"Yes, I'm afraid mother's got her heart set on Harriet Hale," said the son dubiously, "but I can't see it that way."

"H'm! Your mother likes show," sighed the father comically, "but she's got a good heart, and she'll bowl over all right and make the best of it. You know neither your mother nor I were such high and mighties when we were young, and _we_ married for _love_. But now, if you really mean business, I don't see why we can't do something right away.

When does that girl have her vacation? Of course she gets one sometime. Why couldn't your mother just invite the whole family to occupy the sh.o.r.e cottage for a little while,--get up some excuse or other,--ask 'em to take care of it? You know it's lying idle all this summer, and two servants down there growing fat with nothing to do. We might ship Elizabeth down there and let 'em be company for her. They seem like a fine set of children. It would do Elizabeth good to know them."

"Oh, she's crazy about them. She's been out a number of times with me, and don't you remember she had Carol out to stay with her?"

"Was that the black-eyed, sensible girl? Well, I declare! I didn't recognize her. She was all dolled up out at our house. I suppose Elizabeth loaned 'em to her, eh? Well, I'm glad. She's got sense, too. That's the kind of people I like my children to know. Now if that vacation could only be arranged to come when your mother and I take that Western trip, why, it would be just the thing for Elizabeth, work right all around. Now, the thing for you to do is to find out about that vacation, and begin to work things. Then you could have everything all planned, and rush the work so it would be done by the time they came back."

So the two conspirators plotted, while all unconscious of their interest Shirley was trying to get herself in hand and not think how Graham's eyes had looked when he said good-night to her.

CHAPTER XIX

Since the pastor from the village had called upon them, the young people of the stone barn had been identified with the little white church in the valley. Shirley had taken a cla.s.s of boys in the Sunday-school and was playing the organ, as George had once predicted.

Carol was helping the primary teacher, George was a.s.sistant librarian and secretary, Harley was in Shirley's cla.s.s, and Doris was one of the primaries.

Shirley had at once identified herself with the struggling little Christian Endeavor society and was putting new life into it, with her enthusiasm, her new ideas about getting hold of the young people of the community, and her wonderful knack of getting the silent ones to take part in the meetings. She had suggested new committees, had invited the music committee to meet her at her home some evening to plan out special music, and to cooperate with the social committee in planning for music at the socials. She always carried a few appropriate clippings or neatly written verses or other quotations to meeting to slip into the hands of some who had not prepared to speak, and she saw to it that her brothers and sisters were always ready to say something.

Withal, she did her part so un.o.btrusively that none of the old members could think she was trying to usurp power or make herself prominent.

She became a quiet power behind the powers, to whom the president and all the other officers came for advice, and who seemed always ready to help in any work, or to find a way out of any difficulty. Christian Endeavor in the little white church at once took great strides after the advent of the Hollisters, and even the idlers on the street corners were moved with curiosity to drop into the twilight service of the young people and see what went on, and why everybody seemed so interested. But the secret of it all, Shirley thought, was the little five-minute prayer service that the prayer-meeting committee held in the tiny primary room just before the regular meeting. Shirley as chairman of the prayer-meeting committee had started this little meeting, and she always came into the larger room with an exalted look upon her face and a feeling of strength in her heart from this brief speaking with her Master.

Shirley was somewhat aghast the next Sabbath to have Sidney Graham arrive and ask her to take a ride with him.

"Why, I was just going to church," she said, half hesitating, and then smiling bravely up at him; "besides, I have a Sunday-school cla.s.s. I couldn't very well leave them, you know."

He looked at her for a moment thoughtfully, trying to bridge in his thoughts this difference between them. Then he said quite humbly,

"Will you take me with you?"

"To church?" she asked, and there was a glad ring in her voice. Would he really go to church with her?

"Yes, and to Sunday School if I may. I haven't been to Sunday School in years. I'd like to go if you'll only let me."

Her cheeks grew rosy. She had a quick mental picture of putting him in Deacon Pettigrew's Bible cla.s.s.

"I'm afraid there isn't any cla.s.s you would enjoy," she began with a troubled look. "It's only a little country church, you know. They don't have all the modern system, and very few teachers."

"I should enjoy going into your cla.s.s very much if I might."

"Oh, mine are just boys, just little boys like Harley!" said Shirley, aghast.

"I've been a little boy once, you know I should enjoy it very much,"

said the applicant with satisfaction.

"Oh, but--I couldn't teach _you_!" There was dismay in her voice.

"Couldn't you, though? You've taught me more in the few months I've known you than I've learned in that many years from others. Try me.

I'll be very good. I'll be a boy with the rest of them, and you can just forget I'm there and go ahead. I really am serious about it. I want to hear what you have to say to them."

"Oh, I couldn't teach with you there!" exclaimed Shirley, putting her hands on her hot cheeks and looking like a frightened little child.

"Indeed I couldn't, really. I'm not much of a teacher. I'm only a beginner. I shouldn't know how to talk before any but children."

He watched her silently for a minute, his face grave with wistfulness.

"Why do you teach them?" he asked rather irrelevantly.

"Because--why, because I want to help them to live right lives; I want to teach them how to know G.o.d."

"Why?"

"So that they will be saved. Because it was Christ's command that His disciples should give the message. I am His disciple, so I have to tell the message."

"Was there any special stipulation as to whom that message should be given?" asked the young man thoughtfully. "Did He say you were just to give it to those boys?"

"Why, no; it was to be given to--all the world, every creature."

Shirley spoke the words hesitatingly, a dimple beginning to show in her cheek as her eyelids drooped over her shy eyes.

