Patchwork Part 9

"No," said Miss Lee, "this is hard to beat. I love the view from this hill."

"Ain't now"--Aunt Maria smiled in approval--"this here is about the nicest spot around Greenwald. There's the town so plain you could almost count the houses, only the trees get in the road. And there's the reservoir with the white fence around, and the farms and the pretty country around them--it's a pretty place."

"I like this hill," said Phbe. "When I grow up I'm goin' to have a farm on this hill, when I'm married, I mean."

"That's too far off yet, Phbe," said her aunt. "You must eat bread and b.u.t.ter yet a while before you think of such things."

"Anyhow, I changed my mind. I'm not goin' to live in the country when I grow up; I'm going to be a fine lady and live in the city."

"Phbe, stop that dumb talk, now!" reproved her aunt sternly. "You turn round and walk up the hill. We'll go on now, Miss Lee. Mebbe you'd like to go on the graveyard a little?"

"I don't mind."

"Then come." Aunt Maria led the way, past the low brick meeting-house, through the gateway into the old burial ground. They wandered among the marble slabs and read the inscriptions, some half obliterated by years of mountain storms, others freshly carved.

"The epitaphs are interesting," said Miss Lee.

"What's them?" asked Phbe.

"The verses on the tombstones. Here is one"--she read the inscription on the base of a narrow gray stone--"'After life's fitful fever she sleeps well.'"

"Ach," Aunt Maria said tartly, "I guess her man knowed why he put that on. That poor woman had three husbands and eleven children, so I guess she had fitful fever enough."

Phbe laughed loud as she saw the smile on the face of her teacher, but next moment she sobered under the chiding of Aunt Maria. "Phbe, now you keep quiet! Abody don't laugh and act so on a graveyard!"

"Ugh," the child said a moment later, "Miss Lee, just read this one. It always gives me shivers when I read it still.

"'Remember, man, as you pa.s.s by, What you are now that once was I.

What I am now that you will be; Prepare for death and follow me.'"

"That is rather startling," said Miss Lee.

Phbe smiled and asked, "Don't you think this is a pretty graveyard?"

"Yes. How well cared for the graves are. Not a weed on most of them."

"Well," Aunt Maria explained, "the people who have dead here mostly take care of the graves. We come up every two weeks or so and sometimes we bring a hoe and fix our graves up nice and even. But some people are too lazy to keep the graves clean. I hoed some pig-ears out a few graves last week; I was ashamed of 'em, even if the graves didn't belong to us."

In the corner near the road the aunt stopped before a plain gray boulder.

"Phbe's mom," she said, pointing to the inscription.

"_PHBE beloved wife of Jacob Metz aged twenty-two years and one month.

Souls of the righteous are in the hand of G.o.d._"

"I'm glad," said the child as they stood by her mother's grave, "that they put that last on, for when I come here still I like to know that my mom ain't under all this dirt but that she's up in the Good Place like it says there."

Miss Lee clasped the little hand in hers--what words were adequate to express her feeling for the motherless child!

"Come on," Maria Metz said crisply, "or we'll be late." But Miss Lee read in the brusqueness a strong feeling of sorrow for the child.

Silently the three walked through the green aisles of the old graveyard, Aunt Maria leading the way, alone; Phbe's hand still in the hand of her teacher.

To Miss Lee, whose hours of public worship had hitherto been spent in an Episcopal church in Philadelphia, the extreme plainness of the meeting-house on the hill brought a sense of acute wonderment. The contrast was so marked. There, in the city, was the large, high-vaulted church whose in-streaming light was softened by exquisite stained windows and revealed each detail of construction and color harmoniously consistent. Here, in the country, was the square, low-ceilinged meeting-house through whose open windows the glaring light relentlessly intensified the whiteness of the walls and revealed more plainly each flaw and knot in the unpainted pine benches. Yet the meeting-house on the hill was strangely, strongly representative of the frank, honest, unpretentious people who worshipped there, and after the first wave of surprise a feeling of interest and reverence held her.

It was a unique sight for the city girl. The rows of white-capped women were separated from the rows of bearded men by a low part.i.tion built midway down the body of the church. Each s.e.x entered the meeting-house through a different door and sat in its apportioned half of the building. On each side of the room rows of black hooks were set into the walls. On these hooks the sisters hung their bonnets and the shawls and the brethren placed their hats and overcoats during the service.

