walked slowly down the "big road" that Sunday afternoon—slowly, as befitted the scene and the season; for who would hurry over the path that summer has prepared for the feet of earth's tired pilgrims? It was the middle of June, and Nature lay a vision of beauty in her vesture of flowers, leaves, and blossoming grasses. The sandy road was a pleasant walking-place; and if one tired of that, the short, thick grass on either side held a fairy path fragrant with pennyroyal, that most virtuous of herbs. A tall hedge of Osage orange bordered each side of the road, shading the traveler from the heat of the sun, and furnishing a nesting-place for numberless small birds that twittered and chirped their joy in life and love and June. Occasionally a gap in the foliage revealed the placid beauty of corn, oats, and clover, stretching in broad expanse to the distant purple woods, with here and there a field of the cloth of gold—the fast-ripening wheat that waited the hand of the mower. Not only is it the traveler's manifest duty to walk slowly in the midst of such surroundings, but he will do well if now and then he sits down and dreams.

As I made the turn in the road and drew near Aunt Jane's house, I heard her voice, a high, sweet, quavering treble, like the notes of an ancient harpsichord. She was singing a hymn that suited the day and the hour:

Mingling with the song I could hear the creak of her old splint-bottomed chair as she rocked gently to and fro. Song and creak ceased at once when she caught sight of me, and before I had opened the gate she was hospitably placing another chair on the porch and smiling a welcome.

"Come in, child, and set down," she exclaimed, moving the rocker so that I might have a good view of the bit of landscape that she knew I loved to look at.

"Pennyroy'l! Now, child, how did you know I love to smell that?" She crushed the bunch in her withered hands, buried her face in it and sat for a moment with closed eyes. "Lord! Lord!" she exclaimed, with deep-drawn breath, "if I could jest tell how that makes me feel! I been smellin' pennyroy'l all my life, and now, when I get hold of a piece of it, sometimes it makes me feel like a little child, and then again it brings up the time when I was a gyirl, and if I was to keep on settin' here and rubbin' this pennyroy'l in my hands, I believe my whole life'd come back to me. Honey-suckles and pinks and roses ain't any sweeter to me. Me and old Uncle Harvey Dean was jest alike about pennyroy'l. Many a time I've seen Uncle Harvey searchin' around in the fence corners in the early part o' May to see if the pennyroy'l was up yet, and in pennyroy'l time you never saw the old man that he didn't have a bunch of it somewheres about him. Aunt Maria Dean used to say there was dried pennyroy'l in every pocket of his coat, and he used to put a big bunch of it on his piller at night. Sundays it looked like Uncle Harvey couldn't enjoy the preachin' and the singin' unless he had a sprig of it in his hand, and I ricollect once seein' him git up durin' the first prayer and tiptoe out o' church and come back with a handful o' pennyroy'l that he'd gethered across the road, and he'd set and smell it and look as pleased as a child with a piece o' candy."

"Piercing sweet" the breath of the crushed wayside herb rose on the air. I had a distinct vision of Uncle Harvey Dean, and wondered if the fields of asphodel might not yield him some small harvest of his much-loved earthly plant, or if he might not be drawn earthward in "pennyroy'l time."

"I was jest settin' here restin'," resumed Aunt Jane, "and thinkin' about Milly Amos. I reckon you heard me singin' fit to scare the crows as you come along. We used to call that Milly Amos' hymn, and I never can hear it without thinkin' o' Milly."

"Why was it Milly Amos' hymn?" I asked.

Aunt Jane laughed blithely.

"La, child!" she said, "don't you ever git tired o' my yarns? Here it is Sunday, and you tryin' to git me started talkin'; and when I git started you know there ain't any tellin' when I'll stop. Come on and le's look at the gyarden; that's more fittin' for Sunday evenin' than tellin' yarns."

So together we went into the garden and marveled happily over the growth of the tasseling corn, the extraordinarily long runners on the young strawberry plants, the size of the green tomatoes, and all the rest of the miracles that sunshine and rain had wrought since my last visit.

