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MISSY
By Dana Gatlin
TO
VIOLA ROSEBORO'
CONTENTS
I THE FLAME DIVINE
II “YOUR TRUE FRIEND, MELISSA M”
III LIKE A SINGING BIRD
IV MISSY TACKLES ROMANCE
V IN THE MANNER OF THE DUCHESS
VI INFLUENCING ARTHUR
VII BUSINESS OF BLUSHING
VIII A HAPPY DOWNFALL
IX DOBSON SAVES THE DAY
X MISSY CANS THE COSMOS
CHAPTER I. THE FLAME DIVINE
Melissa came home from Sunday-school with a feeling she had never had
before. To be sure she was frequently discovering, these days, feelings
she had never had before. That was the marvellous reward of having grown
to be so old; she was ten, now, an advanced age--almost grown up!
She could look back, across the eons which separated her from
seven-years-old, and dimly re-vision, as a stranger, the little girl
who cried her first day in the Primary Grade. How absurd seemed that
bashful, timid, ignorant little silly! She knew nothing at all. She
still thought there was a Santa Claus!--would you believe that? And,
even at eight, she had lingering fancies of fairies dancing on the
flower-beds by moonlight, and talking in some mysterious language with
the flowers!
Now she was much wiser. She knew that fairies lived only in books and
pictures; that flowers could not actually converse. Well... she almost
knew. Sometimes, when she was all alone--out in the summerhouse on
a drowsy afternoon, or in the glimmering twilight when that one very
bright and knowing star peered in at her, solitary, on the side porch,
or when, later, the moonshine stole through the window and onto her
pillow, so thick and white she could almost feel it with her fingers--at
such times vague fancies would get tangled up with the facts of reality,
and disturb her new, assured sense of wisdom. Suddenly she'd find
herself all mixed up, confused as to what actually was and wasn't.
But she never worried long over that. Life was too complex to permit
much time for worry over anything; too full and compelling in every
minute of the long, long hours which yet seemed not long enough to hold
the new experiences and emotions which ceaselessly flooded in upon her.
The emotion she felt this Sunday was utterly new. It was not contentment
nor enjoyment merely, nor just happiness. For, in the morning as mother
dressed her in her embroidered white “best” dress, and as she walked
through the June sunshine to the Presbyterian church, trying to remember
not to skip, she had been quite happy. And she had still felt happy
during the Sunday-school lesson, while Miss Simpson explained how our
Lord multiplied the loaves and fishes so as to feed the multitude. How
wonderful it must have been to be alive when our Lord walked and talked
among men!
Her feeling of peaceful contentment intensified a little when they all
stood up to sing,
“Let me be a little sunbeam for Jesus--” and she seemed, then, to feel a
subtle sort of glow, as from an actual sunbeam, warming her whole being.
But the marvellous new feeling did not definitely begin till after
Sunday-school was over, when she was helping Miss Simpson collect the
song-books. Not the big, thick hymn-books used for the church service,
but smaller ones, with pasteboard backs and different tunes. Melissa
would have preferred the Sunday-school to use the big, cloth-covered
hymnals. Somehow they looked more religious; just as their tunes, with
slow, long-drawn cadences, somehow sounded more religious than the
Sunday-school's cheerful tunes. Why this should be so Melissa didn't
know; there were many things she didn't yet understand about religion.
But she asked no questions; experience had taught her that the most
serious questions may be strangely turned into food for laughter by
grown-ups.
It was when she carried the song-books into the choir-room to stack them
on some chairs, that she noticed the choir had come in and was beginning
to practise a real hymn. She loitered. It was an especially religious
hymn, very slow and mournful. They sang:
“A-a--sle-e-e-ep in Je-e-e--sus--Ble-e-es--ed sle-e-e-ep--From which
none e-e-ev--er Wake to we-e-e-ep--”
The choir did not observe Melissa; did not suspect that state of
deliciousness which, starting from the skin, slowly crept into her very
soul. She stood there, very unobtrusive, drinking in the sadly sweet
sounds. Up on the stained-glass window the sunlight filtered through
blue-and-red-and-golden angels, sending shafts of heavenly colour across
the floor; and the fibres of her soul, enmeshed in music, seemed to
stretch out to mingle with that heavenly colour. It was hard to separate
herself from that sound and colour which was not herself. Tears came to
her eyes; she couldn't tell why, for she wasn't sad. Oh, if she could
stand there listening forever!--could feel like this forever!
The choir was practising for a funeral that afternoon, but Melissa
didn't know that. She had never attended a funeral. She didn't even know
it was a funeral song. She only knew that when, at last, they stopped
singing and filed out of the choir-room, she could hardly bear to have
them go. She wished she might follow them, might tuck herself away in
the auditorium somewhere and stay for the church service. But her mother
didn't allow her to do that. Mother insisted that church service and
Sunday-school, combined, were too much for a little girl, and would give
her headaches.
So there was nothing for Missy to do but go home. The sun shone just as
brightly as on her hither journey but now she had no impulse to skip.
She walked along sedately, in rhythm to inner, long-drawn cadences.
The cadences permeated her--were herself. She was sad, yet pleasantly,
thrillingly so. It was divine. When she reached home, she went into the
empty front-parlour and hunted out the big, cloth-covered hymnal that
was there. She found “Asleep in Jesus” and played it over and over on
the piano. The bass was a trifle difficult, but that didn't matter. Then
she found other hymns which were in accord with her mood: “Abide with
Me”; “Nearer My God to Thee”; “One Sweetly Solemn Thought.” The last
was sublimely beautiful; it almost stole her favour away from “Asleep in
Jesus.” Not quite, though.
