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.
“Hush, here’s your father,” said Felix.
Uncle Alec came striding down the orchard. We had never before seen Uncle Alec angry. But there was no doubt that he was very angry. His blue eyes fairly blazed at us as he said,
“What have you been doing to frighten Sara Ray into such a condition?”
“We — we were just having a sermon contest,” explained the Story Girl tremulously. “And Peter preached about the bad place, and it frightened Sara. That is all, Uncle Alec.”
“All! I don’t know what the result will be to that nervous delicate child. She is shrieking in there and nothing will quiet her. What do you mean by playing such a game on Sunday, and making a jest of sacred things? No, not a word—” for the Story Girl had attempted to speak. “You and Peter march off home. And the next time I find you up to such doings on Sunday or any other day I’ll give you cause to remember it to your latest hour.”
The Story Girl and Peter went humbly home and we went with them.
“I CAN’T understand grown-up people,” said Felix despairingly. “When Uncle Edward preached sermons it was all right, but when we do it it is ‘making a jest of sacred things.’ And I heard Uncle Alec tell a story once about being nearly frightened to death when he was a little boy, by a minister preaching on the end of the world; and he said, ‘That was something like a sermon. You don’t hear such sermons nowadays.’ But when Peter preaches just such a sermon, it’s a very different story.”
“It’s no wonder we can’t understand the grown-ups,” said the Story Girl indignantly, “because we’ve never been grown-up ourselves. But THEY have been children, and I don’t see why they can’t understand us. Of course, perhaps we shouldn’t have had the contest on Sundays. But all the same I think it’s mean of Uncle Alec to be so cross. Oh, I do hope poor Sara won’t have to be taken to the asylum.”
Poor Sara did not have to be. She was eventually quieted down, and was as well as usual the next day; and she humbly begged Peter’s pardon for spoiling his sermon. Peter granted it rather grumpily, and I fear that he never really quite forgave Sara for her untimely outburst. Felix, too, felt resentment against her, because he had lost the chance of preaching his sermon.
“Of course I know I wouldn’t have got the prize, for I couldn’t have made such an impression as Peter,” he said to us mournfully, “but I’d like to have had a chance to show what I could do. That’s what comes of having those cry-baby girls mixed up in things. Cecily was just as scared as Sara Ray, but she’d more sense than to show it like that.”
“Well, Sara couldn’t help it,” said the Story Girl charitably, “but it does seem as if we’d had dreadful luck in everything we’ve tried lately. I thought of a new game this morning, but I’m almost afraid to mention it, for I suppose something dreadful will come of it, too.”
“Oh, tell us, what is it?” everybody entreated.
“Well, it’s a trial by ordeal, and we’re to see which of us can pass it. The ordeal is to eat one of the bitter apples in big mouthfuls without making a single face.”
Dan made a face to begin with.
“I don’t believe any of us can do that,” he said.
“YOU can’t, if you take bites big enough to fill your mouth,” giggled Felicity, with cruelty and without provocation.
“Well, maybe you could,” retorted Dan sarcastically. “You’d be so afraid of spoiling your looks that you’d rather die than make a face, I s’pose, no matter what you et.”
“Felicity makes enough faces when there’s nothing to make faces at,” said Felix, who had been grimaced at over the breakfast table that morning and hadn’t liked it.
“I think the bitter apples would be real good for Felix,” said
Felicity. “They say sour things make people thin.”
“Let’s go and get the bitter apples,” said Cecily hastily, seeing that Felix, Felicity and Dan were on the verge of a quarrel more bitter than the apples.
We went to the seedling tree and got an apple apiece. The game was that every one must take a bite in turn, chew it up, and swallow it, without making a face. Peter again distinguished himself. He, and he alone, passed the ordeal, munching those dreadful mouthfuls without so much as a change of expression on his countenance, while the facial contortions the rest of us went through baffled description. In every subsequent trial it was the same. Peter never made a face, and no one else could help making them. It sent him up fifty per cent in Felicity’s estimation.
“Peter is a real smart boy,” she said to me. “It’s such a pity he is a hired boy.”
But, if we could not pass the ordeal, we got any amount of fun out of it, at least. Evening after evening the orchard re-echoed to our peals of laughter.
“Bless the children,” said Uncle Alec, as he carried the milk pails across the yard. “Nothing can quench their spirits for long.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE ORDEAL OF BITTER APPLES
I could never understand why Felix took Peter’s success in the Ordeal of Bitter Apples so much to heart. He had not felt very keenly over the matter of the sermons, and certainly the mere fact that Peter could eat sour apples without making faces did not cast any reflection on the honour or ability of the other competitors. But to Felix everything suddenly became flat, stale, and unprofitable, because Peter continued to hold the championship of bitter apples. It haunted his waking hours and obsessed his nights. I heard him talking in his sleep about it. If anything could have made him thin the way he worried over this matter would have done it.
