Three Young Knights | Page 8

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, how easy it
would be to conjure up our dear old grandmothers in their great scoop
bonnets, and grandfathers with their high coat collars coming nearly to
their bald crowns! And the Deacon's Seat under the pulpit--how easy to

make believe the deacons in claw-hammer coats and queer frilled shirt
bosoms!
The people Jot and Kent saw were ordinary, modern people, and their
modern clothes looked oddly out of date against the quaint old setting.
Jot thought with a twinge of sympathy how hard the seats must feel,
and how shoulders must ache against the perfectly
straight-up-and-down backs. He felt a sudden pity for his
great-grandmother and great-uncles and aunts.
This especial old church, box-like and unchurchly without and ancient
within, was rarely used for worship except in the summer months. Then
there were services in it as often as a minister could be found to
conduct them. The three young adventurers had stumbled upon it in the
dark and overslept out of sheer physical weariness. It was up in one of
the old choir pews in the high gallery they had wakened--or Jot had
wakened--to the strains of the beautiful hymn his mother loved.
The whole explanation was simple enough when it was explained. Kent
and Jot worked it out slowly in their own minds.
Meanwhile Old Tilly slept on, and the sermon came to an end. There
was another hymn and then the benediction. The people dispersed
slowly, and once more the big house was deserted.
Then Jot woke Old Tilly. "I say," he cried, "I say, old fellow, wake up!"
"Yes, I'm coming in a minute!" muttered Old Tilly.
"You'll be late for church," remarked Kent dryly, with a wink at Jot.
Old Tilly stirred and rose on his elbow. Then he gave a bewildered look
around him.
"You're in church. Didn't you promise mother you'd take us to church?"
"Yes."
"But you slept all through the service," said Kent, "and I shall tell

mother so!"
"Kent Eddy, what are you trying to get at? How did we get here,
anyhow?" said Old Tilly, rising cautiously; and then, as he looked
down on the empty room below, standing to his full height, he said.
"Well, if I ever!" a laugh breaking through his white teeth. "I should
say we had been in church!" he added. "Why didn't you fellows wake
me up? What did the folks think?"
"Oh, they only saw the two good boys sitting on the seat facing them!
We didn't say we had another one smuggled in under beside us. But my!
You did rap the seat awfully once with your elbow!"
"Well, I know one thing: my shoulder aches from lying on that narrow
seat so long," said Old Tilly. "I say, let's go down to the wheels and the
grub. I'm half starved!"
"All right," said Kent in rather a subdued way. The morning service
had stolen pleasingly through him, and somehow it seemed to the little
lad as though their ship had been guided into a wonderfully quiet
harbor. And now he followed his brothers down the narrow stairs that
they had so innocently groped their way up in darkness the night before.
The three had agreed to leave the church and partake of the lunch that
was in the baskets on the wheels, but now they found doing so not as
easy of accomplishment as they had at first thought. When they tried
the outer door they found to their dismay that it was locked. Old Tilly
would not believe Kent, and he pushed