She was re-playing her first favourite when the folks all came in from
church. There were father and mother, grandpa and grandma Merriam who
lived in the south part of town, Aunt Nettie, and Cousin Pete Merriam.
Cousin Pete's mother was dead and his father out in California on a long
business trip, so he was spending that summer in Cherryvale with his
grandparents.
Melissa admired Cousin Pete very much, for he was big and handsome and
wore more stylish-looking clothes than did most of the young men in
Cherryvale. Also, he was very old--nineteen, and a sophomore at the
State University. Very old. Naturally he was much wiser than Missy, for
all her acquired wisdom. She stood in awe of him. He had a way of asking
her absurd, foolish questions about things that everybody knew; and
when, to be polite, she had to answer him seriously in his own foolish
vein, he would laugh at her! So, though she admired him, she always
had an impulse to run away from him. She would have liked, now, in this
heavenly, religious mood, to run away lest he might ask her embarrassing
questions about it. But, before she had the chance, grandpa said:
“Why Missy, playing hymns? You'll be church organist before we know it!”
Missy blushed.
“'Asleep in Jesus' is my favourite, I think,” commented grandma. “It's
the one I'd like sung over me at the last. Play it again, dear.”
But Pete had picked up a sheet of music from the top of the piano.
“Let's have this, Missy.” He turned to his grandmother. “Ought to hear
her do this rag--I've been teaching her double-bass.”
Missy shrank back as he placed the rag-time on the music-rest.
“Oh, I'd rather not--to-day.”
Pete smiled down at her--his amiable but condescending smile.
“What's the matter with to-day?” he asked.
Missy blushed again.
“Oh, I don't know--I just don't feel that way, I guess.”
“Don't feel that way?” repeated Pete. “You're temperamental, are you?
How do you feel, Missy?”
Missy feared she was letting herself in for embarrassment; but this was
a holy subject. So she made herself answer:
“I guess I feel religious.”
Pete shouted. “She feels religious! That's a good one! She guesses
she--”
“Peter, you should be ashamed of yourself!” reproved his grandmother.
“She's a scream!” he insisted. “Religious! That kid!”
“Well,” defended Missy, timid and puzzled, but wounded to unwonted
bravery, “isn't it proper to feel like that on the Sabbath?”
Pete shouted again.
“Peter--stop that! You should be ashamed of yourself!” It was his
grandfather this time. Grandpa moved over to the piano and removed the
rag-time from off the hymnal, pausing to pat Missy on the head.
But Peter was not the age to be easily squelched.
“What does it feel like, Missy--the religious feeling?”
Missy, her eyes bright behind their blur, didn't answer. Indeed, she
could not have defined that sweetly sad glow, now so cruelly crushed,
even had she wanted to.
Missy didn't enjoy her dinner as much as she usually did the midday
Sunday feasts when grandpa and grandma came to eat with them. She felt
embarrassed and shy. Of course she had to answer when asked why she
wasn't eating her drumstick, and whether the green apples in grandma's
orchard had given her an “upset,” and other direct questions; but when
she could, she kept silent. She was glad Pete didn't talk to her much.
Yet, now and then, she caught his eyes upon her in a look of sardonic
enquiry, and quickly averted her own.
Her unhappiness lasted till the visitors had departed. Then, after
aimlessly wandering about, she took her Holy Bible out to the
summerhouse. She was contemplating a surprise for grandpa and grandma.
Next week mother and Aunt Nettie were going over to Aunt Anna's in
Junction City for a few days; during their absence Missy was to stay
with her grandparents. And to surprise them, she was learning by heart a
whole Psalm.
She planned to spring it upon them the first night at family prayers.
At grandma's they had prayers every night before going to bed. First
grandpa read a long chapter out of the Holy Bible, then they all knelt
down, grandpa beside his big Morris chair, grandma beside her little
willow rocker, and whoever else was present beside whatever chair he'd
been sitting in. Grandpa prayed a long prayer; grandma a shorter one;
then, if any of the grandchildren were there, they must say a verse by
heart. Missy's first verse had been, “Jesus wept.” But she was just a
tiny thing then. When she grew bigger, she repeated, “Suffer the little
children to come unto Me.” Later she accomplished the more showy, “In
My Father's house are many mansions; I go there to prepare a place for
you.”
But this would be her first whole Psalm. She pictured every one's
delighted and admiring surprise. After much deliberation she had decided
upon the Psalm in which David sings his song of faith, “The Lord is my
shepherd; I shall not want.”
How beautiful it was! So deep and so hard to understand, yet, somehow,
all the more beautiful for that. She murmured aloud, “I will fear no
evil--for Thou art with me--Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me”; and
wondered what the rod and staff really were.
But best of all she liked the last verse:
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
To dwell in the house of the Lord forever!--How wonderful! What was the
house of the Lord?... Missy leaned back in the summerhouse seat, and
gazed dreamily out at the silver-white clouds drifting lazily across the
sky; in the side-yard her nasturtium bed glowed up from the slick green
grass like a mass of flame; a breeze stirred the flame to gentle motion
and touched the ramblers on the summerhouse, shaking out delicious
scents; distantly from the backyard came the tranquil, drowsy sounds
of unseen chickens. Missy listened to the chickens; regarded sky and
flowers and green--colours so lovely as to almost hurt you--and sniffed
the fragrant air... All this must be the house of the Lord! Here, surely
goodness and mercy would follow her all the days of her life.
Thus, slowly, the marvellous new feeling stole back and took possession
of her. She could no longer bear just sitting there quiet, just feeling.
She craved some sort of expression. So she rose and moved slowly over
the slick green grass, pausing by the blazing nasturtium bed to pick
a few vivid blossoms. These she pinned to her dress; then went very
leisurely on to the house-to the parlour--to the piano--to “Asleep in
Jesus.”
