, when he spoke disrespectfully of Mr. Webb's
prayers,--and Mr. Webb is a powerful prayer-maker, to be sure,--'Dick,'
I said, 'church is like physic, and the more you don't like it, the more
good it does you. And if you think Mr. Webb's prayers are too long, it's
a sign that for your soul's salvation they ought to be longer.' And I
said--"
Mrs. Lane knew by long experience that now or never was the time to
stop Mr. Hardcastle. Once fairly started on the subject of his supposed
advice to Dick on any given occasion, there was no arresting his
eloquence. She started up abruptly from her sewing-machine with her
mouth full of pins, emptying them into her hand as she went. "Those
ginger-cookies--" she mumbled as she passed Mr. Hardcastle. "They
ought to be done by this."
A promissory fragrance caught the old gentleman's nostrils as she
opened the door, dispelling sterner thoughts. "Ah," he said, sniffing the
air with evident approbation, "I was about going, but I don't mind if I
stay and try a few. Your make, Phebe?"
"No," answered Phebe, shortly, moving just out of reach of the bland
old hand, which stretched itself out to chuck her under the chin, and
was left patting the air with infinite benevolence "mother made them."
"All wrong," commented Mrs. Upjohn. "All wrong. You should not
leave your mother any work that you could spare her. One of the first
things I taught our Maria" (Mrs. Upjohn in Mr. Hardcastle's presence
always said our Maria with great distinctness),--"one of the first things
I taught her was, that it was her privilege to save me in every thing. I
don't believe in idleness for girls. Aren't you ready yet to attend to these
crewels, Phebe? Miss Brooks is snarling them terribly."
"Phebe's really a very good girl in her way though," remarked Mrs.
Hardcastle, indulgently, from her easy chair. "I will testify that she can
make quite eatable cake at a pinch."
Phebe secretly thought Mrs. Hardcastle ought to know. She
remembered her once spoiling a new-made company loaf by slashing

into it without so much as a by-your-leave.
"That was very nice cake Miss Lynch gave us last night," piped in Miss
Delano.
"Too much citron," pronounced Mrs. Upjohn, decisively. "You should
never overload your cake with citron. It turns it out heavy, as sure as
there's a sun in the heavens."
"There isn't any to-day; it's cloudy," Phebe could not help putting in,
demurely, but no one paid any attention, except that Mrs. Upjohn
turned on her an unworded expression of: "If I say so, it is so whether
or no."
An animated debate on cake followed, in the middle of which Mrs.
Lane reappeared with a trayful of cookies hot from the oven; and two
more callers came in, Bell Masters and Dick Hardcastle, which last first
woke up Miss Lydia with a boisterous kiss, frightening the poor soul
half to death by assuring her she had been snoring so that he heard her
way down street, and then devoted himself to the cookies with a
good-will and large capacity that filled one with compassionate
feelings toward his mother's