possible that he would send down anybody who would go off and leave the
place open. I saw the little Weed boy, but I didn't know the other two.
They lit out like lightning, and I didn't care to chase them all up Main
Street. I was going to the Smiths' to have a cup of tea!" Archie looked
ruefully at his soiled garments and dark blue hands. "I wonder if we
couldn't get Bertha to come in here. She knows the ins and outs of all
these fancy arrangements."
"Berfa isn't to home," remarked a clear sweet voice from the closet.
"Fat's why I had to be liberrian!"
Max threw open the door. Elsmere, on the wood-box, was contentedly
jiggling the velvet birds, which had been the first cause of all the
excitement.
At the sight of Max's angry face, he jumped up. "I got to go," he said
hastily. "I'm awful busy. Must find my cat-pussy. I losted her when she
scratched me."
"Sensible cat," growled Archie, taking Elsmere by the collar. "I wish
she had losted you. Here, Mrs. Osgood, this seems to be the key to the
mystery. At least it's the key to something." He lifted the key dangling
from Elsmere's blouse.
"Algy sewed it on me," explained the child.
Mrs. Osgood sighed. "So Algernon is sick, and he sent you after Bertha,
and she wasn't at home. I see. Max, you and Archie needn't wait. I'll
take the responsibility of closing the library for to-day, and I'd like
a private talk with this young gentleman, if you are willing."
Elsmere's eyes brightened.
"Will you pank me?" he asked hopefully. "Dr. Helen pank me when I eat
pills. _So!_" In his effort to illustrate, he bent so nearly double
that he fell over on his nose, and set it bleeding. Max and Archie
caught up their hats and fled, leaving Mrs. Osgood to act upon
inspiration.
Half an hour later, having by strenuous effort regained something of
their former freshness of appearance, the two boys dropped in upon the
group on the Three Gables lawn. They stopped a minute to take in the
details of the pretty picture. Under a great apple tree, Catherine had
set her tea-table with its pretty accessories. In comfortable chairs
about it, sat the Boat Club girls, embroidering soft colored things or
simply "visiting." Frieda was telling a story, and the others were
listening attentively as she stumbled a little now and then in her
desire to express herself rapidly.
"And he was there in the water, all the above part of him, and I held
his waist. I pulled greatly and in he came lickety split, and what do
you think he said? 'I big fish, Frieda. Pull me in and fy me.'"
"That was Elsmere, I'll wager," cried Max, approaching with Archie and
giving Catherine his hand. "I'm glad you were talking about him, Miss
Frieda, for we're full of the subject. He never said the expected thing
in his life. Drowning and spanking are what he needs; the only trouble
is that he likes nothing better. But he's beaten his record to-day," and
while Archie dropped upon a rug near Hotspur, and incidentally near
Bess, who was prettier than ever, and working on an Andover pillow, Max
received a cup of tea from Catherine's hands and told his story of the
afternoon's episode to a deeply interested audience.
"Poor Algernon!" sighed Polly. "That will make him so much extra work,
and he must have his patience tried by that dreadful baby all the time."
"Does no one punish Elsmere except the neighbors?" asked Frieda, whose
opinion of the lawlessness of American children was being strengthened
daily by Elsmere's performances. Winifred answered, laughing.
"His mother made up her mind to, once. She told me about it. She told
him she would not be his mother that day for he had been so bad she was
ashamed to own him. Some one had told her that was a sure way to crush a
child. But Elsmere was only interested. He called her 'Mamma' and 'Mummy
dear' to catch her napping, but she wouldn't answer. By and by a caller
came in, and Elsmere walked up to her and pointed at his mother and
said: 'This isn't my mother. She is just Mrs. Swinburne, but I love
her!' And Mrs. Swinburne picked him up and kissed him and cried, and I
don't believe she ever tried again to make him mind."
"I'm glad Perdita and Peter are such a biddable sort," said Polly. "I
don't know what we'd do with two little imps around. They are quite
good, almost always. Perdita is mischievous, but Peter keeps her
straight. He seems to feel the whole burden of her. If she starts to do
anything naughty, he says: 'Perdita, you mustn't,' and Perdita doesn't."
"It's lucky Perdita hasn't Elsmere for a brother," suggested Dot.
"There'd be no living in Winsted if she had, for even Peter can't keep a
wicked look out of her eye at times."
"Room for a tired man in your party, children?" Dr. Harlow joined the
group. Max vacated the long chair he was occupying, and every one
welcomed the doctor with a word or smile. They all loved him, and
nothing pleased them better than to have him spend an hour with them.
