Finally Brother Poole, with quavering voice, urged all sinners to come forward and kneel at the feet of Jesus, and pray to be "washed in the blood of the lamb." Thus would their sins be forgiven them, and their souls be born anew. Missy"s soul quivered and stretched up to be born anew. So, with several other sinners--including grandpa and grandma whom she had never before suspected of sin--she unhesitatingly walked forward. She invoked the grace of G.o.d; her head, her body, her feet seemed very light and remote as she walked; she seemed, rather, to float; her feet scarcely touched the red-ingrain aisle "runner"--she was nearly all spirit. She knelt before the altar between grandpa and grandma, one hand tight-clasped in grandpa"s.
Despite her exaltation, she was conscious of material things. For instance she noted that Mrs. Brenning was on the other side of grandma, and wondered whether she were atoning for the sins of her chickens against Mrs. Jones"s tomato-vines; she noticed, too, that Mrs.
Brenning"s hat had become askew, which gave her a queer, unsuitable, rakish look. Yet Missy didn"t feel like laughing. She felt like closing her eyes and waiting to be born anew. But, before closing her eyes, she sent a swift glance up at the choir platform. Polly Currier was still up there, looking very placid as she sang with the rest of the choir. They were singing a rollicking tune. She listened--
"Pull for the sh.o.r.e, sailor! Pull for the sh.o.r.e! Leave the poor old strangled wretch, and pull for the sh.o.r.e!"
Who was the old strangled wretch? A sinner, doubtless. Ah, the world was full of sin. She looked again at Polly. Polly"s placidity was rea.s.suring; evidently she was not a sinner. But it was time to close her eyes. However, before doing so, she sent a swift upward glance toward the preacher. He had a look on his face as though an electric light had been turned on just inside. He was praying fervently for G.o.d"s grace upon "these Thy repentant creatures." Missy shut her eyes, repented violently, and awaited the miracle. What would happen? How would it feel, when her soul was born anew? Surely it must be time. She waited and waited, while her limbs grew numb and her soul continued to quiver and stretch up. But in vain; she somehow didn"t feel the grace of G.o.d nearly as much as last Sunday when the Presbyterian choir was singing "Asleep in Jesus," while the sun shone divinely through the stained-gla.s.s window.
She felt cheated and very sad when, at last, the preacher bade the repentant ones stand up again. Evidently she hadn"t repented hard enough. Very soberly she walked back to the pew and took her place between grandpa and grandma. They looked rather sober, too; she wondered if they, also, had had trouble with their souls.
Then Brother Poole bade the repentant sinners to "stand up and testify."
One or two of the older sinners, who had repented before, rose first to show how this was done. And then some of the younger ones, after being urged, followed example. Sobbing, they testified as to their depth of sin and their sense of forgiveness, while Brother Poole intermittently cut in with staccato exclamations such as "Praise the Lord!" and "My Redeemer Liveth!"
Missy was eager to see whether grandpa and grandma would stand up and testify. When neither of them did so, she didn"t know whether she was more disappointed or relieved. Perhaps their silence denoted that their souls had been born anew quite easily. Or again--! She sighed; her soul, at all events, had proved a failure.
She was silent on the way home. Grandpa and grandma held her two hands clasped in theirs and over her head talked quietly. She was too dejected to pay much attention to what they were saying; caught only scattered, meaningless phrases: "Of course that kind of frenzy is sincere but--"
"Simple young things--" "No more idea of sin or real repentance--"
But Missy was engrossed with her own dismal thoughts. The blood of the Lamb had pa.s.sed her by.
And that night, for the first time in three nights, the grace of G.o.d didn"t flow in on the flood of moonlight through her window. She tossed on her unhallowed pillow in troubled dreams. Once she cried out in sleep, and grandma came hurrying in with a candle. Grandma sat down beside her--what was this she was saying about "green-apple pie"? Missy wished to ask her about it--green-apple pie--green-apple pie--Before she knew it she was off to sleep again.
It was the next morning while she was still lying in bed, that Missy made the Great Resolve. That hour is one when big Ideas--all kinds of unusual thoughts--are very apt to come. When you"re not yet entirely awake; not taken up with trivial, everyday things. Your mind, then, has full swing.
