Cloudy Jewel Part 15

"Why, deary, it's just a day to spend with G.o.d and get to enjoy His company," she said. "Let me read you this verse in Isaiah: 'Blessed'--that means, 'O the happiness of': I'll read it so--'O the happiness of the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger that hath joined himself to the Lord'--there, Leslie, that means us, or any Gentiles that want to be Christ's--'speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated us from his people.... For thus saith the Lord to' them 'that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer'--you see, Allison, there's a promise that will secure you from feeling the service dull and dry if you are willing to comply with its conditions--'their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.'"

She turned the leaves quickly again.

"And now I want to read you the verse that seems to me to tell how G.o.d likes us to keep the Sabbath. 'If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight'--you see, Leslie, He doesn't want it to be a dull, poky day. He wants us to call it a delight. And yet we are to find our pleasure in Him, and not in the things that belong just to ourselves.

Listen: 'a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.'"

Leslie suddenly threw her head in Julia Cloud's lap right over the Bible, and looked up into her face with an exquisite earnestness all her own.

"Cloudy Jewel, it sounds all different from anything I ever heard of, and I don't know how to do it; but something inside says it ought to be true, and I'm going to try it!" she said. "Anyhow, we've had a grand time this afternoon, and it hasn't been a bit dull. Do you suppose maybe we've been 'delighting' in Him this afternoon? But there goes the supper bell, and I'm hungry as a bear. How about that, Cloudy? Is it right to cook on Sunday? That place you read about the man who picked up sticks to make a fire in camp doesn't sound like it."

"Well, dear, you know in the old times we always got the Sunday cooking and baking done on Sat.u.r.day, just as the Lord told the Israelites to do. I haven't any business to judge other people, and every one must decide for himself what is necessary and what is not, I suppose; but, as for me, I like to do as mother always did. I always have the cake-box and bread-box full of nice fresh things, and make a pie, perhaps, and cook a piece of meat, or have some salad in the ice-box; and then it is the work of but a few minutes to get the nicest kind of a meal on Sunday. It is easy to have a beefsteak to broil, or cold meat, or something to warm up in a minute if one cares enough to get it ready; and it really makes a lovely, restful time on Sunday to know all that work is done. Besides, it isn't any harder. I like it."

Allison gathered up the rug and books, and they walked slowly toward the inn, watching the wonderful colorings of the foliage they pa.s.sed, and drinking in all the woodsy odors and gentle sounds of dying leaves and dropping nuts.

"Say, Cloudy," said Allison suddenly out of the midst of his thoughtfulness, "why don't the ministers preach about all this? I had to go to church a lot when I was in prep school, and I never yet heard a sermon on it. Or, if I did, it was so dull I didn't get the hang of it. But I should think if they preached about it just as you've done, made it plain so people could understand, that most folks, that is, the ones who wanted to do half right, would see to it that Sunday wasn't so rotten."

"Well, Allison," said Julia Cloud, a soft smile playing dreamfully about her lips, "perhaps they don't realize the need. Perhaps it's 'up to you,' as you say, to somehow wake them up and set them at it."

Allison drew a long whistle and grinned as they went into the house.

CHAPTER XIII

A few minutes later Julia Cloud watched them go off into the dusk to the Christian Endeavor meeting. She was to follow them in a little while and meet them for the evening service. She wondered as she saw them disappear into the shadows of the long maple-lined avenue whether perhaps she was not overdoing the matter a little in the way of meetings, and was almost sorry she had not suggested staying home from the evening service. It would not do to make them weary of it all on this first Sunday.

As they walked along together, the brother and sister were thinking deeply.

"Say, Allison, isn't this the very funniest thing we ever did, going off like this to a prayer meeting alone? What did we do it for?" asked the sister.

"Well, I guess just because Cloudy wanted it," replied the brother.

"She's given up her home and everything for us; we ought to. But say, Les, there's a whole lot in what Cloudy was reading this afternoon. If it's all true, it's a wonder more people don't try it. I've often wondered why we were alive, anyway, haven't you? There doesn't seem much sense to it unless there's something like this." "Oh, I don't know, Allison; it's nice to be alive. But of course we never will feel quite as if this is the only place since Mother and Dad aren't here any more. Aren't things queer, anyway? I wish there was some way to be sure."

