In other words, they all came back out of their barbaric _powwow_ to their natural modern selves." This explanation had palpable truth, but Lily had a dim feeling that it had wider application than to the meeting they had just left.
"They'll be music around this clearing to-morrow," said Milton, with a sigh; "wish I was at home this week." "But what'll become of Mr.Pill ?" "Oh, he'll come out all right," Radbourn assured her, and Milton's clear tenor rang out as he drew Eileen closer to his side: "O silver moon, O silver moon, You set, you set too soon-- The morrow day is far away, The night is but begun." IV.
The news, grotesquely exaggerated, flew about the next day, and at night, though it was very cold and windy, the house was jammed to suffocation.

On these lonely prairies life is so devoid of anything but work, dramatic entertainments are so few, and appetite so keen, that a temperature of twenty degrees below zero is no bar to a trip of ten miles.

The protracted meeting was the only recreation for many of them.
The gossip before and after service was a delight not to be lost, and this last sensation was dramatic enough to bring out old men and women who had not dared to go to church in winter for ten years.
Long before seven o'clock, the school-house blazed with light and buzzed with curious speech.

Team after team drove up to the door, and as the drivers leaped out to receive the women, they said in low but eager tones to the bystanders: "Meeting begun yet ?" "Nope!" "What kind of a time y' havin' over here, any way ?" "A mighty solumn time," somebody would reply to a low laugh.
By seven o'clock every inch of space was occupied; the air was frightful.

The kerosene lamps gave off gas and smoke, the huge stove roared itself into an angry red on its jack-oak grubs, and still people crowded in at the door.
Discussion waxed hot as the stove; two or three Universalists boldly attacked everybody who came their way.