“And now, brethren,” Master Hapgood was saying, “there is time left for contribution, wherefore, as God has prospered you, so freely offer.”
One by one the little congregation went forward, each to deposit his gift; first the Assistants, then the Tything Men, then the humbler goodmen of the town. Some laid down money, more, such produce as they could spare, corn or fruit or fresh eggs. Samuel Skerry, shuffling down the aisle, brought as small a copper coin as the currency afforded and looked at it regretfully as he laid it down. Roger Bardwell, at the end of the line because he was the youngest of all the householders, brought a basket of dried corn of his own growing. He no longer dwelt with the shoemaker, but had built himself a little cottage and was coming to prosperity by tending fields of his own.
After the men had gone back to their seats there went forward those women who had no husbands or fathers or brothers there to carry the offering for them. Old Goody Parsons, limping and sighing, was still able to toil up the aisle with her contribution, a pair of stout knitted hose; behind her came Goodwife Page whose husband was away at sea. Last of all walked Margeret Radpath, slight, erect and fair, bringing her offering since there was no one to do it for her. How did she know, she who kept her eyes upon the ground as she went, that of the many glances that followed her, Roger Bardwell’s was the most earnest gaze of all, never leaving her face even after she came back to sit alone upon the bench beneath the window?
And where were Master Simon and Mistress Radpath? Margeret’s mother had died the year before, and slept now in the windswept grave-yard on the hillside, while Master Simon, upon whom old age had seemed to come overnight after his wife’s death, sat at home, too worn and feeble to leave his own fireside. His unbroken spirit, however, still shone warm and bright within him, and to his house still came all who were in need or trouble, to seek advice and help. Under his directions and by means of Margeret’s busy hands and Roger Bardwell’s, the garden still bloomed as fair as ever.
“’Tis the flowers have the best of us,” Master Simon would say when now and then on summer days he could limp forth to see the rows of blossoms and the tall-growing shrubs. “The old age of a garden is fairer and lustier than its youth, and it comes to its greatest glory when tended by the children’s children of the man who planted it.”