Virginia was now as free from care as if she had been traveling with her brother; and what could I say?  What did I want to say?  By morning I had made up my mind that I would take her to my farm and care for her there, regardless of consequences—­and I admit that I was not clear as to the proprieties.  Every one was a stranger to every one else in this country.  Whose business was it anyhow?  Doctor Bliven and his companion—­I had worked out a pretty clear understanding of their case by this time—­were settling in the new West and leaving their past behind them.  Who could have anything to say against it if I took this girl with me to my farm, cared for her, protected her; and gave her the home that nobody else seemed ready to give?

“Do you ever go to church?” asked Virginia.  “It’s Sunday.”

“Is there preaching here to-day?” I asked.

“Don’t you hear the bell?” she inquired.

“Let’s go!” said I.

We were late; and the heads of the people were bowed in prayer as we went in; so we stood by the door until the prayer was over.  The preacher was Elder Thorndyke.  I was surprised at seeing him because he had told me that he and his wife were going to Monterey Centre; but there he was, laboring with his text, speaking in a halting manner, and once in a while bogging down in a dead stop out of which he could not pull himself without giving a sort of honk like a wild goose.  It was his way.  I never sat under a preacher who had better reasoning powers or a worse way of reasoning.  Down in front of him sat Grandma Thorndyke, listening intently, and smiling up to him whenever he got in hub-deep; but at the same time her hands were clenched into fists in her well-darned black-silk gloves.

I did not know all this then, for her back was toward us; but I saw it so often afterward!  It was that honking habit of the elder’s which had driven them, she often told me, from New England to Ohio, then to Illinois, and finally out to Monterey Centre.  The new country caught the halt like Elder Thorndyke, the lame like the Fewkeses, the outcast like the Bushyagers and the Blivens, the blind like me, the far-seeing like N.V.  Creede, the prophets like old Dunlap the Abolitionist and Amos Thatcher, and the great drift of those who felt a drawing toward the frontier like iron filings to a magnet, or came with the wind of emigration like tumble-weeds before the autumn blast.

I remembered that when Virginia was with me back there by the side of the road that first day, Elder Thorndyke and his wife had come by inquiring for her; and I did not quite relish the idea of being found here with her after all these long days; so when church was out I took Virginia by the hand and tried to get out as quickly as possible; but when we reached the door, there were Elder Thorndyke and grandma shaking hands with the people, and trying to be pastoral; though it was clear that they were as much strangers as we.  The elder was filling the vacant pulpit that day by mere chance, as he told me; but I guess he was really candidating a little after all.  It would have been a bad thing for Monterey Centre if he had received the call.