"What I can't understand," said Carol mournfully, "is why folks don't keep their mouths shut. I know that sounds very inelegant, but it expresses my idea perfectly. Can't I have a good time in my own way without the whole church pedaling me from door to door?"

The twinkle in her father's eyes deepened. "What do you call it, Carol, 'sowing seeds of kindness'?"

"I should say not," came the emphatic retort. "I call it sowing seeds of fun. It's a circus to go around and gloat over folks when they are sick or sorry, or--"

"But they tell me you don't gloat. Mrs. Marling says you cried with Jeanie half a day when her dog died."

"Oh, that's my way of gloating," said Carol, nothing daunted, but plainly glad to get away without further interrogation.

It was a strange thing that of all the parsonage girls, Carol, light-hearted, whimsical, mischievous Carol, was the one most dear to the hearts of her father's people. Not the gentle Prudence, nor charming Fairy, not clever Lark nor conscientious Connie, could rival the "naughty twin" in Mount Mark's affections. And in spite of her odd curt speeches, and her openly-vaunted vanity, Mount Mark insisted she was "good." Certainly she was willing! "Get Carol Starr,--she'll do it," was the commonest phrase in Mount Mark's vocabulary. Whatever was wanted, whatever the sacrifice involved, Carol stood ready to fill the bill. Not for kindness,--oh, dear no,--Carol staunchly disclaimed any such niceness as that. She did it for fun, pure and simple. She said she liked to show off. She insisted that she liked to feel that she was the pivot on which little old Mount Mark turned. But this was only when she was found out. As far as she could she kept her little "seeds of fun"

carefully up her sleeve, and it was only when the indiscreet adoration of her friends brought the budding plants to light, that she laughingly declared "it was a circus to go and gloat over folks."

Once in the early dusk of a summer evening, she discovered old Ben Peters, half intoxicated, slumbering noisily on a pile of sacks in a corner of the parsonage barn. Carol was sorry, but not at all frightened. The poor, kindly, weak, old man was as familiar to her as any figure in Mount Mark. He was always in a more or less helpless state of intoxication, but also he was always harmless, kind-hearted and generous. She prodded him vigorously with the handle of the pitch-fork until he was aroused to consciousness, and then guided him into the woodshed with the buggy whip. When he was seated on a chunk of wood she faced him sternly.

"Well, you are a dandy," she said. "Going into a parsonage barn, of all places in the world, to sleep off an odor like yours! Why didn't you go down to Fred Greer's harness shop, that's where you got it. We're such an awfully temperance town, you know! But the parsonage! Why, if the trustees had happened into the barn and caught a whiff of that smell, father'd have lost his job. Now you just take warning from me, and keep away from this parsonage until you can develop a good Methodist odor.

Oh, don't cry about it! Your very tears smell rummy. Just you hang on to that chunk of wood, and I'll bring you some coffee."

Like a thief in the night she sneaked into the house, and presently returned with a huge tin of coffee, steaming hot. He drank it eagerly, but kept a wary eye on the haughty twin, who stood above him with the whip in her hand.

"That's better. Now, sit down and listen to me. If you would come to the parsonage, you have to take your medicine. Silver and gold have we none, but such as we have we give to you. And religion's all we've got. You're here, and I'm here. We haven't any choir or any Bible, but parsonage folks have to be adaptable. Now then, Ben Peters, you've got to get converted."

The poor doddering old fellow, sobered by this awful announcement, looked helplessly at the window. It was too small. And slender active Carol, with the buggy whip, stood between him and the door.

"No, you can't escape. You're done for this time,--it's the straight and narrow from this on. Now listen,--it's really very simple. And you need it pretty badly, Ben. Of course you don't realize it when you're drunk, you can't see how terribly disgusting you are, but honestly, Ben, a pig is a ray of sunshine compared to a drunk man. You're a blot on the landscape. You're a--you're a--" She fished vainly for words, longing for Lark's literary flow of language.

"I'm not drunk," he stammered.

"No, you're not, thanks to the buggy whip and that strong coffee, but you're no beauty even yet. Well now, to come down to religion again. You can't stop drinking--"

"I could," he bl.u.s.tered feebly, "I could if I wanted to."

"Oh, no, you couldn't. You haven't backbone enough. You couldn't stop to save your life. But," Carol's voice lowered a little, and she grew shy, but very earnest, "but G.o.d can stop you, because He has enough backbone for a hundred thousand--er, jellyfishes. And--you see, it's like this.

G.o.d made the world, and put the people in it. Now listen carefully, Ben, and I'll make it just as simple as possible so it can sink through the smell and get at you. G.o.d made the world, and put the people in it. And the people sinned, worshiped idols and went back on G.o.d, and--did a lot of other mean things. So G.o.d was in honor bound to punish them, for that's the law, and G.o.d's the judge that can't be bought. He had to inflict punishment. But G.o.d and Jesus talked it over, and they felt awfully bad about it, for they kind of liked the people anyhow." She stared at the disreputable figure slouching on the chunk of wood. "It's very hard to understand, very. I should think they would despise us,--some of us," she added significantly. "I'm sure I should. But anyhow they didn't. Are you getting me?"

The bleary eyes were really fastened intently on the girl's bright face, and he hung upon her words.

