CHAPTER XXI. PEG BOWEN COMES TO CHURCH
When those of us who are still left of that band of children who playedlong years ago in the old orchard and walked the golden road togetherin joyous companionship, foregather now and again in our busy lives andtalk over the events of those many merry moons--there are some of ouradventures that gleam out more vividly in memory than the others, andare oftener discussed. The time we bought God's picture from JerryCowan--the time Dan ate the poison berries--the time we heard theghostly bell ring--the bewitchment of Paddy--the visit of the Governor'swife--and the night we were lost in the storm--all awaken reminiscentjest and laughter; but none more than the recollection of the SundayPeg Bowen came to church and sat in our pew. Though goodness knows, asFelicity would say, we did not think it any matter for laughter at thetime--far from it.
It was one Sunday evening in July. Uncle Alec and Aunt Janet, havingbeen out to the morning service, did not attend in the evening, and wesmall fry walked together down the long hill road, wearing Sunday attireand trying, more or less successfully, to wear Sunday faces also. Thosewalks to church, through the golden completeness of the summer evenings,were always very pleasant to us, and we never hurried, though, on theother hand, we were very careful not to be late.
This particular evening was particularly beautiful. It was cool after ahot day, and wheat fields all about us were ripening to their harvestry.The wind gossiped with the grasses along our way, and over them thebuttercups danced, goldenly-glad. Waves of sinuous shadow went over theripe hayfields, and plundering bees sang a freebooting lilt in waysidegardens.
"The world is so lovely tonight," said the Story Girl. "I just hate thethought of going into the church and shutting all the sunlight and musicoutside. I wish we could have the service outside in summer."
"I don't think that would be very religious," said Felicity.
"I'd feel ever so much more religious outside than in," retorted theStory Girl.
"If the service was outside we'd have to sit in the graveyard and thatwouldn't be very cheerful," said Felix.
"Besides, the music isn't shut out," added Felicity. "The choir isinside."
"'Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,'" quoted Peter, who wasgetting into the habit of adorning his conversation with similar gems."That's in one of Shakespeare's plays. I'm reading them now, since I gotthrough with the Bible. They're great."
"I don't see when you get time to read them," said Felicity.
"Oh, I read them Sunday afternoons when I'm home."
"I don't believe they're fit to read on Sundays," exclaimed Felicity."Mother says Valeria Montague's stories ain't."
"But Shakespeare's different from Valeria," protested Peter.
"I don't see in what way. He wrote a lot of things that weren't true,just like Valeria, and he wrote swear words too. Valeria never doesthat. Her characters all talk in a very refined fashion."
"Well, I always skip the swear words," said Peter. "And Mr. Marwood saidonce that the Bible and Shakespeare would furnish any library well. Soyou see he put them together, but I'm sure that he would never say thatthe Bible and Valeria would make a library."
"Well, all I know is, I shall never read Shakespeare on Sunday," saidFelicity loftily.
"I wonder what kind of a preacher young Mr. Davidson is," speculatedCecily.
"Well, we'll know when we hear him tonight," said the Story Girl. "Heought to be good, for his uncle before him was a fine preacher, though avery absent-minded man. But Uncle Roger says the supply in Mr. Marwood'svacation never amounts to much. I know an awfully funny story about oldMr. Davidson. He used to be the minister in Baywater, you know, and hehad a large family and his children were very mischievous. One day hiswife was ironing and she ironed a great big nightcap with a frill roundit. One of the children took it when she wasn't looking and hid itin his father's best beaver hat--the one he wore on Sundays. When Mr.Davidson went to church next Sunday he put the hat on without everlooking into the crown. He walked to church in a brown study and at thedoor he took off his hat. The nightcap just slipped down on his head, asif it had been put on, and the frill stood out around his face and thestring hung down his back. But he never noticed it, because his thoughtswere far away, and he walked up the church aisle and into the pulpit,like that. One of his elders had to tiptoe up and tell him what hehad on his head. He plucked it off in a dazed fashion, held it up, andlooked at it. 'Bless me, it is Sally's nightcap!' he exclaimed mildly.'I do not know how I could have got it on.' Then he just stuffed it intohis pocket calmly and went on with the service, and the long strings ofthe nightcap hung down out of his pocket all the time."
"It seems to me," said Peter, amid the laughter with which we greetedthe tale, "that a funny story is funnier when it is about a ministerthan it is about any other man. I wonder why."
"Sometimes I don't think it is right to tell funny stories aboutministers," said Felicity. "It certainly isn't respectful."
"A good story is a good story--no matter who it's about," said the StoryGirl with ungrammatical relish.
