That Sabbath afternoon was one of deep thought and soul searching to
Celia. The sermon she had heard, the hymns she had sung, the prayer she
had listened to, the book she had partly read, all seemed to bring her
the one thought, that of the possibility of a life beyond anything she
had known heretofore, a life whose every breath was trust, and whose joy
was unalloyed because there was no care in it to break the deep, sweet
peace. The longing for some change of this sort in her own heart did not
take her interest from the work she had just begun around her. Instead
it seemed to deepen her interest in all in the house, and to make her
heart throb anew with love to her Saviour.
With the little book in her hand which Mr. Stafford had loaned her she
passed through the hall that afternoon on some errand for her aunt, and
returning saw Harry Knowles hovering restlessly about the parlor. It
came to her that perhaps she might say something to help him, but what
could it be? She felt hardly ready yet without more thought and
preparation. She might do more harm than good. Following an impulse she
offered him the book to read awhile, and then went back to her room,
half sorry that she had deprived herself of the pleasure of finishing
it. However, she had read enough to remember, and there lay her Bible.
She took it up and read. Somehow the words seemed to fit all the other
circumstances of the day, and to help her on to the one great desire
that was growing deeper in her heart, that she might forget to fret and
worry and learn to trust Jesus entirely for all that was to come. She
read a chapter and part of another. The words seemed especially fresh
and new to her. She began to wonder if she had been giving her whole
mind to her Bible reading of late. Then suddenly from out the printed
page there came a command. It was not so very marked, not more than
other verses she had read, and yet it seemed to her to have a special
significance for her, and to remind her that there was a young girl of
nearly her own age upstairs, over whom she had been shown her own
influence, who was perhaps needing help from her at this very moment.
She felt that she must go, though she could scarcely tell why, and she
laid aside her Bible and knelt to ask God’s help before she went.
As she knocked at Mamie Williams’ door she wondered at herself for
coming, and how she was to explain her visit. She decided that if any
one answered she would say she had come to ask them to go out to church
with her that evening, though she had hardly made up her mind before
that to go herself. She felt much embarrassed at herself in that one
minute after she had knocked, and heartily wished herself back in her
own room. But she had not long to wait. The door was thrown open after a
moment of what sounded like scuffling inside, by Mamie herself, this
time without gum in her mouth, but with rather red cheeks and her hair
floating in wet strings down her back over a towel. Her face and hands
were a brilliant, tender pink, giving strong evidence of the severe
scrubbing Celia had recommended the night before. She instantly
recognized what it meant, and her heart sank that at her advice this
girl was spending her Sunday afternoon in such a way. Perhaps the angels
knew that by making herself sweet and clean, she was coming nearer to
the kingdom of God than she had ever yet been.
The other roommate occupied a comfortable lounging spot on the bed. Her
hair was tumbled and her dress loosened, and in her hand was a paper
covered book. Celia had opportunity afterward to observe that it was the
same one that Miss Williams had been reading the day before.
Miss Simmons did not rise from the bed, but she greeted the intruder
with a languid surprise, and withal a show of pleasure that made Celia
feel she was not unwelcome, and told her to sit down. She was munching
cheap candy from a box which lay beside her on the bed, and she held it
out at once to the guest saying:
“Sit down. Have some candy, do. I had it give to me last night.” This
with a significant giggle interpolated into her natural drawl. Then
looking at her roommate, she said, apologetically,
“You must excuse Mamie. She’s took an awful fit of cleanin’ up. I don’t
know what she’s getting ready for, but she’s made herself a sight. Her
nose’s as red’s a beet. Did you want something or did you just come in
to kill time?”
Celia accepted the chair, declining the candy as graciously as possible,
saying she seldom ate it, and made known her request that they would go
with her that evening to meeting. She bethought herself of the service
she had attended that morning, and that possibly it might interest these
two to go and hear the minister who lived under the same roof with them,
and urged that as an incentive, describing the pleasant room, the good
singing, and perfect friendliness she had met, with an enthusiasm that
surprised herself.
“I can’t go,” said Miss Simmons, promptly, “I’m expecting company.”
