The following Sunday after service, Julie was formally presented to Mr.
and Mrs. Bixby.
She had gone to church in an agony of apprehension. Would Brother
Seabrook call on her again to pray? Or did he know now that she was
afraid? And did everybody else know? The thought made her feel like an
outcast, yet she was so terrified that she would have liked to go to
Brother Seabrook before church and beg him not to call upon her. She
pictured herself doing it; she even made up in her mind the words with
which to clothe her request; but in the end she could not bring herself
to do it. Instead, she went late and slipped into a back pew. He did
not call upon her, but all through the service she suffered an agony of
dread, and when it was over, and she rose with the rest to leave, she
felt as though every eye was fixed on her in contempt.
Outside the church she encountered a little group of people who were
being introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Bixby. Mrs. Sam Wicket had taken
upon herself the responsibility of presenting the strangers to the
congregation.
“Miss Rose, make you acquainted with Mis’ Bixby,” she said, catching
Julie by the arm as she came down the steps, and holding her firmly
before the other, as though she might otherwise escape.
“Miss Rose, pleased to meet you,” the newcomer said; and Julie found
herself looking up into the face of Elizabeth Bixby, while their hands
touched for a moment.
Dressed for her first public appearance in Hart’s Run, Mrs. Bixby
was at once more amiable and more overpowering than the cross and
disheveled woman whom Julie had seen on the train. An exotic perfume
new to the village hung about her. Her green silk dress shimmered in
the sun, her feet were squeezed into high-heeled pumps with flashing
buckles, while from her ears big green hoops depended, accentuating the
breadth and bold commonness of her face, and shaking and gleaming as
she turned her head from side to side. She was much taller than Julie,
so that she had to look down at her.
“I recollect seeing you on the train, the day we got here,” she
announced.
“And that’s Mr. Bixby,” Mrs. Wicket added--rather as an afterthought.
Julie turned and looked into Timothy Bixby’s face as their hands came
together for the first time. His was cold from shyness, and Julie knew
that hers must feel the same way. Neither of them spoke.
“You must excuse my husband,” Mrs. Bixby said with elaborate
jocularity. “The cat got his tongue when he was real little, an’ he’s
been dumb ever since.”
The unhappy color suffused Mr. Bixby’s face, and letting go of Julie’s
hand, his glance sought the ground in confusion. Then suddenly he
raised his eyes and gazed straight at her. She saw his spirit,
desperate and impotent, like a caged wild animal, looking out at her.
The sight shook her once more with that familiar suffocating anger.
“Oh, well,” she retorted boldly, “what people say isn’t really
anything. It’s what they are that matters. I’m not much of a hand for
talking myself. Maybe the same cat got my tongue.--Excuse me; I’ve got
to go back and speak to Brother Seabrook a minute,” she added suddenly.
Julie reëntered the church and went hastily along the red-carpeted
aisle, and with every determined spring of her foot she said to
herself, “It’s got to stop--it’s just got to stop right now. Folks have
_got_ to let us alone.”
Quickly and decisively she came straight up to Brother Seabrook and
paused in front of him. He was busy putting some papers together,
and everybody else had left the church. “Brother Seabrook,” she said
clearly, “I just came back to ask you--to _tell_ you--you mustn’t call
on me to pray.”
Brother Seabrook looked down at her in surprise, his brows over his
shoe-button eyes going up protestingly. “Why, my sister, what is this?”
he cried. “Not call on you to pray?”
“No, I can’t do it. I never could. My mother always explained to every
new minister that I couldn’t. But she’s dead now, so I’ve got to tell
you myself.”
Her big gray eyes fringed by dark lashes looked straight up at him.
Her cheeks were slightly flushed. Her breath came quickly, making the
ruffles about her neck stir up and down. She was all of thirty-two, but
Brother Seabrook was nearing fifty, and was a widower. They were alone
in the church.
He took her hand and held it in both of his large palms.
“My sister, my little sister,” he said, “you must pray--all of my flock
must pray. Couldn’t you say one little prayer for me?”
Julie jerked her hand free.
“If I can’t do it for the Lord, I’m not likely to be able to do it
for you,” she retorted, and went lightly away down the church aisle
and out into the street, leaving him to turn a dusky red and swallow
convulsively.
“There! That’s settled,” Julie said to herself, drawing a deep breath
and aware of an enormous content and elation. Her feet moved over the
ground with the flying swiftness that had borne her up the church
aisle. She was conscious of a beautiful elasticity and freedom, as
though a binding cord that had been twisted tighter and tighter to
constriction had suddenly snapped, giving her relief and air and
release into a beneficent world. It seemed to her she had never seen a
day so exquisite. The sun bent over her in floods of golden calm. The
mountains that encircled Hart’s Run, the blue sky and white drifting
June clouds were in themselves climaxes of ecstasy, and yet they were
more also, veilings of something hidden, enormous, and completely
satisfying. She stood still in the street a minute and gazed up to the
amazing blue of the sky, with the big puffs of silver clouds riding
it. “Oh, my Lord, how beautiful that sky is!” she whispered. “And it’s
always there,” she thought in astonishment; for it was as though she
were seeing it for the first time. “Why,” she thought suddenly, “Why,
it doesn’t make any difference whether I pray or don’t pray in public.
I don’t know why I ever worried about it or about what folks would
think. Oh, ain’t the sky beautiful!” she reiterated.
