A FAST DAY
The Good-Conduct Club had a special session the next morning before
school. After various suggestions, it was decided that a fast day would
be an appropriate punishment.
“We won’t eat a single thing for a whole day,” said Jerry. “I’m kind of
curious to see what fasting is like, anyhow. This will be a good chance
to find out.”
“What day will we choose for it?” asked Una, who thought it would be
quite an easy punishment and rather wondered that Jerry and Faith had
not devised something harder.
“Let’s pick Monday,” said Faith. “We mostly have a pretty _filling_
dinner on Sundays, and Mondays meals never amount to much anyhow.”
“But that’s just the point,” exclaimed Jerry. “We mustn’t take the
easiest day to fast, but the hardest—and that’s Sunday, because, as you
say, we mostly have roast beef that day instead of cold ditto. It
wouldn’t be much punishment to fast from ditto. Let’s take next Sunday.
It will be a good day, for father is going to exchange for the morning
service with the Upper Lowbridge minister. Father will be away till
evening. If Aunt Martha wonders what’s got into us, we’ll tell her
right up that we’re fasting for the good of our souls, and it is in the
Bible and she is not to interfere, and I guess she won’t.”
Aunt Martha did not. She merely said in her fretful mumbling way, “What
foolishness are you young rips up to now?” and thought no more about
it. Mr. Meredith had gone away early in the morning before any one was
up. He went without his breakfast, too, but that was, of course, of
common occurrence. Half of the time he forgot it and there was no one
to remind him of it. Breakfast—Aunt Martha’s breakfast—was not a hard
meal to miss. Even the hungry “young rips” did not feel it any great
deprivation to abstain from the “lumpy porridge and blue milk” which
had aroused the scorn of Mary Vance. But it was different at dinner
time. They were furiously hungry then, and the odor of roast beef which
pervaded the manse, and which was wholly delightful in spite of the
fact that the roast beef was badly underdone, was almost more than they
could stand. In desperation they rushed to the graveyard where they
couldn’t smell it. But Una could not keep her eyes from the dining room
window, through which the Upper Lowbridge minister could be seen,
placidly eating.
“If I could only have just a weeny, teeny piece,” she sighed.
“Now, you stop that,” commanded Jerry. “Of course it’s hard—but that’s
the punishment of it. I could eat a graven image this very minute, but
am I complaining? Let’s think of something else. We’ve just got to rise
above our stomachs.”
At supper time they did not feel the pangs of hunger which they had
suffered earlier in the day.
“I suppose we’re getting used to it,” said Faith. “I feel an awfully
queer all-gone sort of feeling, but I can’t say I’m hungry.”
“My head is funny,” said Una. “It goes round and round sometimes.”
But she went gamely to church with the others. If Mr. Meredith had not
been so wholly wrapped up in and carried away with his subject he might
have noticed the pale little face and hollow eyes in the manse pew
beneath. But he noticed nothing and his sermon was something longer
than usual. Then, just before he gave out the final hymn, Una Meredith
tumbled off the seat of the manse pew and lay in a dead faint on the
floor.
Mrs. Elder Clow was the first to reach her. She caught the thin little
body from the arms of white-faced, terrified Faith and carried it into
the vestry. Mr. Meredith forgot the hymn and everything else and rushed
madly after her. The congregation dismissed itself as best it could.
“Oh, Mrs. Clow,” gasped Faith, “is Una dead? Have we killed her?”
“What is the matter with my child?” demanded the pale father.
“She has just fainted, I think,” said Mrs. Clow. “Oh, here’s the
doctor, thank goodness.”
Gilbert did not find it a very easy thing to bring Una back to
consciousness. He worked over her for a long time before her eyes
opened. Then he carried her over to the manse, followed by Faith,
sobbing hysterically in her relief.
“She is just hungry, you know—she didn’t eat a thing to-day—none of us
did—we were all fasting.”
“Fasting!” said Mr. Meredith, and “Fasting?” said the doctor.
“Yes—to punish ourselves for singing _Polly Wolly_ in the graveyard,”
said Faith.
“My child, I don’t want you to punish yourselves for that,” said Mr.
Meredith in distress. “I gave you your little scolding—and you were all
penitent—and I forgave you.”
“Yes, but we had to be punished,” explained Faith. “It’s our rule—in
our Good-Conduct Club, you know—if we do anything wrong, or anything
that is likely to hurt father in the congregation, we _have_ to punish
ourselves. We are bringing ourselves up, you know, because there is
nobody to do it.”
Mr. Meredith groaned, but the doctor got up from Una’s side with an air
of relief.
“Then this child simply fainted from lack of food and all she needs is
a good square meal,” he said. “Mrs. Clow, will you be kind enough to
see she gets it? And I think from Faith’s story that they all would be
the better for something to eat, or we shall have more faintings.”
“I suppose we shouldn’t have made Una fast,” said Faith remorsefully.
“When I think of it, only Jerry and I should have been punished. _We_
got up the concert and we were the oldest.”
“I sang _Polly Wolly_ just the same as the rest of you,” said Una’s
weak little voice, “so I had to be punished, too.”
Mrs. Clow came with a glass of milk, Faith and Jerry and Carl sneaked
off to the pantry, and John Meredith went into his study, where he sat
in the darkness for a long time, alone with his bitter thoughts. So his
children were bringing themselves up because there was “nobody to do
it”—struggling along amid their little perplexities without a hand to
guide or a voice to counsel. Faith’s innocently uttered phrase rankled
in her father’s mind like a barbed shaft. There was “nobody” to look
after them—to comfort their little souls and care for their little
bodies. How frail Una had looked, lying there on the vestry sofa in
that long faint! How thin were her tiny hands, how pallid her little
face! She looked as if she might slip away from him in a breath—sweet
little Una, of whom Cecilia had begged him to take such special care.
Since his wife’s death he had not felt such an agony of dread as when
he had hung over his little girl in her unconsciousness. He must do
something—but what? Should he ask Elizabeth Kirk to marry him? She was
a good woman—she would be kind to his children. He might bring himself
to do it if it were not for his love for Rosemary West. But until he
had crushed that out he could not seek another woman in marriage. And
he could not crush it out—he had tried and he could not. Rosemary had
been in church that evening, for the first time since her return from
Kingsport. He had caught a glimpse of her face in the back of the
crowded church, just as he had finished his sermon. His heart had given
a fierce throb. He sat while the choir sang the “collection piece,”
with his bent head and tingling pulses. He had not seen her since the
evening upon which he had asked her to marry him. When he had risen to
give out the hymn his hands were trembling and his pale face was
flushed. Then Una’s fainting spell had banished everything from his
mind for a time. Now, in the darkness and solitude of the study it
rushed back. Rosemary was the only woman in the world for him. It was
of no use for him to think of marrying any other. He could not commit
such a sacrilege even for his children’s sake. He must take up his
burden alone—he must try to be a better, a more watchful father—he must
tell his children not to be afraid to come to him with all their little
problems. Then he lighted his lamp and took up a bulky new book which
was setting the theological world by the ears. He would read just one
chapter to compose his mind. Five minutes later he was lost to the
world and the troubles of the world.