VAN GOES TO CHURCH
Mr. Johns went over and closed the door carefully, when Betsy had been
excused after lunch.
“By the way, Kate, I received a letter this morning from that father of
hers.”
“Oh, the poor baby! He isn’t going to bother her, is he?”
“Read it.”
Mrs. Johns took the soiled bit of paper and read:
“Dr. Johns, Sir, I bin told you have taken my Betsy and are
a-bringing of her up. I am expecting a good job up-State, and if I
git it I can take her off your hands. I need her to help my new woman
keep house for me who aint very strong, but she can train Betsy all
right. You can just put her on the train at New York, and she can
come strait here without no change, and she wont be no more expense
to you,
Yours truly,
Alvin Wixon.”
“Oh, Ben!” gasped Mrs. Johns. “You won’t let him?”
“Of course not. He’s a low, drunken scoundrel, and his first wife
starved to death. He can easily be proved unfit as a guardian; no court
would sustain any claim of his, and I can be appointed Betsy’s legal
guardian. She’s a bright, capable child, and it would be a pity to have
such good material wasted washing dishes for a stepmother, who probably
would not be any kinder to her than her father has been.”
“Oh, Ben, we mustn’t let it happen! Why, I couldn’t let her go now.
She’s like my own, and growing dearer every day. Have you answered the
letter?”
“Yes. I told him the facts of the case. I think he will make no further
trouble.”
“I hope not. Dear, dear! I wish the child would show more affection for
me. Perhaps it is just timidity, but she looks like a startled fawn
when I kiss her. The only thing so far that seems to reach her is Van.”
“Don’t hurry her. It’ll come. She can’t help loving you, Kate. Nobody
could. But she’s not accustomed to the shows of love. Van is a dog. He
simply forces himself on her. If she doesn’t cuddle him, he cuddles
her. He’s the most taking bit I ever saw on four legs.”
“If he can only break down that uncanny coldness! If she would only be
a child instead of a little old woman, I could get at her.”
“Wait,” replied Dr. Johns. “At this stage Van is the educating
principle in matters of the heart. You are doing well in other ways. By
the way, she ought to know other children.”
“There are none on the Hill-Top of the kind I want her to know now.
I’m trying to improve her English, and for a little while I want her
to hear only the best. When school opens, that will help. I’ll tell
you,--I might send her in town to Sunday School. She’ll hear correct
English there, and see children who have nice manners.”
So Betsy started to Sunday School. She wore her prettiest clothes and
walked stiffly, as if trying to do her duty by the dainty garments. She
was introduced to a teacher, and for a few Sundays Aunt Kate asked no
questions, waiting for developments. Betsy went dutifully, but made no
sign.
At last Aunt Kate said,
“Do you like your Sunday School, Betsy?”
“Good enough. The folks there think that God punishes you for your
sins. I know better. I’ve been awful bad sometimes and He hasn’t
punished me a mite.”
“I think we are punished when we break God’s laws. Sometimes we are
punished by seeing the ones we love suffer.”
Betsy thought a moment.
“Maybe so,” she said at last. “When I’ve been bad, Ma was sorry, and
that made me sorry.”
“I think, little Betsy,” said Aunt Kate, slowly, “that when we are born
we have in us the seeds of either good or bad, and it is the seeds we
care for and train as we grow up, that make us good or evil. How are
you getting on with the girls in the class?”
“Oh, all right, I guess. I don’t get acquainted much. They’re sort
of--different, or else--_I’m_ queer. But I’m watchin’ ’em, Aunt Kate,
like I do you at the table, and I don’t feel so different as I did at
first.”
“Good! Everything will come out right after a while, when the girls
know my Betsy as well as I do.”
Betsy did not answer, but there was a soft little light in her eyes.
She continued her attendance, and Van, who had watched her weekly
disappearance, dressed in her Sunday best, determined to make a closer
investigation of affairs. There must be some special charm about these
daytime excursions from which he was excluded.
One fine Sabbath morning he was on the lawn, sunning himself, when he
saw Betsy come out of the house, book in hand, best hat on, and start
down the hill toward town. Van dropped in happily behind her.
“Go back, Van!” said Betsy.
Van tossed his royal head and ran on, pretending that he was bent on
his own affairs.
“I’ll get rid of him when I get on the car,” thought Betsy.
She climbed on at the trolley-station, and did not see the little brown
and white streak dashing madly along behind, clear into the town.
There were many stops for the church-goers, so Van was able to keep
the car in sight. It stopped in front of the church just as the Sunday
School bell was ringing, and all the good little Episcopalian children
were walking sedately in at the door, dressed in their prettiest and
cleanest Sunday-go-to-meeting frocks and coats. As Betsy mounted the
steps she was greeted by a member of her class.
Just then Van ambled up, with his tongue out, and his eye lighted with
the excitement of adventure.
“There’s your dog, Betsy.”
“Oh, my goodness! I thought I got away from him. Go home, Van! Go
straight home, I tell you--this minute!”
Van dropped his head, lowered his tail slightly, and turned his back
dutifully, looking sideways to see if Betsy were keeping an eye upon
him. But she had disappeared in the doorway.
Van went a few steps toward home, then stopped to consider. Betsy being
out of sight, at the very least he might take a look around and see
what a church was like.
He turned and went back to the stone steps, climbed them slowly, and
went inside the open vestibule.
“Get out!” said the sexton to Van, not knowing that he was addressing
royalty.
Van got out, and the sexton went into the big empty part of the church,
to see that everything was ready for the evening meeting.