"Well, I s'pose the Bible claims to be sure. Perhaps we could find out a lot if we read it."

"We're likely to read it quite a good deal, don't you think?" asked the sister archly. "But really, now, it was interesting, and isn't Cloudy a dear? If Christians were all like that, I'd believe in them."

"Perhaps they are, real Christians. Perhaps the ones we mean aren't anything but shams."

"Well, there's a good many shams, then."

The big, noisy bell began to bang out a tardy summons now; but the two young people did not feel the same antipathy toward it that they had felt the night they heard it first. It seemed somehow to have a homely, friendly sound. As they neared the open door, they grew suddenly shy, however, and drew back, lingering on the corner, watching the few stragglers who walked into the pathway of light that streamed from the doorway.

"Some bunch!" growled Allison. "I should say they did need waking up, but I don't hanker for the job."

They slipped in, and followed the sound of voices, through a dimly-lighted hall, smelling of moldy ingrain carpet, into a wide, rather pleasant, chapel room. There were branches of autumn leaves about the walls, reminiscent of some recent festivity, and a bunch of golden-rod in a vase on the little table by the leader's chair.

Two girls were turning over the hymn-book, picking out hymns for the evening; and a tall, shy, girlish young fellow was making fancy letters on a blackboard up in front. Three more girls with their arms about one another had surrounded him, and were giggling and gurgling at him after the manner of that kind of girl. Another plain-faced, plainly-dressed young woman sat half-way up at one side, her hands folded and a look of quiet waiting on her face. That was all that were in the room.

Allison and Leslie found a seat half-way up on the other side from the plain-faced girl, and sat down. No one noticed them save for furtive glances, and no one came near them. The three giggling girls began to talk a little louder. One with her hair bobbed and a long view of vertebrae above her blue dress-collar began to prattle of a dance the night before.

"I thought I'd die!" she chortled. "Bob had me by the arm; and here was my dress caught on Archie's b.u.t.ton, and he not knowing and whirling off in the other direction; and the georgette just ripped and tore to beat the band, and me trying to catch up with Archie, and Bob hanging on to me, honest.--You'd uv croaked if you could uv seen me.

Oh, but Mother was mad when she saw my dress! She kept blaming me, for she knew I hated that dress and wanted a new one. But me, _I'm_ glad.

Now I'll get after Dad for a new one. Say, when's Mary's surprise? Is it true it's put off till next week?"

"I'm going to have a new dress for that and silver slippers," declared the girl next her, teetering back and forth on her little high-heeled pumps. "Say, Will, that letter's c.o.c.k-eyed. What are you giving us?

What's the old topic, anyway? I don't see any use in topics. They don't mean anything. I never can find a verse with the words in. I just always ask for a hymn, and half the time I give out any old number without knowing what it is, just to see what it'll turn out."

"Oh, say! Did you hear Chauncey Cramer singing last Sunday night?"

broke out the third girl with a side glance at the strangers. "He was perfectly killing. He was twisting the words all around in every hymn. He had girls' names and fellers' all mixed up, and made it rhyme in the neatest way. I thought I'd choke laughing, and Dr. Tarrant was just coming in, and looked at me as if he'd eat me. Oh, my goodness!

There he comes now. We better beat it, Hattie. Come on, Mabel. Let's sit back in the last row."

The three girls toppled down the aisle on their high-heeled pumps, and rustled into the back row just as the pastor entered and looked about the room. His eyes brightened when he saw the brother and sister, and with a pleasant "Good-evening" to the three whispering misses in the back seat he came over to shake hands with Allison and Leslie. But, when he expressed a most cordial hope that the two would come in and help in the young people's work, Allison was wary. He said they would have to see how much time they had to spare after college opened. It was altogether likely that they would be exceedingly busy with their college work.

The minister, watching their bright faces wistfully, and knowing their kind, sighed, and thought how little likelihood there was that his Christian Endeavor society would see much of them.

A few more people straggled in, and one of the girls who had been picking out hymns went and sat down at the piano. The other girl sat near her. The young man at the blackboard took his place at the little table in front of the desk, and the elaborate colored letters which he had just made were visible as a whole for the first time.

"The Great Companion: How to Live with Him."

There was something startling and solemn in the words as they stood out in blue and gold and crimson and white on the little blackboard.

