“Now, Sara,” she said, “you just take my advice and go into this with all your heart if you go at all. Never mind if it is bad. There’s no use in being naughty if you spoil your fun by wishing all the time you were good. You can repent afterwards, but there is no use in mixing the two things together.”
“I’m not repenting,” protested Sara. “I’m only scared of ma finding it out.”
“Oh!” The Story Girl’s voice expressed her scorn. For remorse she had understanding and sympathy; but fear of her fellow creatures was something unknown to her. “Didn’t Judy Pineau promise you solemnly she wouldn’t tell?”
“Yes; but maybe some one who sees me there will mention it to ma.”
“Well, if you are so scared you’d better not go. It isn’t too late. Here’s your own gate,” said Cecily.
But Sara could not give up the delights of the show. So she walked on, a small, miserable testimony that the way of the transgressor is never easy, even when said transgressor is only a damsel of eleven.
The magic lantern show was a splendid one. The views were good and the lecturer witty. We repeated his jokes to each other all the way home. Sara, who had not enjoyed the exhibition at all, seemed to feel more cheerful when it was over and she was going home. The Story Girl on the contrary was gloomy.
“There were Markdale people there,” she confided to me, “and the Williamsons live next door to the Cowans, who have measles. I wish I’d never egged Sara on to going—but don’t tell Felicity I said so. If Sara Ray had really enjoyed the show I wouldn’t mind. But she didn’t. I could see that. So I’ve done wrong and made her do wrong—and there’s nothing to show for it.”
The night was scented and mysterious. The wind was playing an eerie fleshless melody in the reeds of the brook hollow. The sky was dark and starry, and across it the Milky Way flung its shimmering misty ribbon.
“There’s four hundred million stars in the Milky Way,” quoth Peter, who frequently astonished us by knowing more than any hired boy could be expected to. He had a retentive memory, and never forgot anything he heard or read. The few books left to him by his oft-referred-to Aunt Jane had stocked his mind with a miscellaneous information which sometimes made Felix and me doubt if we knew as much as Peter after all. Felicity was so impressed by his knowledge of astronomy that she dropped back from the other girls and walked beside him. She had not done so before because he was barefooted. It was permissible for hired boys to go to public meetings—when not held in the church—with bare feet, and no particular disgrace attached to it. But Felicity would not walk with a barefooted companion. It was dark now, so nobody would notice his feet.
“I know a story about the Milky Way,” said the Story Girl, brightening up. “I read it in a book of Aunt Louisa’s in town, and I learned it off by heart. Once there were two archangels in heaven, named Zerah and Zulamith—”
“Have angels names—same as people?” interrupted Peter.
“Yes, of course. They must have. They’d be all mixed up if they hadn’t.”
“And when I’m an angel—if I ever get to be one—will my name still be Peter?”
“No. You’ll have a new name up there,” said Cecily gently. “It says so in the Bible.”
“Well, I’m glad of that. Peter would be such a funny name for an angel. And what is the difference between angels and archangels?”
“Oh, archangels are angels that have been angels so long that they’ve had time to grow better and brighter and more beautiful than newer angels,” said the Story Girl, who probably made that explanation up on the spur of the moment, just to pacify Peter.
“How long does it take for an angel to grow into an archangel?” pursued Peter.
“Oh, I don’t know. Millions of years likely. And even then I don’t suppose all the angels do. A good many of them must just stay plain angels, I expect.”
“I shall be satisfied just to be a plain angel,” said Felicity modestly.
“Oh, see here, if you’re going to interrupt and argue over everything, we’ll never get the story told,” said Felix. “Dry up, all of you, and let the Story Girl go on.”
We dried up, and the Story Girl went on.
