CHAPTER X

“COMFORT YE, COMFORT YE MY PEOPLE”

THE chief of police was right. In less than a week Mrs. Stickney was back at her bench in the Big Shop, and things were going on as before the strike.

Dolly Moon’s note came while Doodles was alone. Granny O’Donnell fetched it upstairs. It was not often that there were any letters for the Stickneys, but on occasion Granny was always ready.

“Sweetheart dear,” ran the lines, “I have time for only a word before the mail closes; but I want to tell you that my cousin, Rev. Harrison Savage, is to preach at the Church of the Good Shepherd next Sunday morning. That is so near you—only five blocks away—I am wondering if your mother and Blue wouldn’t like to go and hear him. He is lovely! People call him an unusually talented young man. I know they’d like him. I wish you could go too! If there were wings in this workaday world of ours, I’d fly straight down to The Flatiron Sunday morning, and I’d bring a little pair of wings for you—then we’d flap along to church! Wouldn’t we have a good time! I’m coming to see you some day, wings or no wings! Love—a thousand bushels!

YOUR OWN DOLLY.”

It wouldn’t do to tell how many times Doodles read the note before Blue came home at noon. Nobody, who hadn’t been a lonely—a very lonely—boy, and who missed his violin playing and his musical comrade as only a real music lover could miss them, would possibly believe the truth. But, then, it was Doodles’s first letter, and the first letter is entitled to a great many more readings than the thousandth one.

Mrs. Stickney shook her head sadly when Blue asked the question that Dolly Moon suggested. She had no dress or coat suitable for appearance in the fashionable church on Bliss Avenue—so she declared, and with such emphasis that neither Blue nor Doodles dared to urge the matter.

Blue’s church─going was limited to attendance at Sunday─school—an attendance more or less regular according to his clothes, and he now decided that he didn’t care much about hearing somebody preach that he never saw, even though he was cousin to Dolly Moon.

During the afternoon, however, Mr. Gaylord dropped in, and his proposal set hearts fluttering and tongues flying. He, too, had received word from Dolly about her cousin, and as his employer, Mrs. Graham, had expressed her desire to spend the coming Sabbath at home he had obtained permission to use her car long enough to take the Stickney family to and from church.

The mother still kept to her first determination, and even the inducement of an automobile ride could not coax it away. But Blue was jubilant, and Doodles too joyful to do much more than to beam silently on everybody, with an occasional little burst of delight.

To ride in Mrs. Graham’s elegant car! To see the grand Bliss Avenue Church, the pride of the city! To listen to a sermon from Dolly Moon’s own cousin! And—perhaps best of all—to hear the much─talked─of “Good Shepherd” choir, the fame of whose wonderful singing extended hundreds of miles away! It was unbelievable! These thoughts—and a myriad others—danced in Doodles’s brain, while Giles Gaylord and Blue chatted of Dolly Moon and gayly arranged such important matters as hours and minutes.

Doodles’s mother looked grave, thinking of the child’s best suit. Made from one of his brother’s, it was shabby from washings and darns; still words would not freshen it, and they were wisely withheld. So the happy plans went on, untouched by anything so commonplace as clothes.

For the rest of the week there were no more lonely hours for Doodles. Every detail of the coming event was pictured over and over by the imaginative boy. His mother and Blue were called upon for frequent and repeated descriptions of churches and church services, for his knowledge of these things was limited to what he could gain from stories and illustrations.

“Oh, you’ll see it all Sunday!” Blue told him at last, his patience showing marks of breaking down.

“It is nice to know just how it will look,” Doodles replied innocently. “Seems as if I couldn’t wait a whole day longer!” He paused before venturing his next thought. “Do you—” he began, and then changed to the negative, “you don’t s’pose they’d have any flowers—it’s ’most winter, you know—you don’t s’pose they would—?” Face and voice were anxious.

The elder boy’s acquaintance with church customs was not intimate, and it was early December! There were greenhouses, of course, like June gardens; but—Blue was doubtful, more than doubtful. Yet he strengthened his brother’s hope in no uncertain words. There’d be enough else to make up, he argued in self─defense, and to─day it was important that anticipation should be full.

The small boy awoke early. On yesterday’s sunset horizon a bank of cloud had suggested rain, and that was Doodles’s first thought; he hardly dared to look at the tiny patch of sky visible through the kitchen window from where he lay. But when he tremblingly peered out from the little dark bedroom his heart gave a leap—the patch was blue! Smiling contentedly, he snuggled down on his pillow. What a beautiful day it was going to be! The next time he opened his eyes, his mother was waiting at the bedside, and the smell of breakfast came pleasantly from the kitchen.

