Part 7

“She scolds him,” said Judith, with a feeling of sympathy.

“She scolds me. She scolds the minister. It is only her way of talking.”

At that moment Aunt Rody’s blue gingham sunbonnet appeared at the window; Judith’s nervous fingers worked hurriedly.

“Not done yet. Jean Draper is worth two of you. The graham bread is out of the oven, a perfect bake, and I am going to call on Mrs. Evans, and take Nettie a custard.”

“Well,” said Aunt Affy.

Aunt Rody’s hair was white, but if it were soft to the touch, Judith’s fingers would never know; her black eyes were deep set, she had not one tooth, and her wrinkled lips had a way of keeping themselves sternly shut, unless they were sternly opened.

“Joe is hunting eggs; I hope he won’t get into mischief while I’m gone.”

“He hasn’t yet,” said Judith, Joe’s champion.

Joe, with his closely cut black hair, his grateful eyes, new gray suit with navy blue flannel shirt, rough shoes, willing and efficient ways, and his great love for Doodles, was some one not at all out of place on the “Sparrow farm;” even dainty Judith did not altogether disapprove his presence at the table.

The small disciple’s forehead was all in a pucker, and the blue eyes were so filled with tears that there was not room enough in her eyes for them; one tear kept pushing another down over her cheeks; they even rolled over her lips and tasted salt.

“Have you noticed the name on my new darning yarn?” inquired Aunt Affy, replacing the New Testament on the table.

“Superior quality,” read Judith, taking the card from the basket Aunt Affy brought to her lap from the table.

“No; on the top.”

“Dorcas,” read Judith.

“Dorcas. Who is that for?”

“The name of the man who made it,” replied Judith, stopping her dawdling and threading her needle.

“I think not.”

“His little girl’s name, perhaps,” ventured Judith.

“It may be, for aught I know; but I do not _think_ that is the name of the wool.”

“Then I don’t know,” said Judith, interestedly.

“I know something and I will tell you. A long, long, _long_ time ago, there was a little girl; I think she learned to sew when she was a little girl, for she knew how to sew beautifully, and her work was strong and did not rip easily. Perhaps she began by doing disagreeable things and then went on to other things until she learned how to make coats and garments for children and grown-up people. Her name was Dorcas.”

“Did the man who made the wool into yarn know about her?” asked Judith.

“I think so. Almost everybody does.”

“I never heard of her before. Is that all?”

“No; that is only the beginning. She was a disciple. And disciples always love each other and work for each other.”

“Do they?” asked Judith, her face glowing. Why, that was splendid and easy.

“And she worked for widows and perhaps for their little children, and they loved her dearly. But she died, and oh, how they grieved! They sent for another disciple, Peter; they thought he could help them. His faith was so great that he kneeled down and prayed; then he spoke to her, and she opened her eyes, and looked at him, and then she sat up. And then he called the people she had made coats and garments for, and in great joy they had her back alive again. God was willing for her to come back to earth and go on with her beautiful work. He cares for the work of his disciples, even when it is only using thread and needle.”

Judith’s curly head drooped over her hated work; she was so ashamed of behaving “ugly”; she hoped she had not behaved quite as ugly as she felt.

The ball was the required size at last, and she joyfully took it up in the garret to the barrel that was only half filled.

Then, aimlessly, she wandered into the kitchen, and there, odorously, temptingly, under a clean, coarse towel, were the two loaves of warm graham bread; she thought she cared for nothing in the way of bread, cake, or pudding as much as she cared for fresh graham bread and butter.

And Aunt Rody never _would_ put it on the table fresh. For a slice of this she must wait until tomorrow night.

Lifting the coarse towel she peeped, then she touched; another touch brought a crumb, such a delicious crumb; another, and another, and another delicious crumb, and the crust of one end of a loaf was all picked off.

“Oh, deary _me_!” cried Judith, in dismay.

Then she covered it carefully, standing spellbound.

What would Aunt Rody say to her?

What would Aunt Rody _do_ to her?

Afraid to go away and leave the bread that would tell its own story, afraid to stay with it, for Aunt Rody’s sunbonnet and heavy step might appear at any moment, she went to the sink to pump water over her hands and to decide what to do next.

Joe was on his way to the barn and stables to gather eggs; Aunt Rody had made a law that she should not go into any of the outbuildings without permission,—without _her_ permission; in summer time there were “so many machines and things around, and children had a way of stepping into the jaws of death.” She missed hunting the eggs.

