SOWING SEEDS
"Have you seen Mrs. Harbert lately, Carol?"
"Yes, she's better, father. I was there a few minutes yesterday."
"Yesterday? You were there Tuesday, weren't you?"
Carol looked uncomfortable. "Why, yes, I was, just for a second."
"She tells me you've been running in nearly every day since she took
sick."
Carol bent sharply inquiring eyes upon her father. "What else did she
tell you?"
"She said you were an angel."
"Y-yes,--she seems somehow to think I do it for kindness."
"And don't you?"
"Why, no, father, of course I don't. It's only two blocks out of my way
and it's such fun to pop in on sick folks and show them how
disgustingly strong and well I am."
"Where did you get the money for that basket of fruit?"
"I borrowed it from Aunt Grace." Carol's face was crimson with
mortification. "But it'll be a sweet time before Mrs. Harbert gets
anything else from me. She promised she wouldn't tell."
"Did any of the others know about the fruit?"
"Why--not--exactly."
"But she thinks it was from the whole family. She thanked me for it."
"I--I made her think that," Carol explained. "I want her to think we're
the nicest parsonage bunch they've ever had in Mount Mark. Besides, it
really was from the family. Aunt Grace loaned me the money and I'll have
to borrow it from you to pay her. And Lark did my dusting so I could go
on the errand, though she did not know what it was. And
I--er--accidentally took one of Connie's ribbons to tie it with. Isn't
that a family gift?"
"Mr. Scott tells me you are the prime mover in the Junior League now,"
he continued.
"Well, goodness knows our Junior League needs a mover of some sort."
"And Mrs. Davies says you are a whole Mercy and Help Department all by
yourself."
"What I can't understand," said Carol mournfully, "is why folks don't
keep their mouths shut. I know that sounds very inelegant, but it
expresses my idea perfectly. Can't I have a good time in my own way
without the whole church pedaling me from door to door?"
The twinkle in her father's eyes deepened. "What do you call it, Carol,
'sowing seeds of kindness'?"
"I should say not," came the emphatic retort. "I call it sowing seeds of
fun. It's a circus to go around and gloat over folks when they are sick
or sorry, or--"
"But they tell me you don't gloat. Mrs. Marling says you cried with
Jeanie half a day when her dog died."
"Oh, that's my way of gloating," said Carol, nothing daunted, but
plainly glad to get away without further interrogation.
It was a strange thing that of all the parsonage girls, Carol,
light-hearted, whimsical, mischievous Carol, was the one most dear to
the hearts of her father's people. Not the gentle Prudence, nor charming
Fairy, not clever Lark nor conscientious Connie, could rival the
"naughty twin" in Mount Mark's affections. And in spite of her odd curt
speeches, and her openly-vaunted vanity, Mount Mark insisted she was
"good." Certainly she was willing! "Get Carol Starr,--she'll do it," was
the commonest phrase in Mount Mark's vocabulary. Whatever was wanted,
whatever the sacrifice involved, Carol stood ready to fill the bill. Not
for kindness,--oh, dear no,--Carol staunchly disclaimed any such
niceness as that. She did it for fun, pure and simple. She said she
liked to show off. She insisted that she liked to feel that she was the
pivot on which little old Mount Mark turned. But this was only when she
was found out. As far as she could she kept her little "seeds of fun"
carefully up her sleeve, and it was only when the indiscreet adoration
of her friends brought the budding plants to light, that she laughingly
declared "it was a circus to go and gloat over folks."
Once in the early dusk of a summer evening, she discovered old Ben
Peters, half intoxicated, slumbering noisily on a pile of sacks in a
corner of the parsonage barn. Carol was sorry, but not at all
frightened. The poor, kindly, weak, old man was as familiar to her as
any figure in Mount Mark. He was always in a more or less helpless state
of intoxication, but also he was always harmless, kind-hearted and
generous. She prodded him vigorously with the handle of the pitch-fork
until he was aroused to consciousness, and then guided him into the
woodshed with the buggy whip. When he was seated on a chunk of wood she
faced him sternly.
