"
"What's the reason you can't go?" Dryfoos ignored the passage between his
wife and daughter in making this demand of his son, with a sour face.
"I have an engagement that night--it's one of our meetings."
"I reckon you can let your meeting go for one night," said Dryfoos. "It
can't be so important as all that, that you must disappoint your
sisters."
"I don't like to disappoint those poor creatures. They depend so much
upon the meetings--"
"I reckon they can stand it for one night," said the old man. He added,
"The poor ye have with you always."
"That's so, Coonrod," said his mother. "It's the Saviour's own words."
"Yes, mother. But they're not meant just as father used them."
"How do you know how they were meant? Or how I used them?" cried the
father. "Now you just make your plans to go with the girls, Tuesday
night. They can't go alone, and Mrs. Mandel can't go with them."
"Pshaw!" said Mela. "We don't want to take Conrad away from his meetun',
do we, Chris?"
"I don't know," said Christine, in her high, fine voice. "They could get
along without him for one night, as father says."
"Well, I'm not a-goun' to take him," said Mela. "Now, Mrs. Mandel, just
think out some other way.
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