Cyrus was in bed.
The history of the case is instructive and should be a warning to other
champions.
On a certain afternoon in the fourteenth year of this hero's life the
home team had met and defeated the baseball club from a neighboring
village. The score was twenty to thirteen. Such a victory deserved
celebration. So Cyrus, with half a dozen fellow champions, went to
Mrs. Turner's little ice cream parlor and regaled themselves. Each boy
had three ice creams, and as the money still held out they decided on
a fourth. But Mrs. Turner, having a friendly interest in her patrons,
declined to be further identified with this particular debauch.
To victors in the national game this was humiliating. Defeat in an ice
cream parlor after triumph on the diamond, was not to be accepted.
So they adjourned to the store where a fresh lot of cocoanut cakes
had just come in. These cakes were not dry and fly blown like their
predecessors. They were fresh, full and well rounded, soft and juicy
and nicely browned on top. Wilbur Cobb said he could eat a dozen. But
Cyrus, familiar with the deceptive richness of cocoanut cakes, said no
boy could eat a dozen, but that he, Cyrus, could eat more than Wilbur.
This aroused the sporting instinct of the party and it was arranged, on
the spot, that these two champions should compete. The boy who ate the
most should pay nothing toward the cost of the cakes. The cakes were
two cents a piece.
Cyrus won. He ate nine and claimed, with justice, that were it not for
the space already occupied by the ice cream and sponge cake he could
have eaten still more.
Half an hour later these same boys, in passing through Deacon Bisbee's
orchard, found the taste of green apples cool and refreshing, for the
moment, after the somewhat milky fullness caused by the ice cream
and cocoanut cakes. And they partook with reckless freedom. What
exclamations of surprise or warning may have passed between those
hereditary foes, the ice cream and green apples, when the apples
entered those overworked stomachs is not recorded. But the apples
conquered as easily as the Barbarians when they entered Rome. For
green apples, on occasion, resemble Truth: they are mighty and will
prevail. And Cyrus, after starting homeward, began to feel, in that
region between his chest and legs, as if he had swallowed a football.
The distention was painful. Moreover, as he hurried on, the football
seemed growing bigger and harder. Also, it showed signs of life. From
his interior came rumblings; the rumblings that precede a storm. All
through this central zone, this sphere of distention, pains were
starting up, sharp, swift, far reaching. It appeared to him that
through his equator lightning played. At first these playful spasms
darted here and there in a frolicsome way--like airy nothings. Though
somewhat threatening and reverberant they did not alarm him. They
seemed well intentioned pains, like harmless gleams of lightning on a
summer night. But these spasms became less friendly. They grew sharper
and more threatening. Soon, like flashes in a real storm, they were
shooting here and there as if rending him asunder; no longer playful,
but the kind of lightning that rips the bark from trees, tears bricks
from chimneys, and spires from churches. When near his own home this
storm within grew fiercer yet, and wilder in its fury. So sharp the
agony that he clasped the afflicted territory with both his hands, and
leaned for support against a fence.
Never before, in his brief career had he realized that the human body
could be rent and plowed and torn to shreds without killing the owner.
At that moment Mrs. Eagan came along. Mrs. Eagan had a large face,
a large chest, large hips and a large heart. And she was carrying a
large basket--of things for the wash. Cyrus withdrew his hands from
that region where the tempest raged, straightened up, lifted his hat
and bowed. And it was done as respectfully as if Mrs. Eagan were
the leading lady of the land. Mrs. Eagan, with a smile of pleasure,
returned the salutation, not gracefully perhaps, for she was hampered
by the heavy basket. She knew Cyrus, and she knew that in his courtesy
to her sex he made no distinctions. She knew that if the Queen of Sheba
were passing at the same moment, the Queen of Sheba would have received
an obeisance not a bit more deferential than the obeisance to Mrs.
Eagan. But as she looked more carefully at the boy's face, her friendly
eyes saw clearly there was trouble.
"Why, Cyrus! Are ye sick? Ye are as white as a sheet."
"Yes'm." He spoke in a fade-a-way voice, and he smiled from sheer force
of will. "I feel very--very--I don't know." And one of his hands moved
instinctively to the sphere of revolt. His head drooped, partly from
pain; partly from shame that these awful spasms had weakened his legs
and might effect his courage.
"'Tis there ye are sufferin'? 'Tis the belly ache?"
Cyrus nodded. "Yes--Mrs. Eagan--and I never--had--such a----" The lips
quivered, his head sank lower and he leaned against the fence for
support. Mrs. Eagan laid down her basket. Then closer to the smaller
white face came the larger red one.
"D'ye feel so bad as that, little man?"
Cyrus nodded, with lips tight pressed to conceal a quivering he could
not control. He looked into the light blue eyes, now near his own, and
tried to smile.
Mrs. Eagan said no more. Cyrus felt an arm behind his legs, another
across his back, and he was lifted from the earth. She lifted him in
her arms--as Hercules might have lifted a spring lamb. With his head
against her shoulder she carried him easily up the long driveway to his
own home.
There were sleepless hours that night, and Cyrus did some unusual
thinking on important subjects. For, as it happened, he had recently
read portions of the Old Testament, quite by accident, and was much
impressed, temporarily, by certain statements of the Hebrew fathers. He
inferred from that book that the Ruler of the Universe was watchful and
vindictive, and dependent upon constant praise; that for any dodging of
this praise and worship hell fire and eternal damnation were ordinary
penalties; that the sins of the fathers were visited upon the children,
forever and ever--which seemed unfair. The impression of all this upon
his youthful mind was that any person who really believed these things
must be either impossibly good or scared to death. While in good health
those awful utterances did not worry him. Now, however, in the silent
hours of the night, weakened by the devastation in his interior, he
became less callous to such warnings. Those Hebrew fathers, backed by
the vindictive Almighty, might get him before daylight and consign him,
forever, to the fires of hell.
But at last he slept. And when he awoke the sun was shining in his
chamber--and he was still alive! However, when Joanna came up with his
toast and tea, and sat at his bedside, he was still haunted by the
awful prophecies of the Hebrew fathers and by the suspicion that the
Avenging Deity might still have an eye on him.
Joanna was a well-built woman of forty, with good features and an
honest face. For nearly twenty years she had lived in the Alton family
as housekeeper, nurse, companion, cook, friend and servant: and,
incidentally, as mother to Cyrus. While Joanna's education had been
scanty, her common sense was abundant. Her attendance at church was
regular, and Cyrus felt, naturally, that her views on Paradise and
Purgatory could be relied on. So he asked if religious people were more
likely to get to heaven than other folks.
"Of course," said Joanna.
"Which kind are the surest?"
"The Good People."
"I mean, which kind of religion is the--is the safest?"
"Each one thinks his own is."
"Which do you think, Joanna?"
"Congregationalist."
"Is that yours?"
"Yes."
"Do they have a better chance than Baptists or Methodists or
Unitarians?"
"I guess they do."
"But the Unitarians have the biggest church."
"Yes--in this village."
"What do they believe,--the Unitarians?"
Joanna closed her eyes. "Oh, I can't tell you exactly. They believe
something about God being the only thing to worship--the most important
of all."
"Well,--isn't He?"
"Why--er--yes."
"What's bigger?"