Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/141

 Unex was. If she went to meeting she'd have to take him. He couldn't stay by himself in the dark, even asleep. She had been by herself all day, she might feel better to go where some people were.

Wrapping a warm shawl around him very gently, so as not to rouse him, she eased him up into her arms. Then holding him carefully, she closed the front door behind her and stepped out into the warm dark. All the red light the sunset had poured over the land and sky had died out. Night had crept out from under all the houses and rose up over the fields, chasing every shadow of daylight away. The afterglow had left the sky. The stars were appearing one by one, white stars first, then red ones and blue ones, all marching slowly toward sunset.

Where was July now?

Maum Hannah's cabin, where meeting was held every Wednesday and Sunday night, stood at the other end of the street, as the washed-out, dilapidated road running between the two rows of weather-beaten cabins was called. Not many people would be there yet. Only the old people, the good earnest Christians, cared to be on time for the beginning of the prayer-meeting. The young and the sinful preferred to linger on the door-steps chatting, laughing, smoking talking