Hepsey Burke

ead or alive!" Maxwell laughed. "That sounds cheerful, but I should be glad to go." "I guess you better, and have it over with. He'llexpect it. He's like royalty: he never calls first; and when he's at home he always has a flag on a pole in the front yard. If he's out of town for the day, his man lowers the flag. I generally call when the flag's down. I wish everybody had a flag; it's mighty convenient." The center of Durford's social, commercial and ecclesiastical life was the village green, a plot of ground on which the boys played ball, and in the middle of which was the liberty pole and the band-stand. On one side of the green was a long block of stores, and on the opposite side a row of churches, side by side, five in number. There was the Meeting House, in plain gray; "The First Church of Durford," with a Greek portico in front; "The Central Church," with a box-like tower and a slender steeple with a gilded rooster perched on top?an edifice which looked like a cross between a skating rink and a railroad station; and last of all, the Episcopal Church on the corner?a small, elongated structure, which might have been a carpenter-shop but for the little cross which surmounted the front gable, and the pointed tops of the narrow windows, which were supposed to be "gothic" and to proclaim the structure to be the House of God. Just around the corner was a little tumble-downhouse known as "The Rectory." The tall grass and the lowered shades indicated that... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.