“Zerah and Zulamith loved each other, just as mortals love, and this is forbidden by the laws of the Almighty. And because Zerah and Zulamith had so broken God’s law they were banished from His presence to the uttermost bounds of the universe. If they had been banished together it would have been no punishment; so Zerah was exiled to a star on one side of the universe, and Zulamith was sent to a star on the other side of the universe; and between them was a fathomless abyss which thought itself could not cross. Only one thing could cross it—and that was love. Zulamith yearned for Zerah with such fidelity and longing that he began to build up a bridge of light from his star; and Zerah, not knowing this, but loving and longing for him, began to build a similar bridge of light from her star. For a thousand thousand years they both built the bridge of light, and at last they met and sprang into each other’s arms. Their toil and loneliness and suffering were all over and forgotten, and the bridge they had built spanned the gulf between their stars of exile.
“Now, when the other archangels saw what had been done they flew in fear and anger to God’s white throne, and cried to Him.
“ ‘See what these rebellious ones have done! They have built them a bridge of light across the universe, and set Thy decree of separation at naught. Do Thou, then, stretch forth Thine arm and destroy their impious work.’
“They ceased—and all heaven was hushed. Through the silence sounded the voice of the Almighty.
“ ‘Nay,’ He said, ‘whatsoever in my universe true love hath builded not even the Almighty can destroy. The bridge must stand forever.’
“And,” concluded the Story Girl, her face upturned to the sky and her big eyes filled with starlight, “it stands still. That bridge is the Milky Way.”
“What a lovely story,” sighed Sara Ray, who had been wooed to a temporary forgetfulness of her woes by its charm.
The rest of us came back to earth, feeling that we had been wandering among the hosts of heaven. We were not old enough to appreciate fully the wonderful meaning of the legend; but we felt its beauty and its appeal. To us forevermore the Milky Way would be, not Peter’s overwhelming garland of suns, but the lucent bridge, love-created, on which the banished archangels crossed from star to star.
We had to go up Sara Ray’s lane with her to her very door, for she was afraid Peg Bowen would catch her if she went alone. Then the Story Girl and I walked up the hill together. Peter and Felicity lagged behind. Cecily and Dan and Felix were walking before us, hand in hand, singing a hymn. Cecily had a very sweet voice, and I listened in delight. But the Story Girl sighed.
“What if Sara does take the measles?” she asked miserably.
“Everyone has to have the measles sometime,” I said comfortingly, “and the younger you are the better.”
XI
The Story Girl Does Penance
Ten days later, Aunt Olivia and Uncle Roger went to town one evening, to remain over night and the next day. Peter and the Story Girl were to stay at Uncle Alec’s during their absence.
We were in the orchard at sunset, listening to the story of King Cophetua and the beggar maid—all of us, except Peter, who was hoeing turnips, and Felicity, who had gone down the hill on an errand to Mrs. Ray.
The Story Girl impersonated the beggar maid so vividly, and with such an illusion of beauty, that we did not wonder in the least at the king’s love for her. I had read the story before, and it had been my opinion that it was “rot.” No king, I felt certain, would ever marry a beggar maid when he had princesses galore from whom to choose. But now I understood it all.
When Felicity returned we concluded from her expression that she had news. And she had.
“Sara is real sick,” she said, with regret, and something that was not regret mingled in her voice. “She has a cold and sore throat, and she i
s feverish. Mrs. Ray says if she isn’t better by the morning she’s going to send for the doctor. And she is afraid it’s the measles.”
Felicity flung the last sentence at the Story Girl, who turned very pale.
“Oh, do you suppose she caught them at the magic lantern show?” she said miserably.
“Where else could she have caught them?” said Felicity mercilessly. “I didn’t see her, of course—Mrs. Ray met me at the door and told me not to come in. But Mrs. Ray says the measles always go awful hard with the Rays—if they don’t die completely of them it leaves them deaf or half blind, or something like that. Of course,” added Felicity, her heart melting at sight of the misery in the Story Girl’s piteous eyes, “Mrs. Ray always looks on the dark side, and it may not be the measles Sara has after all.”
But Felicity had done her work too thoroughly. The Story Girl was not to be comforted.
