Page:The Story of Opal.djvu/246

 CHAPTER XXVII

Of a Cathedral Service in the Pig-Pen.—How the World Looks from a Man's Shoulder. 

the morning of to-day, being as I could not get the fence down about the pig-pen so Aphrodite could get out to go to service in the cathedral, I did have decides to have cathedral service in the pig-pen.

I brought large pieces of moss and lovely ferns. I got a wood-box so Brave Horatius could get in. After he was in the pig-pen, I did use the box for an altar. I lay moss upon it and ferns about it. While I was fixing it Lars Porsena did perch on my shoulder and he stayed there for service. Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus nestled by my side. Solomon Grundy and Anthonya Mundy, who has n't as much curl in her tail as Solomon Grundy—these lay by their mother Aphrodite and me and all the other little pigs. I sat on a board and Clementine did perch on the edge of the feeding-trough. In its middle was her sister hen Andromeda. Felix Mendelssohn did snuggle up in my right apron pocket. And in the left apron pocket was that lovely toad, Lucian Horace Ovid Virgil.

After some long time, when we all did get settled down to quietness, I did start service. It took a long time to get quietness because the dear folks