Part 15 (1/2)

”Mother!” she cried, and then waited.

Mrs. Procter looked up from her kneading.

”What is it, Maizie?” she asked.

”Didn't Jesus ever laugh?” asked Maizie.

No one spoke. Maizie, engaged in peeling a large potato, went on quite unconscious of the variant expressions pictured in the faces of her audience: ”He's always so sad in our Sunday School lessons, mother. Even when He said, 'Suffer little children to come unto me,' He didn't smile--or they never say so when they read the chapter,” she finished.

Mrs. Procter looked helplessly at Suzanna. And Suzanna rose to the occasion. ”Maizie,” she said, ”you know Jesus was born in a manger so His mother didn't have much money and it was hard to make both ends meet. And, besides, there wasn't anything to smile about in those days when the world was so fresh.”

”I guess that's right,” Mrs. Procter agreed. ”What with going round and trying to persuade people to be good and understand what He was trying to tell them, there couldn't have been much excuse for smiling.”

Maizie, however, was tenacious. ”Mother, you know at times even when things have all gone wrong you've laughed at something the baby did,”

she said looking up from her work.

”Yes, I know,” put in Suzanna, as though Maizie had spoken to her. ”But mother doesn't have to go round turning water into wine and doing lots of other wonderful things.”

”Well, I wish He had smiled,” Maizie persisted.

Suzanna looked searchingly at her sister. ”Why do you wish that, Maizie?” she asked.

”Oh, I'd think then He was more like a big brother,” said Maizie. ”Now, sometimes I kind of feel afraid of Him.”

”If you didn't feel afraid of Him, Maizie,” Suzanna asked, turning back to the cold stove and vigorously polis.h.i.+ng away, ”do you think you'd be a better girl?”

Maizie flushed resentfully. ”I'm good enough now,” she answered.

”But you get mad for nothing, Maizie,” said Suzanna; ”you always get mad when you don't see things.”

”Anybody would get mad,” Maizie exclaimed. ”Why just yesterday when we were playing in the yard you said, 'Behold, the lion marcheth down the yard. Maizie, quick, quick, out of the way,' and when I said, 'I don't see any lion, Suzanna,' you said, 'Well, he's there, right beside you.

Don't you hear him roaring?' and there wasn't any lion there at all.”

”Well, Maizie, you can't see anything unless it's there,” deplored Suzanna.

”You mean, Suzanna,” put in Mrs. Procter as she covered the dough with a snowy cloth, ”that you have more imagination than Maizie.”

”Well, anyway, Maizie,” said Suzanna after a time, ”I'm going to try and make you a better girl.”

”Make her stop saying that, mother,” said Maizie, ”I'm good enough as it is.”

Suzanna said nothing more then. She finished her stove, and then, when Maizie had peeled all the potatoes, Suzanna went into the parlor and dusted all the furniture very carefully. Maizie followed and stood watching her sister.

”How could you make me better, Suzanna?” she asked, after a time, curiosity elbowing pride aside.

”I meant to tell you a story,” said Suzanna; ”about something you've never heard before.” She went on dusting.

”Would the story make me a better girl?”

”Yes, and happier, too.”