Part 37 (1/2)

”Yes, of course. I was born that way.”

”Very well then, you've got to do things the Presbyterian way. Don't let me hear any more of your amens or I'll amen you.”

”Oh, don't anybody interrupt again,” implored the Story Girl. ”It isn't fair. How can any one preach a good sermon if he is always being interrupted? n.o.body interrupted Beverley.”

”Bev didn't get up there and pitch into us like that,” muttered Dan.

”You mustn't fight,” resumed Peter undauntedly. ”That is, you mustn't fight for the fun of fighting, nor out of bad temper. You must not say bad words or swear. You mustn't get drunk--although of course you wouldn't be likely to do that before you grow up, and the girls never.

There's prob'ly a good many other things you mustn't do, but these I've named are the most important. Of course, I'm not saying you'll go to the bad place for sure if you do them. I only say you're running a risk.

The devil is looking out for the people who do these things and he'll be more likely to get after them than to waste time over the people who don't do them. And that's all about the first head of my sermon.”

At this point Sara Ray arrived, somewhat out of breath. Peter looked at her reproachfully.

”You've missed my whole first head, Sara,” he said, ”that isn't fair, when you're to be one of the judges. I think I ought to preach it over again for you.”

”That was really done once. I know a story about it,” said the Story Girl.

”Who's interrupting now?” aid Dan slyly.

”Never mind, tell us the story,” said the preacher himself, eagerly leaning over the pulpit.

”It was Mr. Scott who did it,” said the Story Girl. ”He was preaching somewhere in Nova Scotia, and when he was more than half way through his sermon--and you know sermons were VERY long in those days--a man walked in. Mr. Scott stopped until he had taken his seat. Then he said, 'My friend, you are very late for this service. I hope you won't be late for heaven. The congregation will excuse me if I recapitulate the sermon for our friend's benefit.' And then he just preached the sermon over again from the beginning. It is said that that particular man was never known to be late for church again.”

”It served him right,” said Dan, ”but it was pretty hard lines on the rest of the congregation.”

”Now, let's be quiet so Peter can go on with his sermon,” said Cecily.

Peter squared his shoulders and took hold of the edge of the pulpit.

Never a thump had he thumped, but I realized that his way of leaning forward and fixing this one or that one of his hearers with his eye was much more effective.

”I've come now to the second head of my sermon--what the bad place is like.”

He proceeded to describe the bad place. Later on we discovered that he had found his material in an ill.u.s.trated translation of Dante's _Inferno_ which had once been given to his Aunt Jane as a school prize.

But at the time we supposed he must be drawing from Biblical sources.

Peter had been reading the Bible steadily ever since what we always referred to as ”the Judgment Sunday,” and he was by now almost through it. None of the rest of us had ever read the Bible completely through, and we thought Peter must have found his description of the world of the lost in some portion with which we were not acquainted. Therefore, his utterances carried all the weight of inspiration, and we sat appalled before his lurid phrases. He used his own words to clothe the ideas he had found, and the result was a force and simplicity that struck home to our imaginations.

Suddenly Sara Ray sprang to her feet with a scream--a scream that changed into strange laughter. We all, preacher included, looked at her aghast. Cecily and Felicity sprang up and caught hold of her. Sara Ray was really in a bad fit of hysterics, but we knew nothing of such a thing in our experience, and we thought she had gone mad. She shrieked, cried, laughed, and flung herself about.

”She's gone clean crazy,” said Peter, coming down out of his pulpit with a very pale face.

”You've frightened her crazy with your dreadful sermon,” said Felicity indignantly.

She and Cecily each took Sara by an arm and, half leading, half carrying, got her out of the orchard and up to the house. The rest of us looked at each other in terrified questioning.

”You've made rather too much of an impression, Peter,” said the Story Girl miserably.

”She needn't have got so scared. If she'd only waited for the third head I'd have showed her how easy it was to get clear of going to the bad place and go to heaven instead. But you girls are always in such a hurry,” said Peter bitterly.

”Do you s'pose they'll have to take her to the asylum?” said Dan in a whisper.