She played it “with expression.” Her soul now seemed to be flowing out
through her fingers and to the keyboard; the music came not from the
keyboard, really, but from her soul. Rapture!
But presently her mood was rudely interrupted by mother's voice at the
door.
“Missy, Aunt Nettie's lying down with a headache. I'm afraid the piano
disturbs her.”
“All right, mother.”
Lingeringly Missy closed the hymnal. She couldn't forbear a little sigh.
Perhaps mother noted the sigh. Anyway, she came close and said:
“I'm sorry, dear. I think it's nice the way you've learned to play
hymns.”
Missy glanced up; and for a moment forgetting that grown-ups don't
always understand, she breathed:
“Oh, mother, it's HEAVENLY! You can't imagine--”
She remembered just in time, and stopped short. But mother didn't
embarrass her by asking her to explain something that couldn't be
explained in words. She only laid her hand, for a second, on the sleek
brown head. The marvellous feeling endured through the afternoon, and
through supper, and through the evening--clear up to the time Missy
undressed and said her prayers. Some special sweetness seemed to have
crept into saying prayers; our Lord Jesus seemed very personal and very
close as she whispered to Him a postlude:
“I will fear no evil, for Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I'll
dwell in Thy house forever, O Lord--Amen.”
For a time she lay open-eyed in her little white bed. A flood of
moonlight came through the window to her pillow. She felt that it was a
shining benediction from our Lord Himself. And indeed it may have been.
Gradually her eyes closed. She smiled as she slept.
The grace of God continued to be there when she awoke. It seemed an
unusual morning. The sun was brighter than on ordinary mornings; the
birds outside were twittering more loudly; even the lawnmower which
black Jeff was already rolling over the grass had assumed a peculiarly
agreeable clatter. And though, at breakfast, father grumbled at his eggs
being overdone, and though mother complained that the laundress hadn't
come, and though Aunt Nettie's head was still aching, all these things,
somehow, seemed trivial and of no importance.
Missy could scarcely wait to get her dusting and other little “chores”
done, so that she might go to the piano.
However, she hadn't got half-way through “One Sweetly Solemn Thought”
before her mother appeared.
“Missy! what in the world do you mean? I've told you often enough you
must finish your practising before strumming at other things.”
Strumming!
But Missy said nothing in defence. She only hung her head. Her mother
went on:
“Now, I don't want to speak to you again about this. Get right to your
exercises--I hope I won't have to hide that hymn-book!”
Mother's voice was stern. The laundress's defection and other domestic
worries may have had something to do with it. But Missy couldn't
consider that; she was too crushed. In stricken silence she attacked the
“exercises.”
Not once during that day had she a chance to let out, through music, any
of her surcharged devotionalism. Mother kept piling on her one errand
after another. Mother was in an unwonted flurry; for the next day was
the one she and Aunt Nettie were going to Junction City and there were,
as she put it, “a hundred and one things to do.”
Through all those tribulations Missy reminded herself of “Thy rod and
Thy staff.” She didn't yet know just what these aids to comfort were;
but the Psalmist had said of them, “they shall comfort me.” And,
somehow, she did find comfort. That is what Faith does.
And that night, after she had said her prayers and got into bed, once
more the grace of God rode in on the moonlight to rest upon her pillow.
But the next afternoon, when she had to kiss mother good-bye, a great
tide of loneliness rushed over Missy, and all but engulfed her. She had
always known she loved mother tremendously, but till that moment she had
forgotten how very much. She had to concentrate hard upon “Thy rod and
Thy staff” before she was able to blink back her tears. And mother,
noticing the act, commented on her little daughter's bravery, and
blinked back some tears of her own.
In the excitement of packing up to go to grandma's house, Missy to a
degree forgot her grief. She loved to go to grandma's house. She liked
everything about that house: the tall lilac hedge that separated the
yard from the Curriers' yard next door; the orchard out in back where
grew the apples which sometimes gave her an “upset”; the garden
where grandpa spent hours and hours “cultivating” his vegetables; and
grandma's own particular garden, which was given over to tall gaudy
hollyhocks, and prim rows of verbena, snap-dragon, phlox, spicy pinks,
heliotrope, and other flowers such as all grandmothers ought to have.
And she liked the house itself, with its many unusual and delightful
appurtenances: no piano--an organ in the parlour, the treadles of which
you must remember to keep pumping, or the music would wheeze and stop;
the “what-not” in the corner, its shelves filled with fascinating
curios--shells of all kinds, especially a big conch shell which, held
close to the ear, still sang a song of the sea; the marble-topped
centre-table, and on it the interesting “album” of family photographs,
and the mysterious contrivance which made so lifelike the double “views”
you placed in the holder; and the lamp with its shade dripping crystal
bangles, like huge raindrops off an umbrella; and the crocheted “tidies”
on all the rocking-chairs, and the carpet-covered footstools sitting
demurely round on the floor, and the fringed lambrequin on the mantel,
and the enormous fan of peacock feathers spreading out on the wall--oh,
yes, grandma's was a fascinating place!
Then besides, of course, she adored grandpa and grandma. They were
charming and unlike other people, and very, very good. Grandpa was
slow-moving, and tall and broad--even taller and broader than father;
and he must be terribly wise because he was Justice-of-the-Peace, and
because he didn't talk much. Other children thought him a person to be
feared somewhat, but Missy liked to tuck her hand in his enormous one
and talk to him about strange, mysterious things.