Dressing took longer than usual, because of the unfamiliar garments, and the spirit of excitement that pervaded everything—even the stockings, which wouldn’t pull up straight. But that and breakfast were over, at last, and Doodles resting among his cushions. He was wondering what the choir would sing, and wishing their choice would fall on “Only an Armour─Bearer” or “Jerusalem, the Golden,”—to which tune his mother was now putting away her dishes,—when somebody knocked on the door.

A uniformed messenger handed Mrs. Stickney a bit of folded paper.

She opened and read the note, staring at the words with a dismayed face.

“No,—no answer,” she replied to the boy’s query, but without turning her head. She still stood there, looking down on the paper with unseeing eyes, while the messenger’s retreating footsteps came faintly from below.

“What is it?” Blue emerged from the bedroom, clad in trousers and a bath towel.

“You can’t go!” exclaimed Mrs. Stickney in disheartened tones.

“Why not?”

“Mr. Gaylord says—oh, read it yourself!”

The boy grabbed the sheet, and the mother crossed over to where Doodles sat, big─eyed and sorrowful.

“You poor darling!” She took the little face between her palms, and stooped to kiss him.

“Never mind!” he smiled bravely, but the smile broke, and he hid his face in her dress.

“Dear People,” Blue read aloud, “Mrs. Graham has just taken it into her head that she must start for Windsor at ten o’clock—I feel like turning turtle, car and all! If I were not too big a boy, I’d do the next thing,—have a good—or bad—cry. I’ll take you to ride some day, if I have to hire a car for it!

“Tragically yours, “GILES GAYLORD.”

“It’s a confounded shame!” He flung the note on the floor.

“Blue Stickney!”

“I don’t care—it is! That woman can go to ride every day of her life, and there’s Doodles—! It’s confounded mean, and I’d like to say it right to her face!” He swung himself back into the little bedroom, and the others could hear him stamping off his wrath.

When he came out, a few minute later, he was smilingly mysterious.

“Don’t you go to getting tired, old man!” he warned his brother. “We’ll make that church yet, if I can work things right!” He took up his hat.

“Oh, Blue, don’t raise his hopes again! You know you can’t—”

“I don’t know any such thing! We’re goin’, I tell you! Just see if we don’t!”

“You mustn’t do anything rash!” The mother looked troubled.

“Aw, you wait! I ain’t a fool!” He ran off laughing.

With the ringing of the church bells Doodles’s hopes began to fade. His trust in Blue did not lessen; but even the best plans do not work, and he feared that his brother’s scheme, like Mr. Gaylord’s, was going to fail.

“Maybe I’d get too tired if I went,” he observed philosophically.

“Perhaps,” his mother assented. “I’ve been a little afraid of it all along.”

Doodles sat up, and bent forward, listening. The sound of hurrying feet was on the stairs. More than one pair were coming up.

The door swung open, and in dashed Blue, followed by a boy somewhat taller than himself.

“Mother, this is Joseph Sitnitsky. He’s goin’ to help me carry Doodles to church.”

Mrs. Stickney shook hands with the somewhat bashful Joseph, expressing a gracious welcome. Then Blue hastened him over to the window.

“Oh! you are the one who sent me that apple, aren’t you?” smiled Doodles, extending a cordial little hand. “It was a lovely apple! We all had some of it—even Caruso!”

A soft whistle sent Joseph’s eyes to the mocking bird, and his face brightened with surprise and pleasure.

“That him?” he exclaimed.

“Same old feller!” laughed Blue. “Wouldn’t—”

The tolling bells recalled his thoughts to the urgent business on hand.

“Gracious! but we must hurry!” he cried. “Where’s yer cap, kiddie?”

Mrs. Stickney brought it, with the coat which Blue had outgrown.

“I don’t see how you’re going to manage,”—the mother was tucking a handkerchief about the small boy’s neck,—“I’m afraid he’s too heavy for either of you.” She glanced from one to the other.

“Oh, I could to carry him in mine arms!” declared Joseph valiantly.

“But we’re going to make a lady─chair, and take him that way,” put in Blue.

And so they did, the mother watching, a bit anxious, from the top of the stairs, and Granny O’Donnell, in her door, cheering the little procession.

The walk from The Flatiron to The Church of the Good Shepherd was accomplished without serious mishap. Once Doodles slipped, and, righting him, Blue lost his hat; but a stranger returned it to his head, and the trio went on again.

“I could to carry him mineself,” observed Joseph.

“Guess you’d better not,” Blue advised. “I tried it last summer,—took him down to the Settlement for a concert,—I didn’t dare risk it again. It was an awful tug! Mother carried him out a little way, one night, just to get the air; but she had to ask Mr. Schloss to take him upstairs—she was all in!”

“I could to carry him,” Joseph reiterated, “sooner you gets tired.”

But Blue would not confess to fatigue, and at last the church was gained.

No one was in sight. The hush and emptiness outside were forbidding.

“It’s begun!” announced Blue.

