When those of us who are still left of that band of children who played long years ago in the old and walked the golden road together in companionship, foregather now and again in our busy lives and talk over the events of those many merry moons—there are some of our adventures that gleam out more in memory than the others, and are oftener discussed. The time we bought God’s picture from Jerry Cowan—the time Dan ate the poison berries—the time we heard the ghostly bell ring—the bewitchment of Paddy—the visit of the Governor’s wife—and the night we were lost in the storm—all reminiscent jest and laughter; but none more than the recollection of the Sunday Bowen came to church and sat in our pew. Though goodness knows, as Felicity would say, we did not think it any matter for laughter at the time—far from it.
It was one Sunday evening in July. Uncle Alec and Aunt Janet, having been out to the morning service, did not attend in the evening, and we small fry walked together down the long hill road, wearing Sunday and trying, more or less successfully, to wear Sunday faces also. Those walks to church, through the golden completeness of the summer evenings, were always very pleasant to us, and we never hurried, though, on the other hand, we were very careful not to be late.
This particular evening was particularly beautiful. It was cool after a hot day, and wheat fields all about us were to their harvestry. The wind gossiped with the grasses along our way, and over them the buttercups danced, goldenly-glad. Waves of shadow went over the ripe hayfields, and bees sang a freebooting lilt in wayside gardens.
“The world is so lovely tonight,” said the Story Girl. “I just hate the thought of going into the church and shutting all the sunlight and music outside. 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 the Story Girl.
“If the service was outside we’d have to sit in the and that wouldn’t be very cheerful,” said Felix.
“Besides, the music isn’t shut out,” added Felicity. “The is inside.”
“‘Music has charms to a breast,’” quoted Peter, who was getting into the habit of his conversation with similar . “That’s in one of Shakespeare’s plays. I’m reading them now, since I got through 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 does that. Her characters all talk in a very refined fashion.”
“Well, I always skip the swear words,” said Peter. “And Mr. Marwood said once that the Bible and Shakespeare would furnish any library well. So you see he put them together, but I’m sure that he would never say that the Bible and Valeria would make a library.”
“Well, all I know is, I shall never read Shakespeare on Sunday,” said Felicity loftily.
“I wonder what kind of a preacher young Mr. Davidson is,” speculated Cecily.
“Well, we’ll know when we hear him tonight,” said the Story Girl. “He ought to be good, for his uncle before him was a fine preacher, though a very absent-minded man. But Uncle Roger says the supply in Mr. Marwood’s vacation never amounts to much. I know an funny story about old Mr. Davidson. He used to be the minister in Baywater, you know, and he had a large family and his children were very . One day his wife was ironing and she ironed a great big nightcap with a frill round it. One of the children took it when she wasn’t looking and hid it in his father’s best hat—the one he wore on Sundays. When Mr. Davidson went to church next Sunday he put the hat on without ever looking into the crown. He walked to church in a brown study and at the door he took off his hat. The nightcap just slipped down on his head, as if it had been put on, and the frill stood out around his face and the string hung down his back. But he never noticed it, because his thoughts were far away, and he walked up the church and into the pulpit, like that. One of his elders had to tiptoe up and tell him what he had on his head. He plucked it off in a dazed fashion, held it up, and looked 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 into his pocket calmly and went on with the service, and the long of the nightcap hung down out of his pocket all the time.”
“It seems to me,” said Peter, amid the laughter with which we greeted the tale, “that a funny story is funnier when it is about a minister than it is about any other man. I wonder why.”
“Sometimes I don’t think it is right to tell funny stories about ministers,” said Felicity. “It certainly isn’t respectful.”
“A good story is a good story—no matter who it’s about,” said the Story Girl with ungrammatical .
There was as yet no one in the church when we reached it, so we took our accustomed through the graveyard surrounding it. The Story Girl had brought flowers for her mother’s grave as usual, and while she arranged them on it the rest of us read for the hundredth time the epitaph on Great-Grandfather King’s tombstone, which had been composed by Great-Grandmother King. That epitaph was quite famous among the little family traditions that entwine every household with mirth and sorrow, smiles and tears. It had a for us and we read it over every Sunday. Cut deeply in the upright of red Island sandstone, the epitaph ran as follows:—
SWEET DEPARTED SPIRIT
Do receive the 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 of eternal
Remember thy 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 Felicity .
“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. “She calls 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’ve always heard that Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother were very much attached to each other.”
“Maybe, then, it means she was grateful that she’d had him as long as she did,” suggested Peter.
“She was grateful to him because he had been so kind to her in life, I think,” said Felicity.
“What is a ‘distressed relict’?” asked Felix.
“‘Relict’ is a word I hate,” said the Story Girl. “It sounds so much like . Relict means just the same as widow, only a man can be a relict, too.”
“Great-Grandmother seemed to run short of rhymes at the last of the epitaph,” commented Dan.
“Finding rhymes isn’t as easy as you might think,” Peter, out of his own experience.
“I think Grandmother King intended the last of the epitaph to be in blank verse,” said Felicity with dignity.
There was still only a sprinkling of people in the church when we went in and took our places in the old-fashioned, square King pew. We had just got comfortably settled when Felicity said in an whisper, “Here is Peg Bowen!”
We all stared at Peg, who was pacing composedly up the aisle. We might be excused for so doing, for seldom were the decorous of Carlisle church invaded by such a figure. Peg was dressed in her usual short drugget skirt, rather worn and around the bottom, and a waist of brilliant turkey red calico. She wore no hat, and her grizzle............