Grandma wasn't nearly so big--indeed she wasn't much taller than Missy
herself; and she was proud of her activity--her “spryness,” she called
it. She boasted of her ability to stoop over and, without bending her
knees, to lay both palms flat on the floor. Even Missy's mother couldn't
do that, and sometimes she seemed to grow a little tired of being
reminded of it. Grandma liked to talk as much as grandpa liked to keep
silent; and always, to the running accompaniment of her tongue, she
kept her hands busied, whether “puttering about” in her house or
flower-garden, or crocheting “tidies,” or knitting little mittens, or
creating the multi-coloured paper-flowers which helped make her house so
alluring.
That night for supper they had beefsteak and hot biscuits and custard
pie; and grandma let her eat these delicacies which were forbidden at
home. She even let her drink coffee! Not that Missy cared especially for
coffee--it had a bitter taste; but drinking it made her feel grown-up.
She always felt more grown-up at grandma's than at home. She was
“company,” and they showed her a consideration one never receives at
home.
After supper Cousin Pete went out somewhere, and the other three had
a long, pleasant evening. Another agreeable feature about staying at
grandma's was that they didn't make such a point of her going to bed
early. The three of them sat out on the porch till the night came
stealing up; it covered the street and the yard with darkness, crawled
into the tree tops and the rose-bushes and the lilac-hedge. It hid all
the familiar objects of daytime, except the street-lamp at the corner
and certain windows of the neighbours' houses, which now showed square
and yellow. Of the people on the porch next door, and of those passing
in the street, only the voices remained; and, sometimes, a glowing point
of red which was a cigar.
Presently the moon crept up from behind the Jones's house, peeping
stealthily, as if to make sure that all was right in Cherryvale. And
then everything became visible again, but in a magically beautiful way;
it was now like a picture from a fairy-tale. Indeed, this was the hour
when your belief in fairies was most apt to return to you.
The locusts began to sing. They sang loudly. And grandma kept up her
chatter. But within Missy everything seemed to become very quiet.
Suddenly she felt sad, a peculiar, serene kind of sadness. It grew
from the inside out--now and then almost escaping in a sigh. Because it
couldn't quite escape, it hurt; she envied the locusts who were letting
their sadness escape in that reiterant, tranquil song.
She was glad when, at last, grandpa said:
“How'd you like to go in and play me a tune, Missy?”
“Oh, I'd love to, grandpa!” Missy jumped up eagerly.
So grandpa lighted the parlour lamp, whose crystal bangles now looked
like enormous diamonds; and a delicious time commenced. Grandpa got out
his cloth-covered hymnal, and she played again those hymns which mingle
so inexplicably with the feelings inside you. Not even her difficulties
with the organ--such as forgetting occasionally to treadle, or having
the keys pop up soundlessly from under her fingers--could mar that
feeling. Especially when grandpa added his bass to the music, a deep
bass so impressive as to make it improper to question its harmony, even
in your own mind.
Grandma had come in and seated herself in her little willow rocker;
she was rocking in time to the music, her eyes closed, and saying
nothing--just listening to the two of them. And, playing those hymns,
with grandpa singing and grandma listening, the new religious feeling
grew and grew and grew in Missy till it seemed to flow out of her and
fill the room. It flowed on out and filled the yard, the town, the
world; and upward, upward, upward--she was one with the sky and moon and
stars...
At last, in a little lull, grandpa said:
“Now, Missy, my song--you know.”
Missy knew very well what grandpa's favourite was; it was one of the
first pieces she had learned by heart. So she played for him “Silver
Threads among the Gold.”
“Thanks, baby,” said grandpa when she had finished. There was a
suspicious brightness in his eyes. And a suspicious brightness in
grandma's, too. So, though she wasn't unhappy at all, she felt her own
eyes grow moist. Grandpa and grandma weren't really unhappy, either.
Why, when people are not really unhappy at all, do their eyes fill just
of themselves?
And now was the moment of the great surprise at hand. Missy could
scarcely wait. It must be admitted that, during the interminable time
that grandpa was reading his chapter--it was even a longer chapter than
usual to-night--and while grandma was reading her shorter one, Missy was
not attending. She was repeating to herself the Twenty-third Psalm.
And even when they all knelt, grandpa beside the big Morris chair and
grandma beside the little willow rocker and Missy beside the “patent
rocker” with the prettiest crocheted tidy--her thoughts were still in a
divine channel exclusively her own.
But now, at last, came the time for that channel to be widened; she
closed her eyes tighter, clasped her hands together, and began:
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want, He maketh me to lie down in
green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters...”
How beautiful it was! Unconsciously her voice
lifted--quavered--lowered--lifted again, with “expression.” And she
had the oddest complex sensation; she could, through her tightly closed
eyes, vision herself kneeling there; while, at the same time, she could
feel her spirit floating away, mingling with the air, melting into the
night, fusing with all the divine mystery of heaven and earth. And her
soul yearned for more mystery, for more divinity, with an inexpressible
yearning.
Yet all the time she was conscious of the dramatic figure she made, and
of how pleased and impressed her audience must be; in fact, as her voice
“tremuloed” on that last sublime “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow
me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever,” she unclosed one eye to note the effect.
Both the grey heads remained prayerfully bent; but at her “Amen” both of
them lifted. And oh! what a reward was the expression in those two pairs
of eyes!
Grandma came swiftly to her and kissed her, and exclaimed:
“Why, however did you learn all that long Psalm, dear? And you recited
it so beautifully, too!--Not a single mistake! I never was prouder in my
life!”
Grandpa didn't kiss her, but he kept saying over and over:
“Just think of that baby!--the dear little baby.”
And Missy, despite her spiritual exaltation, couldn't help feeling
tremendously pleased.