The gate swung to, there was a step on the flagged path; with her hands dripping, she flew up the kitchen stairs; on the landing she waited, breathless, to hear what Aunt Rody would say.

The step was in the kitchen, there was a pause,—Aunt Rody must be uncovering the bread; a smothered exclamation, then a quick, angry voice: “_That_ Joe! He’s always doing something underhanded. He’s too fond of eating; I will not say one word, but he shall not have any of _this_ graham bread, or the next, if I can help it. When he asks for it I’ll tell him before all the table-full that he _knows why_.”

The awful sentence was delivered in an awful voice; tearful and trembling, the culprit up the stairway heard every word; it was her dreadful secret, her guilty secret; she no more dared to rush down the stairs and confess the theft than she dared—she could not think of any comparison.

She fled through the large, unfurnished chamber, known as the store-room, to her own room, and there, bolting the door, threw herself upon the bed and wept as she had never wept before; because she had never been so wicked and frightened before. Joe would be punished for her sin; she would not dare confess if Aunt Rody starved him to death.

“Judith, Judith, come out on the piazza,” called Aunt Affy.

She peeped in the glass: her eyes were red, and her hair was tumbled; the latter was nothing new, she could sit in the hammock with her eyes away from Aunt Affy.

As she stepped from the sitting-room door to the piazza, Joe rushed around the corner of the house, an egg in each hand, frightened and out of breath.

“There’s an earthquake—in the southern part of Africa—and I’ve been in it; and I’m afraid the house will go in; oh, what shall we do? Mr. Brush is up in the field—”

“Stand still, Joe, and get some breath to talk with, and then tell us what has happened to you,” said Aunt Affy, quietly. Joe dropped on the piazza floor, still carefully holding the eggs.

“Will the house rock and come down, do you think, Aunt Affy, as the houses did in the book Judith read?”

“How did you get all that earth on your clothes and tear your shirt-sleeve?” Judith inquired, forgetting her red eyes in the latest adventure.

“In the earthquake; I went in almost up to my neck, but I held on with one hand and didn’t break the eggs.”

“Where _was_ the earthquake?” she asked.

“In the sheep pen. I was looking for eggs, and the first I knew I felt the ground sliding, and I was going down—there was water, for I heard it splash. I thought you said _fire_ was inside the earth; I went down into water. And I caught hold of something with one hand because I had two eggs in the other, and I pulled, and pulled, and pulled myself up and out.”

“Why, Joe, you poor boy,” exclaimed Aunt Affy, in alarm, “that old cistern has caved in at last, and you’ve been in it; you might have been drowned. What a mercy that you are safe. Don’t you go near that sheep pen again until Mr. Brush says you may.”

“I’ll _never_ go near it again—I’ve had enough of it. I _couldn’t_ scream—I tried to, but nobody heard. Are you sure it won’t cave in again, and get here, and swallow up the house?”

“_That_ will not,” laughed Judith, “Oh, you queer boy.”

“Then may I have some bread and butter?” he asked, rising. “I think it will turn me crazy if it caves in again.”

“Aunt Rody is in the kitchen; tell her your story and ask her for the bread,” replied Aunt Affy.

Judith trembled so that she could scarcely stand; she dared not follow Joe; she dared not stay where she was: Aunt Rody herself made a way of escape for her by coming to the kitchen door with a slice of graham bread in her hand.

“Here, Joe: I heard your story. Here’s the bread. I hope you’ll behave yourself after this. Now, Judith, you see the reason I keep you from hunting eggs. You might be dead in that cistern this moment.”

“You couldn’t pull yourself up as I did,” remarked Joe, giving Aunt Rody the two eggs as she handed him the graham bread.

Judith drew a long breath of relief. Now she need never tell; Joe would not be punished.

That evening at family prayer Cephas read about the institution of the Lord’s Supper and the betrayal of Christ: Joe shuffled his feet until a look from Aunt Rody quieted him; Judith looked as if she were listening, but she did not catch the meaning of a single sentence until something arrested her rapid, remorseful thinking: “And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them. But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looking upon him, and said, This man was also with him. And he denied him, saying: Woman I know him not.”

Peter was afraid. He was afraid to tell that woman. The small disciple looked at the old lady sitting in her high straight-backed chair, with her long hands so still in her lap, her lips tight shut, her eyes roving from Joe to Judith, and then to Joe, then the dreadful round again, and she thought the woman that frightened Peter must have been like Aunt Rody.