Lying there in grandma"s soft feather bed, Missy wasn"t yet distracted by daytime affairs. She dreamily regarded the patch of blue sky showing through the window, and bits of fleecy cloud, and flying specks of far-away birds. How wonderful to be a bird and live up in the beautiful sky! When she died and became an angel, she could live up there! But was she sure she"d become an angel? That reflection gradually brought her thoughts to the events of the preceding night.
Though she could recall those events distinctly, Missy now saw them in a different kind of way. Now she was able to look at the evening as a whole, with herself merely a part of the whole. She regarded that sort of detached object which was herself. That detached Missy had gone to the meeting, and failed to find grace. Others had gone and found grace.
Even though they had acted no differently from Missy. Like her they sang tunes; listened to the preacher; bowed the head; went forward and knelt at the feet of Jesus; repented; went back to the pews; stood up and testified--
Oh!
Suddenly Missy gave a little sound, and stirred. She puckered her brows in intense concentration. Perhaps--perhaps that was why!
And then she made the Great Resolve.
Soon after breakfast, Pete appeared with a bag of candy.
"I don"t deserve it," said Missy humbly.
"You bet you don"t!" acquiesced Pete.
So even he recognized her state of sin! Her Great Resolve intensified.
That morning, for the first time in her life at grandma"s house, Missy shirked her "ch.o.r.es." She found paper and pencil, took a small Holy Bible, and stole back to the tool-house where grandpa kept his garden things and grandma her washtubs. For that which she now was to do, Missy would have preferred the more beautiful summerhouse at home; but grandma had no summerhouse, and this offered the only sure seclusion.
She stayed out there a long time, seated on an upturned washtub; read the Holy Bible for awhile; then became absorbed in the ecstasies of composition. So engrossed was she that she didn"t at first hear grandma calling her.
Grandma was impatiently waiting on the back porch.
"What in the world are you doing out there?" she demanded.
Loath to lie, now, Missy made a compromise with her conscience.
"I was reading the Holy Bible, grandma."
Grandma"s expression softened; and all she said was:
"Well, dinner"s waiting, now."
Grandpa was staying down town and Pete was over at the Curriers", so there were only grandma and Missy at the table. Missy tried to attend to grandma"s chatter and make the right answers in the right places. But her mind kept wandering; and once grandma caught her whispering.
"What is the matter with you, Missy? What are you whispering about?"
Guiltily Missy clapped her hand to her mouth.
"Oh! was I whispering?"
"Yes."
"I guess it was just a piece I"m learning."
"What piece?"
"I--I--it"s going to be a surprise."
"Oh, another surprise? Well, that"ll be nice," said grandma.
Missy longed acutely to be alone. It was upsetting to have to carry on a conversation. That often throws you off of what"s absorbing your thoughts.
So she was glad when, after dinner, grandma said:
"I think you"d better take a little nap, dear. You don"t seem quite like yourself--perhaps you"d best not attempt the meeting to-night."
That last was a bomb-sh.e.l.l; but Missy decided not to worry about such a possible catastrophe till the time should come. She found a chance to slip out to the tool-house and rescue the Holy Bible and the sheet of paper, the latter now so scratched out and interlined as to be unintelligible to anyone save an author.
When at last she was alone in her room, she jumped out of bed--religion, it seems, sometimes makes deception a necessity.
For a time she worked on the paper, bending close over it, cheeks flushed, eyes shining, whispering as she scratched.
At supper, Missy was glad to learn that Pete had planned to attend the meeting that evening. "Revivals" were not exactly in Pete"s line; but as long as Polly Currier had to be there, he"d decided he might as well go to see her home. Moreover, he"d persuaded several others of "the crowd"
to go along and make a sort of party of it.
And Missy"s strained ears caught no ominous suggestion as to her own staying at home.
Later, walking sedately to the church between her grandparents, Missy felt her heart beating so hard she feared they might hear it. Once inside the church, she drew a long breath. Oh, if only she didn"t have so long to wait! How could she wait?
Polly Currier was again seated on the choir platform, to night an angel in lavender mull. She had a bunch of pansies at her belt--pansies out of grandma"s garden. Pete must have given them to her! She now and then smiled back toward the back pew where Pete and "the crowd" were sitting.