COL. BAKER'S SABBATH EVENING.
AMONG Marion Wilbur's gloomy thoughts during that trying Monday were
these: "Some lives are a good deal harder to bear than others. It would
be nonsense for some people to talk about crosses. There are Ruth and
Flossy; what do they know about annoyances or self-denials? Such homes
as theirs and such occupations as theirs have very little in common with
hard, uncongenial work such as mine. Eurie Mitchell has less easy times;
but then it is home, and father, and mother, and family friends. She
isn't all alone. None of them can sympathize with me. I don't see how
Flossy Shipley is ever to grow, if 'crosses are a fruitful condition of
the Christian life.' I'm sure she can do as she pleases, and when she
pleases."
Thus much Marion knew about other lives than hers. The actual truth was
that Flossy's shadows began on Sabbath evening, while Marion was yet on
the heights.
It was just as they stepped from the aisle of the church into the wide
hall that Col. Baker joined her. This was not a new experience. He was
very apt to join her. No other gentleman had been a more frequent or
more enjoyable guest at her father's house. Indeed, he was so familiar
that he was as likely to come on the Sabbath as on any other day, and
was often in the habit of calling to accompany Flossy to any evening
service where there was to be a little grander style of music than
usual, or a special floral display.
In fact he had called this very evening on such an errand, but it was
after Flossy had gone to her own church. So her first meeting with him
since Chautauqua experiences was in that hall belonging to the First
Church.
"Good-evening," he said, joining her without the formality of a
question as to whether it would be agreeable; his friendship was on too
assured a footing for the need of that formality. "You are more than
usually devoted to the First Church, are you not? I saw you in the
family pew this morning. I felt certain of being in time to take you to
the South Side to-night. St. Stephen's Church has a grand choral service
this evening. I was in at one of the rehearsals, and it promised to be
an unusually fine thing. I am disappointed that you did not hear it."
Here began Flossy's unhappiness. Neither Marion nor Ruth could have
appreciated it. To either of those it would have been an actual
satisfaction to have said to Col. Baker, in a calm and superior tone of
voice:
"Thanks for your kindness, but I have decided to attend my own church
service regularly after this, and would therefore not have been able to
accompany you if I had been at home."
But for Flossy such an explanation was simply dreadful. It was so
natural, and would have been _so_ easy, to have murmured a word of
regret at her absence, and expressed disappointment in having missed the
choral.
But for that address to the children, given under the trees at
Chautauqua, by Dr. Hurlbut, she would have said these smooth,
sweet-sounding words as sweetly as usual, without a thought of
conscience. But had not he shown her, as plainly as though he had looked
down into her heart and seen it there, that these pleasant, courteous
phrases which are so winning and so false were among her besetting sins?
Had he not put her forever on her guard concerning them? Had she not
promised to wage solemn war against the tendency to so sin with her
graceful tongue? Yet how she dreaded the plain speaking!
How would Marion's lips have curled over the idea of such a small matter
as that being a cross! And yet Flossy could have been sweet and patient
and tender to the listless, homesick school-girls, and kissed away half
their gloom, and thought it no cross at all. Verily there is a
difference in these crosses, and verily, "every heart knoweth its own
bitterness."
Col. Baker was loth to leave the subject:
"Aren't you being unusually devout to-day?" he asked. "I heard of you at
Sabbath-school I was certain after that effort, I should find you at
home, resting. What spell came over you to give the First Church so much
of your time?"
"One would think, to hear you, that I never went to church on Sabbath
evening," Flossy said. And then to a certain degree conscience
triumphed. "I have not been very often, it is true; but I intend to
reform in that respect in the future. I mean to go whenever I can, and I
mean to go always to the First Church."
Col. Baker looked at her curiously in the moonlight.
"Is that an outgrowth of your experience in the woods?" he asked.
"Yes," Flossy said simply and bravely.
He longed to question further, to quiz her a little, but something in
the tone of the monosyllable prevented. So he said:
"I am at least surprised at part of the decision. I thought part of the
work of those gatherings was to teach fellowship and unity. Why should
you desert other churches?"
"There is no desertion about it. I do not belong to other churches, and
nobody has reason to expect me at any of them; but my pastor has a right
to expect me to be in my pew."