There was the same conscious drawing in of the breath when she said
this, evidently meant to express a certain and especial kind of company,
that Celia had noticed in Mamie’s talk the night before. It made her
heart sink with the utter uselessness of trying to work against such
odds, till she remembered her new half-formed resolves, not to look
ahead for results, but to do the work trusting the rest to God.
Mamie’s cheeks had grown redder, if that was possible. She was sitting
on the edge of a chair with the hair brush in her hand. She seemed a
trifle shy.
“It’s awful nice of you to ask us,” she said, “but I don’t know but
perhaps I’m going to have company, too. It wouldn’t do to be away,
though I ain’t just positive, you know.”
“Couldn’t you bring them along?” said Celia, promptly, as if it would be
the most natural thing in the world to do, though her heart misgave her
at the idea of taking the oily youth she had seen in the parlor waiting
for Miss Simmons not long before.
“Oh, no indeed!” snickered Miss Simmons, “he wouldn’t go a step. He
ain’t that kind. And besides he’d be mad, for he said he might be going
to bring another fellow along he wants me specially to meet. He wants to
see me very perticular to-night anyway, so I couldn’t think of going
out,” and Miss Simmons retired behind her book.
Mamie had meantime been puzzling over the problem of how to please
herself and her new object of adoration at the same time, and seemed to
have arrived at a solution.
“I don’t know but I _might_ go after all,” she said, slowly, looking
down at the toe of her shoe. “Say, Carrie, if he should come would you
be sure and tell him I had gone out with somebody _else_?—you could
tell him it was a _very special_ friend who had invited me, you know,
and he would think it was another fellah. That might have a good effect
on him, you know. I believe I’ll try it this time anyway. I’ll go, Miss
Murray, if you want it so much. It’s a good thing to get people jealous
once in a while, don’t you think? Say, was that you down in the parlor
singing this morning early? It was awful sweet! Who else was there? It
didn’t sound quite like Mr. Yates, but I didn’t know any of the others
sang. It wasn’t Harry Knowles, was it? He’s too young for you any way.
You don’t say it was the minister! My! He’s awful talented, ain’t he?
Wouldn’t it be romantic if it should turn out you was to marry him some
time? Did you ever know him before? I’ve heard of stories like that lots
of times.”
Celia’s cheeks rivaled Mamie’s in hue, and her anger had risen rapidly.
She did not dare trust herself to rebuke this girl, for her desire to do
her good was still strong. She quickly looked about for a turn to the
conversation.
“Are you fond of singing? Then come downstairs and let us sing now. I
think some of the others are down there. We can have a very pleasant
time, I’m sure. I have some Gospel song books. Put up your hair and
come.” She walked to the door trying to steady her fluttered nerves, and
still that queer beating of her heart, half indignation, half something
else which she did not understand, and which she did not wish to
countenance.
“My land!” said Mamie, beaming, “I’d come in a minute, only what’ll I do
with my hair? It’s about dry, but it’ll take me an hour to do it all up
after washing, it’s so tangled and slippery. Perhaps you will fix it for
me. Do, that’ll be nice. Then you can show me how to do it like yours.”
Celia was dismayed. She would scarcely have chosen Sunday afternoon for
a lesson in hair-dressing, but how could she refuse on that score, as
the request had been put in answer to one of her own? To handle another
person’s hair at any time was to her a sore trial. She shrank from
contact with any one except her nearest and dearest. But how was she to
refuse? How was she to get an influence over Mamie if she let her see
she was unwilling to do what she asked of her? For a minute her
repugnance of the coarse girl, with her coarse hair, red face and loud,
grating words was so intense that she almost yielded to her desire to
turn and flee from the room and shake the dust from her feet, and tell
her aunt Hannah to take her away from the horrible boarders and never
let her see any of them again. Then she gained control of herself, and
though her cheeks were still red at memory of the careless words of the
girl, she consented to undertake the hair; and even the deeply absorbed
Carrie on the bed, who had been furtively watching the stranger during
all, never suspected what a trial she had quietly taken upon herself.
Having undertaken the task, she did it well. She had a naturally
artistic eye and hand and there was some pleasure, after the dislike had
been overcome, in making Mamie’s hair look as she had often thought it
ought to look. Quickly and deftly she twisted it, smoothed it here and
there, and fastened it firmly, and after it was accomplished Mamie stood
and surveyed herself.