"And don't I come in on that?" asked Graham, with a twinkle that reminded Shirley of his father.

Shirley had to laugh shamefacedly then.

"But I couldn't!" said Shirley. "I'd be so scared I couldn't think of a thing to say."

"You're not afraid of me, Miss Shirley? You wouldn't be scared if you thought I really needed to know the message, would you? Well, I really do, as much as any of those kids."

Shirley looked steadily into his earnest eyes and saw something there that steadied her nerve. The laughter died out of her own eyes, and a beautiful light of longing came into them.

"All right," she said, with a little lift of her chin as if girding up her strength to the task. "You may come, and I'll do the best I can, but I'm afraid it will be a poor best. I've only a little story to tell them this morning."

"Please give them just what you had intended. I want the real thing, just as a boy would get it from you. Will the rest of them come in the car with us?"

Shirley was very quiet during the ride to church. She let the rest do all the talking, and she sat looking off at the woods and praying for help, trying to calm the flutter of her frightened heart, trying to steady her nerves and brace herself to teach the lesson just as she had intended to teach it.

She watched him furtively during the opening exercises, the untrained singing, the monotonous prayer of an old farmer-elder, the dry plat.i.tudes of the illiterate superintendent; but he sat respectfully listening, taking it all for what it was worth, the best service these people knew how to render to their Maker.

Somehow her heart had gained the strength she needed from the prayers she breathed continually, and when the time for teaching the lesson arrived she came to her cla.s.s with quietness.

There was a little awe upon the boys because of the stranger in their midst. They did not fling the hymn-books down with a noisy thud, nor send the lesson leaves flying like winged darts across the room quite so much as they were wont to do. They looked askance at Harley, who sat proudly by the visitor, supplying him with Bibles, hymn-books, lesson leaves, and finding the place for him officiously. But Graham sat among the boys without ostentation, and made as little of his own presence as possible. He smiled at them now and then, put a handful of silver into the collection envelope when they would have pa.s.sed him by, and promised a ride to one fellow who ventured to ask him hoa.r.s.ely if that was his car outside the church.

Shirley had made up her mind to forget as far as she could the presence of the visitor in the cla.s.s, and to this end she fixed her eyes upon the worst little boy present, the boy who got up all the disturbances, and made all the noises, and was the most adorable, homely, st.u.r.dy young imp the Valley Church could produce. He sat straight across from her, while Graham was at the side, and she could see in Jack's eye that he meant mischief if he could overcome his awe of the stranger. So before Jack could possibly get started she began her story, and told it straight to Jack, never taking her eyes from his face from start to finish, and before she was half-way through she had her little audience enthralled. It was a story of the Bible told in modern setting, and told straight to the heart of a boy who was the counterpart in his own soul of the man whom Christ cured and forgave. What Graham was thinking or looking Shirley did not know. She had literally forgotten his existence after the first few minutes. She had seen the gleam of interest in the eyes of the boy Jack; she knew that her message was going home to a convicted young soul, and that he saw himself and his own childish sins in the sinful life of the hero of her tale. Her whole soul was bent on making him see the Saviour who could make that young life over. Not until the story was almost finished did any one of the listeners, unless perhaps Harley, who was used to such story-recitals, have a suspicion that the story was just a plain, ordinary chapter out of the Bible. Then suddenly one of the elder boys broke forth: "Aw! Gee! That's just the man in the Bible let down through the roof!" There was a slight stir in the cla.s.s at the discovery as it dawned upon them that the teacher had "put one over on them" again, but the interest for the most part was sustained breathlessly until the superintendent's bell rang, and the heads drew together in an absorbed group around her for the last few sentences, spoken in a lower tone because the general hum of teaching in the room had ceased.

Graham's face was very grave and thoughtful as she finished and slipped away from them to take her place at the little organ. One could see that it was not in the teacher alone, but in her message as well, that he was interested. The boys all had that subdued, half-ashamed, half-defiant look that boys have when they have been caught looking serious. Each boy frowned and studied his toes, or hunted a.s.siduously in his hymn-book to hide his confusion, and the cla.s.s in various keys lifted up a.s.sertive young voices vigorously in the last hymn.

Graham sat beside Shirley in the little crowded church during the rather monotonous service. The regular pastor, who was a good, spiritual man if not a brilliant one, and gave his congregation solid, practical sermons, was on his vacation, and the pulpit was supplied by a young theologue who was so new to his work that his sermon was a rather involved effort. But so strong was the power of the Sunday-school lesson to which he had just listened that Graham felt as if he were sitting in some hallowed atmosphere. He did not see the red-faced, embarra.s.sed young preacher, nor notice his struggles to bring forth his message bravely; he saw only the earnest-faced young teacher as she spoke the words of life to her boys; saw the young imp-faces of her boys softened and touched by the story she told; saw that she really believed and felt every word she spoke; and knew that there was something in it all that he wanted.

The seat was crowded and the day was warm, but the two who looked over the same hymn-book did not notice it. The soft air came in from the open window beside them, breathing sweet clover and wild honeysuckle, and the meadowlarks sang their songs, and made it seem just like a little bit of heaven.

Shirley's muslin frills trembled against Graham's hand as she reached to catch a fluttering leaf of the hymn-book that the wind had caught; once her hand brushed the coatsleeve beside her as they turned the page, and she felt the soft texture of the fine dark blue goods with a pleasant sense of the beautiful and fitting. It thrilled her to think he was standing thus beside her in her own little church, yielding himself to the same worship with her in the little common country congregation. It was wonderful, beautiful! And to have come to her!