in an hour.’ With that he started down the road, and I went in and gave
them his message. Some of the boys hooted and laughed and said they might
as well go home, but finally decided to wait.
“Less than an hour from the time Truman left some of the scholars
impatiently watching the road for his return were surprised to see a
lady approaching on horseback from the opposite direction. She got off
her horse in front of the schoolhouse and looked helplessly around. Bud
McGill dashed out and tied her horse to the fence. The girls said she
must be a stranger, for none of them had ever seen her before.
[Illustration: _“The teacher is out just now. Won’t you have a chair?”
said Bud_]
“A plaid dolman of the newest style, trimmed with fringe, fell nearly to
her knees, and she wore a wide black beaver hat with a thick veil and
glasses. She walked with mincing steps to the door, daintily holding up
her long black riding skirt. Just inside she turned to Bud.
“‘Are you the teacher?’ she asked softly.
“‘No, ma’am,’ Bud said politely, ‘the teacher is out just now. Won’t you
have a chair?’
“The lady sat down at the teacher’s desk and began to fumble with her
veil. One of the girls came forward and deftly removed the pins that held
it in place. The veil slipped off, and there sat Truman dressed in sister
Belle’s new clothes! There were shouts and shouts of laughter in which
even Bud was forced to join. He came forward and offered Truman his hand.
“‘You beat,’ he said. He never made any more trouble and we had a good
school the rest of the winter.
“See who gets to sleep first and we’ll have another story real, real
soon.”
A WISH THAT CAME TRUE
“Grandma,” said Alice one evening when she and Bobby and Pink had come
into Grandma’s room, “do you believe that if you look over your right
shoulder at the new moon and make a wish that it will come true?”
“Naw,” jeered Bobby, “course not.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Grandma answered thoughtfully. “A wish made
that way could come true. I made a wish once over a white horse and a
red-haired girl that came true.”
“Tell us about it Grandma. Please tell us,” coaxed Alice.
Grandma found her knitting and began.
“The red-haired girl,” she said, “was Betty Bard, our preacher’s
granddaughter. She had lived at the parsonage with her grandparents for
nearly a year, and next to Annie Brierly she was my best friend. The
white horse belonged to old Mrs. Orbison, who with several other women
had come to help sister Belle quilt her ‘Rose of Sharon.’
“Betty and I were playing under the apple tree in the side yard. That
is, we were trying to play. We couldn’t find any game we liked. We
kept thinking that this might be our last afternoon together. You see,
conference was to meet the next week, and Betty didn’t seem to think her
grandfather would be sent back to preach on Redding circuit. I didn’t
think so either. Redding circuit was very hard to please, and though
Father never found fault with any of our preachers and always paid his
tithes, still I knew that Brother Bard was not popular. Betty said it was
because he did good by stealth and no one ever found it out.
“‘If I move away,’ said Betty as we sat under the apple tree talking that
afternoon, ‘you may have my playhouse rock at school, Sarah, and all my
dahlia roots, and the black kitten. The kitten’s name is Bad Boy because
he jumps on the table when no one is looking. And you must be sure to dig
the dahlias up before frost.’
“Just then Mrs. Orbison’s voice floated out through the open sitting-room
window.
“‘It all depends on the sermon he preaches tomorrow,’ she said. ‘If they
don’t like it, a letter goes to the Presiding Elder saying we will not
tolerate Brother Bard another year and that in case he is sent back
against our wishes we will not pay him anything.’
“I looked quickly at Betty to see if she had heard, and I knew by the
flush on her cheeks that she had. I put my arm through hers and we walked
slowly toward the front gate. It was then I made my wish. I looked at
Mrs. Orbison’s white horse turned out to graze in the orchard across the
road and at Betty’s red head, and I said to myself, ‘I wish for Betty not
to move away.’ Out loud I said to Betty, ‘Can’t you tell your grandpa to
preach a sermon they’ll like, Betty, so you won’t have to go away?’
“‘But how would he know what they’d like?’ she asked in a puzzled tone.
“‘Oh, just something pleasant,’ I answered cheerfully, ‘something nice
and pleasant.’
“‘I’ll tell him what Mrs. Orbison said,’ she promised before she went
home, ‘and he can do what he thinks best.’
“We stopped at the parsonage the next morning to take Betty into the
surrey with us because her grandma seldom went to meeting, not being very
strong. I could hardly wait till Betty and I got around a corner of the
church to ourselves.