There was as yet no one in the church when we reached it, so we took ouraccustomed ramble through the graveyard surrounding it. The Story Girlhad brought flowers for her mother's grave as usual, and while shearranged them on it the rest of us read for the hundredth time theepitaph on Great-Grandfather King's tombstone, which had been composedby Great-Grandmother King. That epitaph was quite famous among thelittle family traditions that entwine every household with mingled mirthand sorrow, smiles and tears. It had a perennial fascination for usand we read it over every Sunday. Cut deeply in the upright slab of redIsland sandstone, the epitaph ran as follows:--
SWEET DEPARTED SPIRIT
Do receive the vows a grateful widow pays, Each future day and night shall hear her speak her Isaac's praise. Though thy beloved form must in the grave decay Yet from her heart thy memory no time, no change shall steal away. Do thou from mansions of eternal bliss Remember thy distressed relict. Look on her with an angel's love-- Soothe her sad life and cheer her end Through this world's dangers and its griefs. Then meet her with thy well-known smiles and welcome At the last great day.
"Well, I can't make out what the old lady was driving at," said Dan.
"That's a nice way to speak of your great-grandmother," said Felicityseverely.
"How does The Family Guide say you ought to speak of your great-grandma,sweet one?" asked Dan.
"There is one thing about it that puzzles me," remarked Cecily. "Shecalls herself a GRATEFUL widow. Now, what was she grateful for?"
"Because she was rid of him at last," said graceless Dan.
"Oh, it couldn't have been that," protested Cecily seriously. "I'vealways heard that Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother were very muchattached to each other."
"Maybe, then, it means she was grateful that she'd had him as long asshe did," suggested Peter.
"She was grateful to him because he had been so kind to her in life, Ithink," said Felicity.
"What is a 'distressed relict'?" asked Felix.
"'Relict' is a word I hate," said the Story Girl. "It sounds so muchlike relic. Relict means just the same as widow, only a man can be arelict, too."
"Great-Grandmother seemed to run short of rhymes at the last of theepitaph," commented Dan.
"Finding rhymes isn't as easy as you might think," avowed Peter, out ofhis own experience.
"I think Grandmother King intended the last of the epitaph to be inblank verse," said Felicity with dignity.
There was still only a sprinkling of people in the church when we wentin and took our places in the old-fashioned, square King pew. We hadjust got comfortably settled when Felicity said in an agitated whisper,"Here is Peg Bowen!"
We all stared at Peg, who was pacing composedly up the aisle. We mightbe excused for so doing, for seldom were the decorous aisles of Carlislechurch invaded by such a figure. Peg was dressed in her usual shortdrugget skirt, rather worn a
nd frayed around the bottom, and a waistof brilliant turkey red calico. She wore no hat, and her grizzled blackhair streamed in elf locks over her shoulders. Face, arms and feetwere bare--and face, arms and feet were liberally powdered withFLOUR. Certainly no one who saw Peg that night could ever forget theapparition.
Peg's black eyes, in which shone a more than usually wild and fitfullight, roved scrutinizingly over the church, then settled on our pew.
"She's coming here," whispered Felicity in horror. "Can't we spread outand make her think the pew is full?"
But the manoeuvre was too late. The only result was that Felicity andthe Story Girl in moving over left a vacant space between them and Pegpromptly plumped down in it.
"Well, I'm here," she remarked aloud. "I did say once I'd never darkenthe door of Carlisle church again, but what that boy there"--noddingat Peter--"said last winter set me thinking, and I concluded maybe I'dbetter come once in a while, to be on the safe side."
Those poor girls were in an agony. Everybody in the church was lookingat our pew and smiling. We all felt that we were terribly disgraced; butwe could do nothing. Peg was enjoying herself hugely, beyond all doubt.From where she sat she could see the whole church, including pulpit andgallery, and her black eyes darted over it with restless glances.
"Bless me, there's Sam Kinnaird," she exclaimed, still aloud. "He'sthe man that dunned Jacob Marr for four cents on the church steps oneSunday. I heard him. 'I think, Jacob, you owe me four cents on that cowyou bought last fall. Rec'llect you couldn't make the change?' Well, youknow, 'twould a-made a cat laugh. The Kinnairds were all mighty close, Ican tell you. That's how they got rich."
What Sam Kinnaird felt or thought during this speech, which everyone inthe church must have heard, I know not. Gossip had it that he changedcolour. We wretched occupants of the King pew were concerned only withour own outraged feelings.
"And there's Melita Ross," went on Peg. "She's got the same bonnet onshe had last time I was in Carlisle church six years ago. Some folks hasthe knack of making things last. But look at the style Mrs. Elmer Brewerwears, will yez? Yez wouldn't think her mother died in the poor-house,would yez, now?"
Poor Mrs. Brewer! From the tip of her smart kid shoes to the daintycluster of ostrich tips in her bonnet--she was most immaculately andhandsomely arrayed; but I venture to think she could have takensmall pleasure in her fashionable attire that evening. Some of theunregenerate, including Dan, were shaking with suppressed laughter, butmost of the people looked as if they were afraid to smile, lest theirturn should come next.
"There's old Stephen Grant coming in," exclaimed Peg viciously, shakingher floury fist at him, "and looking as if butter wouldn't melt in hismouth. He may be an elder, but he's a scoundrel just the same. He setfire to his house to get the insurance and then blamed ME for doing it.But I got even with him for it. Oh, yes! He knows that, and so do I! He,he!"
Peg chuckled quite fiendishly and Stephen Grant tried to look as ifnothing had been said.