"Oh; then it is the accident of the first choice that must determine
one's sitting in church for all future time?"
"With me it has been only an accident," she said, simply. "I suppose
there are people who had better reasons for selecting their church home.
But I am very well satisfied with my place." And then Flossy was very
glad that they were nearing her father's house. The gladness did not
last, however. There hung over it another cross. This Col. Baker had
been in the habit of being invited to enter, and of spending an hour or
more in cosy chat with the family. Nothing confidential or special in
these Sabbath evening calls; they seemed simply to serve to pass away a
dull hour. They had been pleasant to Flossy. But it so happened that the
hours of the Sabbath had grown precious to her; none of them were dull;
every moment of them was needed.
Besides, in their walk up the hill from the auditorium one evening, Evan
Roberts had said in answer to a wonderment from her that so little was
accomplished by the Sabbath services throughout the land:
"I think one reason is the habit that so many people have of frittering
a way any serious impression or solemn thought they may have had by a
stream of small talk in which they indulge with their own family or
their intimate friends, after what they call the Sabbath is past. Do you
know there are hundreds of people, good, well-meaning--in fact,
Christians--who seem to think that the old Puritan rules in regard to
hours hold yet, in part. It begins at eight or nine o'clock, when they
have their nap out; and at the very latest it closes with the minister's
benediction after the second service; and they laugh and talk on the way
home and at home as if the restraints of the day were over at last."
How precisely he had described the Sabbath day of the Shipley family.
With what a sense of relief had she often sat and chatted with Col.
Baker at the close of what had been to her an irksome day, and felt that
at last the sense of propriety would not be shocked if they laughed and
bantered each other as usual.
Things were different now. But poor Flossy's face flushed, and her heart
beat hard over the trial of _not_ asking Col. Baker to come in. Silly
child! Ruth would have said, and her calm, clear voice would not have
hesitated over the words; "Col. Baker, I can not ask you in this
evening, because I have determined to receive no more calls, even from
intimate friends, on the Sabbath. On any other evening I shall be happy
to see you."
As for Marion, she would have decidedly enjoyed saying it. But Flossy,
she could never have explained it to him. Her voice would have trembled
too much, and her heart beat too hard. The very most that she could do
was to keep her lips closed. No invitation from her should pass them,
and this in itself was five times more of a cross than it would have
been for either of the others to have spoken.
However, it did no good. Col. Baker's friendship was on too assured a
footing to wait for ceremony. He had received too many invitations of
that nature to even notice the omission now. Though Flossy paused and
turned toward him he did not notice it, but himself opened the door for
her and passed in at her side, talking still about some matter connected
with his plans for the evening, that had been overthrown by her strange
propensity for church.
She did not hear him at all; she was both grieved and annoyed. If only
she dared go directly to her room! If she had been Ruth Erskine it would
have been done in a moment.
They sat down in the back parlor, and it was made evident to Flossy that
the entertainment of Col. Baker would be considered her special duty.
The library door was closed, and the sound of subdued voices there told
that Kitty Shipley and her suitor were having a confidential talk. Kitty
wouldn't help, then. Mrs. Shipley had retired, and Mr. Shipley sat at
the drop light reading the journal. He glanced up at their entrance,
gave Col. Baker the courteous and yet familiar greeting that welcomed
him as a special friend of the house, and then went on with his reading.
As for her brother Charlie, he had not come in, and probably would not
for hours to come.
What was there for Flossy to do but to take a seat and talk to Col.
Baker? Yet how she shrank from it! She wanted to be alone, to go over in
her heart all the sweet and blessed experiences of the day, for this day
had helped her much. She wanted to think about those boys in the school,
and form plans for their future, and try to decide whether it could be
that they would really like her for a teacher, and whether Dr. Dennis
would let her undertake the class. Why would not Col. Baker go home?
"What is the matter with you?" he asked, studying her face curiously,
and with a doubtful sound in his voice. "I don't believe that strange
freak of yours did you any good."
"It did me more good than anything that ever happened to me in my life,"
Flossy said, positively.
If she could only have explained to him just what the nature of that
good was! Possibly she might have tried, only there sat her father. Who
could tell when his interest in the _Times_ would cease, and he give
attention to her? Flossy could not understand why she should be so
afraid of her father in this matter; but she was very much afraid.