The first man and the first woman were gardeners, and there is something wrong in any descendant of theirs who does not love a garden. He is lacking in a primal instinct. But Aunt Jane was in this respect a true daughter of Eve, a faithful co-worker with the sunshine, the winds, the rain, and all other forces of nature.

"What do you reckon folks'd do," she inquired, "if it wasn't for plantin'-time and growin'-time and harvest-time? I've heard folks say they was tired o' livin', but as long as there's a gyarden to be planted and looked after there's somethin' to live for. And unless there's gyardens in heaven I'm pretty certain I ain't goin' to be satisfied there."

But the charms of the garden could not divert me from the main theme, and when we were seated again on the front porch I returned to Milly Amos and her hymn.

"You know," I said, "that there isn't any more harm in talking about a thing on Sunday than there is in thinking about it." And Aunt Jane yielded to the force of my logic.

"I reckon you've heard me tell many a time about our choir," she began, smoothing out her black silk apron with fingers that evidently felt the need of knitting or some other form of familiar work. "John Petty was the bass, Sam Crawford the tenor, my Jane was the alto, and Milly Amos sung soprano. I reckon Milly might 'a' been called the leader of the choir; she was the sort o' woman that generally leads wherever she happens to be, and she had the strongest, finest voice in the whole congregation. All the parts appeared to depend on her, and it seemed like her voice jest carried the rest o' the voices along like one big river that takes up all the little rivers and carries 'em down to the ocean. I used to think about the difference between her voice and Miss Penelope's. Milly's was jest as clear and true as Miss Penelope's, and four or five times as strong, but I'd ruther hear one note o' Miss Penelope's than a whole song o' Milly's. Milly's was jest a voice, and Miss Penelope's was a voice and somethin' else besides, but what that somethin' was I never could say. However, Milly was the very one for a choir; she kind o' kept 'em all together and led 'em along, and we was mighty proud of our choir in them days. We always had a voluntary after we got our new organ, and I used to look forward to Sunday on account o' that voluntary. It used to sound so pretty to hear 'em begin singin' when everything was still and solemn, and I can never forgit the hymns they sung then—Sam and Milly and John and my Jane.

"But there was one Sunday when Milly didn't sing. Her and Sam come in late, and I knew the minute I set eyes on Milly that somethin' was the matter. Generally she was smilin' and bowin' to people all around, but this time she walked in and set the children down, and then set down herself without even lookin' at anybody, to say nothin' o' smilin' or speakin'. Well, when half-past ten come, my Jane began to play 'Welcome, sweet day of rest,' and all of 'em begun singin' except Milly. She set there with her mouth tight shut, and let the bass and tenor and alto have it all their own way. I thought maybe she was out o' breath from comin' in late and in a hurry, and I looked for her to jine in, but she jest set there, lookin' straight ahead of her; and when Sam passed her a hymn-book, she took hold of it and shut it up and let it drop in her lap. And there was the tenor and the bass and the alto doin' their best, and everybody laughin', or tryin' to keep from laughin'. I reckon if Uncle Jim Matthews had 'a' been there, he'd 'a' took Milly's place and helped 'em out, but Uncle Jim'd been in his grave more'n two years. Sam looked like he'd go through the floor, he was so mortified, and he kept lookin' around at Milly as much as to say, 'Why don't you sing? Please sing, Milly,' but Milly never opened her mouth.

"I'd about concluded Milly must have the sore throat or somethin' like that, but when the first hymn was give out, Milly started in and sung as loud as anybody; and when the doxology come around, Milly was on hand again, and everybody was settin' there wonderin' why on earth Milly hadn't sung in the voluntary. When church was out, I heard Sam invitin' Brother Hendricks to go home and take dinner with him—Brother Hendricks'd preached for us that day—and they all drove off together before I'd had time to speak to Milly.

"But that week, when the Mite Society met, Milly was there bright and early; and when we'd all got fairly started with our sewin', and everybody was in a good-humor, Sally Ann says, says she: 'Milly, I want to know why you didn't sing in that voluntary Sunday. I reckon everybody here wants to know,' says she, 'but nobody but me's got the courage to ask you.'

