After the salver had been filled with sand, and covered with moss, and soaked until it would absorb no more water, and the lilies had been laid in so thickly that they looked like a great white bank of bloom, the whole was lovely, as I said, but heavy. The walk to the church was long, and Nettie, thinking of it, surveyed her finished work with a grave face. How was it ever to be gotten to the church? She tried to lift one end of it, and shook her head. There was no hope that she could even help carry it for so long a distance. Mrs. Smith saw the trouble in her eyes, and guessed at its cause. "It is an awful heavy thing, that's a fact," she said, "hefting" it in her strong arms; "I don't know how you are going to manage it; Sarah Jane would help in a minute, but there's her back; she ain't got no back to speak of, Sarah Jane hasn't. And there's Job, he ain't at home; he went this morning before it was light, away over the other side of the clip hill with a load, and the last words he says to me was: 'Don't you be scairt if I don't get round very early; them roads over there is dreadful heavy, and I shall have to rest the team in the heat of the day,' and like enough he won't get back till nigh ten o'clock."

Certainly no help could be expected from the Smith family. "We shall have to take some of the sand out," said Nettie, surveying the mound regretfully; "I'm real sorry; it does look so pretty heaped up! but Jerry can never carry it away down there alone."

Then came Jerry's bright idea. "I'll get Norman to help me."

"Norm!" said Nettie, stopping astonished in the very act of picking out some of the lilies. It had not once occurred to her that Norm could be asked to go to the church on an errand. She couldn't have told why, but Norm and the church seemed too far apart to have anything in common.

"Yes," said Jerry, positively. "Why not? I know he'll help; and he and I can carry it like a daisy. Don't take out one of them, Nettie. I know you will spoil it if you touch it again; it is just perfect. Halloo, Norm, come this way."

Sure enough at that moment Norm appeared from the attic where he slept; he had washed his face and combed his hair, and made himself as decent looking as he could, and was starting for somewhere; and Nettie remembered with a sinking heart that it was Saturday night; Norm's worst night except Sunday.

He stopped at Jerry's call, and stood waiting.

"You are just the individual I wanted to see at this moment," said Jerry with a confident air. "This meadow here has got to be dug up and carried bodily down to the church; and it is as heavy as though its roots were struck deep in the soil. Will you shoulder an end with me?"

"To the church!" repeated Norm with an incredulous stare. "What do they want of that thing at the church?"

"They are our flowers," said Sate with a positive little nod of her head. "We promised to bring them, and they are so big and heavy we can't. Will you help?"

Now Norm had really a very warm feeling in his heart for this small sister; Susie he considered a nuisance, and a vixen, but Sate with her slow sweet voice, and shy ways, had several times slipped behind his chair to escape a slap from her angry father, thus appealing to his protection, and once when he lifted her over the fence, she kissed him; he was rather willing to please Sate. Then there was Jerry who was a good fellow as ever lived, and Nettie who was a prime girl; why shouldn't he help tote the thing down to the church if that was what they wanted? To be sure he wanted to go in the other direction, and the fellows would be waiting, he supposed; but he could go there, afterwards, let them wait until he came.

"Well," he said at last, "come on, I'll help; though what they want of all this rubbish at the church is more than I can imagine." And Nettie and the little girls stood with satisfied faces watching the two move off under their heavy burden. It was something to have Norm go to church if it was only to carry flowers.

Arrived at the door, Norm was seized with a fit of shyness; the doors were thrown wide open, and ladies and children were flitting about, and many tongues were going, and flowers and vines were being festooned around the gas lights, and the pillars, and wherever there was a spot for them.

"Hold on," said Norm, jerking back, thus putting the great salver in eminent peril, "I ain't going in there; all the village is there; you better pitch this rubbish out, they've got flowers enough."

"There isn't a lily among them," said Jerry. "And besides they have to go in, anyhow, we can't afford to disappoint Sate. Come on, Norm, I can't carry the thing alone, any more than I could the stove; it is unaccountably heavy."

This was true, but Jerry was very glad that it was. He had his reasons for wanting to get Norm down the aisle to the front of the pulpit. With very reluctant feet Norm followed, bearing his share of the burden, his face flushing over the exclamations with which they were at last greeted.