"Well, you are a dandy," she said. "Going into a parsonage barn, of all
places in the world, to sleep off an odor like yours! Why didn't you go
down to Fred Greer's harness shop, that's where you got it. We're such
an awfully temperance town, you know! But the parsonage! Why, if the
trustees had happened into the barn and caught a whiff of that smell,
father'd have lost his job. Now you just take warning from me, and keep
away from this parsonage until you can develop a good Methodist odor.
Oh, don't cry about it! Your very tears smell rummy. Just you hang on to
that chunk of wood, and I'll bring you some coffee."
Like a thief in the night she sneaked into the house, and presently
returned with a huge tin of coffee, steaming hot. He drank it eagerly,
but kept a wary eye on the haughty twin, who stood above him with the
whip in her hand.
"That's better. Now, sit down and listen to me. If you would come to the
parsonage, you have to take your medicine. Silver and gold have we none,
but such as we have we give to you. And religion's all we've got. You're
here, and I'm here. We haven't any choir or any Bible, but parsonage
folks have to be adaptable. Now then, Ben Peters, you've got to get
converted."
The poor doddering old fellow, sobered by this awful announcement,
looked helplessly at the window. It was too small. And slender active
Carol, with the buggy whip, stood between him and the door.
"No, you can't escape. You're done for this time,--it's the straight and
narrow from this on. Now listen,--it's really very simple. And you need
it pretty badly, Ben. Of course you don't realize it when you're drunk,
you can't see how terribly disgusting you are, but honestly, Ben, a pig
is a ray of sunshine compared to a drunk man. You're a blot on the
landscape. You're a--you're a--" She fished vainly for words, longing
for Lark's literary flow of language.
"I'm not drunk," he stammered.
"No, you're not, thanks to the buggy whip and that strong coffee, but
you're no beauty even yet. Well now, to come down to religion again. You
can't stop drinking--"
"I could," he blustered feebly, "I could if I wanted to."
"Oh, no, you couldn't. You haven't backbone enough. You couldn't stop to
save your life. But," Carol's voice lowered a little, and she grew shy,
but very earnest, "but God can stop you, because He has enough backbone
for a hundred thousand--er, jellyfishes. And--you see, it's like this.
God made the world, and put the people in it. Now listen carefully, Ben,
and I'll make it just as simple as possible so it can sink through the
smell and get at you. God made the world, and put the people in it. And
the people sinned, worshiped idols and went back on God, and--did a lot
of other mean things. So God was in honor bound to punish them, for
that's the law, and God's the judge that can't be bought. He had to
inflict punishment. But God and Jesus talked it over, and they felt
awfully bad about it, for they kind of liked the people anyhow." She
stared at the disreputable figure slouching on the chunk of wood. "It's
very hard to understand, very. I should think they would despise
us,--some of us," she added significantly. "I'm sure I should. But
anyhow they didn't. Are you getting me?"
The bleary eyes were really fastened intently on the girl's bright face,
and he hung upon her words.
"Well, they decided that Jesus should come down here and live, and be
perfectly good, so He would not deserve any punishment, and then God
would allow Him to receive the punishment anyhow, and the rest of us
could go free. That would cover the law. See? Punishing Him when He
deserved no punishment. Then they could forgive us heathens that didn't
deserve it. Do you get that?" She looked at him anxiously. "It all
hinges on that, you know. I'm not a preacher myself, but that's the
idea. So Jesus was crucified, and then God said, 'There He is! Look on
Him, believe in Him, worship Him, and in His name you stand O. K.' See?
That means, if we give Him the chance, God'll let Jesus take our share
of the punishment. So we've just got to let go, and say, 'All right,
here I am. I believe it, I give up, I know I don't amount to a hill of
beans--and you can say it very honestly--but if you want me, and will
call it square, God knows I'm willing.' And there you are."
"Won't I drink any more?"
"No, not if you let go hard enough. I mean," she caught herself up
quickly, "I mean if you let clear go and turn the job over to God. But
you're not to think you can keep decent by yourself, for you can't--it's
not born in you, and something else is--just let go, and stay let go.