"And Milly's face got as red as a beet, and she burst out laughin', and says she: 'I declare, I'm ashamed to tell you all. I reckon Satan himself must 'a' been in me last Sunday. You know,' says she,'there's some days when everything goes wrong with a woman, and last Sunday was one o' them days. I got up early,' says she, 'and dressed the children and fed my chickens and strained the milk and washed up the milk things and got breakfast and washed the dishes and cleaned up the house and gethered the vegetables for dinner and washed the children's hands and faces and put their Sunday clothes on 'em, and jest as I was startin' to git myself ready for church,' says she, 'I happened to think that I hadn't skimmed the milk for the next day's churnin'. So I went down to the spring-house and did the skimmin', and jest as I picked up the cream-jar to put it up on that shelf Sam built for me, my foot slipped,' says she, 'and down I come and skinned my elbow on the rock step, and broke the jar all to smash and spilled the cream all over creation, and there I was—four pounds o' butter and a fifty-cent jar gone, and my spring-house in such a mess that I ain't through cleanin' it yet, and my right arm as stiff as a poker ever since.'

"We all had to laugh at the way Milly told it; and Sally Ann says, 'Well, that was enough to make a saint mad.' 'Yes,' says Milly, 'and you all know I'm far from bein' a saint. However,' says she, 'I picked up the pieces and washed up the worst o' the cream, and then I went to the house to git myself ready for church, and before I could git there, I heard Sam hollerin' for me to come and sew a button on his shirt; one of 'em had come off while he was tryin' to button it. And when I got out my work-basket, the children had been playin' with it, and there wasn't a needle in it, and my thimble was gone, and I had to hunt up the apron I was makin' for little Sam and git a needle off that, and I run the needle into my finger, not havin' any thimble, and got a blood spot on the bosom o' the shirt. Then,' says she, 'before I could git my dress over my head, here come little Sam with his clothes all dirty where he'd fell down in the mud, and there I had him to dress again, and that made me madder still; and then, when I finally got out to the wagon,' says she, 'I rubbed my clean dress against the wheel, and that made me mad again; and the nearer we got to the church, the madder I was; and now,' says she, 'do you reckon after all I'd been through that mornin', and dinner ahead of me to git, and the children to look after all the evenin', do you reckon that I felt like settin' up there and singin' "Welcome, sweet day o' rest"?' Says she, 'I ain't seen any day o' rest since the day I married Sam, and I don't expect to see any till the day I die; and if Parson Page wants that hymn sung, let him git up a choir of old maids and old bachelors, for they're the only people that ever see any rest Sunday or any other day.'

"We all laughed, and said we didn't blame Milly a bit for not singin' that hymn; and then Milly said: 'I reckon I might as well tell you all the whole story. By the time church was over,' says she, 'I'd kind o' cooled off, but when I heard Sam askin' Brother Hendricks to go home and take dinner with him, that made me mad again; for I knew that meant a big dinner for me to cook, and I made up my mind then and there that I wouldn't cook a blessed thing, company or no company. Sam'd killed chickens the night before,' says she, 'and they was all dressed and ready, down in the spring-house; and the vegetables was right there on the back porch, but I never touched 'em,' says she. 'I happened to have some cold ham and cold mutton on hand—not much of either one—and I sliced 'em and put the ham in one end o' the big meat-dish and the mutton in the other, with a big bare place between, so's everybody could see that there wasn't enough of either one to go 'round; and then,' says she, 'I sliced up a loaf o' my salt-risin' bread and got out a bowl o' honey and a dish o' damson preserves, and then I went out on the porch and told Sam that dinner was ready.'

"I never shall forgit how we all laughed when Milly was tellin' it. 'You know, Aunt Jane,' says she, 'how quick a man gits up when you tell him dinner's ready. Well, Sam he jumps up, and says he, "Why, you're mighty smart to-day, Milly; I don't believe there's another woman in the county that could git a Sunday dinner this quick." And says he, "Walk out, Brother Hendricks, walk right out."'"

Here Aunt Jane paused to laugh again at the long-past scene that her words called up.