"Well, they decided that Jesus should come down here and live, and be perfectly good, so He would not deserve any punishment, and then G.o.d would allow Him to receive the punishment anyhow, and the rest of us could go free. That would cover the law. See? Punishing Him when He deserved no punishment. Then they could forgive us heathens that didn't deserve it. Do you get that?" She looked at him anxiously. "It all hinges on that, you know. I'm not a preacher myself, but that's the idea. So Jesus was crucified, and then G.o.d said, 'There He is! Look on Him, believe in Him, worship Him, and in His name you stand O. K.' See?

That means, if we give Him the chance, G.o.d'll let Jesus take our share of the punishment. So we've just got to let go, and say, 'All right, here I am. I believe it, I give up, I know I don't amount to a hill of beans--and you can say it very honestly--but if you want me, and will call it square, G.o.d knows I'm willing.' And there you are."

"Won't I drink any more?"

"No, not if you let go hard enough. I mean," she caught herself up quickly, "I mean if you let clear go and turn the job over to G.o.d. But you're not to think you can keep decent by yourself, for you can't--it's not born in you, and something else is--just let go, and stay let go.

After that, it's G.o.d's job, and unless you stick in and try to manage yourself, He'll see you through."

"All right, I'll do it."

Carol gasped. She opened her lips a few times, and swallowed hard. She didn't know what to do next. Wildly she racked her brain for the next step in this vital performance.

"I--think we ought to pray," she said feebly.

"All right, we'll pray." He rolled curiously off the stick of wood, and fell, as if by instinct, into the att.i.tude of prayer.

Carol gazed about her helplessly. But true to her training, she knelt beside him. Then came silence.

"I--well, I'll pray," she said with grim determination. "Dear Father in Heaven," she began weakly, and then she forgot her timidity and her fear, and realized only that this was a crisis in the life of the drunken man.

"Oh, G.o.d, he'll do it. He'll let go, and turn it over to you. He isn't worth anything, G.o.d, none of us are, but You can handle him, for You've had worse jobs than this, though it doesn't seem possible. You'll help him, G.o.d, and love him, and show him how, for he hasn't the faintest idea what to do next, and neither have I. But You brought him into our barn to-night, and You'll see him through. Oh, G.o.d, for Jesus' sake, help Ben Peters. Amen.

"Now, what shall I do?" she wondered.

"What's your father for?" She looked quickly at Ben Peters. He had not spoken, but something certainly had asked, "What's your father for?"

"You stay here, Ben, and pray for yourself, and I'll send father out.

I'm not just sure what to say next, and father'll finish you up. You pray for all you're worth."

She was gone in a flash, through the kitchen, through the hall, up the stairs two at a time, and her arm thrown closely about her father's shoulder.

"Oh, father, I got stuck," she wailed. "I'm so ashamed of myself. But you can finish him off, can't you? I honestly believe he's started."

He took her firmly by the arms and squared her around on his lap. "One, two, three, ready, go. Now, what?"

"Ben Peters. He was drunk in the barn and I took him into the woodshed and gave him some hot coffee,--and some religion, but not enough to hurt him. I told him he had to get converted, and he said he would. So I told him about it, but you'd better tell him again, for I'm afraid I made quite a mess of it. And then we prayed, and I was stuck for fair, father, for I couldn't think what to do next. But I do believe it was G.o.d who said, 'What's your father for?' And so I left him praying for himself, and--you'd better hurry, or he may get cold feet and run away.

Be easy with him, father, but don't let him off. This is the first chance we've ever had at Ben Peters, and G.o.d'll never forgive us if we let him slip through our fingers."

Carol was dumped off on to the floor and her father was half-way down the stairs before she caught her breath. Then she smiled. Then she blushed.

"That was one bad job," she said to herself sadly. "I'm a disgrace to the Methodist church. Thank goodness the trustees'll never hear of it.

I'll bribe Ben Peters to eternal silence if I have to do it with kisses." Then her face grew very soft. "Poor old man! Oh, the poor old man!" A quick rush of tears blinded her eyes, and her throat throbbed.

"Oh, why do they,--what makes men like that? Can't they see, can't they know, how awful they are, how--" She shuddered. "I can't see for the life of me what makes G.o.d treat us decently at all." Her face brightened again. "I was a bad job, all right, but I feel kind of pleased about it.

I hope father won't mention it to the girls."

And Ben Peters truly had a start, incredible as it seemed. Yes, as Carol had warned him, he forgot sometimes and tried to steer for himself, and always crashed into the rocks. Then Carol, with angry eyes and scornful voice, berated him for trying to get hold of G.o.d's job, and cautioned him anew about "sticking in when it was not his affair any more." It took time, a long time, and hard work, and many, many prayers went up from Carol's bedside, and from the library at the head of the stairs, but there came a time when Ben Peters let go for good and all, and turned to Carol, standing beside the bed with sorry frightened eyes, and said quietly:

"It's all right, Carol. I've let go. You're a mighty nice little girl.

I've let go for good this time. I'm just slipping along where He sends me,--it's all right," he finished drowsily. And fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CONNIE PROBLEM

Mr. Starr was getting ready to go to conference, and the girls hovered about him with anxious eyes. This was their fifth conference since coming to Mount Mark,--the time limit for Methodist ministers was five years. The Starrs, therefore, would be transferred, and where? Small wonder that the girls followed him around the house and spoke in soft voices and looked with tender eyes at the old parsonage and the wide lawn. They would be leaving it next week. Already the curtains were down, and laundered, and packed. The trunks were filled, the books were boxed. Yes, they were leaving, but whither were they bound?

"Get your ecclesiastical dander up, father," Carol urged, "don't let them give us a church fight, or a twenty-thousand-dollar debt on a thousand-dollar congregation."