“It was a surprise--I thought you'd be surprised,” she remarked with
satisfaction.
Grandma excitedly began to ask all kinds of questions as to how Missy
came to pick out that particular Psalm, and what difficulties
she experienced in learning it all; but it was grandpa who,
characteristically, enquired:
“And what does it mean to you, Missy?”
“Mean--?” she repeated.
“Yes. For instance, what does that last verse mean?”
“'Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life--?'
That--?”
“Yes, baby.”
“Why, I think I see myself walking through some big, thick woods. It's
springtime, and the trees are all green, and the grass slick and soft.
And birds are singing, and the wind's singing in the leaves, too. And
the sun's shining, and all the clouds have silver edges.”
She paused.
“Yes, dear,” said grandpa.
“That's the house of the Lord,” she explained.
“Yes, dear,” said grandpa again. “What else?”
“Well, I'm skipping and jumping along, for I'm happy to be in the house
of the Lord. And there are three little fairies, all dressed in silver
and gold, and with paper-flowers in their hair, and long diamond bangles
hanging like fringe on their skirts. They're following me, and they're
skipping and jumping, too. They're the three fairies in the verse.”
“The three fairies?” Grandpa seemed puzzled.
“Yes. It says 'Surely goodness and mercy,' you know.”
“But that makes only two, doesn't it?” said grandpa, still puzzled.
Missy laughed at his stupidity.
“Why, no!--Three!” She counted them off on her fingers: “Surely--and
Goodness--and Mercy. Don't you see?”
“Oh, yes, dear--I see now,” said grandpa, very slowly. “I wasn't
counting Surely.”
Just then came a chuckle from the doorway. Missy hadn't seen Pete enter,
else she would have been less free in revealing her real thoughts. What
had he overheard?
Still laughing, Pete advanced into the room.
“So there's a fairy named 'Surely,' is there? What's the colour of her
eyes, Missy?”
Missy shrank a little closer into the haven of grandpa's knees. And
grandpa, in the severe voice that made the other children stand in awe
of him, said:
“That will do, Peter!”
But Peter, unawed, went on:
“I know, grandpa--but she's such a funny little dingbat! And now, that
she's turned pious--”
Grandpa interrupted him with a gesture of the hand.
“I said that'd do, Peter. If you'd find some time to attend prayers
instead of cavorting round over town, it wouldn't hurt you any.”
Then grandma, who, though she was fond of Missy, was fond of Pete also,
joined in defensively:
“Pete hasn't been cavorting round over town, grandpa--he's just been
over to the Curriers'.”
At that Missy turned interested eyes upon her big cousin. He'd been
calling on Polly Currier again! Polly Currier was one of the prettiest
big girls in Cherryvale. Missy gazed at Pete, so handsome in his
stylish-looking blue serge coat and sharply creased white ducks,
debonairly twirling the bamboo walking-stick which the Cherryvale
boys, half-enviously, twitted him about, and felt the wings of Romance
whirring in the already complicated air. For this additional element
of interest he furnished, she could almost forgive him his scoffing
attitude toward her own most serious affairs.
But Pete, fortunately for his complacency, didn't suspect the reason for
her concentrated though friendly gaze.
All in all, Missy felt quite at peace when she went upstairs. Grandma
tucked her into bed--the big, extraordinarily soft feather-bed which was
one of the outstanding features of grandma's fascinating house.
And there--wonder of wonders!--the moon, through grandma's window, found
her out just as readily as though she'd been in her own little bed at
home. Again it carried in the grace of God, to rest through the night on
her pillow.
Next day was an extremely happy day. She had coffee for breakfast, and
was permitted by Alma, the hired girl, to dry all the cups and saucers.
Then she dusted the parlour, including all the bric-a-brac, which made
dusting here an engrossing occupation. Later she helped grandpa hoe
the cabbages, and afterward “puttered around” with grandma in the
flower-garden. Then she and grandma listened, very quietly, through a
crack in the nearly-closed door while grandpa conducted a hearing in the
parlour. To tell the truth, Missy wasn't greatly interested in whether
Mrs. Brenning's chickens had scratched up Mrs. Jones's tomato-vines, hut
she pretended to be interested because grandma was.
And then, after the hearing was over, and the Justice-of-the-Peace had
become just grandpa again, Missy went into the parlour and played hymns.
Then came dinner, a splendid and heavy repast which constrained her
to take a nap. After the nap she felt better, and sat out on the front
porch to learn crocheting from grandma.
For a while Pete sat with them, and Polly Currier from next door came
over, too. She looked awfully pretty all in white--white shirtwaist and
white duck skirt and white canvas oxfords. Presently Pete suggested that
Polly go into the parlour with him to look at some college snapshots.
Missy wondered why he didn't bring them out to the porch where it was
cooler, but she was too polite to ask.
They stayed in there a long time--what were they doing? For long spaces
she couldn't even hear their voices. Grandma chattered away with her
usual vivacity; presently she suggested that they leave off crocheting
and work on paper-flowers a while. What a delight! Missy was just
learning the intricacies of peonies, and adored to squeeze the rosy
tissue-paper over the head of a hat-pin and observe the amazing result.
“Run up to my room, dear,” said grandma. “You'll find the box on the
closet shelf.”
Missy knew the “paper-flower box.” It was a big hat-box, appropriately
covered with pink-posied paper--a quaintly beautiful box.
In the house, passing the parlour door, she tip-toed, scarcely knowing
why. There was now utter silence in the parlour--why were they so still?
Perhaps they had gone out somewhere. Without any definite plan, but
still tip-toeing in the manner she and grandma had approached to
overhear the law-suit, she moved toward the partly-closed door. Through
the crevice they were out of vision, but she could hear a subdued
murmur--they were in there after all! Missy, too interested to be really
conscious of her act, strained her ears.