For myself, I cared not a groat. I had wished to be successful in the sermon contest, and felt sore whenever I thought of my failure. But I had no burning desire to eat sour apples without grimacing, and I did not sympathize over and above with my brother. When, however, he took to praying about it, I realized how deeply he felt on the subject, and hoped he would be successful.
Felix prayed earnestly that he might be enabled to eat a bitter apple without making a face. And when he had prayed three nights after this manner, he contrived to eat a bitter apple without a grimace until he came to the last bite, which proved too much for him. But Felix was vastly encouraged.
“Another prayer or two, and I’ll be able to eat a whole one,” he said jubilantly.
But this devoutly desired consummation did not come to pass. In spite of prayers and heroic attempts, Felix could never get beyond that last bite. Not even faith and works in combination could avail. For a time he could not understand this. But he thought the mystery was solved when Cecily came to him one day and told him that Peter was praying against him.
“He’s praying that you’ll never be able to eat a bitter apple without making a face,” she said. “He told Felicity and Felicity told me. She said she thought it was real cute
of him. I think that is a dreadful way to talk about praying and I told her so. She wanted me to promise not to tell you, but I wouldn’t promise, because I think it’s fair for you to know what is going on.”
Felix was very indignant — and aggrieved as well.
“I don’t see why God should answer Peter’s prayers instead of mine,” he said bitterly. “I’ve gone to church and Sunday School all my life, and Peter never went till this summer. It isn’t fair.”
“Oh, Felix, don’t talk like that,” said Cecily, shocked. “God MUST be fair. I’ll tell you what I believe is the reason. Peter prays three times a day regular — in the morning and at dinner time and at night — and besides that, any time through the day when he happens to think of it, he just prays, standing up. Did you ever hear of such goings-on?”
“Well, he’s got to stop praying against me, anyhow,” said Felix resolutely. “I won’t put up with it, and I’ll go and tell him so right off.”
Felix marched over to Uncle Roger’s, and we trailed after, scenting a scene. We found Peter shelling beans in the granary, and whistling cheerily, as with a conscience void of offence towards all men.
“Look here, Peter,” said Felix ominously, “they tell me that you’ve been praying right along that I couldn’t eat a bitter apple. Now, I tell you—”
“I never did!” exclaimed Peter indignantly. “I never mentioned your name. I never prayed that you couldn’t eat a bitter apple. I just prayed that I’d be the only one that could.”
“Well, that’s the same thing,” cried Felix. “You’ve just been praying for the opposite to me out of spite. And you’ve got to stop it, Peter Craig.”
“Well, I just guess I won’t,” said Peter angrily. “I’ve just as good a right to pray for what I want as you, Felix King, even if you was brought up in Toronto. I s’pose you think a hired boy hasn’t any business to pray for particular things, but I’ll show you. I’ll just pray for what I please, and I’d like to see you try and stop me.”
“You’ll have to fight me, if you keep on praying against me,” said Felix.
The girls gasped; but Dan and I were jubilant, snuffing battle afar off.
“All right. I can fight as well as pray.”
“Oh, don’t fight,” implored Cecily. “I think it would be dreadful. Surely you can arrange it some other way. Let’s all give up the Ordeal, anyway. There isn’t much fun in it. And then neither of you need pray about it.”
“I don’t want to give up the Ordeal,” said Felix, “and I won’t.”
“Oh, well, surely you can settle it some way without fighting,” persisted Cecily.
“I’m not wanting to fight,” said Peter. “It’s Felix. If he don’t interfere with my prayers there’s no need of fighting. But if he does there’s no other way to settle it.”
“But how will that settle it?” asked Cecily.
“Oh, whoever’s licked will have to give in about the praying,” said Peter. “That’s fair enough. If I’m licked I won’t pray for that particular thing any more.”
“It’s dreadful to fight about anything so religious as praying,” sighed poor Cecily.
“Why, they were always fighting about religion in old times,” said Felix. “The more religious anything was the more fighting there was about it.”
“A fellow’s got a right to pray as he pleases,” said Peter, “and if anybody tries to stop him he’s bound to fight. That’s my way of looking at it.”
“What would Miss Marwood say if she knew you were going to fight?” asked Felicity.
Miss Marwood was Felix’ Sunday School teacher and he was very fond of her. But by this time Felix was quite reckless.
“I don’t care what she would say,” he retorted.
Felicity tried another tack.
“You’ll be sure to get whipped if you fight with Peter,” she said. “You’re too fat to fight.”
After that, no moral force on earth could have prevented Felix from fighting. He would have faced an army with banners.
“You might settle it by drawing lots,” said Cecily desperately.
“Drawing lots is wickeder that fighting,” said Dan. “It’s a kind of gambling.”
