But when, on the next rainy
Sunday, she rode to church in her father's lumber wagon, holding the
blue cotton umbrella over her last year's straw and waterproof--and when
arrived at the church she suffered James to help her to alight, jumping
over the muddy wheel, and then going straight to her accustomed seat in
the choir, which had missed her strong voice so much--the son changed
his mind, and said she was the same as ever; while after the day when
she found Mrs. Markham making soap out behind the corn-house, and
good-humoredly offered to watch it and stir it while that lady went into
the house to see to the corn pudding, which Eunice was sure to spoil if
left to her own ingenuity, the mother, too, changed her mind, and wished
Richard had been so lucky as to have fixed his choice on Melinda. But
James was far from wishing a thing which would so seriously have
interfered with his hopes and wishes. He was very glad that Richard's
preference had fallen where it did, and his cheery whistle was heard
almost constantly, and after Tim Jones told, in his blunt way, how
"Melind was tryin' to train him, and make him more like them dandies at
the big tavern in New York," he, too, began to amend, and taking Richard
for his pattern, imitated him, until he found that simple, loving Andy,
in his anxiety to please Ethelyn, had seized upon more points of
etiquette than Richard ever knew existed, and then he copied Andy,
having this in his favor: that whatever he did himself was done with a
certain grace inherent in his nature, whereas Andy's attempts were
awkward in the extreme.
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