Sunny Slopes | Page 4

watched very, very closely all that evening, and she could not see
one particle of difference between these mansers and the young folks in
the Methodist Church in Mount Mark, Iowa. They told funny stories,
and laughed immoderately at them. The young men gave the latest
demonstrations of vaudeville trickery, and the girls applauded as
warmly as if they had not seen the same bits performed in the original.
They asked David if they might dance in the kitchen, and David
smilingly begged them to spare his manse the disgrace, and to dance
themselves home if they couldn't be more restrained. The young men
put in an application for Mrs. Duke as teacher of the Young Men's
Bible Class, and David sternly vetoed the measure. The young ladies
asked Carol what kind of powder she used, and however she got her
hair up in that most marvelous manner.
And Carol decided it was not going to be such a burden after all, and
thought perhaps she might make a regular pillar in time.
When, as she later met the elder ones of the church, and was invariably
greeted with a smiling, "How is our little Methodist to-day," she
bitterly swallowed her grief and answered with a brightness all
assumed:
"Turned Presbyterian, thank you."
But to David she said:

"I did seriously and religiously ask the Lord to let me get introduced to
the mansers without disgracing myself, and I am just a teeny bit
disappointed because He went back on me in such a crisis."
But David, wise minister and able exponent of his faith, said quickly:
"He didn't go back on you, Carol. It was the best kind of an
introduction, and He stood by you right through. They were more
afraid of you than you were of them. You might have been stiff and
reserved, and they would have been cold and self-conscious, and it
would have been ghastly for every one. But your break broke the ice
right off. You were perfectly natural."
"Hum,--yes--natural enough, I suppose. But it wasn't dignified, and
why do you suppose I have been practising dignity these last ten
years?"
CHAPTER III
A BABY IN BUSINESS
"Centerville, Iowa.
"Dear Carol and David--
"Please do not call me the baby of the family any more. I am in
business, and babies have no business in business. Very good, wasn't it?
I am practising verbosity for the book I am going to write some day.
Verbosity is what I want to say, isn't it? I am never sure whether it is
that or obesity. But you know what I mean.
"To begin at the beginning, then, you would be surprised how sensible
father is turning out. I can hardly understand it. You remember when I
insisted on studying stenography, Aunt Grace and Prue, yes, and all the
rest of you, were properly shocked and horrified, and thought I ought to
teach school because it is more ministerial. But I knew I should need
the stenography in my writing, and father looked at me, and thought a
while, and came right out on my side. And that settled it.

"Of course, when I wanted to cut college after my second year so I
could get to work, father talked me out of it. But I am really convinced
he was right that time, even though he wasn't on my side. But after I
finished college, when they offered me the English Department in the
High School in Mount Mark at seventy-five per, and when I insisted on
coming down here to Centerville to take this stenographic job with
Messrs. Nesbitt and Orchard, at eight a week, well, the serene
atmosphere of our quiet home was decidedly murky for a while. I said I
needed the experience, both stenographic and literary, and this was my
opportunity.
"Aunt Grace was speechless. Prudence wept over me. Fairy laughed at
me. Lark said she just wished you were home to take charge of me and
teach me a few things. But father looked at me again, and thought very
seriously for a while, and said he believed I was right.
"Consequently, I am at Centerville.
"Isn't it dear of father? And so surprising. The girls think he needs
medical attention, and honestly I am a little worried over him myself. It
was so unexpected. Really, I half thought he would 'put his foot down,'
as the Ladies Aiders used to want Prudence to do with us. He was
always resigned, father was, about giving the girls up in marriage, but
every one always said he would draw the line there. He is developing, I
guess.
"Do you remember Nesbitt and Orchard? Mr. Nesbitt was a member of
the church when we lived here, but it was before I was born, so