“When he gets very old,” continued the Story Girl, “the Presbytery thought it was time he was retired.  He didn’t think so; but the Presbytery had their way, because there were so many of them to one of him.  He was retired, and a young man was called to Carlisle.  Mr. Scott went to live in town, but he came out to Carlisle very often, and visited all the people regularly, just the same as when he was their minister.  The young minister was a very good young man, and tried to do his duty; but he was dreadfully afraid of meeting old Mr. Scott, because he had been told that the old minister was very angry at being set aside, and would likely give him a sound drubbing, if he ever met him.  One day the young minister was visiting the Crawfords in Markdale, when they suddenly heard old Mr. Scott’s voice in the kitchen.  The young minister turned pale as the dead, and implored Mrs. Crawford to hid him.  But she couldn’t get him out of the room, and all she could do was to hide him in the china closet.  The young minister slipped into the china closet, and old Mr. Scott came into the room.  He talked very nicely, and read, and prayed.  They made very long prayers in those days, you know; and at the end of his prayer he said, ’Oh Lord, bless the poor young man hiding in the closet.  Give him courage not to fear the face of man.  Make him a burning and a shining light to this sadly abused congregation.’  Just imagine the feelings of the young minister in the china closet!  But he came right out like a man, though his face was very red, as soon as Mr. Scott had done praying.  And Mr. Scott was lovely to him, and shook hands, and never mentioned the china closet.  And they were the best of friends ever afterwards.”

“How did old Mr. Scott find out the young minister was in the closet?” asked Felix.

“Nobody ever knew.  They supposed he had seen him through the window before he came into the house, and guessed he must be in the closet—­because there was no way for him to get out of the room.”

“Mr. Scott planted the yellow plum tree in Grandfather’s time,” said Cecily, peeling one of the plums, “and when he did it he said it was as Christian an act as he ever did.  I wonder what he meant.  I don’t see anything very Christian about planting a tree.”

“I do,” said the Story Girl sagely.

When next we assembled ourselves together, it was after milking, and the cares of the day were done with.  We foregathered in the balsam-fragrant aisles of the fir wood, and ate early August apples to such an extent that the Story Girl said we made her think of the Irishman’s pig.

“An Irishman who lived at Markdale had a little pig,” she said, “and he gave it a pailful of mush.  The pig at the whole pailful, and then the Irishman put the pig in the pail, and it didn’t fill more than half the pail.  Now, how was that, when it held a whole pailful of mush?”

This seemed to be a rather unanswerable kind of conundrum.  We discussed the problem as we roamed the wood, and Dan and Peter almost quarrelled over it, Dan maintaining that the thing was impossible, and Peter being of the opinion that the mush was somehow “made thicker” in the process of being eaten, and so took up less room.  During the discussion we came out to the fence of the hill pasture where grew the “bad berry” bushes.