You keep somewhat shy of the young ladies, as they are rather stout for your notions of beauty, and wear thick calf-skin boots.  They compare very poorly with Jenny.  Jenny, you think, would be above eating gingerbread between service.  None of them, you imagine, ever read “Thaddeus of Warsaw,” or ever used a colored glass seal with a Cupid and a dart upon it.  You are quite certain they never did, or they could not surely wear such dowdy gowns, and suck their thumbs as they do!

The farmers you have a high respect for,—­particularly for one weazen-faced old gentleman in a brown surtout, who brings his whip into church with him, who sings in a very strong voice, and who drives a span of gray colts.  You think, however, that he has got rather a stout wife; and from the way he humors her in stopping to talk with two or three other fat women, before setting off for home, (though he seems a little fidgety,) you naively think that he has a high regard for her opinion.  Another townsman who attracts your notice is a stout old deacon, who, before entering, always steps around the corner of the church, and puts his hat upon the ground, to adjust his wig in a quiet way.  He then marches up the broad aisle in a stately manner, and plants his hat and a big pair of buckskin mittens on the little table under the desk.  When he is fairly seated in his corner of the pew, with his elbow upon the top rail,—­almost the only man who can comfortably reach it,—­you observe that he spreads his brawny fingers over his scalp in an exceedingly cautious manner; and you innocently think again that it is very hypocritical in a deacon to be pretending to lean upon his hand when he is only keeping his wig straight.

After the morning service they have an “hour’s intermission,” as the preacher calls it; during which the old men gather on a sunny side of the building, and, after shaking hands all around, and asking after the “folks” at home, they enjoy a quiet talk about the crops.  One man, for instance, with a twist in his nose, would say, “It’s raether a growin’ season;” and another would reply, “Tolerable, but potatoes is feelin’ the wet badly.”  The stout deacon approves this opinion, and confirms it by blowing his nose very powerfully.

Two or three of the more worldly-minded ones will perhaps stroll over to a neighbor’s barnyard, and take a look at his young stock, and talk of prices, and whittle a little; and very likely some two of them will make a conditional “swop” of “three likely ye’rlings” for a pair of “two-year-olds.”

The youngsters are fond of getting out into the graveyard, and comparing jackknives, or talking about the schoolmaster or the menagerie, or, it may be, of some prospective “travel” in the fall,—­either to town, or perhaps to the “sea-shore.”

Afternoon service hangs heavily; and the tall chorister is by no means so blithe, or so majestic in the toss of his head, as in the morning.  A boy in the next box tries to provoke you into familiarity by dropping pellets of gingerbread through the bars of the pew; but as you are not accustomed to that way of making acquaintance, you decline all overtures.