Polly Currier murmured:
“Why, what do you mean?--what are you doing?”
Pete murmured:
“What a question!--I'm trying to kiss you.”
“Let me go!--you're mussing my dress! You can't kiss me--let me go!”
Pete murmured:
“Not till you let me kiss you!”
Polly Currier murmured:
“I suppose that's the way you talk to all the girls!--I know you college
men!”
Pete murmured, a whole world of reproach in one word:
“Polly.”
They became silent--a long silence. Missy stood petrified behind
the door; her breathing ceased but her heart beat quickly. Here was
Romance--not the made-up kind of Romance you surreptitiously read in
mother's magazines, but real Romance! And she--Missy--knew them both!
And they were just the other side of the door!
Too thrilled to reflect upon the nature of her deed, scarcely conscious
of herself as a being at all, Missy craned her neck and peered around
the door. They were sitting close together on the divan. Pete's arm was
about Polly Currier's shoulder. And he was kissing her! Curious, that!
Hadn't she just heard Polly tell him that he couldn't?... Oh, beautiful!
She started noiselessly to withdraw, but her foot struck the conch shell
which served as a door-stop. At the noise two startled pairs of eyes
were upon her immediately; and Pete, leaping up, advanced upon her with
a fierce whisper:
“You little spy-eye!--What're you up to? You little spy-eye!”
A swift wave of shame engulfed Missy.
“Oh, I'm sorry!” she cried in a stricken voice. “I didn't mean to,
Pete--I--”
He interrupted her, still in that fierce whisper:
“Stop yelling, can't you! No, I suppose you 'didn't mean to'--Right
behind the door!” His eyes withered her.
“Truly, I didn't, Pete.” Her own voice, now, had sunk to a whisper.
“Cross my heart I didn't!”
But he still glared.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself--always sneaking round! You ought
to be ashamed of yourself!”
“Oh, I am, Pete,” she quavered, though, in fact, she wasn't sure in just
what lay the shamefulness of her deed; till he'd spoken she had felt
nothing but Romance in the air.
“Well, you ought to be,” Pete reiterated. He hesitated a second, then
went on:
“You aren't going to blab it all around, are you?”
“Oh, no!” breathed Missy, horrified at such a suggestion. “Well, see
that you don't! I'll give you some candy to-morrow.”
“Yes--candy,” came Polly's voice faintly from the divan.
Then, as the subject seemed to be exhausted, Missy crept away, permeated
with the sense of her sin.
It was horrible! To have sinned just when she'd found the wonderful
new feeling. Just when she'd resolved to be good always, that she might
dwell in the house of the Lord forever. She hadn't intended to sin; but
she must have been unusually iniquitous. Pete's face had told her
that. It was particularly horrible because sin had stolen upon her so
suddenly. Does sin always take you unawares, that way? A new and black
fear settled heavily over her.
When she finally returned to the porch with the paper-flowers box, she
was embarrassed by grandma's asking what had kept her so long. It
would have been easy to make up an excuse, but this new sense of sin
restrained her from lying. So she mumbled unintelligibly, till grandma
interrupted:
“Do you feel sick, Missy?” she asked anxiously.
“No, ma'am.”
“Are you sure? You ate so much at dinner. Maybe you didn't take a long
enough nap.”
“I'm not sleepy, grandma.”
But grandma insisted on feeling her forehead--her hands. They were hot.
“I think I'd better put you to bed for a little while,” said grandma.
“You're feverish. And if you're not better by night, you mustn't go to
the meeting.”
Missy's heart sank, weighted with a new fear. It would be an unbearable
calamity to miss going to the meeting. For, that night, a series of
“revivals” were to start at the Methodist Church; and, though father was
a Presbyterian (to oblige mother), grandpa and grandma were Methodists
and would go every night; and so long as mother was away, she could go
to meeting with them. In the fervour of the new religious feeling she
craved sanctified surroundings.
So, though she didn't feel at all sick and though she wanted desperately
to make paper-flowers, she docilely let herself be put to bed. Anyway,
perhaps it was just a penance sent to her by our Lord, to make atonement
for her sin.
By supper-time grandma agreed that she seemed well enough to go.
Throughout the meal Pete, who was wearing an aloof and serious manner,
refrained from looking at her, and she strived to keep her own anxious
gaze away from him. He wasn't going to the meeting with the other three.
Just as the lingering June twilight was beginning to darken--the
most peaceful hour of the day--Missy walked off sedately between
her grandparents. She was wearing her white “best dress.” It seemed
appropriate that your best clothes should be always involved in the
matter of church going; that the spiritual beatification within should
be reflected by the garments without.
The Methodist church in Cherryvale prided itself that it was not
“new-fangled.” It was not nearly so pretentious in appearance as was
the Presbyterian church. Missy, in her heart, preferred stained-glass
windows and their glorious reflections, as an asset to religion; but at
night services you were not apt to note that deficiency.
She sat well up front with her grandparents, as befitted their position
as pillars of the church, and from this vantage had a good view of
the proceedings. She could see every one in the choir, seated up there
behind the organ on the side platform. Polly Currier was in the choir;
she wasn't a Methodist, but she had a flute-like soprano voice, and the
Methodists--whom all the town knew had “poor singing”--had overstepped
the boundaries of sectarianism for this revival. Polly looked like an
angel in pink lawn and rose-wreathed leghorn hat; she couldn't know that
Missy gazed upon her with secret adoration as a creature of Romance--one
who had been kissed! Missy continued to gaze at Polly during the
preliminary songs--tunes rather disappointing, not so beautiful as
Missy's own favourite hymns--till the preacher appeared.