"Milly used to say that Sam's face changed quicker'n a flash o' lightnin' when he saw the table, and he dropped down in his cheer and forgot to ask Brother Hendricks to say grace. 'Why, Milly,' says he, 'where's the dinner? Where's them chickens I killed last night, and the potatoes and corn and butter-beans?' And Milly jest looked him square in the face, and says she, 'The chickens are in the spring-house and the vegetables out on the back porch, and,' says she, 'do you suppose I'm goin' to cook a hot dinner for you all on this "sweet day o' rest"?'"

Aunt Jane stopped again to laugh.

"That wasn't a polite way for anybody to talk at their own table," she resumed, "and some of us asked Milly what Brother Hendricks said. And Milly's face got as red as a beet again, and she says: 'Why, he behaved so nice, he made me feel right ashamed o' myself for actin' so mean. He jest reached over and helped himself to everything he could reach, and says he, "This dinner may not suit you, Brother Amos, but it's plenty good for me, and jest the kind I'm used to at home." Says he, "I'd rather eat a cold dinner any time than have a woman toilin' over a hot stove for me."' And when he said that, Milly up and told him why it was she didn't feel like gittin' a hot dinner, and why she didn't sing in the voluntary; and when she'd got through, he says, 'Well, Sister Amos, if I'd been through all you have this mornin' and then had to git up and give out such a hymn as "Welcome, sweet day o' rest," I believe I'd be mad enough to pitch the hymn-book and the Bible at the deacons and the elders.' And then he turns around to Sam, and says he, 'Did you ever think, Brother Amos, that there ain't a pleasure men enjoy that women don't have to suffer for it?' And Milly said that made her feel meaner'n ever; and when supper-time come, she lit the fire and got the best hot supper she could—fried chicken and waffles and hot soda-biscuits and coffee and goodness knows what else. Now wasn't that jest like a woman, to give in after she'd had her own way for a while and could 'a' kept on havin' it? Abram used to say that women and runaway horses was jest alike; the best way to manage 'em both was to give 'em the rein and let 'em go till they got tired, and they'll always stop before they do any mischief. Milly said that supper tickled Sam pretty near to death. Sam was always mighty proud o' Milly's cookin'.

"So that's how we come to call that hymn Milly Amos' hymn, and as long as Milly lived folks'd look at her and laugh whenever the preacher give out 'Welcome, sweet day o' rest.'"

The story was over. Aunt Jane folded her hands, and we both surrendered ourselves to happy silence. All the faint, sweet sounds that break the stillness of a Sunday in the country came to our ears in gentle symphony,—the lisp of the leaves, the chirp of young chickens lost in the mazes of billowy grass, and the rustle of the silver poplar that turned into a mass of molten silver whenever the breeze touched it.

"When you've lived as long as I have, child," said Aunt Jane presently, "you'll feel that you've lived in two worlds. A short life don't see many changes, but in eighty years you can see old things passin' away and new ones comin' on to take their place, and when I look back at the way Sunday used to be kept and the way it's kept now, it's jest like bein' in another world. I hear folks talkin' about how wicked the world's growin' and wishin' they could go back to the old times, but it looks like to me there's jest as much kindness and goodness in folks nowadays as there was when I was young; and as for keepin' Sunday, why, I've noticed all my life that the folks that's strictest about that ain't always the best Christians, and I reckon there's been more foolishness preached and talked about keepin' the Sabbath day holy than about any other one thing.

"I ricollect some fifty-odd years ago the town folks got to keepin' Sunday mighty strict. They hadn't had a preacher for a long time, and the church'd been takin' things easy, and finally they got a new preacher from down in Tennessee, and the first thing he did was to draw the lines around 'em close and tight about keepin' Sunday. Some o' the members had been in the habit o' havin' their wood chopped on Sunday. Well, as soon as the new preacher come, he said that Sunday wood-choppin' had to cease amongst his church-members or he'd have 'em up before the session. I ricollect old Judge Morgan swore he'd have his wood chopped any day that suited him. And he had a load o' wood carried down cellar, and the nigger man chopped all day long down in the cellar, and nobody ever would 'a' found it out, but pretty soon they got up a big revival that lasted three months and spread 'way out into the country, and bless your life, old Judge Morgan was one o' the first to be converted; and when he give in his experience, he told about the wood-choppin', and how he hoped to be forgiven for breakin' the Sabbath day.