To-day, he was plainly tired, and while Catherine prepared tea for him,
Frieda whispered to Hannah.
"I wonder if he would," said Hannah. "Winifred, will you sing, if I
bring out my fiddle?"
[Illustration: "Frieda was telling a story and the others were listening
attentively."--_Page 184._]
Winifred never refused to sing, and Hannah slipped into the house, tuned
her dear Geige and brought it out. Then she played very softly, while
Winifred's sweet voice sang one quiet song after another. Dr. Harlow's
tired face relaxed and, leaning back in the chair, he presently dropped
off to sleep. The young people were very still, and Winifred smiled
softly as she sang. Dr. Helen, coming out from the office after an
interview with a wearying patient, stood in her turn watching. The blues
and pinks and greens of the girls' frocks, the boys' white flannels and
the great tree spreading above them, made a pretty background and
setting for the central group of Hannah bending her brown head earnestly
over her violin, and Winifred lifting her delicate little face while she
sang.
"Bravo!" shouted a big voice behind Dr. Helen. Bert, on his way home
from one of his spasmodic "jobs," dropped in to say "Hello!" and
incidentally break the spell. Dr. Harlow woke and looked guiltily about
him. His wife joined him, and Max and Archie shook the kinks out of
their long legs, as the girls began to gather up their sewing and
flutter about Catherine with good-bys.
"I say, Miss Hannah," said Bert, making his way to her. "I didn't know
you played. That's a jolly little fiddle you've got there. Do you know
the Merry Widow waltzes?"
Hannah laughed. "I don't," she confessed, "but perhaps I could learn
them. Bring them up some time and I'll try."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SUNDAY SCHOOL
"Hannah, are you awake?"
Hannah turned over, and opened an eye uncertainly.
"No, I guess so."
"Well, do wake up and look at me. Isn't it awful?"
Hannah unscrewed the other eye, and blinked blindly for a minute.
"What is it?" she asked, yawning.
"My cheek. Can't you see? Toothache. It's all swollen up, and it hurts."
Hannah roused herself a little more, then shut her eyes quickly. She
didn't want to laugh at Catherine.
"Can't you do anything for it?"
"I suppose so, but it won't go down in time for Sunday-school, and who
will take my class?"
Hannah groaned. "Who would ever get up in the middle of the night and
worry about a Sunday-school class, when they had a toothache? It's
unnormal! Go back to bed, unless there is something I can do for you.
Can't I call your mother?"
"No, there's no use bothering her. I know what to do well enough, but I
am so worried about the class."
"O, go along to sleep. I'll take your old class."
Hannah was asleep herself before Catherine had finished sighing with
grateful relief and returned to her own room.
An hour later, Hannah woke with a start to the consciousness that
something unpleasant had happened. Almost immediately that vagueness
gave way to irritating clearness. She got up and peeped into Catherine's
room. She was sleeping, but the swollen cheek left no room for hope that
the whole episode was a nightmare. Hannah dressed quietly, frowning the
while at her unconsidered offer of the early morning.
"I do think this town would be twice as nice if there weren't any
children in it. They spoil everything. I never taught anybody anything
in all my life. And I never went to Sunday-school either, except in
Germany. She will just have to get some one else," she fussed. "A
promise like that doesn't count. I was so sleepy I didn't know what I
was saying."
With unwelcome plainness she recalled the facts that Dorcas and Polly
had classes of their own, Bertha and Agnes were out of town, and Dot and
Win and Bess belonged to another denomination.
"Why couldn't she have waited till Alice came? She's always ready for
things like that. O, dear. I suppose I'll have to try. Catherine would
keep a promise herself, if she made it in delirium tremens!"
She stole down stairs before any one was stirring, save Inga in the
kitchen, found a Bible and took it over to the window-seat, where she
opened it gingerly.
"I wonder where they begin," she thought. "Might as well look Genesis
over first, to refresh my memory." She spread the thin pages open, and
began to read. Outside the open window the birds were noisily
celebrating the sunny morning. Inga ground the coffee. A bell rang for
early service somewhere. Hannah's eyes wandered from the page.