“What would Aunt Jane say if she knew you were going to fight?”
Cecily demanded of Peter.
“Don’t you drag my Aunt Jane into this affair,” said Peter darkly.
“You said you were going to be a Presbyterian,” persisted Cecily.
“Good Presbyterians don’t fight.”
“Oh, don’t they! I heard your Uncle Roger say that Presbyterians were the best for fighting in the world — or the worst, I forget which he said, but it means the same thing.”
Cecily had but one more shot in her locker.
“I thought you said in your sermon, Master Peter, that people shouldn’t fight.”
“I said they oughtn’t to fight for fun, or for bad temper,” retorted Peter. “This is different. I know what I’m fighting for but I can’t think of the word.”
“I guess you mean principle,” I suggested.
“Yes, that’s it,” agreed Peter. “It’s all right to fight for principle. It’s kind of praying with your fists.”
“Oh, can’t you do something to prevent them from fighting, Sara?” pleaded Cecily, turning to the Story Girl, who was sitting on a bin, swinging her shapely bare feet to and fro.
“It doesn’t do to meddle in an affair of this kind between boys,” said the Story Girl sagely.
I may be mistaken, but I do not believe the Story Girl wanted that fight stopped. And I am far from being sure that Felicity did either.
It was ultimately arranged that the combat should take place in the fir wood behind Uncle Roger’s granary. It was a nice, remote, bosky place where no prowling grown-up would be likely to intrude. And thither we all resorted at sunset.
“I hope Felix will beat,” said the Story Girl to me, “not only for the family honour, but because that was a mean, mean prayer of Peter’s. Do you think he will?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed dubiously. “Felix is too fat. He’ll get out of breath in no time. And Peter is such a cool customer, and he’s a year older than Felix. But then Felix has had some practice. He has fought boys in Toronto. And this is Peter’s first fight.”
“Did you ever fight?” asked the Story Girl.
“Once,” I said briefly, dreading the next question, which promptly came.
“Who beat?”
It is sometimes a bitter thing to tell the truth, especially to a young lady for whom you have a great admiration. I had a struggle with temptation in which I frankly confess I might have been worsted had it not been for a saving and timely remembrance of a certain resolution made on the day preceding Judgment Sunday.
“The other fellow,” I said with reluctant honesty.
“Well,” said the Story Girl, “I think it doesn’t matter whether you get whipped or not so long as you fight a good, square fight.”
Her potent voice made me feel that I was quite a hero after all, and the sting went out of my recollection of that old fight.
When we arrived behind the granary the others were all there. Cecily was very pale, and Felix and Peter were taking off their coats. There was a pure yellow sunset that evening, and the aisles of the fir wood were flooded with its radiance. A cool, autumnal wind was whistling among the dark boughs and scattering blood red leaves from the maple at the end of the granary.
“Now,” said Dan, “I’ll count, and when I say three you pitch in, and hammer each other until one of you has had enough. Cecily, keep quiet. Now, one — two — three!”
Peter and Felix “pitched in,” with more zeal than discretion on both sides. As a result, Peter got what later developed into a black eye, and Felix’s nose began to bleed. Cecily gave a shriek and ran out of the wood. We thought she had fled because she could not endure the sight of blood, and we were not sorry, for her manifest disapproval and anxiety were damping the excitement of th
e occasion.
Felix and Peter drew apart after that first onset, and circled about one another warily. Then, just as they had come to grips again, Uncle Alec walked around the corner of the granary, with Cecily behind him.
He was not angry. There was a quizzical look in his eyes. But he took the combatants by their shirt collars and dragged them apart.
“This stops right here, boys,” he said. “You know I don’t allow fighting.”
“Oh, but Uncle Alec, it was this way,” began Felix eagerly.
“Peter—”
“No, I don’t want to hear about it,” said Uncle Alec sternly. “I don’t care what you were fighting about, but you must settle your quarrels in a different fashion. Remember my commands, Felix. Peter, Roger is looking for you to wash his buggy. Be off.”
Peter went off rather sullenly, and Felix, also sullenly, sat down and began to nurse his nose. He turned his back on Cecily.
Cecily “caught it” after Uncle Alec had gone. Dan called her a tell-tale and a baby, and sneered at her until Cecily began to cry.
“I couldn’t stand by and watch Felix and Peter pound each other all to pieces,” she sobbed. “They’ve been such friends, and it was dreadful to see them fighting.”
“Uncle Roger would have let them fight it out,” said the Story Girl discontentedly. “Uncle Roger believes in boys fighting. He says it’s as harmless a way as any of working off their original sin. Peter and Felix wouldn’t have been any worse friends after it. They’d have been better friends because the praying question would have been settled. And now it can’t be — unless Felicity can coax Peter to give up praying against Felix.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 390