“Won’t they let us in?” Doodles whispered tremulously.

“Sure!” was the brave assertion—out of a dismayed heart.

They halted hesitantly, when up popped—seemingly from nowhere—an automaton, dressed in Sabbath dignity and an unsmiling face.

The doors swung silently open, and they were inside. Doodles lifted his eyes, and his fingers almost forgot their clasp. It was so different from his pictures! The rich, subdued light; the great auditorium, with its beautifully wrought pillars, peopled from altar to entrance; the sweet, thrilling undertone of the organ; the reverent stillness of the waiting throng;—it stirred his soul to awe.

Directly they were seated, in the second pew from the door, and Doodles was free to gaze about him. The vast strangeness of the place bewildered his little home─kept heart, and he reached out his hand for his brother’s.

“Tired?” whispered Blue.

“Not much,” his lips smiled, yet Blue’s arm was a grateful support, and he leaned back in content.

Roses and music were born for each other, and it was only fitting that with the first note from the choir the eyes of Doodles should catch the glory of the altar—a bank of ferns and red roses. Thus came the twofold feast, and the rapture of it would never wholly pass away.

“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,”—it was breathed in soft soprano; “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” repeated in sweet contralto; “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people”; one after another caught up the words, until they broke from the full choir, a commanding strain.

The tenor chanted, “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” It came again, distinct, sweet, thrilling,... “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And yet once more, that appealing call.

Silence fell. Even the organ was still. Out of the hush rose an eager voice, “Here am I; send me.” Another, “Here am I; send me.” And another, “Here am I; send me.”

Again the tenor, with the clear charge, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.... Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not... Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.”

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, ...” Flutelike it rose, as if a skylark heralded the glad news.

It lingered through the interlude.

Presently from the choir burst the triumphant words:—

“Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for the Lord ... shall comfort ... his people.”

With a little sigh Doodles saw the organist step down from his seat. It was over! The preacher was at the desk. He had a pleasant, boyish face; but he did not look at all like Dolly Moon.

Doodles’s thoughts would run away from the prayer to Dolly Moon. Too bad she couldn’t be there! How well he remembered the first time she had smiled to him—dear Dolly!

By and by came more music,—beautiful but brief. Doodles wondered how it would feel to be singing with that grand organ.

“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.”

The small boy came to himself with a start. He must not miss a word of that sermon! Nor did he turn again from the speaker until the end.

Once, so still was he, Blue thought him asleep, and bent over, only to see the earnest brown eyes wide open though expressing forgetfulness of time and place.

Joseph looked across, and smiled.

Blue smiled back, and gave his brother a moment’s wonder. Then he returned to the amusement of looking about.

There was a good deal to see; the men and women in the choir, who whispered to one another; the sexton, who opened windows and shut them; a little boy who would walk out into the aisle; the diamonds in women’s ears, which flashed rainbow colors fascinating and beautiful; and a wee girl who knelt against the back of the seat and made faces to everybody.

Blue had had it in his mind to slip out of church ahead of the crowd; but there seemed no convenient moment for a start, and the postlude found the trio still in the pew.

“We could to go up and see the flowers,” suggested Joseph in a whisper.

“Oh, do!” beamed Doodles.

So they waited and waited, for the aisles were full of people who walked lingeringly while they chatted with their neighbors.

It was no easy trick to get Doodles into his hand─chair, but it was at last accomplished, and the little procession made its slow way up the now almost deserted aisle. It was worth the pains to see the small boy’s delight when he was halted before the waving ferns set with long─stemmed brilliant roses. He had never seen so many together, and he drew breath after breath of their fragrance while his eyes feasted on the novel and beautiful sight.

“Seen enough, old feller?” Blue queried finally.

“Ye—es, I guess so,” was the equivocal answer. He bent nearer the roses for a last whiff of their spicy perfume.

“Here, you kids! let them flowers be!”

The janitor had come up the side aisle, unnoticed by the boys.

“Who’s touchin’ ’em?” cried Blue. “We ain’t!”

“Well, you’d better not!” He cast a suspicious eye over the superb array, but discovered no disorder. “Move on!” he growled. “You’ve hung round here long enough.”

“Come! let’s go!” shivered Doodles under his breath.

“You’d better count ’em!” Blue flung back scornfully to the man who was still hovering over the blossoms with anxiety.

“He could to be polite,” was Joseph’s mild comment when they had passed out of hearing.

It was a rude finale to the inspiring service. Doodles fought away the tears.

“Just one minute!” he pleaded, as they reached the entrance.

The organist was still playing, and, with quick glances to make sure that no church officer was in sight, Blue and Joseph paused for a last strain of the delicious music.

“That’s enough,” announced Doodles, adding, a bit wearily, “now we’ll go.”

The home march was taken almost in silence. Doodles was very tired.

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