The preachers, varying in number from two to six, sat before a long table in the front part of the meeting-house. When the duty of preaching devolved upon one of them he simply rose from his seat and delivered his message.

As Aunt Maria and her two followers took their seats on a bench near the front of the church a preacher rose.

"Let us join in singing--has any one a choice?"

Miss Lee started as a woman's voice answered, "Number one hundred forty-seven." However, her surprise merged into other emotions as the old hymn rose in the low-ceilinged room. There was no accompaniment of any musical instrument, just a harmonious blending of the deep-toned voices of the brethren with the sweet voices of the sisters. The music swelled in full, deliberate rhythm, its calm earnestness bearing witness to the fact that every word of the hymn was uttered in a spirit of worship.

Maria Metz sang very softly, but Phbe's young voice rose clearly in the familiar words, "Jesus, Lover of my soul."

Miss Lee listened a moment to the sweet voice of the child by her side, then she, too, joined in the singing--feeling the words, as she had never before felt them, to be the true expression of millions of mortals who have sung, are singing, and shall continue to sing them.

When the hymn was ended another preacher arose and opened the service with a few remarks, then asked all to kneel in prayer.

Every one--men, women, children--turned and knelt upon the bare floor while the preacher's voice rose in a simple prayer. As the Amen fell from his lips Miss Lee started to rise, but Phbe laid a restraining hand upon her and whispered, "There's yet one."

For a moment there was silence in the meeting-house. Then the voice of another preacher rose in the universal prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven." Every extemporaneous prayer in the Church of the Brethren is complemented by the model prayer the Master taught His disciples.

There was another hymn, reading of the Scriptures, and then the sermon proper was preached.

Aunt Maria nodded approvingly as the preacher read, "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of G.o.d of great price."

"You listen good now to what the preacher says," the woman whispered to Phbe.

The child looked Up solemnly at her aunt, about her at the many white-capped women, then up at Miss Lee's pretty hat with its white Mercury wings--she was endeavoring to justify the pleasure and beauty her aunt p.r.o.nounced vanity. Was Miss Lee really wicked when she wore clothes like that? Surely, no! After a few moments the child sighed, folded her hands and looked steadfastly at the tall bearded man who was preaching.

The clergy among these plain sects receive no remuneration for their preaching. With them the mercenary and the pecuniary are ever distinct from the religious. Six days in the week the preacher follows the plow or works at some other worthy occupation; upon the seventh day he preaches the Gospel. There is, therefore, no elaborate preparation for the sermon; the preacher has abundant faith in the old admonition, "Take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak, for it is not ye that speak but the spirit of the Father that speaketh in you." Thus it is that, while the sermons usually lack the blandishments of fine rhetoric and the rhythmic ease arising from oratorical ability, they seldom fail in deep sincerity and directness of appeal.

The one who delivered the message that September morning told of the joy of those who have overcome the desire for the vanities of the world, extolled the virtue of a simple life, till Miss Lee felt convinced that there must be something real in a religion that could hold its followers to so simple, wholesome a life.

She looked about, at the serried rows of white-capped women--how gentle and calm they appeared in their white caps and plain dresses; she looked across the part.i.tion at the lines of men--how strong and honest their faces were; and the children--she had never before seen so many children at a church service--would they all, in time, wear the garb of their people and enter the church of their parents? The child at her side--vivacious, untiring, responsive Phbe--would she, too, wear the plain dress some day and live the quiet life of her people?

The eagerness of the child's face as Miss Lee looked at her denoted intense interest in the sermon, but none could know the real cause of that eagerness.

"I won't, I just won't dress plain!" she was thinking. "Anyway, not till I'm old like Aunt Maria. I want to look like Miss Lee when I grow up.

And that preacher just said that it ain't good to plait the hair, I mean he read it out the Bible. Mebbe now Aunt Maria will leave me have curls. I hope she heard him say that."

She sighed in relief as the sermon was concluded and the next preacher rose and added a few remarks. When the third man rose to add his few remarks Phbe looked up at Miss Lee and whispered, "Guess he's the last one once!"

Miss Lee smiled. The service was rather long, but it was drawing to a close. There was another prayer, another hymn and the service ended.

Immediately the white-capped women rose and began to bestow upon each other the holy kiss; upon the opposite side of the church the brethren greeted each other in like fashion. Everywhere there were greetings and profferings of dinner invitations.