Slowly the minister took from his pocket the notes he had made for his next Sunday’s sermon.  Frowningly he looked at them.  His mouth settled into stern lines, as aloud, very impressively, he read the verses on which he had determined to speak: 

" ’But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men:  for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.’

" ’Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer:  therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.’

" ’Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith:  these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.’ "

It was a bitter denunciation.  In the green aisles of the woods, the minister’s deep voice rang out with scathing effect.  Even the birds and squirrels seemed hushed into awed silence.  It brought to the minister a vivid realization of how those words would sound the next Sunday when he should utter them before his people in the sacred hush of the church.

His people!—­they were his people.  Could he do it?  Dare he do it?  Dare he not do it?  It was a fearful denunciation, even without the words that would follow—­his own words.  He had prayed and prayed.  He had pleaded earnestly for help, for guidance.  He longed—­oh, how earnestly he longed!—­to take now, in this crisis, the right step.  But was this—­the right step?

Slowly the minister folded the papers and thrust them back into his pocket.  Then, with a sigh that was almost a moan, he flung himself down at the foot of a tree, and covered his face with his hands.

It was there that Pollyanna, on her way home from the Pendleton house, found him.  With a little cry she ran forward.

“Oh, oh, Mr. Ford!  You—­you haven’t broken your leg or—­or anything, have you?” she gasped.

The minister dropped his hands, and looked up quickly.  He tried to smile.

“No, dear—­no, indeed!  I’m just—­resting.”

“Oh,” sighed Pollyanna, falling back a little.  “That’s all right, then.  You see, Mr. Pendleton had broken his leg when I found him—­but he was lying down, though.  And you are sitting up.”

“Yes, I am sitting up; and I haven’t broken anything—­that doctors can mend.”

The last words were very low, but Pollyanna heard them.  A swift change crossed her face.  Her eyes glowed with tender sympathy.

“I know what you mean—­something plagues you.  Father used to feel like that, lots of times.  I reckon ministers do—­most generally.  You see there’s such a lot depends on ’em, somehow.”

The Rev. Paul Ford turned a little wonderingly.

“Was your father a minister, Pollyanna?”