Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/343

 know why I hadn't thought of the plan before. The number who attend church in that great barn of a place could easily be put into someone's parlor, and save the trustees the expense of heating. One of them whom I saw the other day seemed quite pleased with the notion—said they'd been at a loss to know what to do about conditions here." He glanced at his watch. "Well, I must be going or I shall miss the train to Johnsonville. Thank you very much for the hint about the blight."

He went down the street, humming a cheerful little tune.

To Miss Abigail it was the bugle call of "Forward, charge!" She had been, for the last few weeks, a little paler than usual. Now her powerful old face flushed to an angry red. She dashed her trowel to the garden path and clenched her fists. "What's coming to Greenford!" she shouted. It was no longer a wail of despair. It was a battle-cry of defiance.

She had no time to organize a campaign, forced as she was to begin fighting at once. Reaching wildly for any weapon at hand, she rushed to the front, as grim-visaged a warrior as ever frightened a peaceable, shiftless non-combatant. "Joel Barney!" she cried, storming up his front steps. "You're a trustee of the church, aren't you? Well, if you don't vote against selling the church, I'll foreclose the mortgage on your house so quick you can't wink. And you tell 'Lias Bennett that if he doesn't do the same, I'll pile manure all over that field of mine near his place, and stink out his summer renters so they'll never set foot here again."