New Chronicles of Rebecca - Kate Wiggin 4 стр.

Abijah Flaggs shrewd Yankee guesses were not far from the truth, though he was not in possession of all the facts. It will be remembered by those who have been in the way of hearing Rebeccas experiences in Riverboro, that the Rev. and Mrs. Burch, returned missionaries from the Far East, together with some of their children, all born under Syrian skies, as they always explained to interested inquirers, spent a day or two at the brick house, and gave parlor meetings in native costume.

These visitors, coming straight from foreign lands to the little Maine village, brought with them a nameless enchantment to the children, and especially to Rebecca, whose imagination always kindled easily. The romance of that visit had never died in her heart, and among the many careers that dazzled her youthful vision was that of converting such Syrian heathen as might continue in idol worship after the Burches efforts in their behalf had ceased. She thought at the age of eighteen she might be suitably equipped for storming some minor citadel of Mohammedanism; and Mrs. Burch had encouraged her in the idea, not, it is to be feared, because Rebecca showed any surplus of virtue or Christian grace, but because her gift of language, her tact and sympathy, and her musical talent seemed to fit her for the work.

It chanced that the quarterly meeting of the Maine Missionary Society had been appointed just at the time when a letter from Mrs. Burch to Miss Jane Sawyer suggested that Rebecca should form a childrens branch in Riverboro. Mrs. Burchs real idea was that the young people should save their pennies and divert a gentle stream of financial aid into the parent fund, thus learning early in life to be useful in such work, either at home or abroad.

The girls themselves, however, read into her letter no such modest participation in the conversion of the world, and wishing to effect an organization without delay, they chose an afternoon when every house in the village was vacant, and seized upon the Robinsons barn chamber as the place of meeting.

Rebecca, Alice Robinson, Emma Jane Perkins, Candace Milliken, and Persis Watson, each with her hymn book, had climbed the ladder leading to the haymow a half hour before Abijah Flagg had heard the strains of Daughters of Zion floating out to the road. Rebecca, being an executive person, had carried, besides her hymn book, a silver call-bell and pencil and paper. An animated discussion regarding one of two names for the society, The Junior Heralds or The Daughters of Zion, had resulted in a unanimous vote for the latter, and Rebecca had been elected president at an early stage of the meeting. She had modestly suggested that Alice Robinson, as the granddaughter of a missionary to China, would be much more eligible.

No, said Alice, with entire good nature, whoever is ELECTED president, you WILL be, Rebeccayoure that kindso you might as well have the honor; Id just as lieves be secretary, anyway.

If you should want me to be treasurer, I could be, as well as not, said Persis Watson suggestively; for you know my father keeps china banks at his storeones that will hold as much as two dollars if you will let them. I think hed give us one if I happen to be treasurer.

The three principal officers were thus elected at one fell swoop and with an entire absence of that red tape which commonly renders organization so tiresome, Candace Milliken suggesting that perhaps shed better be vice-president, as Emma Jane Perkins was always so bashful.

We ought to have more members, she reminded the other girls, but if we had invited them the first day theyd have all wanted to be officers, especially Minnie Smellie, so its just as well not to ask them till another time. Is Thirza Meserve too little to join?

I cant think why anybody named Meserve should have called a baby Thirza, said Rebecca, somewhat out of order, though the meeting was carried on with small recognition of parliamentary laws. It always makes me want to say:

Shes little, but shes sweet, and absolutely without guile. I think we ought to have her.

Is guile the same as guilt? inquired Emma Jane Perkins.

Yes, the president answered; exactly the same, except one is written and the other spoken language. (Rebecca was rather good at imbibing information, and a master hand at imparting it!) Written language is for poems and graduations and occasions like thiskind of like a best Sunday-go-to-meeting dress that you wouldnt like to go blueberrying in for fear of getting it spotted.

Id just as lieves get guile spotted as not, affirmed the unimaginative Emma Jane. I think its an awful foolish word; but now were all named and our officers elected, what do we do first? Its easy enough for Mary and Martha Burch; they just play at missionarying because their folks work at it, same as Living and I used to make believe be blacksmiths when we were little.