"Oh, will the minister never come?" moaned Felicity in my ear. "Surelyshe'll have to stop then."
But the minister did not come and Peg had no intention of stopping.
"There's Maria Dean." she resumed. "I haven't seen Maria for years.I never call there for she never seems to have anything to eat in thehouse. She was a Clayton and the Claytons never could cook. Mariasorter looks as if she'd shrunk in the wash, now, don't she? And there'sDouglas Nicholson. His brother put rat poison in the family pancakes.Nice little trick that, wasn't it? They say it was by mistake. I hope itWAS a mistake. His wife is all rigged out in silk. Yez wouldn't thinkto look at her she was married in cotton--and mighty thankful to getmarried in anything, it's my opinion. There's Timothy Patterson. He'sthe meanest man alive--meaner'n Sam Kinnaird even. Timothy pays hischildren five cents apiece to go without their suppers, and then stealsthe cents out of their pockets after they've gone to bed. It's a fact.And when his old father died he wouldn't let his wife put his best shirton him. He said his second best was plenty good to be buried in. That'sanother fact."
"I can't stand much more of this," wailed Felicity.
"See here, Miss Bowen, you really oughtn't to talk like that aboutpeople," expostulated Peter in a low tone, goaded thereto, despite hisawe of Peg, by Felicity's anguish.
"Bless you, boy," said Peg good-humouredly, "the only difference betweenme and other folks is that I say these things out loud and they justthink them. If I told yez all the things I know about the people in thiscongregation you'd be amazed. Have a peppermint?"
To our horror Peg produced a handful of peppermint lozenges from thepocket of her skirt and offered us one each. We did not dare refuse butwe each held our lozenge very gingerly in our hands.
"Eat them," commanded Peg rather fiercely.
"Mother doesn't allow us to eat candy in church," faltered Felicity.
"Well, I've seen just as fine ladies as your ma give their childrenlozenges in church," said Peg loftily. She put a peppermint in her ownmouth and sucked it with gusto. We were relieved, for she did not talkduring the process; but our relief was of short duration. A bevy ofthree very smartly dressed young ladies, sweeping past our pew, startedPeg off again.
"Yez needn't be so stuck up," she said, loudly and derisively. "Yez wasall of yez rocked in a flour barrel. And there's old Henry Frewen, stillabove ground. I called my parrot after him because their noses wereexactly alike. Look at Caroline Marr, will yez? That's a woman who'dlike pretty well to get married, And there's Alexander Marr. He's a realChristian, anyhow, and so's his dog. I can always size up what a man'sreligion amounts to by the kind of dog he keeps. Alexander Marr is agood man."
It was a relief to hear Peg speak well of somebody; but that was theonly exception she made.
"Look at Dave Fraser strutting in," she went on. "That man has thankedGod so often that he isn't like other people that it's come to be true.He isn't! And there's Susan Frewen. She's jealous of everybody. She'seven jealous of Old Man Rogers because he's buried in the best spot inthe graveyard. Seth Erskine has the same look he was born with. They saythe Lord made everybody but I believe the devil made all the Erskines."
"She's getting worse all the time. What WILL she say next?" whisperedpoor Felicity.
But her martyrdom was over at last. The minister appeared in the pulpitand Peg subsided into silence. She folded her bare, floury arms over herbreast and fastened her black eyes on the young preacher. Her behaviourfor the next half-hour was decorum itself, save that when the ministerprayed that we might all be charitable in judgment Peg ejaculated "Amen"several times, loudly and forcibly, somewhat to the discomfiture of theYoung man, to whom Peg was a stranger. He opened his eyes, glanced atour pew in a startled way, then collected himself and went on.
Peg listened to the sermon, silently and motionlessly, until Mr.Davidson was half through. Then she suddenly got on her feet.
"This is too dull for me," she exclaimed. "I want something moreexciting."
Mr. Davidson stopped short and Peg marched down the aisle in the midstof complete silence. Half way down the aisle she turned around and facedthe minister.
"There are so many hypocrites in this church that it isn't fit fordecent people to come to," she said. "Rather than be such hypocrites asmost of you are it would be better for you to go miles into the woodsand commit suicide."
Wheeling about, she strode to the door. Then she turned for a Parthianshot.
"I've felt kind of worried for God sometimes, seeing He has so much toattend to," she said, "but I see I needn't be, so long's there's plentyof ministers to tell Him what to do."
With that Peg shook the dust of Carlisle church from her feet. Poor Mr.Davidson resumed his discourse. Old Elder Bayley, whose attentionan earthquake could not have distracted from the sermon, afterwardsdeclared that it was an excellent and edifying exhortation, but I doubtif anyone else in Carlisle church tasted it much or gained much goodtherefrom. Certainly we of the King household did not. We could not evenremember th
e text when we reached home. Felicity was comfortless.
"Mr. Davidson would be sure to think she belonged to our family when shewas in our pew," she said bitterly. "Oh, I feel as if I could neverget over such a mortification! Peter, I do wish you wouldn't go tellingpeople they ought to go to church. It's all your fault that thishappened."
"Never mind, it will be a good story to tell sometime," remarked theStory Girl with relish.