SANCTUARY
While these events had been taking place the members of the Coral Strand
Missionary Circle were gathered at the church in solemn conclave. Mrs.
Westfall, the president, had called a special meeting to deal with
events of unusual importance that had brought out the entire membership.
The circle had lately been the object of a cowardly attack from the pen
of one Bill Busby, who devoted nearly a column of the valued editorial
space of the _Citizen_ to a whimsical commentary on foreign missions. Of
course he had mentioned no names, but his poison-tipped innuendoes were
too pointed to be overlooked.
On behalf of the Coral Strand Missionary Circle Mrs. Westfall had
demanded a retraction of the alleged libelous statements, and an apology
that should be given the same publicity as the defamatory matter.
Bill Busby had received her with extreme politeness. He had transferred
his feet from the top of the desk to the seat of a chair; he had
advanced his hat to the forward portion of his head; he had even gone so
far as to remove his cigar from his mouth and lay it on the edge of the
desk which already bore charred evidence of previous courtesies; but he
refused to retract his statements. On the contrary he insisted that they
were true. However, he had agreed to apologize, which he did in the next
week's issue.
But Bill's apology was somewhat awkward. It appeared under the caption,
_Well-meaning but Mis-informed and Misguided Philanthropists_, and
sounded very much like betting the Coral Strand Missionary Circle a new
hat that the $160 they had raised during the preceding year would have
shriveled by the time it reached its destination until it would buy no
more than $1.60 worth of shoes for the naked heathen babies.
The special meeting followed; for, regardless of the truth or falsity of
Bill's charges, the cause of foreign missions had received a body-blow.
The community--never over-enthusiastic on the subject--was now equipped
with a full-fledged excuse for refusing to make any further
contributions. A flimsy excuse, to be sure, but the flimsier an excuse
is, the better it serves its purpose.
It soon proved to be the sense of the meeting that something of a public
nature must be done to recover the lost prestige of the Coral Strand
Missionary Circle, and to counteract the insidious effects of "that
Busby man's dastardly attack on the fair name and fame of the circle."
Several plans were suggested and discussed and discarded before Mrs.
Westfall considered that the psychological moment had arrived to spring
on the meeting an idea that had come to her in the night, undoubtedly in
answer to her earnest prayer for guidance, but at last she stood before
her dear sisters, faintly flushed with enthusiasm and holding in her
hand a pink folder with which she gesticulated from time to time as she
made a few introductory remarks. Finally she opened the folder and read
from beginning to end the descriptive matter concerning the Inter-State
Correspondence School course in _Philanthropy--the Science of Giving_.
She read selected quotations from the world's most cheerful givers: from
Andrew Carnegie's essay on _Gainful Giving_, from Hettie Green's
monograph on _Making Every Cent Count_ and from other of the
authorities.
"My idea," she went on to explain as she laid aside the pink folder, "is
to have the Coral Strand Missionary Circle as a body, take this course,
so that hereafter we shall be known as a society of Graduate
Philanthropists!"
A storm of discussion followed, but above its raging the nasal tones of
Mrs. Electa Mandeville could be heard distinctly.
"They're fakes! They're all alike! They're fakes! They're fakes!" she
repeated over and over.
Gradually the others subsided and at last Mrs. Mandeville had the floor
all to herself, whereupon she shook a long bony index-finger at the
president and cried shrilly:
"I tell you they're fakes! All fakes! I've had experience with 'em and I
_know_! Look at my son-in-law! He answered an ad in a magazine that said
'Be a Civil Engineer,' and he took a course that cost me sixty dollars!
And _look_ at him! Why, he ain't even civil, to say nothing of being an
engineer!"
"I will personally vouch for the reliability of the Inter-State
Correspondence School," replied Mrs. Westfall tartly. "And besides, they
give an iron-bound guarantee of satisfaction or all money refunded."
"I wouldn't trust any of 'em!" cried Mrs. Mandeville excitedly. "They
take your money and then all they do is send you a lot of rubbish
through the mail and try to sell you text books and equipment or get
you to take some other course--!"
"Some of the _inferior_ schools might do such things," interrupted Mrs.
Westfall icily; "but not the Inter-State! As I said, I will personally
vouch for--"
"Personally? Did you say?" snapped Mrs. Mandeville. "Personally? How
could you vouch for them _personally_ unless you have had dealings with
them?"
"I said 'personally,' Sister Mandeville," returned the president, "and I
meant personally! I _have_ had dealings with them."
The Coral Strand Missionary Circle was on tip-toe. It was confidently
expected that Mrs. Westfall was about to divulge the details of some of
her secret efforts at self-improvement, and it was something of a
disappointment when she told merely of Karl's triumphant conquest of the
art of swimming without going outside of her own kitchen.
As she paused for rhetorical effect the irrepressible Mrs. Mandeville
inquired,
"But how do you know he can swim?"
There was a suspicion of a titter from the rear seats; but Mrs. Westfall
froze this levity with a glare as she retorted:
"He is, at this very moment, down in swimming with his little
playmates!"