Once more Van entered the vestibule. One of the teachers came out of
the Sunday School room for a minute, and then returned. He did not
bother to look at Van.
But Van saw something. That door swung both ways, and had no
latch--like the door between the pantry and dining-room at home. This
was luck indeed. Van knew how to work that kind of door. You listen
a moment to make sure that no one is coming from the other side to
bang into your nose; next you stand on your hind legs and throw your
whole weight on the door; then, when it swings open, you make a quick
dash through the crack before it can come back at you and squeeze your
tail--and there you are!
Van tried it. It worked! No one saw him. There was a man on a platform,
but his eyes were shut and his head was bowed. All the little
Episcopalian children were kneeling, and their heads, too, were bowed;
the teachers were doing the same thing. Van did not know what it meant,
but he walked calmly up the aisle.
A familiar white hat was bobbing at the end of one of the seats. Van
saw it and made his way in that direction. Just as the prayer ended
with a resounding “Amen!” Van plumped himself down contentedly at
Betsy’s feet, and looked innocently upward.
“Van!” she whispered. “Van, you bad dog, what are you doing here? I
told you to go home.”
Van put his nose on the floor between his forepaws, and sighed
peacefully, as if he had not heard her. Unless force were used, he
intended to stay and see the performance through.
Betsy’s heart was filled with misgivings; but rather than run the
gauntlet of the whole school’s eyes, with a dog under her arm, she
decided to hold him until the service was over. The teacher had not
noticed; her eyes were on the heads and not the feet of the children.
Betsy tucked Van under the seat, where he lay until the lesson was
over--as good a dog as ever lived, and far better than some of the
children, who found it hard to keep their minds on holy things, with a
small brown head and two bright eyes popping out every time a question
from the catechism brought forth a childish answer.
Once more the superintendent lifted his voice in prayer, and Van crept
softly out from under the seat to see if he could find out what it
really meant.
Now the hymn was given out, the pianist took his seat, and began to run
over the tune. This was fine! Van liked music and he pricked up his
ears. Behind Betsy’s back he jumped up on the seat, and began to roll
his eyes and cock his head to one side as if to take in the full beauty
of the notes.
A small boy began to giggle, and the children all over the room craned
their heads over the backs of the seats; some even climbed up to peer
over, and the whisper went around,
“There’s a dog in Sunday School!”
Betsy tried to repress him without being noticed. But there was a
decided tide of attention setting her way. The teacher began to take
notice, too.
Betsy’s face was crimson. She could not carry Van out, just as they
were beginning to sing. She put down her hand and whispered out of the
corner of her mouth,
“Behave yourself, Van!”
Now the unlucky star of a certain small boy decreed that on this
particular Sunday he should be asked to display his accomplishments by
accompanying the children with his violin, on which he had been taking
lessons for nearly four months. A proud father and mother had urged him
on, and there he stood beside the pianist, with his bow raised.
Down it came on the strings in the first strains of “From Greenland’s
Icy Mountains,” the voices of all the school joining in, in fine,
childish harmony.
At the first wail of the instrument Van leaped to a point of vantage
on the seat. He did not wait for a hymn-book; he simply lifted up his
voice and joined the chorus in a song without words--a long-drawn,
mournful howl! He could sing that hymn with the best of them; he would
show them!
“Stop, Van!” Betsy tried to shut him off by putting her hand over his
mouth, but he wriggled free, barked an evil defiance, and continued his
heartrending strains. Who was she that she should interfere with the
religious devotions of the son of kings, a hero, and a singer of songs?
The teachers tried their best to look shocked, and the superintendent
openly grinned.
[Illustration: SHE FLED WITH HIM DOWN THE AISLE]
Betsy no longer shunned publicity. She was flooded with it anyway.
Seizing the singer she fled with him down the aisle, leaving the
room swept by a gale of laughter that might have been heard almost to
India’s coral strand! It was a shocking end to a devotional exercise.
Betsy did not go back; she took Van out in the vestibule and spanked
him. She haled him home; she told him that he was a young imp; and that
if ever he followed her to Sunday School again she would know why.
After this Van decided to try another service. Mary the cook loved
him too, and Mary was a good Catholic. Perhaps he was too old and too
musically-inclined for Sunday School. The next Sunday he followed Mary
as she started to Mass.
“Look out, Mary!” called Treesa, “Van’s following you.”
“Ah, sure now the Boy-Heart can go down the hill wit’ me. I’ll hunt him
home before I goes in.”
At the door of Mary’s church she “hunted him home,” and he turned as if
to go, but the minute her back was turned he was behind her, and behind
her he marched up the steps and up the aisle. In Mary’s pew he took his
station, and at Mary’s feet he lay.
Father O’Givney came down from his pulpit after Mass, and Mary
apologized.
“The Boy-O folleyed me, Father O’Givney, an’ I hunted him home, but
right back he came. He sure do be liking it here, an’ a foine church it
is, to be sure. He’s the great Boy--that.”
“I’ve a dog of my own at home,” said Father O’Givney. He was Irish,
too, and Mary’s soft brogue was to him like the music of the Ould Sod.
“Van’s behaving well, isn’t he?”
“Sure, he’s always the gentleman!” answered Mary, and Van was left,
unrebuked and undisturbed.
No one will ever know how many times Van went to Mass with Mary. She
kept her own counsel. But I have my suspicions that to-day Van is a
full-fledged Roman Catholic, in good and regular standing; and I am
sure that, if it were orthodox to admit dogs into the fold, Mary would,
long ago, have had his name entered on the books.