“I’d give anything if I’d never put Sara up to going to that show,” she said. “It’s all my fault—but the punishment falls on Sara, and that isn’t fair. I’d go this minute and confess the whole thing to Mrs. Ray; but if I did it might get Sara into more trouble, and I mustn’t do that. I sha’n’t sleep a wink to-night.”
I don’t think she did. She looked very pale and woebegone when she came down to breakfast. But, for all that, there was a certain exhilaration about her.
“I’m going to do penance all day for coaxing Sara to disobey her mother,” she announced with chastened triumph.
“Penance?” we murmured in bewilderment.
“Yes. I’m going to deny myself everything I like, and do everything I can think of that I don’t like, just to punish myself for being so wicked. And if any of you think of anything I don’t, just mention it to me. I thought it out last night. Maybe Sara won’t be so very sick if God sees I’m truly sorry.”
“He can see it anyhow, without you’re doing anything,” said Cecily.
“Well, my conscience will feel better.”
“I don’t believe Presbyterians ever do penance,” said Felicity dubiously. “I never heard of one doing it.”
But the rest of us rather looked with favour on the Story Girl’s idea. We felt sure that she would do penance as picturesquely and thoroughly as she did everything else.
“You might put peas in your shoes, you know,” suggested Peter.
“The very thing! I never thought of that. I’ll get some after breakfast. I’m not going to eat a single thing all day, except bread and water—and not much of that!”
This, we felt, was a heroic measure indeed. To sit down to one of Aunt Janet’s meals, in ordinary health and appetite, and eat nothing but bread and water—that would be penance with a vengeance! We felt we could never do it. But the Story Girl did it. We admired and pitied her. But now I do not think that she either needed our pity or deserved our admiration. Her ascetic fare was really sweeter to her than honey of Hymettus. She was, though quite unconsciously, acting a part, and tasting all the subtle joy of the artist, which is so much more exquisite than any material pleasure.
Aunt Janet, of course, noticed the Story Girl’s abstinence and asked if she was sick.
“No. I am just doing penance, Aunt Janet, for a sin I committed. I can’t confess it, because that would bring trouble on another person. So I’m going to do penance all day. You don’t mind, do you?”
Aunt Janet was in a very good humour that morning, so she merely laughed.
“Not if you don’t go too far with your nonsense,” she said tolerantly.
“Thank you. And will you give me a handful of hard peas after breakfast, Aunt Janet? I want to put them in my shoes.”
“There isn’t any; I used the last in the soup yesterday.”
“Oh!” The Story Girl was much disappointed. “Then I suppose I’ll have to do without. The new peas wouldn’t hurt enough. They’re so soft they’d just squash flat.”
“I’ll tell you,” said Peter, “I’ll pick up a lot of those little round pebbles on Mr. King’s front walk. They’ll be just as good as peas.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Aunt Janet. “Sara must not do penance in that way. She would wear holes in her stockings, and might seriously bruise her feet.”
“What would you say if I took a whip and whipped my bare shoulders till the blood came?” demanded the Story Girl aggrieved.
“I wouldn’t say anything,” retorted Aunt Janet. “I’d simply turn you over my knee and give you a sound, solid spanking, Miss Sara. You’d find that penance enough.”
The Story Girl was crimson with indignation. To have such a remark made to you—when you were fourteen and a half—and before the boys, too! Really, Aunt Janet could be very dreadful.
It was vacation, and there was not much to do that day; we were soon free to seek the orchard. But the Story Girl would not come. She had seated herself in the darkest, hottest corner of the kitchen, with a piece of old cotton in her hand.
“I am not going out to play to-day,” she said, “and I’m not going to tell a single story. Aunt Janet won’t let me put pebbles in my shoes, but I’ve put a thistle next my skin on my back and it sticks into me if I lean back the least bit. And I’m going to work buttonholes all over this cotton. I hate working buttonholes worse than anything in the world, so I’m going to work them all day.”
“What’s the good of working buttonholes on an old rag?” asked Felicity.
“It isn’t any good. The beauty of penance is that it makes you feel uncomfortable. So it doesn’t matter what you do, whether it’s useful or not, so long as it’s nasty. Oh, I wonder how Sara is this morning.”