"But if he's never tried it in the water, how do you know he can--"
began Mrs. Mandeville, but before she could finish her question there
was a tremendous slam from the front door, and Biscuit appeared in their
midst.
For a moment he was taken for an apparition of the Evil One; and when he
fled bawling into his mother's arms he brought his worthy parent under
momentary suspicion of intimacy with striped devils.
But when she began to pat his naked back and murmur: "There, ther-r-r-e!
Mother's boy is all safe!" and other similar expressions of assurance,
the horrified spectators began to grasp the situation, and restored her
good character.
It was some time before Biscuit could utter intelligible words, although
his mother fancied she heard among his tearful babblings the names of
several fish. But when he managed to convey the idea that there was some
kind of an initiation, she began to understand his highly decorated
exterior. Then suddenly it dawned on her that the painted decorations
were the only ones that he had on. In that panicky moment she wrapped
him in her best white shawl and started to conduct him towards a small
door that led into the session-room, when Mrs. Mandeville again entered
the arena.
"This," she exclaimed sarcastically, "might be a good time to get at the
_truth_ about those wonderful swimming lessons!"
Mrs. Westfall stopped in her tracks. "Perhaps it would," she said with a
murderous look at Mrs. Mandeville; and, turning Biscuit around so that
he faced the meeting she asked in a wheedling tone: "You _could_ swim
all right, couldn't you, dearie?"
"I du-du-don't know!" he blubbered.
"Don't know!" she demanded giving his shoulder an angry shake. "Don't
know! _Why_ don't you know?"
"I--uh--uh--ain't been in the wu-wu-water yet!"
A crimson flush spread over Mrs. Westfall's scowling visage as she
cried, "Oh! You haven't, eh! You haven't!"
She seized him by one of his unornamented ears and marched him down the
aisle towards the front door, where she relieved him of the shawl and
pointing a trembling finger at the door almost screamed: "Get out of
that door!... Go down to that swimming-hole just as fast as your legs
will carry you, and don't you come back till you've _found out_ whether
you can swim or not!"
And while the question of taking a correspondence course in
_Philanthropy--the Science of Giving_ was being gently but everlastingly
laid on the table, Biscuit was retracing his steps to the swimming-hole
with less precipitation and much more modesty than he had left it. More
than once he longed for the cartoonist's favorite barrel as he dodged
from tree to tree to escape the prying gaze of an inconsiderate public.
Fate dealt him a cruel blow when he sought to avoid meeting two old
ladies by slipping behind a clump of lilac bushes in Rude's front yard;
for from underneath the very bushes themselves came the shocked
observation of the voice he loved best in all the world:
"I don't know _what_ game you think you're playin', Karl Westfall, but
it's not a very nice game! I think you're horrid anyway--!"
But Biscuit did not tarry to hear more. He fled. Nor did he stop again
until he had reached the swimming-hole, which he did shortly after
Sube's return from his unsuccessful pursuit. Sube had just finished
telling how he had burst into the church--and burst out again without
being observed, when the sound of footsteps was heard on the path.
"Hark! There's somebody after us already! We'll get--"
Then Biscuit came into view.
As one they flew to welcome him.
"Good for you, old kid! How'd you get away from all those old hens? Come
'ere, let's see if I can't wipe off some of that ol' paint with my
undershirt--"
It took the underwear of the entire party to make Biscuit presentable,
and meanwhile he had given an account of the proceedings at the church.
"She never noticed the paint at all!" he declared. "She jus' asked me if
I could swim, and when I said I didn't know, she sent me back to find
out."
"You'll find out all right!" came a gruff voice from behind him.
Turning around, Biscuit beheld Seth Bissett, the terror of the town, who
had received his preliminary training in a reform school and had
afterwards finished in the penitentiary. The other boys dived into the
pool and swam to safety on the farther side of the creek; but Biscuit,
forgetting for the moment his theoretical mastery of the deep, attempted
to effect his escape by land, and ran into the arms of Warren Sours,
the ally and familiar friend of Seth Bissett.
"How many times I gotta tell you little rats to keep away from this
swimmin'-hole?" cried Seth with the assistance of several ever-ready
strong words, as he roughly grasped Biscuit by the shoulder and faced
him around. "Can you swim, bo?"
"Yes, sir," replied Biscuit proudly, little suspecting what was to
follow.
"That's blankety-blank lucky!" the big fellow went on, suddenly catching
Biscuit by an ankle and a wrist, "because now you're goin' to have a
chanct."
Warren seized him by the other ankle and wrist. And as they swung him
back and forth as in the game called "beetle and wedge" Seth counted:
"One!... Two!... Thr-e-e!"
Biscuit went sailing through the air and struck far out in the pool with
a tremendous splash; then disappeared from view. Without waiting for him
to come up, Seth and Warren hastily snatched up the clothes that were
lying about on the grass, and flinging them into the pool, made off into
the bushes without so much as a glance at the place where Biscuit had
gone down.