“‘What did your grandpa say?’ I asked eagerly.
“‘He said he’d do his duty as he saw it, and grandma said he stayed up
all night. She crept downstairs three times to beg him to come to bed.’
“This did not sound very encouraging, but when I heard the text I
breathed a sigh of relief. It was, ‘Now if Timotheus come, see that he
may be with you without fear, for he worketh the work of the Lord as I
also do.’ I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded like a safe text,
and I became so interested in watching a robin hopping on the window sill
that I did not notice what Preacher Bard was saying until I felt Betty
straighten up and clutch my hand.
“I looked around to see what had happened, and I knew in a minute that
he had not preached a sermon to please them. Amazement, indignation,
surprise, showed plainly in the upturned faces. I won’t try to tell you
what was in that sermon, only this—that, in the hope of making things
easier for his successor, Reverend Bard had undertaken in a kindly way to
open the eyes of the Mt. Zion people to some of their faults. They had
found fault with all the preachers. Now he pointed out a few of their own
shortcomings, and they didn’t like it—no, indeed, not a bit.
“When it was over, the congregation poured out of the church, filled the
little yard, and overflowed into the graveyard beyond. No one offered
to leave. They stood around in groups—whispering, shaking their heads
gravely, pressing their lips in grim lines.
“As soon as the preacher left for his afternoon appointment the storm
broke. No one paid any attention to Betty as she stood at the horseblock
with me waiting for Father to come round with the surrey. Everybody
talked at once.
“‘He doesn’t preach the straight gospel—he tells too many tales.’
“‘He doesn’t visit enough.’
“‘He favors pouring, when we’ve always stood for immersion.’
“These remarks and many others Betty and I heard as we waited there for
Father. Betty must have stood it just as long as she possibly could. Then
suddenly she jerked away from me and climbed to the horseblock. I can see
her now—her red hair flying in the breeze, her eyes shining, her cheeks
flushed.
“‘My grandfather’s the best man in the world,’ she cried, and stamped her
foot angrily. ‘He’s the best man in the world, I tell you. I don’t care
what you say, he’s the best man in the world,’ and she crumpled down in a
little sobbing heap.
[Illustration: _The congregation stood around in groups—whispering and
shaking their heads gravely_]
“Father came up then and, putting an arm around Betty, he said, ‘Let us
pray,’ and everybody bowed his head and Father prayed. He prayed a long
time, and at the last there were lots of ‘Amens’ and ‘Praise the Lords’
just as in big meeting.
“The second Father finished, an old man stepped out in front and said in
a halting way that he would like every one to know that when his cow died
in the winter Preacher Bard had bought him another. That started things.
A young man said the preacher had sat up with him every other night for
six weeks when he had typhoid fever. A boy said the preacher had bought
him school books, and the Widow Spears said he had given her twenty
dollars when her house burned. An old lady told how he read one afternoon
a week to her husband who was blind, and so on and on and on. Everybody
wanted to tell something good about Preacher Bard.
“Before the meeting broke up a big donation party was planned for Monday
night, and Mother got Mrs. Bard to let Betty come home with us so she
wouldn’t give it away. Monday was a busy day. While the women baked and
cooked for the party, the men raised money to put a new roof on the
parsonage, to buy a suit of clothes for Brother Bard, a black silk dress
for Mrs. Bard, so stiff it would stand alone, and a blue delaine for
Betty.
“How we surprised the Bards that night when we all went in, and what a
good time we had! But the best part was when Deacon Orbison, who had
been opposed to the preacher from the first, got up on a chair and made a
speech. He said it seemed to him Redding circuit could not afford to lose
a man like Reverend Bard, that his salary and benevolences had been made
up in full, and that a letter would be sent the Presiding Elder asking
that he be returned for another year. He was returned, and Betty and I
sat together at school that winter, so you see I got my wish.
“Well, well, if it isn’t bedtime for three little children I know. Pass
the apples, Bobby, please, and next time I’ll tell you—well, I just don’t
know what I shall tell you next time, but I’ll have something for you.”
JOE’S INFARE
“I think tonight I’ll tell you about my brother Joe’s infare,” said
Grandma one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink had come to her room
for their usual good-night story. “But first,” she went on, before the
children had time to ask any questions, “I’d better tell you what an
infare was. It was a sort of wedding reception which took place at the
bridegroom’s home, usually the day after the wedding. It was the faring
or going of the bride into her husband’s home and was celebrated with
great rejoicing and a big feast.