The Reverend Poole--“Brother” Poole as grandpa called him, though he
wasn't a relation--was a very tall, thin man with a blonde, rather
vacuous face; but at exhortation and prayer he “had the gift.” For
so good a man, he had a remarkably poor opinion of the virtues of his
fellow-men. Missy couldn't understand half his fiery eloquence; but she
felt his inspiration; and she gathered that most of the congregation
must be sinners. Knowing herself to be a sinner, she wasn't so much
surprised at that.
Finally Brother Poole, with quavering voice, urged all sinners to come
forward and kneel at the feet of Jesus, and pray to be “washed in the
blood of the lamb.” Thus would their sins be forgiven them, and their
souls be born anew. Missy's soul quivered and stretched up to be born
anew. So, with several other sinners--including grandpa and grandma
whom she had never before suspected of sin--she unhesitatingly walked
forward. She invoked the grace of God; her head, her body, her feet
seemed very light and remote as she walked; she seemed, rather, to
float; her feet scarcely touched the red-ingrain aisle “runner”--she
was nearly all spirit. She knelt before the altar between grandpa and
grandma, one hand tight-clasped in grandpa's.
Despite her exaltation, she was conscious of material things. For
instance she noted that Mrs. Brenning was on the other side of grandma,
and wondered whether she were atoning for the sins of her chickens
against Mrs. Jones's tomato-vines; she noticed, too, that Mrs.
Brenning's hat had become askew, which gave her a queer, unsuitable,
rakish look. Yet Missy didn't feel like laughing. She felt like closing
her eyes and waiting to be born anew. But, before closing her eyes, she
sent a swift glance up at the choir platform. Polly Currier was still up
there, looking very placid as she sang with the rest of the choir. They
were singing a rollicking tune. She listened--
“Pull for the shore, sailor! Pull for the shore! Leave the poor old
strangled wretch, and pull for the shore!”
Who was the old strangled wretch? A sinner, doubtless. Ah, the world
was full of sin. She looked again at Polly. Polly's placidity was
reassuring; evidently she was not a sinner. But it was time to close her
eyes. However, before doing so, she sent a swift upward glance toward
the preacher. He had a look on his face as though an electric light had
been turned on just inside. He was praying fervently for God's grace
upon “these Thy repentant creatures.” Missy shut her eyes, repented
violently, and awaited the miracle. What would happen? How would it
feel, when her soul was born anew? Surely it must be time. She waited
and waited, while her limbs grew numb and her soul continued to quiver
and stretch up. But in vain; she somehow didn't feel the grace of God
nearly as much as last Sunday when the Presbyterian choir was
singing “Asleep in Jesus,” while the sun shone divinely through the
stained-glass window.
She felt cheated and very sad when, at last, the preacher bade the
repentant ones stand up again. Evidently she hadn't repented hard
enough. Very soberly she walked back to the pew and took her place
between grandpa and grandma. They looked rather sober, too; she wondered
if they, also, had had trouble with their souls.
Then Brother Poole bade the repentant sinners to “stand up and testify.”
One or two of the older sinners, who had repented before, rose first to
show how this was done. And then some of the younger ones, after being
urged, followed example. Sobbing, they testified as to their depth of
sin and their sense of forgiveness, while Brother Poole intermittently
cut in with staccato exclamations such as “Praise the Lord!” and “My
Redeemer Liveth!”
Missy was eager to see whether grandpa and grandma would stand up and
testify. When neither of them did so, she didn't know whether she was
more disappointed or relieved. Perhaps their silence denoted that their
souls had been born anew quite easily. Or again--! She sighed; her soul,
at all events, had proved a failure.
She was silent on the way home. Grandpa and grandma held her two hands
clasped in theirs and over her head talked quietly. She was too dejected
to pay much attention to what they were saying; caught only scattered,
meaningless phrases: “Of course that kind of frenzy is sincere but--”
“Simple young things--” “No more idea of sin or real repentance--”
But Missy was engrossed with her own dismal thoughts. The blood of the
Lamb had passed her by.
And that night, for the first time in three nights, the grace of God
didn't flow in on the flood of moonlight through her window. She tossed
on her unhallowed pillow in troubled dreams. Once she cried out in
sleep, and grandma came hurrying in with a candle. Grandma sat down
beside her--what was this she was saying about “green-apple pie”? Missy
wished to ask her about it--green-apple pie--green-apple pie--Before she
knew it she was off to sleep again.
It was the next morning while she was still lying in bed, that Missy
made the Great Resolve. That hour is one when big Ideas--all kinds of
unusual thoughts--are very apt to come. When you're not yet entirely
awake; not taken up with trivial, everyday things. Your mind, then, has
full swing.
Lying there in grandma's soft feather bed, Missy wasn't yet distracted
by daytime affairs. She dreamily regarded the patch of blue sky showing
through the window, and bits of fleecy cloud, and flying specks of
far-away birds. How wonderful to be a bird and live up in the beautiful
sky! When she died and became an angel, she could live up there! But was
she sure she'd become an angel? That reflection gradually brought her
thoughts to the events of the preceding night.
Though she could recall those events distinctly, Missy now saw them in
a different kind of way. Now she was able to look at the evening as a
whole, with herself merely a part of the whole. She regarded that sort
of detached object which was herself. That detached Missy had gone to
the meeting, and failed to find grace. Others had gone and found grace.
Even though they had acted no differently from Missy. Like her they sang
tunes; listened to the preacher; bowed the head; went forward and knelt
at the feet of Jesus; repented; went back to the pews; stood up and
testified--
Oh!
