THE SPEAKING PICTURE
There had been a great discussion in the High School all the week, and asFriday drew nearer the excitement grew more and more intense. For BartonHigh School had many girls from the Hill section of the town where themill owners lived, and also many girls from the River section where themill workers lived.
There was to be an election for the president of the Senior Class and whenthe names of the candidates for the presidency had been posted on thebulletin board by the nominating committee, a mill girl headed the list.
Such a thing had never been heard of in the school. Always the presidentof the class had been the one who could entertain the class, who couldstand out prominently during class week, whose father would help to paythe bills of the Commencement time.
But at the beginning of the year, the class had decided to learn to dothings according to parliamentary law and to be democratic, and this wasthe result. Never for a moment had the girls and boys of the Hill sectiondreamed that a committee would dare to choose a River-section president.
To be sure, the girl whom they had chosen had led the class both in marksand in the debating club. Yes, she could make a splendid Commencement Dayspeaker, but she was a River-section girl, and they just wouldn't haveit.
So they argued and pleaded and tried to persuade their friends to make herfail the election. Why, there would be no fun at all during Commencementweek if she led the class. She had nothing at all to spend for fun.
Chief among the objectors had been Mary Waite. Her father owned thelargest mill and she had thought surely the place was to be hers. She hadeven planned how she would entertain the class on the lawn of her home.She was ready to do almost anything to upset the plans of the nominatingcommittee.
So the group of girls were still scolding when they reached the door ofthe museum about four o'clock on Thursday afternoon. Mary had an errand inthe picture gallery and the rest were to wait for her in the corridorbelow.
As she entered the gallery, she pulled from her book the assignment whichhad been given to her:
"Study the pictures in Gallery Nine and bring the name and the artist ofthe picture that speaks most plainly to you."
What an assignment! How could any picture speak to her when she wasfeeling in such an unpleasant mood. She passed down one side and thenalong the end of the gallery. She liked the children in this and theflowers in that. But surely none would speak to her.
Down another side she went, stopping more often to look at the things thatinterested her.
Suddenly she saw a picture of the Christ. It was at the end of thegallery, and a wonderful light was thrown on it from a globe just abovethe picture. The Christ was standing in a room and in his face was such atender, thoughtful look.
Mary sat down in the seat nearest to her. She did not want to move nearerlest she lose the rare expression of the face of the Christ. It had onlybeen a few weeks since she had been standing before the altar of thechurch, making herself a gift to the Christ. So as she sat and watchedthe picture, she thought to herself:
"What a wonderful man he was! I should have loved to have had him look inmy face as he is looking into theirs. I wish I might have really seenhim."
After a time she moved nearer. Then she could see the faces of the otherpersons in the picture. From where she had been sitting, only the face ofthe Christ had seemed to stand out, though one knew the others were there.They were sitting about the table in a home.
What a rude table it was! How roughly they were dressed! Why, they wereonly poor people, yet the Christ was standing in their midst, giving themto eat.
She studied his face. How beautiful it was! How much she loved him! Howeager she was to give him her very best! What could she do to show herlove? And as she looked she heard a voice saying to her: "The poor ye havealways with you, but me ye have not always."
Then somehow the faces of the men in the picture seemed like those of themen who worked in her father's mill and in the face of the woman she saw alikeness to Elizabeth Meeker. But the face of the Christ was still full oflove and tenderness.
The head of the girl drooped as she sat long before the picture. What hadshe against Elizabeth Meeker? Nothing except the fact that she was poor.She was a girl that Jesus would have loved, for she was always dependable.Yet Mary was trying to take away the greatest pleasure that might evercome to that poor girl.
She had no pretty home, she had little time for play; she hadn't even amother. Yet Mary knew she had been very, very unkind to her.
And now the face of the Christ seemed searching her very soul: "The poorye have always with you, but me ye have not always. Inasmuch as ye havedone it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
There was a sound of a bell and Mary knew she must leave the room. Onelast look she gave to the Christ of the picture. Then she smiled andnodded her head.
When she came to join the girls below, she said quietly:
"Girls, let's give the school a surprise to-morrow. Let's go and vote forElizabeth Meeker, since so many of the class want her for president, andthen prove to the rest that we can still have a good time duringCommencement week. Father will let us use the grounds when we like and wecan all have a part in the planning of the fun. I should just like to seeif she really can make a class president as well as we girls from theHill."
And though the girls couldn't understand why she had changed, yet theywere glad to follow her lead.
That night Mary Waite sat before her desk in her pretty room on the Hilland looked again at the assignment which had been given to her--
"Study the pictures in Gallery Nine and bring to me the name of thepicture and the artist who painted the one that speaks most plainly toyou."
And in no uncertain letters she wrote:
Christ in the Home of the Lowly. By L'Hermitte
Mary Waite.
Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens Page 26