“Joe had married Sally Garvin, who lived four miles from us by the road
but only two miles through the fields. They had been married the day
before, and we were to have the infare.
“Mother and the girls and Nanny Dodds had baked and cooked for a solid
week. And before that they had cleaned the house from top to bottom,
and we had mowed and raked and swept the big front yard and the orchard
across the road and the pasture lot by the house. Now the great day had
arrived.
“Stanley had gone in our surrey to drive the bridal couple home, and
Truman and the girls had ridden horseback to meet them. Charlie had
brought Hunter, Stanley’s colt, down to the barn lot so he could go with
them. But Mother was afraid to have him ride the colt, not knowing that
he practiced riding him every day in the pasture field.
“From my lookout on the rail of the front portico I saw the first of the
guests come over the top of two-mile hill. There was a number of young
men and girls on horseback, followed by our surrey with Stanley driving.
On the back seat I knew the bride and groom sat.
“I waited for nothing more. I jumped down and rushed off to the kitchen
to tell Mother. Mother gave Nanny some instructions about the dinner,
slipped off the big gingham apron that covered her gray silk dress,
patted her hair before the mirror in the hall, and, taking Father’s arm,
went down the path between the rows of bachelor’s buttons, foxglove,
Canterbury bells, and ribbon grass to welcome her first daughter-in-law.
“When Sally and Joe had left Sally’s home, a number of friends and
relatives had started with them. These had been added to all along the
way by other friends, so that there was quite a crowd of folks when they
reached our house, besides lots of people who had already come.
“As soon as Mother and Father had greeted Sally, Belle and Aggie hurried
her upstairs to the spare chamber to put on her wedding dress. Sally was
little, with pink cheeks, and brown curls which she wore caught at the
top of her head and hanging down her back very much as the little girls
wear their hair now, only the young ladies of that day wore a high-backed
comb instead of a ribbon. She wore a new gray alpaca trimmed in narrow
silk fluting, very pretty, but nothing like what the wedding dress would
be. The wedding dress had been made in Clayville, and Belle and Aggie and
everybody else were eager to see it.
“Joe brought up the telescope which held Sally’s things and went back
downstairs. The girls were going to help Sally dress, and I kept as much
out of sight as possible so I could see and yet not be seen.
“‘Open it up, Aggie, please,’ said Sally, pointing to the telescope, ‘and
lay my dress on the bed. I do hope it’s not wrinkled.’
“Aggie lifted the telescope from the floor to a chair.
“‘My goodness, but it’s heavy!’ she cried. ‘What in the world is in it,
Sally?’
“Sally turned from the mirror.
“‘Heavy?’ she said surprised. ‘Why, there’s hardly anything in it. I
packed it myself. I wanted to be sure my dress wouldn’t be wrinkled, so I
just put in the dress and a few other things to do until tomorrow.’
“Aggie rapidly unbuckled the straps and lifted up the lid. Sally gave a
smothered cry and caught Belle’s arm.
“‘Somebody has made a mistake,’ she gasped. ‘It is the wrong telescope!’
and she threw herself across the bed and burst into tears.
“The telescope was packed tight full with towels, pillow slips,
tablecloths, and sheets and was to have been brought over the next day
with the rest of Sally’s things. In the excitement of leaving, some
one had carried it down and placed it in the surrey instead of the one
containing the wedding dress.
“‘You look awfully sweet in this little gray dress, Sally,’ Aggie tried
to console her. But it was no use, for Sally knew quite well that
waiting downstairs were girls in dresses that looked much more bridelike
than the gray alpaca. To be outshone at one’s own infare—well, it was no
wonder she cried!
“Belle suggested that Stanley or Truman go back for the wedding dress,
but Sally objected to this. She said people would laugh at her and never
forget that she had gone to her infare and left her wedding dress at home.
“Suddenly a thought came to me. Hunter was still in the barn lot. Charlie
could ride him, and he went like a streak. It was only two miles through
the fields to Sally’s home. I never stopped to think that Mother would
be frightened if she knew Charlie was on Hunter, or that Father would
probably forbid it, or that Charlie might ruin his new Sunday suit. I
slipped out of the room and went in search of Charlie. I found him out
front pitching horseshoes, and in no time at all he was off to Sally’s
home without a soul knowing about it. Then I went upstairs to tell the
girls what I had done.