"Oh, oh! pond lilies! I did not know there were any this year. Where did you get them? Girls, look! Did you ever see anything more lovely?" And a group of faces were gathered about the tray, and one brown head went down among the lilies and caressed them.

"Where did you get them?" she repeated; "I asked my cousin if there were any about here, and she said she thought not; and last night when I was out on the pond I looked and could not find any."

"They hide," said Jerry. "The only place on the pond where they can be found is down behind the old mill; and most people don't go there at all, because the channel is so narrow, and the water so shallow."

"Well, we are so glad you brought them! Girls, aren't they too lovely for anything? Who arranged them?"

"My sister," said Norm, to whom Jerry promptly turned with an air which said as plainly as words could have done: "You are the one to answer; she belongs to you."

"And who is that?" asked the owner of the pretty brown head, as she made way for them to pass to the table with their burden. "I am sure I would like to know her; for she certainly knows how to put flowers into lovely shapes."

Then came from behind the desk a man whom Jerry knew and whom he had seen while he stood at the door. "Good evening, Jerry," he said, holding out his hand in a cordial way. "What a wonderful bank of beauty you have brought! Introduce me to your helper, please."

"Mr. Sherrill, Mr. Norman Decker," said Jerry, exactly as though he had been used to introducing people all his life; and Norm, his face very red, knew that he was shaking hands with the new minister. A very cordial hand-shake, certainly, and then the minister turning to her of the brown head, said, "Eva, come here; let me introduce you to Mr. Norman Decker. My sister, Mr. Decker."

Norm, hardly knowing what he was about, contrived another bow, and then Miss Eva said, "Decker, why, that is the name of my two little darlings about whom I have been telling you for two Sabbaths. Are they your little sisters, Mr. Decker? Little Sate and Susie?" And as Norm managed to nod an answer, she continued: "They have stolen my heart utterly; that little Sate is the dearest little thing. By the way, I wonder if these are her flowers? She promised me she would certainly get some; she said they had none in their garden, but God would make some grow for her somewhere she guessed."

"Yes'm," said Jerry, seeing that Norm would not speak, "they are her flowers, hers and Susie's, they coaxed us to go for them."

"Decker," said the minister, suddenly, "you are pretty tall, I wonder if you are not just the one to help me get this wreath fastened back of the pulpit? I have been working at it for some time, and failed for the want of an arm long enough and strong enough to help me." And the two disappeared behind the desk up the pulpit stairs to the immense satisfaction of Jerry. The ladies went on with their work; Miss Eva calling to him to help her move the table, and then to help arrange the salver on it, and then to bring more vines from the lecture room to cover the base of the floral cross; and indeed, before they knew it, both Jerry and Norm were in the thick of the engagement; Jerry flitting hither and thither at the call of the girls, and Norm following the minister from point to point, and using his long limbs to good advantage.

"Well," he said, wiping his face with his coat sleeve, as, more than an hour after their entrance, he and Jerry made their way down the churchyard walk, "that is the greatest snarl I ever got into. How that fellow can work! But he would never have got them things up in the world, if I had not been there to help him."

"No," said Jerry "I don't believe he would. How glad they were to get the lilies! They do look prettier than anything there. I did not know who that lady was who taught the little folks. She has only been there a few weeks. She is pretty, isn't she?"

"I s'pose so," said Norm, "her voice is, anyhow. They say she's a singer. I heard the fellows down at the corner talking about her one night; Dick Welsh says she can mimic a bird so you couldn't tell which was which. I wouldn't mind hearing her sing. I like good singing."

"I suppose they will have her sing in the church," said Jerry in a significant tone. But to this, Norm made no reply.

"What was it Mr. Sherrill wanted of you just as we were coming out?" asked Jerry, after reflecting whether he had better ask the question or not.

"Wanted me to come and see how the things looked in the daytime," said Norm with an awkward laugh that ended in a half sneer; "I'll be likely to I think!"

"Going up home, I s'pose?" said Jerry, trying to speak indifferently, and slipping his hand through Norm's arm as they reached the corner, and Norm half halted.

"Well, I suppose I might as well," Norm said, allowing himself to be drawn on by never so slight a pressure from Jerry's arm. "I was going down street, and the boys were to wait for me; but they have never waited all this while; it must be considerable after nine o'clock."

