The next day being Sunday, the family rose an hour later than usual.
Cavanaugh came into John's room after the sun was well up in the sky and
found his young friend awake.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," he jested. "Here you are flat on
your lazy back while that little last night's partner of yours is out
milking the cow and feeding the chickens. I saw her from my window just
now looking as fresh as a pink morning-glory wet with dew. Old Whaley
and his wife are hard masters even of their own child. I reckon Tilly
would love to lie and snooze after that late tilt of yours and hers, but
her folks don't allow it when there is work to be done. I don't want to
meddle, my boy, but take it from me for what it is worth, Tilly is the
kind of a girl to make a working-man a fine wife. Why? Well, because she
hasn't been raised with a gold spoon in her mouth, and a lot of fool
ideas about style, rank, and what not. She'd be industrious, saving, and
grateful for what her husband could give her. And you--well, I'm not
giving you taffy to tickle your vanity, but you'd lavish your last cent
on a wife of your choice. How do I know? Well, how do I know that mighty
nigh all you ever made--now, I'm going to speak plain--mighty nigh every
cent you ever made was lapped up by your ma and Jane Holder and that
poor little girl at your house? Huh! Don't I know that a big, strapping
fellow that will do all that for folks of--of that stripe will do even
more for the sweet little maid that leaves all her own kin to cleave
unto him?"
"You don't know what you are talking about," John said from the pillow
which half hid his flushed face.
"Well, maybe I don't," the contractor smiled benignly, "but you get up
and put on your best suit. We are all going to meeting to-day. You've
dodged that too often to help you along with old Whaley. He is wondering
where you stand, anyway, on these vital questions of man's duty to God
and His written law as Whaley reads it. Don't you forget about the way
he treated that son of his that tied up with a follower of the Pope. In
spite of his harsh ways Tilly loves her old daddy, and--and well, there
is no use of your rubbing the old hog's bristles the wrong way. They
might stick in your hand in the long run. You've talked too much to our
men on your line of free thought, I am thinking. I heard one say
yesterday that you claimed to be an out and out atheist. They all like
you, but they are members of some church or other and they were
scandalized to hear it. We are in a narrow, hidebound community up here
and we've got to watch where we step. Fellers like those will talk, and
what they say will be added to by others."
"I won't keep my mouth shut for anybody," John said, firmly, as he got
up and began to dress. "I don't want to go to-day, but I will if you say
so."
"Well, I _do_ say so," Cavanaugh answered. "And we will set out as soon
as the family does. I'm going to set, as usual, in the old man's Bible
class that comes before the regular discourse, though I can't say that I
get much profit out of it. I disagree with his interpretation of many
passages, but he'd crawl over the benches and have a fist fight with me
if I disputed his points. They say he is a regular devil when he is
mad. Church member though he is, he actually shot a man once, and it was
a wonder the chap didn't die. He carries a revolver. What do you think
of that for an active disciple of the great Prince of Peace?"
"They are all that way," John said, warmly. "They are crooks and haven't
brains enough to see how crooked their reasoning is."
Shortly after breakfast the three Whaleys started to church. Tilly
walked between her father and mother, and John and Cavanaugh followed
close behind. They found, on their arrival, a group of villagers,
mountaineers, and farmers loitering on the grass-plot in front of the
little building, but the Whaleys went straight in, and John and the
contractor did likewise. Cavanaugh went forward to the benches at the
front which were reserved for Whaley's Bible class. Eight or ten men and
women were already seated there, and they nodded appreciatively to him
and the Whaley family. John found himself quite alone on a bench near
the door. He saw Tilly and her mother chatting with some other women,
and Cavanaugh making himself quite at home as he shook hands with
various smiling members of the class. Only half an hour was to be given
to the class work and nearly all the students had arrived. John saw
Whaley open his worn and interlined Bible and then step back to a
bell-rope which hung down by the little white pulpit. He gave the rope a
single forceful jerk and the cast-iron bell on the roof creaked and
tapped lazily. That was a signal that the Bible class had begun its
session.
Just now, to John's great discomfiture, Whaley, with his Bible in his
stubby hands, came down the aisle to him.
"You can't hear back this far," Whaley said. "Move on up and join us."
"I'd rather not," John stammered, trying to steady his eyes and voice in
his bewilderment.
"Well, I can't see why. It certainly can't hurt you to hear us go
through the lesson, and you might learn a lot. Bible reading and study
is fairly sweeping broadcast over the country. Over in Dadeville they
have hired that woman blackboard teacher to come several hundred miles
and are paying five dollars a head for the course. I've read some of her
points in our Leaflet, and I'm here to tell you if she ever comes this
way I'll refute her, if they oust me for disorder. It would be my duty,
considering the light I have. Come on up."
There was nothing else to do, for the entire class, with the exception
perhaps of Tilly, was looking toward him. John rose and followed the old
man up the aisle, and found Cavanaugh gravely and sympathetically making
space for him at his side. Tilly and her mother were just in front of
him. John could have bent forward and whispered in the girl's ear, had
he dared. The exercises began by a chapter being read, first a verse by
Whaley and then a verse in turn by each of the class. John was fairly
chilled by the horror of his predicament. It was plain that Whaley would
expect him to read aloud, and he determined that he would refuse. He
told himself that he would refuse if the whole silly bunch of fanatics
were infuriated by it. He had been forced into the class and he would be
forced no farther. As luck would have it, the book was handed to
Cavanaugh before it reached John, and the old man read in a clear,
confident tone the verse which had fallen to him. Then he started to
hand the Bible to John, but John shook his head firmly.
