The Second Chance

by Nellie L. McClung

  CHAPTER XV

  THE SOWING

  "And other fell on good ground."

  "EVERYTHING else is pretty only the old school," said Mary Watson."Look at the sky and the grass and the spruce trees on thesandhills--all nice colours only the old school, and it's just agrindy-gray-russet inside and out."

  Mary was a plain-spoken young lady of ten.

  "Well, we can clean it, anyway," Pearl said hopefully. "If we get itclean it won't look so bad, even if it ain't pretty; and we can getlots of violets, though they don't show much; but we'll know they'rethere; and we can get cherry-blossoms and put them in something bigon the desk for the minister to look over, and they'll do him good,for he'll see that somebody thought about it."

  Maudie Steadman did not think much of the idea of violets andcherry-blossoms. Maudie was fat, and had pale freekles all over herface and on her hands. She talked in a jerky way, and was always outof breath.

  "Perhaps we could get Maw's tissue-paper flowers. She's got lovelypurple roses and yellow ones, and the like o' that," Maudie said.

  Pearl considered it awhile.

  "No, Maudie," she said. "Paper roses are fine in the winter, but inthe summer, if you use them, it looks as if you don't think much ofthe kind that God's puttin' up, and you think you can do betteryourself. So I think with lots of meadow rue for the green stuff andviolets and blossoms, it'll be all right. Anyway, when the people getin with their Sunday clothes on, and the flowers on their hats, it'lltake the bare look off it."

  When Sunday came it seemed as if it were a day specially prepared forthe beginning of religious instruction in the Chicken Hill School.The sky was cloudless save for little gauzy white flakes--"puffs ofchiffon that had blown off the angels' hats," Mary Watson said theywere. The grain was just high enough to run in waves before the wind,and even Grandfather Gray, Mrs. Steadman's father, admitted that the"craps were as far on as he'd ever seen them"; but in order that noone could accuse him of stirring up false hopes, he pointed out that"the wheat has a long way to go yet before the snow flies, andthere's lots that might happen it."

  By half-past two o'clock, the time set for the service, the yard waswell filled with buggies and waggons, while knots of men, lookinguncomfortable in high collars, stood discussing the crops and theprice of horses, all in the best of humour. When they saw theminister's gray horse coming, the minister himself became the subjectof conversation.

  "It beats me," George Steadman said, springing the lid of his pipewith his thumb as he struck a match on the sole of his boot, "itbeats me what a man sees in preaching as a steady job. It's easywork, all right, only one day in the week; but there's no money init. A man can make more money at almost anything else he goes at"--hewas thinking of short-horns--"and be more independent. It certainlybeats me why they do it."

  "Did ye ever hear, George, of greater rewards than money, and agreater happiness than being independent?" Roderick Ray, the ScottishCovenanter, asked gently, as he unbuckled his "beast" from the cart.Roderick Ray had a farm on Oak Creek, three miles east of theschoolhouse. "Yon man is a Methodist, an' I'm na' sa fond o' them aso' some ithers, but I can see he has the root o' the matter in himfor all; and I'm thinkin' that he has the smile o' his Lord andMaster on him, an' that's better nor gold, nor siller, nor houses,nor lands, nor cattle on a thousand hills; for, after all, George,these things slip frae us easy and we slip away frae them easierstill, an' it's then we'll hear the Good Man ask: 'An' hoo did yespend the years I gave ye? Did ye warn the sinner, teach the young,feed the hungry an' comfort the sad?' An' I'm thinkin', George, thatto all this yon little man, Methoda body though he be, will be ableto give a verra guid answer an' a very acceptable one."

  The men sat on one side of the school, and the women on the other.Even a very small boy, when he found himself sitting with the women,made a scurry across to the other side. Danny Watson alone of themale portion of the congregation was unaffected by this arrangement,and clung to his sister Pearl, quite oblivious of public opinion.

  Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne sat beside the window, in the seat aheadof Danny, Mary, and Pearl. Mrs. Cavers's eyes were on the group ofmen at the woodpile, for Bill was among them, very much smartened upin his good clothes. She had had some difficulty in persuading him tocome. He wanted to stay at home and sleep, he said. While the mentalked beside the woodpile, Sandy Braden, the hotelkeeper, drove upwith his pacing horse and rubber-tired buggy. He stopped to talk tothe men. Sandy was a very genial fellow, and a general favourite.

  Mrs. Cavers sat perfectly still; only the compression of her lipsshowed her agitation.

  "Come on, Bill, and I'll give you a good swift ride," she heard himsay.

  Bill hesitated and looked around uneasily. Sandy gave him asignificant wink and then he went without a word.

  Inside, Mrs. Cavers gave a little smothered cry, which Libby Anneunderstood. She moved nearer to her mother in sympathy.

  Mrs. Cavers leaned forward, straining her eyes after the cloud ofdust that marked the pacing horse's progress, clasping and unclaspingher hands in wordless misery. Bill was gone--she had lost him again.The wind drove ripples in the grain, the little white clouds hungmotionless in the sky, but Bill was gone, and the sun, bright andpitiless, was shining over all. Then the other men came in and theservice began.

  The singing was led by Roderick Ray, who had the Covenanters' bloodin his veins. He carried a tuning-fork with him always, and fittedthe psalm tunes to the hymns, carrying them through in a rollingbaritone, and swinging his whole body to the motion.

  The Reverend John Burrell was a student of men. He had travelled theNorth-West before the days of railways, by dog-train, snow-shoes, andhorse-back, preaching in the lumber camps and later on in the railwaycamps, and it was a deep grief to him when his health broke down andhe was compelled to take a smaller appointment. He liked to be on thefiring-line. He was a gentle, shrewd, resourceful man, whose sense ofhumour and absolute belief in the real presence of God had carriedhim over many a rough place.