Suddenly Missy gave a little sound, and stirred. She puckered her brows
in intense concentration. Perhaps--perhaps that was why!
And then she made the Great Resolve.
Soon after breakfast, Pete appeared with a bag of candy.
“I don't deserve it,” said Missy humbly.
“You bet you don't!” acquiesced Pete.
So even he recognized her state of sin! Her Great Resolve intensified.
That morning, for the first time in her life at grandma's house, Missy
shirked her “chores.” She found paper and pencil, took a small Holy
Bible, and stole back to the tool-house where grandpa kept his garden
things and grandma her washtubs. For that which she now was to do, Missy
would have preferred the more beautiful summerhouse at home; but grandma
had no summerhouse, and this offered the only sure seclusion.
She stayed out there a long time, seated on an upturned washtub; read
the Holy Bible for awhile; then became absorbed in the ecstasies of
composition. So engrossed was she that she didn't at first hear grandma
calling her.
Grandma was impatiently waiting on the back porch.
“What in the world are you doing out there?” she demanded.
Loath to lie, now, Missy made a compromise with her conscience.
“I was reading the Holy Bible, grandma.”
Grandma's expression softened; and all she said was:
“Well, dinner's waiting, now.”
Grandpa was staying down town and Pete was over at the Curriers', so
there were only grandma and Missy at the table. Missy tried to attend
to grandma's chatter and make the right answers in the right places. But
her mind kept wandering; and once grandma caught her whispering.
“What is the matter with you, Missy? What are you whispering about?”
Guiltily Missy clapped her hand to her mouth.
“Oh! was I whispering?”
“Yes.”
“I guess it was just a piece I'm learning.”
“What piece?”
“I--I--it's going to be a surprise.”
“Oh, another surprise? Well, that'll be nice,” said grandma.
Missy longed acutely to be alone. It was upsetting to have to carry on
a conversation. That often throws you off of what's absorbing your
thoughts.
So she was glad when, after dinner, grandma said:
“I think you'd better take a little nap, dear. You don't seem quite like
yourself--perhaps you'd best not attempt the meeting to-night.”
That last was a bomb-shell; but Missy decided not to worry about such
a possible catastrophe till the time should come. She found a chance to
slip out to the tool-house and rescue the Holy Bible and the sheet
of paper, the latter now so scratched out and interlined as to be
unintelligible to anyone save an author.
When at last she was alone in her room, she jumped out of bed--religion,
it seems, sometimes makes deception a necessity.
For a time she worked on the paper, bending close over it, cheeks
flushed, eyes shining, whispering as she scratched.
At supper, Missy was glad to learn that Pete had planned to attend the
meeting that evening. “Revivals” were not exactly in Pete's line; but as
long as Polly Currier had to be there, he'd decided he might as well go
to see her home. Moreover, he'd persuaded several others of “the crowd”
to go along and make a sort of party of it.
And Missy's strained ears caught no ominous suggestion as to her own
staying at home.
Later, walking sedately to the church between her grandparents, Missy
felt her heart beating so hard she feared they might hear it. Once
inside the church, she drew a long breath. Oh, if only she didn't have
so long to wait! How could she wait?
Polly Currier was again seated on the choir platform, to night an angel
in lavender mull. She had a bunch of pansies at her belt--pansies out
of grandma's garden. Pete must have given them to her! She now and then
smiled back toward the back pew where Pete and “the crowd” were sitting.
To Missy's delight Polly sang a solo. It was “One Sweetly Solemn
Thought”--oh, rapture! Polly's high soprano floated up clear and
piercing-sweet. It was so beautiful that it hurt. Missy shut her eyes.
She could almost see angels in misty white and floating golden hair.
Something quivered inside her; once more on the wings of music was the
religious feeling stealing back to her.
The solo was finished, but Missy kept her eyes closed whenever she
thought no one was looking. She was anxious to hold the religious
feeling till her soul could be entirely born anew. And she had quite
a long time to wait. That made her task difficult and complicated;
for it's not easy at the same time to retain an emotional state and to
rehearse a piece you're afraid of forgetting.
But the service gradually wore through. Now they were at the “come
forward and sit at the feet of Jesus.” To-night grandpa and grandma
didn't do that; they merely knelt in the pew with bowed heads. So Missy
also knelt with bowed head. She was by this time in a state difficult to
describe; a quivering jumble of excitement, eagerness, timidity, fear,
hope, and exaltation...
And now at last, was come the time!
Brother Poole, again wearing the look on his face as of an electric
light turned on within, exhorted the repentant ones to “stand up and
testify.”
Missy couldn't bear to wait for someone else to begin. She jumped
hastily to her feet. Grandma tried to pull her down. Missy frowned
slightly--why was grandma tugging at her skirt? Tugging aways she
extended her arms with palms flat together and thumbs extended--one of
Brother Poole's most effective gestures--and began:
“My soul rejoiceth because I have seen the light. Yea, it burns in my
soul and my soul is restoreth. I will fear no evil even if it is born
again. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I have been a
sinner but--”
Why was grandma pulling at her skirt? Missy twitched away and, raising
her voice to a higher key, went on:
“I said I've been a sinner, but I've repented my sins and want to lead a
blameless life. I repent my sins--O Lord, please forgive me for being
a spy-eye when Cousin Pete kissed Polly Currier, and guide me to lead a
blameless life. Amen.”
She sat down.
A great and heavenly stillness came and wrapped itself about her, a soft
and velvety stillness; to shut out gasp or murmur or stifled titter.
The miracle had happened! It was as if an inner light had been switched
on; a warm white light which tingled through to every fibre of her
being. Surely this was the flame divine! It was her soul being born
anew...