CHAPTER XXII. A COUNTRY SUNDAY-SCHOOL.
However we may spend our Sabbath, it is different from the otherdays of the week. I have often thought the little creatures of fieldand woods knew the difference. They run or sing with more gladnessand a less business-like air. The friskiest lambs, measuring strengthwith each other by stiff-legged jumps, are followed by gentle bleatsfrom their mothers, and come back after a frolic to meditate andswitch their tails. The fleecy roll of a lamb's tail, and the dimpleswhich seem to dint its first coat, the pinkness of its nose, and thedrollery of its eye, are all worth watching under a cloudless Sundaysky.
As the carriage and wagon rolled along the 'pike, they met othervehicles full of people driving for an outing, or going to afternoonSunday-school held in schoolhouses along the various by-roads.
Mrs. Tracy leaned forward every time a buggy passed the wagon, andscanned its occupants until they turned towards the right to passGrandma Padgett.
The first messenger they met entered on the 'pike from a cross-roadsome distance ahead of them, but was checked in his canter towardGreenfield by Zene, who stopped the wagon for a parley. Mrs. Tracywas half irritated by such officiousness, and Grandma Padgett herselfintended to call Zene to account, when he left the white and gray andcame limping to the carriage at the rider's side. However, the newshe helped to bring, and the interest he took in it, at once excusedhim. This man, scouring the country north and south since earlymorning, had heard nothing of the show-wagon.
It might be somewhere in the woods, or jogging innocently along adirt road. It was no longer an object to the searchers. He believedthe woman and child had left it, intending to rejoin it at someappointed place when all excitement was over. He said he thought hehad the very woman and child back here a piece, though they mightgive him the slip before he could bring anybody to certainly identifythem.
"My little one 'give me the slip'!" exclaimed Mrs. Tracy indignantly.
The man said his meaning was, she might be slipped off by her keeper.
"Where have you got them?" inquired Grandma Padgett.
"He saw 'em goin' into Sunday-school, marm," explained Zene."There's a meetin'-house over yonder three or four mile," pointingwith his whip.
"It's the unlikeliest place that ever was," said the messenger,polishing his horse's wet neck. "And I suppose that's what the womanthought when she slipped in there. If I hadn't happened by in thenick of time I wouldn't mistrusted. She didn't see me. She was goin'up the steps, with her back to the road, and the meetin'-house sets aconsiderable piece from the fence. They was all singin' loud enoughto drown a horse's feet in the dust."
"And both were like the descriptions you had?" said Mrs. Tracy.
"So nigh like that I half-pulled up and had a notion to go in andsee for myself. Then, thinks I, you better wait and bring-the onesthat would know for sure. There ain't no harm in that."
Before the mother could speak again, Grandma Padgett told the man toturn back and direct them, and Zene to fall behind the carriage withhis load. He could jog leisurely in the wake of the carriage, toavoid getting separated from it: that would be all he need attempt.She took up her whip to touch Hickory and Henry.
After turning off on the by-road, Grandma Padgett heard Zeneleisurely jogging in the wake of the carriage, and remembered for amoment, with dismay, the number of breakable things in his load. Hedrove all the way to the meeting-house with the white and grayconstantly rearing their noses from contact with the hind carriagecurtains; up swells, when the road wound through stump-borderedsward, and down into sudden gullies, when all his movables clangedand rumbled, as if protesting against the unusual speed they had toendure. Zene was as anxious to reach the meeting-house as the man whocantered ahead.
They drew up to where it basked on the rising ground, an old brownframe with lichens crusting the roof. There were two front doors, aflight of wooden steps leading up to each, and three high windowsalong the visible side. All these stood open letting out a pleasanthum, through which the cracked voice of an old man occasionallybroke. No hump of belfry stood upon its back. The afternoon sun wasthe bell which called that neighborhood together for Sunday-school.And this unconscious duty performed, the afternoon sun now brightenedthe graves which crowded to the very fence, brought out the glint andpolish of the new marble headstones, or showed the grooved names inthe old and leaning slate ones. Some graves were enclosed by rails,and others barely lifted their tops above the long grass. There werebaby-nests hollowing into the turf, and clay-colored piles set headand foot with fresh boards. And on all these aunt Corinne looked withan interest which graves never failed to rouse in her, no matter whatthe occasion might be.
THE FIRST MESSENGER.]
The horses switched their tails along the outside of the fence. Onebacked his vehicle as far as his hitching-strap would let him,against the wheels of another's buggy, that other immediatelyresponding by a similar movement. Some of them turned their heads andchallenged Hickory and Henry and the saddle-horse with speakingwhinneys. "Whe-hee-hee-hee! You going to be tied up here for thegrass-flies to bite too? Where do you come from, and why don't youkick your folks for going to afternoon meeting in hot June time?"
The pilot of the caravan had helped take horse-thieves in his time,and he considered this a similar excursion. He dismounted swiftly,but with an air of caution, and as he let down the carriage steps,said he thought they better surround the house.
But Mrs. Tracy reached the ground as if she did not see him, and ranthrough the open gate with her black draperies flowing in a rushbehind her. Robert Day and aunt Corinne were anxious to follow, andthe man tied Grandma Padgett's horses to a rail fence across theroad, while some protest was made among the fly-bitten row againstthe white cover of Zene's moving-wagon.
Although Bobaday felt excited and eager as he trotted up the grasspath after Mrs. Tracy, the spirit of the country Sunday-school cameout of doors to meet him.
There were the class of old men and the class of old women in thecorner seats each side of the pulpit, and their lesson was in the OldTestament. The young ladies listened to the instruction of the smartyoung man of the neighborhood, and his sonorous words rolled againstthe echoing walls. He usually taught the winter district and singingschools. The young girl who did for summer schoolmiss, had a class ofrosebud children in the middle of the meetinghouse, and they crowdedto Her lap and crawled up on her shoulders, though their mothers, inthe mothers' class, shook warning heads at them. Scent of cloves,roses and sweetbrier mingled with the woody smell of a building shutclose six days out of seven. Two rascals in the boys' class, who,evading their teacher's count, had been down under the seats kickingeach other with stiff new shoes, emerged just as the librarian camearound with a pile of books, ready to fight good-naturedly over theone with the brightest cover. The boy who got possession would neverread the book, but he could pull it out of his jacket pocket andtantalize the other boy going home.
The Sunday-school was a wholesome, happy place, even for these youngheathen who were enjoying their bodies too much to care particularlyabout their souls. And when the superintendent stood up to rap theschool to order for the close of the session, and line out one ofWatts's sober hymns, there was a pleasant flutter of getting ready,and the smart young man of the neighborhood took his tuning-fork fromhis vest pocket to hit against his teeth so he could set the tune. Hewore a very short-tailed coat, and had his hair brushed up in a highroach from his forehead, and these two facts conspired to give him abrisk and wide awake appearance as he stepped into the aisle holdinga singing book in his hand.
But no peaceful, long-drawn hymn floated through the windows andwandered into the woods. The twang of the tuning-fork was drowned bya succession of cries. The smart young man's eyebrows went up to meethis roach while he stood in the aisle astonished to see a lady intrailing black clothes pounce upon a child strange to theneighborhood, and exclaim over, and cover it with kisses.