"'And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.' It sounds
just like poetry," she thought. "But what could I tell youngsters about
it? They would be sure to want to know just how the waters were kept off
the firmaments. I hope--no, I know, Elsmere _is_ in that class!" In
silent horror, Hannah sat staring out of the window. Memories of
Catherine's Sunday dinner talk swarmed back into her mind. She had
thought the stories amusing: how Elsmere had chewed gum and put it into
the collection envelope; how Perdita Osgood had described in vivid
detail her seasickness of a summer before; how the little Hamilton girl
had asked personal and embarrassing questions of Catherine herself. It
had sounded funny, when Catherine told the tales in her quiet way,--but
to be alone with them for an hour! Hannah's heart failed her entirely.
She shut the Bible and marched up to Catherine's room. Catherine was
dressing, as far away from the mirror as possible.
"Hannah, dear," she called, seeing the brown hair and blue eyes through
a crack in the door. "Do come in. You don't know what a dear you were to
take that class. I went straight to sleep, and didn't mind the pain
nearly so much after that. It worried me so. You see, the Sunday-school
is so small and I had been over and over it in my mind, and couldn't
think of any one who would do. It's the last class any one is ever
willing to take."
"Why?" asked Hannah, her prepared refusal suspended.
"O, because it's so big, and there are all ages of little people in it.
But you'll do beautifully. Children always love you. Do you know what
the lesson is?"
Hannah hesitated. Then a glance at Catherine's distorted face made her
ashamed of herself, and she answered bravely:
"No. What is it? I'll have to study up a lot."
"You'll find plenty of material in those leaflets and books in the pile
there on the table by my Bible. It's about the Good Shepherd. And if
you're going down, will you ask mother to come in before breakfast? I
don't believe I've been doing the right things."
So Hannah, laden with Helps and Hints, went slowly down stairs again,
and after having sent Dr. Helen up to see her afflicted daughter,
resumed her place in the window-seat and put her mind resolutely on the
subject of the lesson.
"'Bring in the 23rd Psalm,'" she read in one suggestion. "That's good. I
know that much and I can make them repeat it the whole hour, if nothing
else comes into my head. How is she, Dr. Helen?"
Dr. Helen smiled ruefully. "She will be all right after a while, but it
is a pity, isn't it? You were a good girl to relieve her mind about that
class. She cares so much about it. Good morning, Frieda! _Hast du gut
geschlafen?_"
The Three Gables household was a church-going one. Hannah, in her white
gown with sweet-peas scattered over it, met the doctors in the hall.
"Is Frieda late?" she asked, putting on her gloves. "It isn't like her."
"No, but she begged so hard to stay with Catherine whose state seems to
waken deeps of pity in her, that I couldn't refuse. She said she would
do anything for her, even to reading poetry!"
They all laughed, for Frieda's English reading was distinctly lacking in
smoothness, and her rendering of poetry would doubtless be harrowing.
"That would hurt Catherine more than the toothache," said Hannah, "but
they will find something better to do," and she walked sedately down the
path between the doctors, her Bible and Quarterly in her hands,
wondering if martyrs on the way to the stake chatted on indifferent
topics, and noticed birds and bees and grasshoppers.
Meanwhile Catherine and Frieda up stairs were surprising themselves and
each other. The first glimpse of Catherine's swollen cheek had roused
Frieda's sense of mirth, but compassion for physical pain followed
quickly.
"_Ach weh! Weh! Schade! Schade!_" she had murmured in a deep
sympathetic tone, which Catherine found unexpectedly soothing.
Accustomed as she had always been to brisk remedial measures, and beyond
those, to wordless pity and a deliberate ignoring of the evil, she was
interested and touched by this demonstration. She had felt shy with
Frieda from the first, wishing so earnestly to know her well and win her
love that she could not be perfectly simple and natural with her. This
shyness had combined with the little aloofness, which every one felt in
Catherine, to shut Frieda's heart. But this morning the barriers were
down. Catherine, instead of being perfect, exquisite, was nothing short
of hideous. The agent had proved that she could look absurd. Here she
was shown mortal to the point of needing help from Frieda. What made
Hannah feel awkward and useless, caused Frieda to come to the front,
competent and tender. She made Catherine cozy with pillows, and sat
beside her, speaking, in tones which carried healing and comfort, of all
sorts of interesting and delightful things and places. She told stories
of her school in Germany, of her home and Hannah's visit, of her little
friend who had been to a birthday party at the palace, of the strange
"church social" to which Hannah had taken her in Berlin, of her rides
with Herr Karl in the Tiergarten, rapturous descriptions of the
Tiergarten itself, dropping unconsciously into German phrases, her eyes
shining and her cheeks taking on an unwontedly charming color, while
Catherine lay and listened, entranced, as though she were in a world
where pain had no power.