"Yes," said Jerry, "it is." And they went home.

Nettie, sitting on the doorstep, waiting, will never forget that night, nor the sinking of heart with which she waited. Her father had been kept at home, first by his employer who came to give directions about work to be attended to the first thing on Monday morning, and then by Job Smith getting home before he was expected and asking a little friendly help with the load he brought; and he had at last decided that it was too late to go out again, and had gone to bed. Mrs. Decker in her kitchen, hovered between the door and the window, peering out into the lovely night, saying nothing, but her heart throbbing so with anxiety about her boy that she could not lay her tired body away. Mrs. Job Smith in her kitchen, looked from her door and then her window, many misgivings in her heart; if that bad boy Norm should lead her good boy Jerry into mischief what should she say to his father? How could she ever forgive herself for having encouraged the intimacy between him and the Deckers?

Presently, far down the quiet street came the sound of cheery whistling; Nettie knew the voice: nothing so very bad could have happened when Jerry was whistling like that; or was he perhaps doing it to keep his courage up? The whistle turned the corner, and in the dim starlight she could distinguish two figures; they came on briskly, Jerry and Norm. "A nice job you set us at," began Jerry, gayly, "we have just this minute got through; and here it is toward morning somewhere, isn't it?" Then all that happy company went to their beds.

After dinner the next day, Nettie studied if there were not ways in which she might coax Norm to go to church that evening. Jerry had told her of the minister's invitation. Norm had slept later than usual that morning, and lounged at home until after dinner; now he was preparing to go out. How could she keep him? How could she coax him to go with her?

Before she could decide what to do to try to hold him, Susie took matters into her own hands by pitching head foremost out of the kitchen window, hitting her head on the stones. Then there was hurry and confusion in the Decker kitchen! Then did Mrs. Smith, and Job Smith, and Sarah Jane fly to the rescue. Though after all, Norm was the one who stooped over poor silent Susie and brought her limp and apparently lifeless into the kitchen. Jerry ran with all speed for the doctor. It was hours before they settled down again, having discovered that Susie was not dead, but had fainted; was not even badly hurt, save for a bump or two. But it took the little lady only a short time, after recovering from her fright, to discover that she was a person of importance, and to like the situation.

It happened that Norm had, by the doctor's directions, carried her from her mother's bed to the cooler atmosphere of the front room. Susie had enjoyed the ride, and now announced with the air of a conqueror, "I want Norm to carry me." So Norm, frightened into love and tenderness, lifted the little girl in his strong arms, laid the pretty head on his shoulder, and willingly tramped up and down the room. Was Susie a witch, or a selfish little girl? Certain it was that during that walk she took an unaccountable and ever increasing fancy for Norm. He must wet the brown paper on her head as often is the vinegar with which it was saturated dried away; he must hold the cup while she took a drink of water; he must push the marvel of a barrel chair in which she for a time sat in state, closer to the window; he must carry her from the chair to the table when supper was finally ready, and carry her back again when it was eaten. Nettie looked on amused and puzzled. Certainly Susie had kept Norm at home all the afternoon; but was she also likely to accomplish it for the evening? For Norm, to her great surprise, seemed to like the new order of things.

He blushed awkwardly when Susie gently pushed her mother aside and demanded Norm, but he came at once, with a good-natured laugh, and held her in his arms with as much gentleness and more strength than the mother could have given; and seemed to like the touch of the curly head on his shoulder.

But while Nettie was putting away the dishes and puzzling over all the strange events of the afternoon, Susie was undressed, partly by Norm, according to her decree, and fell asleep in his arms and was laid on her mother's bed, and Norm slipped away!

Poor Nettie! She ran to the door to try to call him, but he was out of sight. "I tried to think of something to keep him till you came in," explained the disappointed mother, "but I couldn't do it; he laid Susie down as quick as he could, and shot away as though he was afraid you would get hold of him."

So Nettie, her face sad, prepared to go with Jerry and the Smiths down to evening meeting, and told Jerry on the way, that it did seem strange to her, so long as Susie had kept Norm busy all the afternoon, that they must let him slip away from them at last.