Page:The adventures of Ann; stories of colonial times.djvu/78

74 to the Waleses, and to the Pennimans, who lived three miles from them over the Stoughton line. They were all constant meeting-folks. Hard indeed was the storm which could keep a Wales or a Penniman away from meeting.

Mrs. Polly Wales' horses were accommodated in this new stable also. In the winter time, there were two of them; one which she and Ann rode, Ann using the pillion, and one for Nabby Porter. Phineas Adams always walked. Often the sturdy young blacksmith was at the meeting-house, before the women, and waiting to take their horses.

One Sunday, the winter after the Horse-House was built, Mrs. Polly, Ann, Phineas, and Nabby went to meeting as usual. It was a very cold, bleak day; the wind blew in through the slight wooden walls of the old meeting-house, and the snow lay in little heaps here and there. There was no stove in the building, as every one knows. Some of the women had hot bricks and little foot-stoves, and that was all. Ann did not care for either. She sat up straight in the comfortless, high-backed pew. Her cheeks were as red as her crimson cloak, her