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Show Ida's Sabbath gg "Depend not on thine own understanding, Sister Rossiter," the robed being said quietly before i t flashed off across the sky in the time i t would have taken Ida to count to two. "Why?" she yelled after the disappearing glow. "Why?" she whispered to herself. Ida looked slightly to the l e f t , less slightly to the right, and then pulled back her shoulders and head. She turned to the decimated steeple, patting i t tenderly. "Well," she said, "you and me. Twenty years of service and what do we get?" Without hammer or nails, Ida could do nothing to preserve the steeple's dignity, so she descended the vine, checked each branch to see i f i t would hold and stepped with care to prevent leaves from f a l l i ng on the patriarchs and Morris below. To her surprise, Brother Bassett stood waiting at the base of the vine. "What's he doing there, old Owl Eyes?" she wondered. Then the enormity of Ida's rashness hit home. She remembered with a j o lt that she hadn't made the twenty year mark yet, not until next Sunday, and here she had been presumptuous, even uppity, with the Presence or whoever i t was. With Brother Bassett holding out his arms to catch Ida, with him blinking, even winking at her, and overcome by the f u l l impact of her blunder, she tripped over a tendril and tumbled. Ida found herself on the floor behind the organist's bench being fanned and tended by the Bishop, Morris Sant, Milly, and blinking Brother Bassett. |