“It looks awful plain,” she said, hesitatingly, “and it makes me seem
queer, ’cause I ain’t used to it, but I guess I like it. Don’t you,
Carrie?”
“It looks real stylish,” answered that young woman, enviously, mentally
resolving to try her own that way as soon as the others had left the
room.
Celia went to wash her hands, with a heavy heart. She must certainly
have mistaken that voice which she thought called her to go to that
room. What had she accomplished but teaching the fashions this
afternoon? How was she ever to know whether a thing was a duty or not?
She went down to the parlor with her singing books, and found Mamie
there before her looking pretty and a trifle shy in consciousness of her
new coiffure. She was talking to the tenor brakeman who was evidently
lost in admiration of her charms. She went at once to the organ and
started the singing, but she found that the brakeman’s tenor was not
quite so pleasant as that which had blended with her own voice earlier
in the day. The other boarders heard the music, and one by one dropped
in, all joining in the words when they were familiar until even Miss
Burns was there. Mr. Stafford had come in also. The minister joined in
the singing, though he sat in a shaded corner of the room for the most
part and sang softly, as if he were weary. Celia found that her thoughts
kept wandering to him and wondering what was the matter, and she grew
exceedingly annoyed over this fact, as she remembered Mamie Williams’
careless words a little while before. She was glad when the tea bell
rang and called them from the organ.
The church party was larger than she had expected. Mamie had wheedled
Mr. Yates into being one of the number. She was the kind of girl who
always wants a young man along when she goes anywhere. The other three
young men joined the group also, perhaps at Harry’s solicitation, or it
might be out of interest in the minister who had been singing with them.
They were starting out of the door. Aunt Hannah was behind with Harry
Knowles. Miss Burns had volunteered to stay with Mrs. Belden during the
evening. Celia stepped down to the pavement beside Mamie and walked on.
“Say, he’s awful nice. I like him. I wish he _would_ marry you, ’cause I
like you both,” said romantic Mamie, in a confidential whisper.
“What do you mean? Who?” said Celia, startled, and having a vague idea
of the tenor brakeman.
“Why, Mr. Stafford, the minister!” said the other girl.
“You must never say anything like that again,” she said, in a suddenly
chilling tone which almost froze Mamie’s eager enthusiasm for a minute.
“It is utterly absurd and ridiculous.”
She wished afterward that she could have turned it off with a laugh, and
let the girl see that she had no notion of any such thing, without
making such a tragic thing of it, but indeed she had felt so annoyed at
the second bold intimacy of the girl, which seemed to her like the
handling and mixing up of sacred things by clumsy hands untaught and
unknowing what they did, that she had almost stopped in her walk and
gone back to the house. However, she managed to steady her voice and her
steps and keep on.
“Why?” asked Mamie, half timidly, “don’t you like him?”
“Certainly, I don’t dislike him. But neither of us have any idea of any
such thing. It is very annoying to have it suggested. He is simply a
boarder.” She said it freezingly.
“Oh,” said Mamie, in a frightened tone, “I didn’t mean any harm. I just
thought it would be nice, that was all.” After that she dropped behind
with Bob Yates who had come up, and Celia walked with aunt Hannah and
Harry Knowles.
“She’s an awful queer girl in some ways,” confided Mamie to her escort a
few minutes later. “I just said she and the minister would make a nice
match, and she got just as mad as a hornet. My! She scared me so I
didn’t know but I’d cry!” and then she giggled in a way Bob Yates much
admired.
Celia sat in the meeting too much annoyed to rally her spirits and enjoy
what was going on. She scarcely heard the hymns or realized the sermon.
The voice of the minister, cultured, earnest, tender, loving toward his
people, awakened in her the knowledge that she was more interested in
this man than she wanted to be. She did not wish to hear his voice and
like it, and his sermon she knew she would enjoy and therefore tormented
herself with her annoyance, so that she did not hear it, and saw between
the lines in her hymn book, ever and anon, a sweet pictured face in a
velvet frame. She called herself a fool, and wondered that there was
anything about a man whom she had so short a time ago not even heard of,
to make her feel so uncomfortable. Then she turned to watch Mamie’s
face, and her heart sank again as she reflected how useless it had been
to try to do anything for her. True, her hair was becoming and neatly
arranged, and the black eyes of the young man beside her were admiringly
turned toward her occasionally, but perhaps that was only another source
of harm to the poor girl. After all Celia’s resolves, her day seemed to
be ending most miserably.