"Pass it on to some one else," he said, almost aloud and with guttural
sullenness. "I won't do it."
Then Cavanaugh displayed friendly diplomacy. "I'll read for my young
friend, if it is all right," he said. "Me and him have a lot of talks on
these same lines, but usually I do the reading."
Whaley frowned and glared, but, being impatient with any delay, he said,
gruffly: "Well, well, go ahead. I don't know where Mr. Trott stands,
anyway. He is bound to see the light sooner or later, and then he won't
have to be begged to read the grandest Book the world ever saw, or be
slow about joining a class like this, either. As many of you know, with
pride, it is the best and biggest in the county, if not in the state."
Cavanaugh proceeded to read the verse, and the book went over to Mrs.
Whaley and then to her daughter. And as Tilly read in her clear,
unruffled voice John was conscious of a certain twinge of shame for his
avoidance of a thing so simple as she made the act seem.
The reading was concluded, and Whaley set in to analyze the text, line
by line. He would read a verse, and then ask the class what particular
significance it held to their understanding. Answers came rapidly from
all the class, and sometimes John noticed that, when all the others had
failed to grasp Whaley's particular version, he would call on Tilly to
reply and what she said always met with her father's approval, the
reason being that the girl had already gone over the chapter with her
parents at home. The lesson was concluded by a long-winded lecture from
Whaley, and then the bell was rung for the regular service.
John failed to hear what the aged minister was saying, but he did note
that Whaley now and then called out, "Amen!" in deep, self-satisfying
tones. John could not keep his eyes from the back part of Tilly's head.
He worshiped her hair, the very ribbons of her simple straw hat, the
curve of her brave little shoulders. What a marvel she was in human
form! It was almost impossible to realize that only a few hours before
she had been alone with him, telling that dazzling story of her
inability to love another man. He wondered if he might walk home with
her. He was afraid not, and yet could not tell whence his fears came,
unless they were due to his vague sense of having opposed her father's
religion.
When the service was over, however, the opportunity came. It might have
been brought about by deliberate design on the part of the contractor,
for Cavanaugh drew the husband and wife into conversation about the
sermon, and that threw Tilly and John together. The Whaleys seemed to
forget Tilly's existence, and John and she fell in behind the three.
"I wondered what you were going to do when father went back after you,"
Tilly said, with a smile. "I was afraid to look around."
"What did you think when I refused to read in the class?" John inquired,
forcing a lifeless smile.
"I hardly know," Tilly said, as she studied his face with bland
sincerity. "It almost frightened me. I was afraid father would forget
himself and storm out at you. But--but as for your reading out loud, of
course, if you really do not believe in the Bible and love it, you ought
not to read it in public. That would be sacrilege."
"And do you believe in it?" he demanded, almost rebukingly. "Do you
believe that that Book is the actual word of some far-off God that no
living man ever saw with his eyes or heard speak with his ears?"
"Yes," Tilly answered. "If I didn't believe it I'd be miserable. I can't
see how you can doubt the existence of God--how you can keep from
actually feeling His presence, especially when you are in trouble and
seriously need His help."
John sneered. He loved Tilly with his whole being, but he despised her
belief. "I can tell you why I don't believe," he said, a billow of
feeling behind his words. "I believe if there were a God, that God would
have to be a God of love, power, and pity, and with my own eyes I've
seen-- I have told you about that little orphan girl at home, Dora
Boyles. She is a little, helpless, overworked rat without father or
mother, in the care of an aunt who is no earthly good--and is crazy
about men--crazy about clothes, cards, liquor, and dancing. That little
dirty scrap of a girl is a child of God, the same as those polite,
well-fed, well-dressed girls and boys we met last night, eh? Well, tell
me what is God doing for her? As for me, myself, as I look back on what
I went through among those haughty, hidebound people at Ridgeville,
before Sam Cavanaugh held out a helping hand-- Well, never mind about
that, but I know I've been my own God, and I never run across any other
except in the dreams of persons who get the best things of life and
don't care whether anybody else gets them or not."
"You will think otherwise some day--you will _have_ to," was Tilly's
regretful ultimatum. "Someday you will need God so badly that you will
turn to Him. I did once, and was answered, too."
"You don't mean it," John disputed, warmly. "No prayer was ever answered
by any God, on the earth or off of it."
"Mine was," Tilly asseverated. "It was one night, and I was at home all
alone. Father had lost his temper at an election and--and wounded a man
in a dispute. Father was put in jail and mother hurried to him. The man
was bleeding to death--the doctors couldn't stop the flow of blood. You
can't imagine how I felt. I fell on my knees and prayed with all my soul
to God to save my father and the man he had shot. At two o'clock--oh, I
don't know how to express it!--at two o'clock I seemed to be lifted up
into something like light, but it wasn't that. It was something finer
and holier, but I knew, I knew that all was well. My mother came at
sunup. She said they had stopped the flowing blood at two
o'clock--exactly at two o'clock. My father was released the next day and
the man finally recovered."
"Things like that happen once in a thousand times," John said, with an
indulgent smile, "and people say it is in answer to prayer."
"But I know, for I _felt_ it," Tilly responded, simply, and she said no
more, for the three older persons had turned and were waiting for them
on the street corner.