She knew how afraid Peter was.

She did not hear one word of the long prayer; she knelt near Aunt Rody; she tried not to sob, or to be afraid, but she _was_ afraid; not now of being found out, but afraid that she was wicked. As long as she lived she would never dare to tell.

And she never did tell, not as long as Aunt Rody lived.

For many a day her heart was heavy with the sin of allowing the innocent to be suspected; but she was not a very brave small disciple.

One night at prayers she surprised them all by saying suddenly and vehemently: “I don’t care if Peter _was_ so wicked; I like him better than anybody in the whole Bible.”

XV. “FIRST AT ANTIOCH.”

“How beautiful it is to be alive! To wake each morn as if the Maker’s grace Did us afresh from nothingness derive, That we might sing: How happy is our case, How beautiful it is to be alive.”

—H. S. Sutton.

It was Saturday afternoon; Judith had been busy in the kitchen all the morning with Aunt Rody, and she (not Aunt Rody) had kept her temper; that was one happening that made the day memorable and delightful, and then there were three others: one was her miracle, another the maidens that were going out to draw water, and the disciple from Antioch, and, most memorable of all, the plan for boarding-school.

The miracle happened in this way: Aunt Rody sent her to take a basket of things to Nettie Evans, a “Sunday surprise,” Judith called it; tiny biscuits, jelly cake, and a little round box of figs.

Nettie had had a wearisome day (very much more dreadful than a Saturday morning in the kitchen with Aunt Rody, Judith told herself), and Mrs. Evans thought it better for her not to go up to Nettie’s room, for the pain in her back was better, she had fallen asleep and she was afraid to have her disturbed.

“May I get a drink of water?” Judith asked. She always felt thirsty when she came near the plank that formed the ascent from the ground where the kitchen had been to the bit of floor that was left for the sink to stand on. The old kitchen had been torn down this summer, and nothing remained of it excepting the sink which contained the pump (the water came from the well where Nettie’s lilies grew), the window over the sink, the roof overhead, and the walls on each side of the sink. She liked the fun of running up and down this plank, and she liked to stand and look out of this window toward the east. It was a window toward the east. Sometimes she thought about the Jews praying toward the east. She wished once that something would happen to this window because it _was_ a window toward the east. A window facing the east in a house was not at all remarkable; but a window that was not in a house brought itself into very interesting prominence.

And this afternoon her something happened. There was a wonder in the heavens.

It was afternoon; she knew it was, she was sure of it; dinner was over hours ago; Aunt Rody had helped her wipe the dinner dishes, and Aunt Affy had gone to town with Uncle Cephas to take the week’s butter to her customers; and she was on her way to the parsonage to sing hymns with Miss Marion, the hymns for church to-morrow, and she _never_ went till afternoon. But there it was. The sun was in the east in the afternoon; round, peering through mist with a pale, yellow splendor; she saw something that no one in the world had ever seen. It was the sun rising in the afternoon.

It must be a miracle; a miracle in the window towards Jerusalem.

But the sun surely had not stood still ever since morning; it was high up when she stood in the back yard and rang the dinner bell for Uncle Cephas and Joe.

Was it a miracle just for her?

That _was_ the east; it had been the east ever since she was born; it had been the east ever since the the world was made; and it was the _sun_.

It was nothing to see the full moon in the east; the last time she went driving with Miss Marion and Mr. Roger they saw the full moon in the east and he talked about it. This was not the full moon.

“Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Evans, quick, quick,” she called, excitedly, fearing that her miracle would vanish.

Hurried steps crossed the new kitchen and Mrs. Evans appeared.

“What _is_ it, child? Don’t wake Nettie.”

“Look,” said Judith, with the dignity of a youthful prophetess, pointing to the apparition; “see the sun in the east in the afternoon.”

Mrs. Evans stepped up the plank, and looked. It _was_ the sun in the east in the afternoon.

“Well, I declare!” ejaculated Mrs. Evans, “that does beat all I ever saw. Where did it come from? How could it get there?” Startled, she turned, and toward the west, there was the big, round sun shining in all his glory.

“Oh, I see,” with a breath of relief; “I thought the world must be coming to an end. It is the reflection. Look, don’t you see? the sun is opposite the window. But it _is_ a wonderful sight. I wish it would stay until I could call the neighbors in.”