The talk they had was of that kind known as "small." To Flossy it seemed
exceedingly small, and she did not know how to make it otherwise. She
began to wonder if she and Col. Baker really had any ideas in common;
yet Col. Baker could talk with gentlemen, and talk well. It was simply
the habit of being frippery with the ladies that made his words seem so
foolish to Flossy.
Contrary to her expectation, her brother Charlie suddenly appeared on
the scene; and for a time she was privileged to slip into the
background. Charlie had been to hear the choral, and Col. Baker was very
anxious to know as to its success. You would have supposed them to be
talking about a prima donna concert. At last Charlie turned to Flossy
with the trying question:
"Sis, why didn't you go to the choral? I thought you were coming for
her, Baker. Didn't you tell me so?"
"I came, but was too late. Miss Flossy had already betaken herself to
the First Church."
"So _you_ missed the choral?"
"Well, only part of it. I went for an hour; then I left, and went in
search of your sister, to discover if I could what special attractions
First Church had for her to-night."
Now this fashion of going to one service until he was tired, and then
quietly slipping out in search of something more attractive, was
peculiar to Col. Baker. Flossy had known of his doing it on several
different occasions. The very most that she had thought about it had
been, that it was making one's self very conspicuous. She didn't believe
she would like to do it, even if she were a man. But to-night the action
had taken an irreverent shade that it never had before. She discovered
that she utterly disapproved of it. There seemed to be many things in
Col. Baker that met with her disapproval. Meantime the talk went on.
"Did you find the attraction?" Charlie asked.
Col. Baker shrugged his handsome shoulders.
"I confess I couldn't find it in the sermon. It was one of the Doctor's
sharpest and bluest efforts. That poor man has the dyspepsia, I feel
certain. Seems to me he develops an increased ability for making people
miserable."
Now, Col. Baker fully expected to draw forth by this remark one of
Flossy's silvery laughs, which, to tell the truth, were becoming sweeter
to his ears than any choral.
He was surprised and annoyed at the steady look of thoughtful, not to
say distressed gravity that she gave him out of those soft blue eyes of
hers. He did not know what to make of this Flossy; he was feeling the
change in her more decidedly than anyone else had done. He waited for
Flossy's answer, and she gave it at last, in a grave, rebuking tone of
voice:
"I liked the sermon very much."
"Did you, indeed? I confess I am astonished. I gave you the credit of
possessing a more tender heart. Frankly, then, I didn't. I must say I
don't like to go to church to be made uncomfortable."
"Did you find that sentence in the paper?" Flossy asked, a little gleam
of mischief in her eyes. "Because, if you did, I should have thought you
would have considered it answered very well by the comments."
"As a rule, I am not obliged to resort to the papers to find remarks to
quote," Col. Baker said, with an attempt at gayety, which but half
concealed the evident annoyance that he felt. "But I judge the paper
found some one suffering in the same way. Pray, what was the answer?"
"Why, the writer said that he supposed no one liked to be uncomfortable;
but whether it was the sermon that should change, or the life, in order
to remove the discomfort, was a question for each to decide for
himself."
"Sharp!" said Charlie, laughing; "you've got hit, Baker."
"Oh, no," he said, "not at all. Don't you see, the author kindly
accorded permission for each person to decide the question for himself?
Now I have it decided so far as I am concerned. I prefer a change in the
sermon. Oh, Dr. Dennis is a good man; no one doubts it; but he is too
severe a sermonizer. His own church officers admit that. He is really
driving the young people away from the church. I should not be greatly
surprised if there had to be a change in that locality very soon. The
spirit of the times demands more liberality, and a larger measure of
Christian charity."
Col. Baker was really too well educated a man to have allowed himself to
use these terms parrot-like, without knowledge or thought as to their
meaning; but the truth was, he cared so little about church and
Christian charity, and all those phrases, as to have very little idea of
what he meant himself when he used them.
But pretty little Flossy had never argued with him, never been known to
argue with anybody. Why should he not occasionally awe her with his high
sounding words? It is a pity that Ruth or Marion had not been there to
take up the theme; and yet it is doubtful if arguments would have had
any weight with him. The truth was, he did not need to be convinced.
Probably Flossy's perfect gravity, and dignity, and silence, did more to
answer him than any keen words could have done.
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