“They were not very hopeful. It didn’t seem possible that Sally could
stay upstairs till Charlie got back with the dress, but she said she
would wait a little while anyway. She got up and bathed her face, and
Belle and Aggie went down to entertain the guests. Belle started several
games, such as ‘Strip-the-Willow’ and ‘Copenhagen,’ and Aggie played the
piano.
“I was everywhere—in the kitchen begging Nanny to hold the dinner back
as long as she could (I had let her into the secret), on the hill behind
the house watching for Charlie, and in the spare chamber trying to cheer
Sally up, for at the end of an hour there was no sign of Charlie.
“What could have happened? He had said he could make it in less than an
hour. He had been gone an hour and twenty minutes! People were wondering
why Sally did not appear. They had lost interest in the games and were
dropping out and sauntering toward the house. Aggie had played everything
she knew over and over. Belle had run up to tell Sally she would have
to put on the gray dress and come right down, but Sally had coaxed for
five minutes more. Belle went back and started the folks singing ‘The
Star-Spangled Banner.’ The five minutes were up and Sally was putting on
the gray alpaca dress when Charlie came.
“The people who had begun to wonder what was keeping the bride forgot
about it when Sally came down and stood with Joe to receive their good
wishes and congratulations. Her dress was heavy cream-colored silk with
tiny pink rosebuds scattered all over it, and the full skirt was ruffled
clear to the waist. The round neck and elbow sleeves were finished with
filmy white ruching, and she wore white satin slippers. With her pink
cheeks and shiny brown curls I thought she was the very prettiest bride
any one ever saw.
“When they had gone into the dining room, where Annie Brierly and some
other little girls were waving peach switches over the tables to keep the
flies and bees away and Sally was saying who should sit at the bride’s
table, Charlie told me what had kept him. He had found the Garvins’ house
locked up and had had to climb in a window to get the telescope. The dog
had seen him as he had gotten in and wouldn’t let him come out until
Charlie had fed him and made friends with him.
“Then some one called us and said that Sally wanted Charlie and me to
sit at the bride’s table. No one could have been more surprised than
we were, for we hadn’t expected to eat till the third table at the very
soonest, and here we were invited to sit at the bride’s table and have
our pick of the choicest food!
“There! I hear Mother calling. Good night, good night, good night.”
PUMPKIN SEED
“Well, well,” said Grandma one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink
asked for a story. “I wonder if I can think of anything tonight.” She
found her knitting and went on in a puzzled tone. “I thought of something
today to tell you about. Let me see, what was it? Oh, I remember now. It
was the pumpkin pie at dinner that set me thinking about the pumpkin seed
that Father gave brother Charlie and me to plant.”
“It was in the spring. The fish were biting fine, and one afternoon
Charlie and I were all ready to go down to the deep hole under the
willows to fish. Charlie had cut new poles and hunted up hooks and lines,
and I had packed a lunch, for you do get awfully hungry sitting on the
creek bank all afternoon. We were out behind the barn digging bait when
Father came around the corner and saw us.
“‘I’ve just been looking for you children,’ he said. ‘I want you to take
these pumpkin seeds down to the cornfield in the bottom and plant them.’
Then, seeing our fishing tackle, he added, ‘It won’t take long, and when
you finish you may go fishing.’
“Of course Charlie and I were disappointed. We hadn’t been fishing that
year yet. It had been a late spring, with lots of rain, and on the bright
days there had been so many things that we could do around the house and
garden that we couldn’t be spared to go fishing. And now, with everything
all ready, to give it up even for an hour or two was a trial.
“We started for the cornfield, Charlie carrying the poles and the can of
bait and I the lunch and the paper sack of pumpkin seed. The pumpkins we
were to plant were to be used to feed the stock—cow pumpkins they were
called, and they were big and coarse-grained and not good for pies.
“Well, Charlie and I started down at the lower end of the field and we
planted a few seeds. But there was such a lot of the seed and the field
was so big and the lure of the creek with the shade under the willows
and the fish biting was so great that we could think of nothing else. We
stopped to examine our bait to see if the worms were still living. When
we went back to work Charlie wondered what was the use of planting so
many old pumpkins, anyhow, when Father had already planted as many as
usual in the upper cornfield.
“‘We might plant a whole lot of seed at once,’ he said, ‘but still it
would take us a long time.’