She was a little behind the rest of the congregation, and as she made
her way homeward, small knots of people were all in front of her,
going slowly along. Julie was conscious of a very warm and friendly
outpouring toward them, but she was in no hurry to overtake any one.
For the moment she wanted to be alone, isolated in that enormous sense
of freedom, which only the sky was big enough to encompass.
As she approached her own house, she saw that Mr. and Mrs. Bixby were
standing there in conversation with Mrs. Wicket. She quickened her
pace, feeling her ankles supple and swift at each step, and came up to
them in a little gust of eagerness.
“Look at the sky,” she cried, waving her hand toward it.
They all stopped talking and turned their faces up, tipping back on
their heels, and shading their eyes.
“What is it? What do you see, Julie?” Mrs. Wicket demanded.
“It’s so beautiful!” Julie cried. “So blue--and those big white clouds!”
“Well, for mercy sake, is _that_ all!” the other ejaculated. “Why, I
thought it must be a flying machine.”
“But it’s so beautiful!” Julie persisted, trying to draw them into her
elation.
“I don’t care for that kind of a sky,” Mrs. Bixby said languidly. “It’s
mighty apt to bring a storm, and thunder always makes me s’ nervous.”
Julie felt crushed, as though the sky were a hat which she had offered
for sale, but which both ladies had repudiated.
Mr. Bixby essayed a timid assent. “It is beautiful,” he said, cocking
his head on one side to spy upward. “I don’t believe I ever saw it so
blue.”
“I never saw how beautiful it is,” Julie said turning to him
involuntarily. “I’ve--I’ve--why it’s like I’d just seen it for the
first time.”
He looked at her curiously, and started to speak, but Mrs. Wicket
interrupted.
“Aw, Julie,” she said, “you’re so funny! But what I want to know is,
what you went back to speak to Brother Seabrook about.”
“I went back to tell him he mustn’t call on me to pray,” Julie replied
simply.
“You _did_? Well, I never!” Mrs. Wicket cried. “For mercy sake, Julie!
What’d he say?”
“He didn’t say much. But he won’t ever call on me again.”
“Can’t you pray, Miss Rose?” Elizabeth Bixby demanded.
“No. That is, sometimes I can. I did once. But just to think of it now
makes me feel scared.”
“Well, I never did hear of a person telling a preacher a thing like
that,” Elizabeth commented heavily. “That certainly is new to me.
Hart’s Run’s a funny little place, all right!”
“That ain’t Hart’s Run,” Mrs. Wicket cried ruffling up in defense of
her native town, “that’s just Julie’s scariness. I don’t reckon there’s
another person in town would have had to tell Brother Seabrook such a
thing.”
“Oh, do look at the sky,” Julie pleaded, still obsessed with the idea
that if they could only realize the enormous serene beauty overhead,
they would understand how little it mattered whether she was afraid to
pray or not.
“Oh, for goodness sake, leave the sky alone!” Mrs. Wicket cried. “We
ain’t got anything to do with the sky. What I want to know is how in
the world you expect to be happy in heaven if you can’t pray. Why, I
just know heaven’s made up of prayer and praise.”
Here Mr. Bixby cut in unexpectedly with the snatch of an old negro
spiritual:--
He’ben! He’ben!
E’vy’body talk about He’ben ain’t goin’ there!
he sang.
“Tim!” his wife flared up. “Now you’ll apologize right this minute to
Mrs. Wicket for that piece of impertinence,” she commanded.
The color drove into his face up to his eyes; he hesitated. But Mrs.
Wicket, who had completely missed the significance of the words, said
politely, “Aw, that’s all right. Mis’ Bixby. I don’t object to singin’
on Sunday s’long as it’s hymn tunes.”
At this point Aunt Sadie Johnson came out on the little stoop in front
of her door and created a diversion.
“Julie,” she said, “did you know Mr. and Mrs. Bixby was looking at my
upstairs rooms?”
Julie did not know it, and was surprised.
“Well, now, this is a real nice part of town for you all to locate in,
it’s so central,” Mrs. Wicket said.
“I’m only considering them,” Elizabeth answered condescendingly. “They
ain’t really just what I want, but they seem to be about as good as
anything I can find in this place, so I reckon they’ll just have to do.”
Julie saw Aunt Sadie flush. The words were an insult to both of them,
for though the rooms were Mrs. Johnson’s to rent if she pleased,
they were in Julie’s house. Mr. Bixby looked unhappy and apologetic,
but incapable of finding any way of relieving the situation. Julie’s
exaltation had all evaporated. She was back again in the dreadful
constriction of her small self. She had forced a door open for a
moment, and looked forth into a wider world roofed by an amazing sky,
but only Mr. Bixby would look at it.
Now the door was banged shut again.
“Well, I must go in and lay off my things,” she said, turning away
abruptly.
Mrs. Bixby resented Julie’s not having expressed any interest over the
possibility of having her for a tenant, and shot a taunt at her as she
left.
“Oh, how can you bear to leave that beautiful sky, Miss Rose?” she
cried.
Julie’s momentary flare of spirit was gone. She could find no power to
retort, and turned away in silence. As she entered her door, she heard
Mrs. Bixby comment to Mrs. Wicket, “Well, she certainly does seem to be
a funny little thing.”
“If that woman takes those rooms, if she’s right up there over my head
all the time, I’ll--I’ll _choke_ to death!” Julie cried to herself.
“She just stifles me so I can’t breathe! She stifles him, too.”