How could she know that at that very moment the young girl beside her
was listening to the minister with undisguised amaze, as he read the
words of his text, “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in
fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints.” She did not know about the hurried getting out of bed to read
the promised verse the night before, nor how the verse itself had
impressed itself upon the young girl’s mind, perhaps the more because it
was about dress, the one great theme of all themes of interest to her
mind,—unless perhaps one might except those of love, courtship and
marriage. If Celia had been told all this, it might only have
discouraged her the more that the Bible itself meant no more to Mamie
than a fashion book might have done, and so it was a wise thing that
Celia could not see and know until all God’s plan was worked out to the
finish, and she was given eyes perfected through his teaching to
understand the whys and wherefores.
The sermon which followed was simplicity itself. If Celia had not been
so taken up with her own uneasy heart, she would have recognized the
skill of the preacher, as he plainly and simply drew the meaning from
what might have otherwise been to many minds before him an empty and
meaningless passage. Even the feather-brained Mamie was able to
understand and to carry away with her the few facts she had wished to
know when she first read the words, together with their deep spiritual
meaning. She had felt a pang of disappointment when she heard that this
incomparable person, this child of luxury here spoken of, was the
church, Christ’s bride, and she told herself, half enviously that she
had nothing to do with the verse at all, of course. But, immediately,
the preacher made it plain to every one in the house that he and she
individually did belong, ought to belong, by right were, members of that
church for whom Christ died, and that it was only through their own
wills that they deliberately put themselves outside its pale, that
really, to every one present, it had been granted as a privilege, and it
was their own fault that they did not accept and wear it. He spoke at
length of the difficulty of keeping such garments white and pure in the
midst of a world of work and constant contact with that which would
soil, how only the children of the rich could afford to dress in a color
which would so easily soil, and how only those who could go and have
such garments washed in the blood of the Lamb could keep them pure and
white. Then he talked about that righteousness of the saints until even
Bob Yates dropped his eyes from the earnest, eloquent face of the
speaker, and began to look into his own heart and wish that he might
some way be different, and Mamie’s cheeks glowed and her heart beat
fast. She had forgotten, for the time, Mr. Harold Adams, and even the
admiring glances of her escort to church that night. She even forgot the
new arrangement of her hair, and ceased to feel the back of her head, to
discover how perchance it might be affecting those who looked upon her
from the rear. She resolved, in some way, to discover for herself how
she might wear this fine linen, and when the closing hymn was announced,
she stood up with the others, and sang in a loud voice the words,
meaning them in her heart more than any words she had ever sung before.
She felt a strange, sweet thrill of longing, new and faint, but real, as
the hymn went on.
“O Jesus Christ the righteous! live in me,
That, when in glory I thy face shall see,
Within the Father’s house, my glorious dress
May be the garment of thy righteousness.”
Mamie felt for the first time in her life that night, that she had
really a strong determination to go to heaven when she died. The white
linen could be worn then, if not before. The minister had said it might
be worn now also. Well, perhaps——
Her heart was softened, and on the way home she confided the coincidence
of her verse the night before and the minister’s text to Mr. Yates, who
was deeply interested and impressed. Celia would have been surprised,
perhaps, if she could have heard the brakeman telling Mamie at the door
that she had helped him, that he wanted to be better than he had been
and he was glad she was that kind of a girl.
As for Celia, the minister himself had walked home with her. She hoped
that Mamie had not seen, and her cheeks burned red and her embarrassment
did not lessen during the entire walk. He asked her to help him in his
Sunday-school work, and she accepted the class he offered her, after
much hesitation, but she was stiff and unlike herself, and aunt Hannah
wondered greatly why Celia seemed so cold and uninterested in things.
She sighed as she went about preparing for the night, and wished that
Celia’s mother had lived; nobody could understand a girl like her own
mother, she thought. Then she knelt as she always did, and laid her care
at her Master’s feet, and rested with an unburdened heart for the next
day’s work.