Part 35 (1/2)
”I'd like to know why not,” retorted Cecily, ”G.o.d made Paddy just as much as He made you, Felicity King, though perhaps He didn't go to so much trouble. And I'm sure He's abler to help him than Peg Bowen.
Anyhow, I'm going to pray for Pat with all my might and main, and I'd like to see you try to stop me. Of course I won't mix it up with more important things. I'll just tack it on after I've finished asking the blessings, but before I say amen.”
More pet.i.tions than Cecily's were offered up that night on behalf of Paddy. I distinctly heard Felix--who always said his prayers in a loud whisper, owing to some lasting conviction of early life that G.o.d could not hear him if he did not pray audibly--mutter pleadingly, after the ”important” part of his devotions was over, ”Oh, G.o.d, please make Pat better by the morning. PLEASE do.”
And I, even in these late years of irreverence for the dreams of youth, am not in the least ashamed to confess that when I knelt down to say my boyish prayer, I thought of our little furry comrade in his extremity, and prayed as reverently as I knew how for his healing. Then I went to sleep, comforted by the simple hope that the Great Father would, after ”important things” were all attended to, remember poor Pat.
As soon as we were up the next morning we rushed off to Uncle Roger's.
But we met Peter and the Story Girl in the lane, and their faces were as the faces of those who bring glad tidings upon the mountains.
”Pat's better,” cried the Story Girl, blithe, triumphant. ”Last night, just at twelve, he began to lick his paws. Then he licked himself all over and went to sleep, too, on the sofa. When I woke Pat was was.h.i.+ng his face, and he has taken a whole saucerful of milk. Oh, isn't it splendid?”
”You see Peg Bowen did put a spell on him,” said Peter, ”and then she took it off.”
”I guess Cecily's prayer had more to do with Pat's getting better than Peg Bowen,” said Felicity. ”She prayed for Pat over and over again. That is why he's better.”
”Oh, all right,” said Peter, ”but I'd advise Pat not to scratch Peg Bowen again, that's all.”
”I wish I knew whether it was the praying or Peg Bowen that cured Pat,”
said Felix in perplexity.
”I don't believe it was either of them,” said Dan. ”Pat just got sick and got better again of his own accord.”
”I'm going to believe that it was the praying,” said Cecily decidedly.
”It's so much nicer to believe that G.o.d cured Pat than that Peg Bowen did.”
”But you oughtn't to believe a thing just 'cause it would be more comfortable,” objected Peter. ”Mind you, I ain't saying G.o.d couldn't cure Pat. But nothing and n.o.body can't ever make me believe that Peg Bowen wasn't at the bottom of it all.”
Thus faith, superst.i.tion, and incredulity strove together amongst us, as in all history.
CHAPTER XXV. A CUP OF FAILURE
One warm Sunday evening in the moon of golden-rod, we all, grown-ups and children, were sitting in the orchard by the Pulpit Stone singing sweet old gospel hymns. We could all sing more or less, except poor Sara Ray, who had once despairingly confided to me that she didn't know what she'd ever do when she went to heaven, because she couldn't sing a note.
That whole scene comes out clearly for me in memory--the arc of primrose sky over the trees behind the old house, the fruit-laden boughs of the orchard, the bank of golden-rod, like a wave of suns.h.i.+ne, behind the Pulpit Stone, the nameless colour seen on a fir wood in a ruddy sunset.
I can see Uncle Alec's tired, brilliant, blue eyes, Aunt Janet's wholesome, matronly face, Uncle Roger's sweeping blond beard and red cheeks, and Aunt Olivia's full-blown beauty. Two voices ring out for me above all others in the music that echoes through the halls of recollection. Cecily's sweet and silvery, and Uncle Alec's fine tenor.
”If you're a King, you sing,” was a Carlisle proverb in those days. Aunt Julia had been the flower of the flock in that respect and had become a noted concert singer. The world had never heard of the rest. Their music echoed only along the hidden ways of life, and served but to lighten the cares of the trivial round and common task.
That evening, after they tired of singing, our grown-ups began talking of their youthful days and doings.
This was always a keen delight to us small fry. We listened avidly to the tales of our uncles and aunts in the days when they, too--hard fact to realize--had been children. Good and proper as they were now, once, so it seemed, they had gotten into mischief and even had their quarrels and disagreements. On this particular evening Uncle Roger told many stories of Uncle Edward, and one in which the said Edward had preached sermons at the mature age of ten from the Pulpit Stone fired, as the sequel will show, the Story Girl's imagination.
”Can't I just see him at it now,” said Uncle Roger, ”leaning over that old boulder, his cheeks red and his eyes burning with excitement, banging the top of it as he had seen the ministers do in church. It wasn't cus.h.i.+oned, however, and he always bruised his hands in his self-forgetful earnestness. We thought him a regular wonder. We loved to hear him preach, but we didn't like to hear him pray, because he always insisted on praying for each of us by name, and it made us feel wretchedly uncomfortable, somehow. Alec, do you remember how furious Julia was because Edward prayed one day that she might be preserved from vanity and conceit over her singing?”
”I should think I do,” laughed Uncle Alec. ”She was sitting right there where Cecily is now, and she got up at once and marched right out of the orchard, but at the gate she turned to call back indignantly, 'I guess you'd better wait till you've prayed the conceit out of yourself before you begin on me, Ned King. I never heard such stuck-up sermons as you preach.' Ned went on praying and never let on he heard her, but at the end of his prayer he wound up with 'Oh, G.o.d, I pray you to keep an eye on us all, but I pray you to pay particular attention to my sister Julia, for I think she needs it even more than the rest of us, world without end, Amen.'”
Our uncles roared with laughter over the recollection. We all laughed, indeed, especially over another tale in which Uncle Edward, leaning too far over the ”pulpit” in his earnestness, lost his balance altogether and tumbled ingloriously into the gra.s.s below.
”He lit on a big Scotch thistle,” said Uncle Roger, chuckling, ”and besides that, he skinned his forehead on a stone. But he was determined to finish his sermon, and finish it he did. He climbed back into the pulpit, with the tears rolling over his cheeks, and preached for ten minutes longer, with sobs in his voice and drops of blood on his forehead. He was a plucky little beggar. No wonder he succeeded in life.”