After that, it's God's job, and unless you stick in and try to manage
yourself, He'll see you through."
"All right, I'll do it."
Carol gasped. She opened her lips a few times, and swallowed hard. She
didn't know what to do next. Wildly she racked her brain for the next
step in this vital performance.
"I--think we ought to pray," she said feebly.
"All right, we'll pray." He rolled curiously off the stick of wood, and
fell, as if by instinct, into the attitude of prayer.
Carol gazed about her helplessly. But true to her training, she knelt
beside him. Then came silence.
"I--well, I'll pray," she said with grim determination. "Dear Father in
Heaven," she began weakly, and then she forgot her timidity and her
fear, and realized only that this was a crisis in the life of the
drunken man.
"Oh, God, he'll do it. He'll let go, and turn it over to you. He isn't
worth anything, God, none of us are, but You can handle him, for You've
had worse jobs than this, though it doesn't seem possible. You'll help
him, God, and love him, and show him how, for he hasn't the faintest
idea what to do next, and neither have I. But You brought him into our
barn to-night, and You'll see him through. Oh, God, for Jesus' sake,
help Ben Peters. Amen.
"Now, what shall I do?" she wondered.
"What's your father for?" She looked quickly at Ben Peters. He had not
spoken, but something certainly had asked, "What's your father for?"
"You stay here, Ben, and pray for yourself, and I'll send father out.
I'm not just sure what to say next, and father'll finish you up. You
pray for all you're worth."
She was gone in a flash, through the kitchen, through the hall, up the
stairs two at a time, and her arm thrown closely about her father's
shoulder.
"Oh, father, I got stuck," she wailed. "I'm so ashamed of myself. But
you can finish him off, can't you? I honestly believe he's started."
He took her firmly by the arms and squared her around on his lap. "One,
two, three, ready, go. Now, what?"
"Ben Peters. He was drunk in the barn and I took him into the woodshed
and gave him some hot coffee,--and some religion, but not enough to hurt
him. I told him he had to get converted, and he said he would. So I told
him about it, but you'd better tell him again, for I'm afraid I made
quite a mess of it. And then we prayed, and I was stuck for fair,
father, for I couldn't think what to do next. But I do believe it was
God who said, 'What's your father for?' And so I left him praying for
himself, and--you'd better hurry, or he may get cold feet and run away.
Be easy with him, father, but don't let him off. This is the first
chance we've ever had at Ben Peters, and God'll never forgive us if we
let him slip through our fingers."
Carol was dumped off on to the floor and her father was half-way down
the stairs before she caught her breath. Then she smiled. Then she
blushed.
"That was one bad job," she said to herself sadly. "I'm a disgrace to
the Methodist church. Thank goodness the trustees'll never hear of it.
I'll bribe Ben Peters to eternal silence if I have to do it with
kisses." Then her face grew very soft. "Poor old man! Oh, the poor old
man!" A quick rush of tears blinded her eyes, and her throat throbbed.
"Oh, why do they,--what makes men like that? Can't they see, can't they
know, how awful they are, how--" She shuddered. "I can't see for the
life of me what makes God treat us decently at all." Her face brightened
again. "I was a bad job, all right, but I feel kind of pleased about it.
I hope father won't mention it to the girls."
And Ben Peters truly had a start, incredible as it seemed. Yes, as
Carol had warned him, he forgot sometimes and tried to steer for
himself, and always crashed into the rocks. Then Carol, with angry eyes
and scornful voice, berated him for trying to get hold of God's job, and
cautioned him anew about "sticking in when it was not his affair any
more." It took time, a long time, and hard work, and many, many prayers
went up from Carol's bedside, and from the library at the head of the
stairs, but there came a time when Ben Peters let go for good and all,
and turned to Carol, standing beside the bed with sorry frightened eyes,
and said quietly:
"It's all right, Carol. I've let go. You're a mighty nice little girl.
I've let go for good this time. I'm just slipping along where He sends
me,--it's all right," he finished drowsily. And fell asleep.