Meals were never things of hilarious joy at the Holly farmhouse, as David had already found out; but he had not seen one before quite so somber as this.

It was followed immediately by a half-hour of Scripture-reading and prayer, with Mrs.Holly and Perry Larson sitting very stiff and solemn in their chairs, while Mr.Holly read.

David tried to sit very stiff and solemn in his chair, also; but the roses at the window were nodding their heads and beckoning; and the birds in the bushes beyond were sending to him coaxing little chirps of "Come out, come out!" And how could one expect to sit stiff and solemn in the face of all that, particularly when one's fingers were tingling to take up the interrupted song of the morning and tell the whole world how beautiful it was to be wanted! Yet David sat very still,--or as still as he could sit,--and only the tapping of his foot, and the roving of his wistful eyes told that his mind was not with Farmer Holly and the Children of Israel in their wanderings in the wilderness.
After the devotions came an hour of subdued haste and confusion while the family prepared for church.

David had never been to church.

He asked Perry Larson what it was like; but Perry only shrugged his shoulders and said, to nobody, apparently:-- "Sugar! Won't ye hear that, now ?"--which to David was certainly no answer at all.
That one must be spick and span to go to church, David soon found out--never before had he been so scrubbed and brushed and combed.