  As he stood before his congregation this day in the schoolhouse, agreat compassion for the men and women before him filled his heart.He saw their lives, so narrow and bare and self-centred; he read thehard lines that the struggle with drought and hail and weeds hadwritten on their faces; and so he spoke to them, not as a strangermight speak, but as a brother, working with them, who also hadcarried burdens and felt the sting of defeat; but who had gone alittle farther down the road, and had come back to tell them topersevere, for things were better farther on!

  He had had to do with travel-stained, wayfaring men for so long thathe had got into the way of handing out to them at once, when he hadthe opportunity, the richest treasures of his Father's storehouse.When they looked to him for bread they were not given a stone, andso, standing in the bare schoolroom that day, he preached to themChrist, the Saviour of mankind, and showed the way of life eternal.

  There was something very winsome about Mr. Burrell's preaching,not because of his eloquence, for he was a man of plain speech,low-voiced and gentle, but because he spoke with the quiet certaintyof one who sees Him who is invisible. Near the front sat Bud Perkinsand Teddy Watson, athletic-looking young fellows, clear-eyed andclean-skinned, just coming into their manhood, and there was aresponsiveness in the boys' faces that made the minister address hisappeal directly to them as he set before them the two ways, askingthem to choose the higher, the way of loving service and Christlikeendeavour.

  When the service was over, Mrs. Burrell went around shaking handswith the women. "I am so glad we thought of holding service here,"she said genially. "You people do turn out so well. Is this Mrs.Cavers?" she asked, as she shook hands with Mrs. Steadman.

  Pearl Watson put her right.

  Mrs. Steadman, in a broad black hat resplendent with cerise roses,stiffened perceptibly, but Mrs. Burrell did not notice this, butrattled on in her gayest humour. "I always do get those names mixed.I knew there were the two families out here."

  She then turned to Mr
s. Slater and Mrs. Motherwell. "It is abare-looking school, isn't it?" she said amiably. "You women oughtto try to fix it up some. It does look so wind-swept and parched andcheerless." Mrs. Burrell prided herself on her plain speaking.

  At this Mrs. Steadman, who was a large, pompous woman, became soindignant that the cerise roses on her hat fairly shook. "I guess itdoesn't keep the children from learning," she said hotly; "and that'smostly what a school is for."

  "Oh, you are quite wrong, Mrs. Steadman," Mrs. Burrell replied,wondering just how it had happened that she had given Mrs. Steadmancause for offence. "Perhaps you think it doesn't prevent the childrenfrom learning, but it does. There's plenty of other things forchildren to learn besides what is in the books. Maybe they didn'tlearn them when you were young, but it would have been better if theyhad. Children should have a bed of flowers, and a little garden andtrees to play under."

  "Well, you can have them for yours," Mrs. Steadman said harshly,narrowing her eyes down to glittering slits. She knew that Mrs.Burrell had no children living; but when Mrs. Steadman's anger roseshe tried to say the bitterest thing she could think of.

  Mrs. Burrell was silent for a moment or two. Then she said gently:"My little girl has them, Mrs. Steadman. She has the flowers thatnever fade, and she needs no shade from trees, for no heat shall fallupon them there. I wasn't thinking of my own, I was thinking of yoursand the other children who come here."

  "Well, I guess we've done more for the school than anybody elseanyway," Mrs. Steadman said loftily. "We pay taxes on nineteenhundred acres of land, and only send two children."

  Mrs. Slater and Mrs. Motherwell joined the conversation then, andendeavoured to smooth down Mrs. Steadman's ruled plumage.

  "She ain't goin' to dictate to us," Mrs. Steadman declaredvehemently, after Mrs. Burrell had gone to speak to Mrs. Watson andAunt Kate. Mrs. Steadman had a positive dread of having any person"dictate" to her.

  Teddy Watson hitched up Mrs. Cavers's horse. There was still no signof Bill, and after a little talk with Martha Slater she and LibbyAnne drove sadly home.

  Bud Perkins got the minister's horse ready and stood holding it whileMr. Burrell was talking to Roderick Ray, who wanted to be sure howMr. Burrell stood on election. When the conversation was over Mr.Burrell walked over to where Bud was holding his horse. A suddenimpulse seized him. "Bud," he said gently, laying his hand on theboy's shoulder, "I wonder if you are the good ground? I wonder if youare going to let the seed grow?"

  Bud turned and looked the minister straight in the face, while a fineflush came into his own. "I am going to try," he said simply.

  Mr. Burrell took hold of Bud's hand and said earnestly: "God onlyknows what can be made of a young man who is willing to try."

  Bud's eyes were shining with emotion as he returned the handclasp.And thus the good seed was sown in the fertile soil of Bud Perkins'sheart, destined to be cruelly choked by weeds in the evil days tocome, but never quite forgotten by the Master Sower!

  * * *

  On the way home Bud was strangely lent, and Martha, with quickintuition, divined the cause. A great wave of emotion was surgingthrough the boy's heart, a great new love for every one andeverything; he wanted to do something, to suffer, to endure. Everyripple that ran over the grain, every note of the robin andmeadowlark, the rustle of the leaves above them as they drove throughthe poplar grove on the school section, were to him the voices of Godcalling him to loving service.

  "Martha," he said suddenly, "I haven't been very good to you, have I,old girl? Lots of times I could have been nicer and helped you more.I want to be better to you now. I never thought of it before, but Iknow that I've often let you do things that I might have done myself.I am going to be kinder and better, I hope."

  Martha was not ready of speech. "You're all right, Bud," she said. "Iknew how you feel, and I'm glad."