“‘I know what to do!’ I cried, ‘Let’s hide the sack of seed in this old
stump and come back tomorrow and plant them.’ After a few half-hearted
protests from Charlie, this was what we did. We buried the sack of seed
in an old, rotten stump, covered it deep with the soft, rich loam, and
away we went to the creek to fish.
“Charlie baited both our hooks with the fishworms, and we would spit on
our bait each time for luck. The charm must have worked, for when it
was time to go home we had caught a nice lot of sunfish, tobacco boxes,
silversides, and suckers. Truman cleaned them for us, and Mother dipped
them in corn meal and fried them a golden brown. We had them for supper,
and every one said how good they were and no one thought to ask us
anything about the pumpkin seeds.
“I thought about them that night after I had gone to bed and wished that
we had stayed and planted them as Father had told us to. But then Charlie
and I would go down first thing in the morning, dig the sack out of the
stump, plant the seeds, and everything would be all right.
“But it began to rain in the night, and it rained all the next day. The
day after, it was too wet, and the day after that Charlie was busy. Then
it rained again, and after a while I forgot all about the pumpkin seeds.
It was several weeks before I thought of them again. You couldn’t guess
what made me think of them then, so I will tell you.
“When we went to meeting on Sundays, Charlie and I always tried to
remember the text of the sermon to say when we got home, for Mother was
almost sure to ask us what it was. One Sunday I was saying it over and
over to myself so that I could remember it, when suddenly the meaning
of it came to me and I was surprised to find that it had something to
do with me. The text was ‘Be sure your sin will find you out,’ and in a
flash I knew it meant that if you did anything wrong you couldn’t keep
people from knowing about it. Then I thought of the buried pumpkin seed
which Charlie and I had meant to go back and plant.
“Father had never said a word about the pumpkins not coming up, though he
must surely have noticed it long before this. Perhaps he thought the seed
had been bad, but still it was queer he had never mentioned it.
“That night I couldn’t sleep for thinking how wrong it had been for
Charlie and me to deceive Father about the pumpkin seed. Even the fact
that we had meant to go back and plant them didn’t make me feel any less
guilty. When I did fall asleep, I dreamed that the room was full of
pumpkins with ugly grinning faces like jack-o’-lanterns. They laughed
and mocked at me and pressed closer and closer until I wakened with a
frightened cry, and when Mother asked me what had scared me I couldn’t
tell her.
“In the morning I talked it over with Charlie. We agreed to go to Father
immediately and tell him that we had not planted the pumpkin seeds.
[Illustration: _I dreamed the room was full of pumpkins with ugly
grinning faces_]
“But Father had gone to Clayville on business for a couple of days.
When he came back, before we had a chance to see him alone he told us
at dinner before all the others that the pumpkin crop in the bottom
cornfield was to be Charlie’s and mine. He said that we could keep as
many as we wanted to for jack-o’-lanterns on Hallowe’en and he would pay
us ten cents apiece for all the rest. Think of that! Ten cents apiece
for all the pumpkins we raised, and we knew that there wouldn’t be any
pumpkins! I looked across the table at Charlie, and his face was very
red. I couldn’t say a word, but when Father left the table we both
followed him and told him all about the pumpkin seeds, and how the text
had started us thinking, and everything. Father listened without a word
till we had finished. Then much to our surprise he said, ‘I’ve known for
a good while what you did with the pumpkin seed. When I saw the number
of fish you caught that afternoon, I wondered how you had planted the
pumpkin seed so quickly. I had told Mother they were to belong to you
two to do with as you pleased, but I did not intend to tell you until
later. Then when I found out that you had not planted the seeds I waited
for you to come to me. I believe you have learned a lesson from this
experience which you will not forget. Come along with me. I want to show
you something.’
“Wonderingly, without a word, we followed Father to the cornfield and
straight to where the old rotten stump in the lower end of the field had
been. But when we got there we could not see the stump, for coming out of
it and all over it and completely covering it, were myriads of pumpkin
vines—not big strong vines like the ones that grew in the fields, but
thin, sickly vines crowding each other for space.
“The soil in the stump had been so rich and light that, though the sack
of seeds had been deeply covered, when soaked with rain the seeds had
sprouted and forced their way through the sack and up to the light and
air. The vines told Father where the pumpkin seeds were as plainly as if
they could have spoken.
“And now, good night, my dears, and don’t forget to say your prayers, and
I’ll try to think up a good story for next time.”