“Mother’s going down this afternoon,” said Felicity. “She says none of us must go near the place till we know whether it is the measles or not.”
“I’ve thought of a great penance,” said Cecily eagerly. “Don’t go to the missionary meeting tonight.”
The Story Girl looked piteous.
“I thought of that myself,—but I can’t stay home, Cecily. It would be more than flesh and blood could endure. I must hear that missionary speak. They say he was all but eaten by cannibals once. Just think how many new stories I’d have to tell after I’d heard him! No, I must go, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll wear my school dress and hat. That will be penance. Felicity, when you set the table for dinner, put the broken-handled knife for me. I hate it so. And I’m going to take a dose of Mexican Tea every two hours. It’s such dreadful tasting stuff—but it’s a good blood purifier, so Aunt Janet can’t object to it.”
The Story Girl carried out her self-imposed penance fully. All day she sat in the kitchen and worked buttonholes, subsisting on bread and water and Mexican Tea.
Felicity did a mean thing. She went to work and made little raisin pies, right there in the kitchen before the Story Girl. The smell of raisin pies is something to tempt an anchorite; and the Story Girl was exceedingly fond of them. Felicity ate two in her very presence, and then brought the rest out to us in the orchard. The Story Girl could see us through the window, carousing without stint on raisin pies and Uncle Edward’s cherries. But she worked on at her buttonholes. She would not look at the exciting serial in the new magazine Dan brought home from the post-office, neither would she open a letter from her father. Pat came over, but his most seductive purrs won no notice from his mistress, who refused herself the pleasure of even patting him.
Aunt Janet could not go down the hill in the afternoon to find out how Sara was because company came to tea—the Millwards from Markdale. Mr. Millward was a doctor, and Mrs. Millward was a B.A. Aunt Janet was very desirous that everything should be as nice as possible, and we were all sent to our rooms before tea to wash and dress up. The Story Girl slipped over home, and when she came back we gasped. She had combed her hair out straight, and braided it in a tight, kinky, pudgy braid; and she wore an old dress of faded print, with holes in the elbows and ragged flounces, which was much too short for her.
“Sara Stanley, have you ta
ken leave of your senses?” demanded Aunt Janet. “What do you mean by putting on such a rig! Don’t you know I have company to tea?”
“Yes, and that is just why I put it on, Aunt Janet. I want to mortify the flesh—”
“I’ll ‘mortify’ you, if I catch you showing yourself to the Millwards like that, my girl! Go right home and dress yourself decently—or eat your supper in the kitchen.”
The Story Girl chose the latter alternative. She was highly indignant. I verily believe that to sit at the dining-room table, in that shabby, outgrown dress, conscious of looking her ugliest, and eating only bread and water before the critical Millwards would have been positive bliss to her.
When we went to the missionary meeting that evening, the Story Girl wore her school dress and hat, while Felicity and Cecily were in their pretty muslins. And she had tied her hair with a snuff-brown ribbon which was very unbecoming to her.
The first person we saw in the church porch was Mrs. Ray. She told us that Sara had nothing worse than a feverish cold.
The missionary had at least seven happy listeners that night. We were all glad that Sara did not have measles, and the Story Girl was radiant.
“Now you see all your penance was wasted,” said Felicity, as we walked home, keeping close together because of the rumour that Peg Bowen was abroad.
“Oh, I don’t know. I feel better since I punished myself. But I’m going to make up for it to-morrow,” said the Story Girl energetically. “In fact, I’ll begin to-night. I’m going to the pantry as soon as I get home, and I’ll read father’s letter before I go to bed. Wasn’t the missionary splendid? That cannibal story was simply grand. I tried to remember every word, so that I can tell it just as he told it. Missionaries are such noble people.”
“I’d like to be a missionary and have adventures like that,” said Felix.
“It would be all right if you could be sure the cannibals would be interrupted in the nick of time as his were,” said Dan. “But sposen they weren’t?”
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