The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted Part 23

"Very well," agreed Hannah hurriedly. "Peter, you may tell us the Golden Text."

"Let me," cried Elsmere. "I know 'bout lambs. Mary had a little lamb, fleeciswhitissnow."

"Elsmere," said Hannah sternly. "I asked Peter to tell us the Golden Text."

"Mine is a walker," said Peter loudly.

Hannah looked mystified.

"Pooh!" remarked the Hamilton girl loftily. "That ain't this Sunday's.

'Wine is a mocker' was to-morrow's. 'Tain't this Sunday's."

"What is this Sunday's?" asked Hannah hopefully. "Doesn't anybody know?

'I am'--don't you remember? 'I am the good--':

"I am the good--" Peter got so far and then stopped, stolid.

"I know," cried Elsmere once more. "Put in his thumb, pull out a plum, good boy am I!"

The others snickered, and Hannah bit her lip. "No. 'I am the good shepherd.' It was Jesus who said it. Now all of you say it together."

Lamblike, they followed her lead, and she succeeded in pa.s.sing over several minutes. But they soon grew restive again, and one little hand pawed the air.

"Well, what is it?"

"The Grahams is coming to our house to dinner."

"That's nice. Now we will talk about the shepherd psalm. How many of you know it?"

There was a moment of doubt. "Shall not want?" ventured one of the older ones presently.

"Yes, that's it exactly," said Hannah gladly. "You've all heard it lots of times. Now I'll recite it for you, and then you can tell me what it means."

With the Bible prudently open to save her from any possible embarra.s.sment at a sudden lapse of memory, she began slowly to recite the psalm, pausing for explanatory comments as she went along.

"I was in a valley onct," said a sleepy boy, who had contributed nothing so far to the morning's entertainment. "I fell off'n the dock and the boat was clost up to me, and that was a valley."

"How'd you get out?" asked several with interest.

"Man pulled me out," and the speaker subsided.

Hannah stole a glance at her watch, as she finished the psalm. She had strung it out as long as she could, but there were still several minutes to dispose of.

"Now I wonder who can tell me what that was all about?" she asked, with feigned sprightliness. "I think you can, the little girl with the red dress. What's your name? O, yes, Gwendolen."

Every one turned to look at Gwendolen. She stuck her finger in her mouth, presumably to stem the tide of speech, for as she withdrew it the words fell out over one another all in one breath.

"Don't want anyfing to eat. Lay down in the gra.s.s an' roll. Put kerosene on my head. Can't git any more in my cup, all spillin' over."

The door opened and once more the superintendent tapped his bell.

Hannah, with a deep sigh of thankfulness, marshalled her troop and drove them back to their place, taking her martyr's seat in their midst.

Through the reading of the secretary's report and the singing of three stanzas of the closing hymn, they behaved fairly well, subdued by the drowsy atmosphere of air unchanged since the morning service. The last stanza of the hymn was nearly sung. Elsmere rose to his feet and plucked Peter by the hair of his head. Hannah cast an appealing glance at the superintendent, who was nearer the offender than herself. He took a quick stride forward, with his hand uplifted, just as the last wailing sound of the hymn died away. His hand on Elsmere's collar, he observed the congregation standing with bowed heads. They had misinterpreted his gesture. Casting a look of understanding at Hannah, gripping Elsmere tightly, he p.r.o.nounced the expected benediction, and as the audience broke up into home-going groups, set the boy down with emphasis.

"We don't usually close with a prayer," he said to Hannah, "but they thought that was what I meant, when I stepped forward. I nearly throttled the child but--"

"I think you will be forgiven," said Hannah firmly. "Miss Smith will be here next Sunday, but I, I am thankful to say, shall not!"

PART THREE

TOGETHER AT LAST

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ALICE ON THE WAY

Out on a Dakota prairie, in a corner of a motionless Pullman sat a short girl in a plain blue suit, her grey eyes behind thick gla.s.ses bent upon the pages of a red leather book.

"'Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.'" She read the words over and over, and the book fell from her hands as she looked out on the limitless fields.

"'Beauty for ashes.' What a striking way of putting it! 'The oil of joy'--why, I wonder what we are stopping here so long for. It doesn't look like a station."

And suddenly Alice Prescott sat up straight and looked about her, alert and alive.

The porter came slowly in response to her repeated ring. "What's the matter? Why, there's an engine off the track a little ways off, and our crew and engine has gone to help. No, n.o.body hurt. Just a freight engine. Don't know how long. Mebbe one hour. Mebbe two."

"But I'll miss my connections!"

"Too bad, Miss." The porter looked at her with lazy curiosity. The train had already been at a standstill for ten minutes, and every other woman on the car had put him through a catechism long ago. This girl looked awake and practical. How could a porter understand that the mere beauty of words and ideas could render one unconscious to delays in transportation?

Alice rose and walked up and down the aisle. Three women, rather overdressed, were playing cards in a remote section. A man slept in a corner. She went to the door, and seeing groups of pa.s.sengers standing outside along the track, jumped down from the high step and walked a little, tasting the fresh air with pleasure. The country offered nothing to her gaze. Her eye, accustomed to mountains, found endless level stretches harrowing rather than soothing. She recalled a Dakota girl at Dexter who was always telling of the beauty of the prairie, and longing for it. "I suppose it's a matter of habit," she thought to herself.

"There is certainly something that kindles your imagination in such a sight. It would be dreary if it weren't cultivated, but it must be wonderful to see a whole country reclaimed from wildness and made productive. 'Beauty for ashes' O!" and with a little s.h.i.+ver of pleasure, she repeated the lines that had so charmed her a few minutes before.

"'The spirit of heaviness.' What a strange thing to include in the same message with the vengeance of the Lord! It makes blues and dullness seem so important. It doesn't say anything here about Christ's coming to heal bodily suffering or sin, and it does explicitly say he is to cure the blues. Isn't that interesting?"

Her walk had brought her to the first of the line of day-coaches by this time, and she glanced up at the listless faces leaned against the dirty window-panes. As she pa.s.sed, each pair of eyes rested wearily on her figure. Suddenly a thought struck her. Blues and dullness! Where were they ever more to the fore than here? She entered the car impulsively and stood looking people over. She spoke to the nearest woman.

"It's a nuisance having to wait so, isn't it? Wouldn't you like to come out for a little walk?"

"No," snapped the woman, "I wouldn't." Alice flushed, then smiled and went on down the aisle. Evidently her mission of good fairy was not going to be successful at the start. "Some people want to be 'heavy,'"

she thought. "I'll take some one who looks as though she wanted to be lightened up. Here's one."

The red-eyed cindery young woman who was curled up in her seat, dabbing her cheeks with a smeary handkerchief, looked as though any change would be a welcome one. Alice stopped resolutely. "Can I do anything for you?"

she asked, not at all sure of her reception.