It was not so pleasant at the little gray church. Hannah, all through
the sermon, wrestled mentally with the parable. It seemed to her it was
a very slippery parable! She would no sooner highly resolve to hold it
till she had wrenched its moral from it, and reduced that moral to terms
which the youngest babe could surely comprehend, than she would find
that the elusive subject had slipped from her grasp, and her whole mind
would be fixed upon the problem of how long it would take a fly to crawl
all the way across the expansive back of Mrs. Graham, who sat in the pew
in front.
She went through the service like a well-constructed automaton, rising,
sitting, singing even, with no notion of what she was doing or why she
was doing it. She bowed her head with the others for the benediction,
and then the soft stirring and cheerful tones of greeting about her,
told her that her hour was come.
The superintendent directed her to "Miss Smith's class." To her final
dismay, she found that that meant a seat on the platform in full view of
the congregation. The little church was barely more than a chapel, and
the chorus choir had two pews upon the platform. Here, it seemed, for
purposes of segregation, Catherine held her flock during the
interminable opening exercises, after which she led them to their own
room in the basement. As one in a dream, Hannah went to the seat pointed
out to her. Margaret Kittredge and Peter and Perdita were already
present. The little Hamilton girl came in with two unknown others. Then
more and more. The little girls settled themselves fussily, getting up
frequently to crush their stiff starchy skirts into place. Their
wide-brimmed hats interfered when they moved and they were never still.
The little boys huddled together, and punched each other without motive,
crowding each other off the seat, and showing the pennies they held in
their moist little palms.
The superintendent tapped his bell. The noisy groups of the
Sunday-school at large lapsed into an approach to order, the teachers
staring consciously ahead with an excess of propriety, and the children
alertly refraining from anything more riotous than fumbling with
hymn-books. Hannah's own charges felt the change in the atmosphere, and
quietness fell upon them. She welcomed it gratefully, aware that it was
in no wise due to her own effort, and spreading a hymn-book open for the
first song, stooped to allow the small boy next her to look on, then
lent her voice as freely as she could to the chirping chorus. As the
exercises continued, she became rather more accustomed to her prominent
seat, and, inspired by Dorcas Morehouse's austere countenance in the
front row below her, she even turned once and looked down the squirming
row beside her, shaking her head gravely at Perdita, who was showing
signs of uprising. Peter caught the look of reproach and passed it on to
his twin with interest, hauling her into her place with a tug which
resulted in a loud parting of gathers. The Bible reading over,
"birthdays" were called for, and the little Hamilton girl trotted
importantly forward to the superintendent's table, where she let seven
pennies drop from her fat fingers into a yawning frog, receiving in
exchange a printed text. Acknowledging this courtesy with a jerky bow,
she switched her way back to the pew she had left, and crumpled herself
into a space not half wide enough to hold her. The minister rose to lead
in prayer. Hannah bowed her head devoutly, trusting in the power of
example. She was conscious of the heavy breathing of Margaret beside
her, due to the unwonted strain of pressing her chin close to her chest.
The minister's voice droned on and on, but Hannah was sending up a
fervent petition of her own, and for a brief space heard nothing.
Then--Bang! "I want to sit by Her." There was a thud of falling bodies,
and Elsmere, late but ardent, plumped himself into the place at Hannah's
right, from which he had forcibly removed a little boy with fat red
legs, which were now waving in the air. Hannah felt herself as red as
the evicted legs, and as the prayer came to an abrupt stop, would have
given worlds to be able to flee and hide her mortified face.
At a tap from the bell in the superintendent's hand, the class slipped
to the floor, shook out its skirts and grasped its caps. The organ
started up wheezily, and every one burst into song: "See the mighty host
advancing, Satan leading on!" as Hannah, heading the wiggling line of
wandering-eyed children, got somehow off the platform and into a little
basement room which had been equipped for primary work with chairs of
varying heights, a great colored chart and a mission map.
There she breathed more freely. Whatever the next half-hour had in store
for her, she would at least be alone with it. These fifteen wigglers had
become part of her. She must blush for them as for herself, but they
were not onlookers, anyhow. The mere absence of Dorcas' gaze was
refreshment.
There was a brief period of settling into chairs, some mild squabbling
over two desirable blue ones, a little dispute as to the privilege of
passing the envelope, and at last Hannah found that something definite
was expected of her. The chart showed a brightly-colored shepherd
holding in his arms a weak lamb.
"Say, won't that lamb kick him? They're awful leggy," suggested an
interested youth in the first row.
