Three Young Knights | Page 7

grew louder and sweeter, and Jot smoothed out his hair and straightened his necktie and sat up straight. The branches outside tapped the narrow, small paned window near him, and from the open windows below the sweet beauty of the summer morning stole in. But as the minister rose to give out his text, a sound from one of the boys back of him caused Jot to turn.
CHAPTER IV.
Jot turned in his narrow seat there in the church gallery as he heard a sound that made him think his brothers were waking. But Old Tilly had only stirred in his sleep and struck out a little jarringly against the back of the narrow gallery pew. Jot turned back and scanned the place they had so innocently taken for their quarters the night before. The gallery pew they were in was like a tiny half-walled room, with seats running around three sides and up to the queer door on the fourth side. The walls of the pews were almost as high as Jot's head if he had dared to stand up.
Kent stirred uneasily and threw out his arm with a smart rap against the side. Jot crept across to him in terror. "Sh! Sh! Keep quiet! don't breathe! You're in meeting!" he whispered. "The minister's down there preaching now! Oh, sh!"
"Lemme--" But Jot's hand cut off the rest. The other hand gently shook Kent's arm.
"I tell you we're in meeting; don't make a sound!"
"Who's making a sound?" whispered Kent, now thoroughly awake. Was Jot taken suddenly crazy? Hark! who was that talking?
"If you don't believe me, raise your eye over that wall and sec what!" whispered Jot eagerly. He drew Kent up beside him and they peeped carefully over. Kent dropped back, as Jot had done, in sheer surprise. The two boys gazed at each other silently. It was too much for Kent, though, and, to suppress a laugh, he stuffed his handkerchief in his mouth.
Kent pointed to Old Tilly and smiled broadly.
"He promised mother he'd take us to meeting," he whispered, "and he's done it!"
"Yes, but she wouldn't like to see him asleep in church!" Jot whispered hack.
Below them the minister's deep voice tolled on solemnly. They could not catch all the words.
"Come on! I'm going to sit up like folks. I want to hear what he's saying," Jot whispered after awhile.
They smoothed their hair and tried to straighten collars and ties, and then suddenly some of the people down below in the body of the church glanced up and saw two boyish faces, side by side, in the gallery. The puzzle was beyond unraveling. The women prodded each other gently with their parasol tips and raised their eyebrows. The men looked blank. When had those youngsters got up there in that pew? One of the deacons scowled a little, but the two quiet brown faces allayed his suspicions. It wasn't mischief--it was mystery.
The sight that had met Jot's astonished eyes in the beginning was a quaint one. This was a new kind of a church! At home there were rows upon rows of red-cushioned seats, with the hymn books and fans in the racks making the only break to the monotony. Here the pews were all little square rooms with high partitions and doors. The hard board seats ran 'way round them all, so that in some of them people were sitting directly "back to" the minister! Rows on rows of the little rooms, like cells, jutted against each other and filled up the entire space below save the aisles and the pulpit.
[Illustration: This was a new kind of church.]
And the pulpit! Jot's eyes returned to it constantly in wondering admiration. There was a steep flight of stairs leading up to it on each side, and an enormous umbrella-like sounding-board was poised heavily above it. The pulpit itself was round and tail and hung above the heads of the congregation, making the practice of looking up at the good old minister a neck-aching process. Directly beneath the pulpit was a seat facing the people. It was empty now, but a hundred years ago, had the lads but known it, the deacons had sat there and the "tithing-man," whose duty it was to go about waking up the dozers with his long wand. It was called the Deacon's Seat, and if sometimes the deacons themselves had dropped off into peaceful naps--what then? Did the "tithing-man" nudge them sharply with his stick, or was he dozing, too?
There are still a few of these old landmarks left in the country. Now and then we run across them and get a distinct flavor of old times, and it is worth going a good many miles to see the inside of one of them. By just shutting one's eyes and "making believe" a little,