It must be nicer missionarying in those foreign places, said Persis, because on Africs shores and Indias plains and other spots where Satan reigns (thats fathers favorite hymn) theres always a heathen bowing down to wood and stone. You can take away his idols if hell let you and give him a bible and the beginnings all made. But wholl we begin on? Jethro Small?

Oh, hes entirely too dirty, and foolish besides! exclaimed Candace. Why not Ethan Hunt? He swears dreadfully.

He lives on nuts and is a hermit, and its a mile to his camp through the thick woods; my motherll never let me go there, objected Alice. Theres Uncle Tut Judson.

Hes too old; hes most a hundred and deaf as a post, complained Emma Jane. Besides, his married daughter is a Sabbath-school teacherwhy doesnt she teach him to behave? I cant think of anybody just right to start on!

Dont talk like that, Emma Jane, and Rebeccas tone had a tinge of reproof in it. We are a copperated body named the Daughters of Zion, and, of course, weve got to find something to do. Foreigners are the easiest; theres a Scotch family at North Riverboro, an English one in Edgewood, and one Cuban man at Millkins Mills.

Havent foreigners got any religion of their own? inquired Persis curiously.

Ye-es, I spose so; kind of a one; but foreigners religions are never rightours is the only good one. This was from Candace, the deacons daughter.

I do think it must be dreadful, being born with a religion and growing up with it, and then finding out its no use and all your time wasted! Here Rebecca sighed, chewed a straw, and looked troubled.

Well, thats your punishment for being a heathen, retorted Candace, who had been brought up strictly.

But I cant for the life of me see how you can help being a heathen if youre born in Africa, persisted Persis, who was well named.

You cant. Rebecca was clear on this point. I had that all out with Mrs. Burch when she was visiting Aunt Miranda. She says they cant help being heathen, but if theres a single mission station in the whole of Africa, theyre accountable if they dont go there and get saved.

Are there plenty of stages and railroads? asked Alice; because there must be dreadfully long distances, and what if they couldnt pay the fare?

That part of it is so dreadfully puzzly we mustnt talk about it, please, said Rebecca, her sensitive face quivering with the force of the problem. Poor little soul! She did not realize that her superiors in age and intellect had spent many a sleepless night over that same accountability of the heathen.

That part of it is so dreadfully puzzly we mustnt talk about it, please, said Rebecca, her sensitive face quivering with the force of the problem. Poor little soul! She did not realize that her superiors in age and intellect had spent many a sleepless night over that same accountability of the heathen.

Its too bad the Simpsons have moved away, said Candace. Its so seldom you can find a real big wicked family like that to save, with only Clara Belle and Susan good in it.

And numbers count for so much, continued Alice. My grandmother says if missionaries cant convert about so many in a year the Board advises them to come back to America and take up some other work.

I know, Rebecca corroborated; and its the same with revivalists. At the Centennial picnic at North Riverboro, a revivalist sat opposite to Mr. Ladd and Aunt Jane and me, and he was telling about his wonderful success in Bangor last winter. Hed converted a hundred and thirty in a month, he said, or about four and a third a day. I had just finished fractions, so I asked Mr. Ladd how the third of a man could be converted. He laughed and said it was just the other way; that the man was a third converted. Then he explained that if you were trying to convince a person of his sin on a Monday, and couldnt quite finish by sundown, perhaps you wouldnt want to sit up all night with him, and perhaps he wouldnt want you to; so youd begin again on Tuesday, and you couldnt say just which day he was converted, because it would be two thirds on Monday and one third on Tuesday.

Mr. Ladd is always making fun, and the Board couldnt expect any great things of us girls, new beginners, suggested Emma Jane, who was being constantly warned against tautology by her teacher. I think its awful rude, anyway, to go right out and try to convert your neighbors; but if you borrow a horse and go to Edgewood Lower Corner, or Millikens Mills, I spose that makes it Foreign Missions.

Would we each go alone or wait upon them with a committee, as they did when they asked Deacon Tuttle for a contribution for the new hearse? asked Persis.

Oh! We must go alone, decided Rebecca; it would be much more refined and delicate. Aunt Miranda says that one man alone could never get a subscription from Deacon Tuttle, and thats the reason they sent a committee. But it seems to me Mrs. Burch couldnt mean for us to try and convert people when were none of us even church members, except Candace. I think all we can do is to persuade them to go to meeting and Sabbath school, or give money for the hearse, or the new horse sheds. Now lets all think quietly for a minute or two whos the very most heathenish and reperrehensiblest person in Riverboro.