"Well, of course us people out in the country wouldn't be outdone by the town folks, so Parson Page got up and preached on the Fourth Commandment and all about that pore man that was stoned to death for pickin' up a few sticks on the seventh day. And Sam Amos, he says after meetin' broke, says he, 'It's my opinion that that man was a industrious, enterprisin' feller that was probably pickin' up kindlin'-wood to make his wife a fire, and,' says he, 'if they wanted to stone anybody to death they better 'a' picked out some lazy, triflin' feller that didn't have energy enough to work Sunday or any other day.' Sam always would have his say, and nothin' pleased him better'n to talk back to the preachers and git the better of 'em in a argument. I ricollect us women talked that sermon over at the Mite Society, and Maria Petty says: 'I don't know but what it's a wrong thing to say, but it looks to me like that Commandment wasn't intended for anybody but them Israelites. It was mighty easy for them to keep the Sabbath day holy, but,' says she, 'the Lord don't rain down manna in my yard. And,' says she, 'men can stop plowin' and plantin' on Sunday, but they don't stop eatin', and as long as men have to eat on Sunday, women'll have to work.'

"And Sally Ann, she spoke up, and says she, 'That's so; and these very preachers that talk so much about keepin' the Sabbath day holy, they'll walk down out o' their pulpits and set down at some woman's table and eat fried chicken and hot biscuits and corn bread and five or six kinds o' vegetables, and never think about the work it took to git the dinner, to say nothin' o' the dish-washin' to come after.'

"There's one thing, child, that I never told to anybody but Abram; I reckon it was wicked, and I ought to be ashamed to own it, but"—here her voice fell to a confessional key—"I never did like Sunday till I begun to git old. And the way Sunday used to be kept, it looks to me like nobody could 'a' been expected to like it but old folks and lazy folks. You see, I never was one o' these folks that's born tired. I loved to work. I never had need of any more rest than I got every night when I slept, and I woke up every mornin' ready for the day's work. I hear folks prayin' for rest and wishin' for rest, but, honey, all my prayer was, 'Lord, give me work, and strength enough to do it.' And when a person looks at all the things there is to be done in this world, they won't feel like restin' when they ain't tired.

"Abram used to say he believed I tried to make work for myself Sunday and every other day; and I ricollect I used to be right glad when any o' the neighbors'd git sick on Sunday and send for me to help nurse 'em. Nursing the sick was a work o' necessity, and mercy, too. And then, child, the Lord don't ever rest. The Bible says He rested on the seventh day when He got through makin' the world, and I reckon that was rest enough for Him. For, jest look; everything goes on Sundays jest the same as week-days. The grass grows, and the sun shines, and the wind blows, and He does it all."

I said.

"That's it," said Aunt Jane, delightedly. "There ain't any religion in restin' unless you're tired, and work's jest as holy in his sight as rest."

Our faces were turned toward the western sky, where the sun was sinking behind the amethystine hills. The swallows were darting and twittering over our heads, a somber flock of blackbirds rose from a huge oak tree in the meadow across the road, and darkened the sky for a moment in their flight to the cedars that were their nightly resting place. Gradually the mist changed from amethyst to rose, and the poorest object shared in the transfiguration of the sunset hour.

Is it unmeaning chance that sets man's days, his dusty, common days, between the glories of the rising and the setting sun, and his life, his dusty, common life, between the two solemnities of birth and death? Bounded by the splendors of the morning and evening skies, what glory of thought and deed should each day hold! What celestial dreams and vitalizing sleep should fill our nights! For why should day be more magnificent than life?

As we watched in understanding silence, the enchantment slowly faded. The day of rest was over, a night of rest was at hand; and in the shadowy hour between the two hovered the benediction of that peace which "passeth all understanding."