Illustrated by
Stockton Mulford
D. Appleton and Company
New York London
1917
......There came a woman, having an alabaster box of ointment, very precious;and she broke the box.....
“We,” said Mrs. Solomon Black with weighty emphasis, “aregoing to get up a church fair and raise that money, and we are going to payyour salary. We can’t stand it another minute. We had better run in debtto the butcher and baker than to the Lord.”
Wesley Elliot regarded her gloomily. “I never liked the idea of churchfairs very well,” he returned hesitatingly. “It has always seemedto me like sheer beggary.”
“Then,” said Mrs. Solomon Black, “we will beg.”
Mrs. Solomon Black was a woman who had always had her way. There was not oneline which denoted yielding in her large, still handsome face, set about withvery elaborate water-waves which she had arranged so many years that her blackhair needed scarcely any attention. It would almost seem as if Mrs. SolomonBlack had been born with water waves.
She spoke firmly but she smiled, as his mother might have done, at the youngman, who had preached his innocent best in Brookville for months without anyemolument.
“Now don’t you worry one mite about it,” said she.“Church fairs may be begging, but they