After a very brief period of silence the words Jacob Moody fell from all lips with entire accord.

You are right, said the president tersely; and after singing hymn number two hundred seventy four, to be found on the sixty-sixth page, we will take up the question of persuading Mr. Moody to attend divine service or the ministers Bible class, he not having been in the meeting-house for lo! these many years.

Sing without reading, if you please, omitting the second stanza. Hymn two seventy four, to be found on the sixty-sixth page of the new hymn book or on page thirty two of Emma Jane Perkinss old one.

II

It is doubtful if the Rev. Mr. Burch had ever found in Syria a person more difficult to persuade than the already gospel-hardened Jacob Moody of Riverboro.

Tall, gaunt, swarthy, black-beardedhis masses of grizzled, uncombed hair and the red scar across his nose and cheek added to his sinister appearance. His tumble-down house stood on a rocky bit of land back of the Sawyer pasture, and the acres of his farm stretched out on all sides of it. He lived alone, ate alone, plowed, planted, sowed, harvested alone, and was more than willing to die alone, unwept, unhonored, and unsung. The road that bordered upon his fields was comparatively little used by any one, and notwithstanding the fact that it was thickly set with chokecherry trees and blackberry bushes it had been for years practically deserted by the children. Jacobs Red Astrakhan and Granny Garland trees hung thick with apples, but no Riverboro or Edgewood boy stole them; for terrifying accounts of the fate that had overtaken one urchin in times agone had been handed along from boy to boy, protecting the Moody fruit far better than any police patrol.

Perhaps no circumstances could have extenuated the old mans surly manners or his lack of all citizenly graces and virtues; but his neighbors commonly rebuked his present way of living and forgot the troubled past that had brought it about: the sharp-tongued wife, the unloving and disloyal sons, the daughters hapless fate, and all the other sorry tricks that fortune had played upon himat least that was the way in which he had always regarded his disappointments and griefs.

This, then, was the personage whose moral rehabilitation was to be accomplished by the Daughters of Zion. But how?

Who will volunteer to visit Mr. Moody? blandly asked the president.

VISIT MR. MOODY! It was a wonder the roof of the barn chamber did not fall; it did, indeed echo the words and in some way make them sound more grim and satirical.

Nobodyll volunteer, Rebecca Rowena Randall, and you know it, said Emma Jane.

Why dont we draw lots, when none of us wants to speak to him and yet one of us must?

This suggestion fell from Persis Watson, who had been pale and thoughtful ever since the first mention of Jacob Moody. (She was fond of Granny Garlands; she had once met Jacob; and, as to what befell, well, we all have our secret tragedies!)

Wouldnt it be wicked to settle it that way?

Its gamblers that draw lots.

People did it in the Bible ever so often.

It doesnt seem nice for a missionary meeting.

These remarks fell all together upon the presidents bewildered ear the while (as she always said in compositions)the while she was trying to adjust the ethics of this unexpected and difficult dilemma.

It is a very puzzly question, she said thoughtfully. I could ask Aunt Jane if we had time, but I suppose we havent. It doesnt seem nice to draw lots, and yet how can we settle it without? We know we mean right, and perhaps it will be. Alice, take this paper and tear off five narrow pieces, all different lengths.

At this moment a voice from a distance floated up to the haymowa voice saying plaintively: Will you let me play with you, girls? Huldah has gone to ride, and Im all alone.

It was the voice of the absolutely-without-guile Thirza Meserve, and it came at an opportune moment.

If she is going to be a member, said Persis, why not let her come up and hold the lots? Shed be real honest and not favor anybody.

It seemed an excellent idea, and was followed up so quickly that scarcely three minutes ensued before the guileless one was holding the five scraps in her hot little palm, laboriously changing their places again and again until they looked exactly alike and all rather soiled and wilted.

Come, girls, draw! commanded the president. Thirza, you mustnt chew gum at a missionary meeting, it isnt polite nor holy. Take it out and stick it somewhere till the exercises are over.

The five Daughters of Zion approached the spot so charged with fate, and extended their trembling hands one by one. Then after a moments silent clutch of their papers they drew nearer to one another and compared them.