Allison and Leslie looked and turned wonderingly toward the young leader. He had corn-colored hair, light, ineffective blue eyes, and a noticeably weak chin. He did not look like a person who would be putting forth a topic of that sort and attempting to do anything about it. His face grew pink, and his eyelashes seemed whiter in contrast as he stood up to give out the first hymn. It was plain that he was painfully embarra.s.sed. He glanced now and then deprecatingly toward the visitors with an anxious gasp as he announced that they would open the meeting by singing number twenty-nine. The two young strangers opened their hymn-books and found the place, marvelling how such a youth had ever been persuaded to get himself into such a trying situation. Allison found himself thinking that there must be some power greater than the ordinary influences of life that made him do it. He seemed so much out of his element, and so painfully shy.

"All to Jesus I surrender!" chirped the little gathering gayly. They had good voices, and the harmony was simple and pleasing. Allison and Leslie joined their beautiful voices in with the rest, and liked it, felt almost as if they were on the verge of doing something toward helping on the kingdom of heaven.

They sang another hymn, and more young people came in until there were twenty-four in the room. Then the leader called upon Tom Forbes to read the Scripture, and a boy about fourteen years old read in a clear voice the story of the walk to Emmaus. To the brother and sister whose Bible knowledge was limited to the days of their very young childhood, it was most interesting. They listened intently, but were surprised to notice a tendency to whisper on the part of some, especially the girls in the back seat, who had been joined by three young fellows of about their own age and caliber. Leslie, glancing over her shoulder at the whisperers, saw they had no thrill over the story, no interest save in their own voluble conversation. The story went on to the point where Jesus at the table blessed the bread, and the two men knew Him, and He vanished out of their sight, without an interruption in the whispering. The Great Companion had come into the room and gone, and they had not even known it.

The leader rose, and cleared his voice with courage; and then in a tone of diffidence he recited the few words he had learned for the occasion.

"Our topic to-night is 'The Great Companion: How to Live with Him.' It seems hard to realize that Christ is still on the earth. That He is with us all the time. We ought to realize this. We ought to try to realize it. It would make our lives different if we could realize that Christ is always with us. I expect some of us wouldn't always feel comfortable if we should find Him walking along with us, listening to our talk. We ought to try to live so we would feel all right if we should find Christ walking with us some day. And I heard a story once about a boy who had been a cripple, and he had been a great Christian; and, when he came to die, they asked him if he was afraid; and he said no, he wasn't afraid, that it was only going into another room with Jesus. And I think we ought to all live that way. We will now listen to a solo by Mame Beecher, after which the meeting will be open, and I hope that all will take part."

It was a crude little speech, haltingly spoken, and the speaker was evidently relieved when it was over. Yet there had been amazing truth in what he had said, and it came to the two visitors with the force of newness. As he mopped his perspiring brow with a large handkerchief and sat down, adjusting his collar and necktie nervously, they watched him, and marvelled again that he had been willing to be put in so trying a position. There had been a genuineness about him that brought conviction. This young man really believed in Christ and that He walked with men.

Allison, always ready to curl his lips over anything sissified, sat watching him gravely. Here was a new specimen. He didn't know where to place him. Did he _have_ to lead a meeting? Was he a minister's son or something, or did he just do it because he wanted to, because it seemed his duty to do it? Allison could not decide. He knew that he himself could have made a much better speech on the subject, but he would not want to. He would hate it, talking about sacred things like that out to the world; yet he was frank enough to see that a better speech might not have been so acceptable to G.o.d as this halting one full of repet.i.tion and crudities.

The girl up by the piano was singing the solo. Why did she let herself be called "Mame" in that common way? She was a rather common-looking girl, with loud colors in her garments and plenty of powder in evidence on her otherwise pretty face; but she had a good voice, and sang the words distinctly.

"In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide!

Oh, how precious are the lessons which I learn at Jesus' side!"

The words were wonderful. They somehow held you through to the end.

The girl named Mame had that quality of holding attention with her voice and carrying a message to a heart. There were two lines that seemed particularly impressive,

"And whene'er you leave the silence of that happy meeting-place, You must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face."

Leslie found herself looking around the room to see whether any one present bore that image, and her eyes lingered longest on the quiet girl in the plain garments over on the other side of the room. She had a face that was almost beautiful in its repose, if it had not worn that air of utter reticence.