"I seen a lamb onct," announced his neighbor, rocking perilously on the
two back legs of her chair. "It was a ram lamb and it butted me in my
stomach, it did. Hurt. Hurt awful."
"Huh!" grunted Perdita. "I don't believe it hurt as much as when my
mother sewed my finger in the sewing-machine. Did your stomach bleed?"
"Children," said Hannah desperately. "Don't talk, please. No, Peter, not
another word from anybody. Now who can tell the Golden Text?"
Dead silence.
"Doesn't any one know the Golden Text?"
"Miss Smith doesn't do that way," suggested some one. "She always says:
'Peter, you may tell us the Golden Text.'"
"Very well," agreed Hannah hurriedly. "Peter, you may tell us the Golden
Text."
"Let me," cried Elsmere. "I know 'bout lambs. Mary had a little lamb,
fleeciswhitissnow."
"Elsmere," said Hannah sternly. "I asked Peter to tell us the Golden
Text."
"Mine is a walker," said Peter loudly.
Hannah looked mystified.
"Pooh!" remarked the Hamilton girl loftily. "That ain't this Sunday's.
'Wine is a mocker' was to-morrow's. 'Tain't this Sunday's."
"What is this Sunday's?" asked Hannah hopefully. "Doesn't anybody know?
'I am'--don't you remember? 'I am the good--':
"I am the good--" Peter got so far and then stopped, stolid.
"I know," cried Elsmere once more. "Put in his thumb, pull out a plum,
good boy am I!"
The others snickered, and Hannah bit her lip. "No. 'I am the good
shepherd.' It was Jesus who said it. Now all of you say it together."
Lamblike, they followed her lead, and she succeeded in passing over
several minutes. But they soon grew restive again, and one little hand
pawed the air.
"Well, what is it?"
"The Grahams is coming to our house to dinner."
"That's nice. Now we will talk about the shepherd psalm. How many of you
know it?"
There was a moment of doubt. "Shall not want?" ventured one of the older
ones presently.
"Yes, that's it exactly," said Hannah gladly. "You've all heard it lots
of times. Now I'll recite it for you, and then you can tell me what it
means."
With the Bible prudently open to save her from any possible
embarrassment at a sudden lapse of memory, she began slowly to recite
the psalm, pausing for explanatory comments as she went along.
"I was in a valley onct," said a sleepy boy, who had contributed nothing
so far to the morning's entertainment. "I fell off'n the dock and the
boat was clost up to me, and that was a valley."
"How'd you get out?" asked several with interest.
"Man pulled me out," and the speaker subsided.
Hannah stole a glance at her watch, as she finished the psalm. She had
strung it out as long as she could, but there were still several minutes
to dispose of.
"Now I wonder who can tell me what that was all about?" she asked, with
feigned sprightliness. "I think you can, the little girl with the red
dress. What's your name? O, yes, Gwendolen."
Every one turned to look at Gwendolen. She stuck her finger in her
mouth, presumably to stem the tide of speech, for as she withdrew it the
words fell out over one another all in one breath.
"Don't want anyfing to eat. Lay down in the grass an' roll. Put kerosene
on my head. Can't git any more in my cup, all spillin' over."
The door opened and once more the superintendent tapped his bell.
Hannah, with a deep sigh of thankfulness, marshalled her troop and drove
them back to their place, taking her martyr's seat in their midst.
Through the reading of the secretary's report and the singing of three
stanzas of the closing hymn, they behaved fairly well, subdued by the
drowsy atmosphere of air unchanged since the morning service. The last
stanza of the hymn was nearly sung. Elsmere rose to his feet and plucked
Peter by the hair of his head. Hannah cast an appealing glance at the
superintendent, who was nearer the offender than herself. He took a
quick stride forward, with his hand uplifted, just as the last wailing
sound of the hymn died away. His hand on Elsmere's collar, he observed
the congregation standing with bowed heads. They had misinterpreted his
gesture. Casting a look of understanding at Hannah, gripping Elsmere
tightly, he pronounced the expected benediction, and as the audience
broke up into home-going groups, set the boy down with emphasis.
"We don't usually close with a prayer," he said to Hannah, "but they
thought that was what I meant, when I stepped forward. I nearly
throttled the child but--"
"I think you will be forgiven," said Hannah firmly. "Miss Smith will be
here next Sunday, but I, I am thankful to say, shall not!"
PART THREE
TOGETHER AT LAST
CHAPTER SIXTEEN