Judith looked at the west and reasoned about it; she turned toward the east, then to the west, then to the window again.

“So it is,” with an inflection of disappointment.

Mrs. Evans laughed softly and hurried back to the new kitchen.

Judith pumped her glass of water with the radiance of two suns in her face.

“Little girl, little girl,” called a voice from a buggy in the road, “will you direct me to the parsonage?”

“Go on straight up the hill, turn to the right and see the church; the next house is the parsonage,” she replied with ready exactness.

“Thank you,” said a second voice, with a foreign accent; the face bent forward was very dark, with dark eyes, and dark beard.

Half an hour afterward she found Miss Marion in her own room, and before they went down to the parlor to the piano, she and Miss Marion read together in First Samuel.

They were reading the Bible through together; Marion told her brother that it was a revelation to her to read the Bible with a girl, and an old woman; it was looking forward and looking backward.

Judith read her three verses and then gave a joyful exclamation:—

“‘And as they went up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw water, and said unto them: Is the seer here?

“‘And they answered them and said, He is, behold he is before you; make haste, now, for he came to-day to the city, for there is a sacrifice of the people to-day in the high place; as soon as ye be come into the city, ye shall straightway find him, before he go up to the high place to eat, for the people will not eat until he come, because he doth bless the sacrifice; and afterwards they eat that be bidden. Now, therefore, get you up; for about this time ye shall find him.’ Oh, Miss Marion, that is like me. I was getting a drink of water and I sent two men to find the Bensalem seer.”

“Even Saul couldn’t find the way without the maidens,” reflected Marion.

“And they were put in the story for all the world to read about; I wish people wouldn’t forget about girls now-a-days.”

“Who does?” asked Marion; “this is the girls’ century.”

“Nobody ever thinks about me. I am never _in_ things like the other girls. Aunt Rody will never let me go anywhere; Aunt Affy coaxed her one day, and cried and said she was spoiling my girlhood, but Aunt Rody was worse than ever after that. I cry night after night because she will not let me go to boarding-school. Boarding-school has been the dream of my life; I make pictures about it to myself. Did _you_ go to boarding-school?”

“Yes, for one year, and was glad enough to go home again. I wish you would come to school to _me_; do you suppose you could?” asked Marion with a sudden and joyous inspiration.

“O, Miss Marion,” was all the girl could reply for very gladness.

“We will plan about it, Roger and I. If you can come and stay all day and study, and take music lessons, three or four days a week, it will be better than boarding-school for you, and more than you can think for me. You have been on my mind, but I didn’t dare propose anything; I knew Aunt Affy would not be allowed to have her way.”

Both Judith’s arms were about Marion’s neck, with her face hidden on Marion’s shoulder.

“I’ve wanted a sister all my life,” she said laughing and crying together.

Sunday morning on entering church her attention was arrested by a large map stretched across the platform, or half-way across it; the pulpit had been removed and in its stead were flowers, a row of pink bloom and shades of green.

A tall gentleman, with the very blackest hair and beard she had ever seen, arose and stood near the map.

How her heart gave a throb when he said, touching a spot on the map: “That is Antioch, the place where the disciples were first called Christians. I was born in Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas preached Christ. I was born in Antioch, and I was re-born in Antioch.”

Judith held her breath. He was a disciple, a Christian come from Antioch. She drew back, almost afraid; she felt as if Christ must be there standing very near this disciple.

He talked about the beautiful city and made it as near and real as this little village in which there was a church of disciples. It was like seeing one of the twelve disciples, Peter, or James, or John; or perhaps Paul, because he had been in Antioch.

But he said he had been “reborn” there; what could he mean? Re—again; born again. Was he born twice in Antioch? She had been born only once. Must every disciple be born over like this disciple who was born both times in Antioch?

For a long time she puzzled herself over this new, strange thing; then, when she could not bear it any longer, she asked Aunt Affy.

“When he was born, and for years as he grew up, he did not love and obey Christ, and then the Holy Spirit gave him a loving and obedient heart, and that loving and obedient heart is so new that it is like being born over again,” was Aunt Affy’s simple, and sure unraveling of her perplexity.

XVI. ONE OF AUNT AFFY’S EXPERIENCES.

“O, Master, let me walk with Thee In lowly paths of service free; Tell me Thy secret; help me bear The strain of toil; the fret of care.”

—Washington Gladden.

The dream of Judith’s girlhood was coming true in a most unexpected way; she did not go to boarding-school, but boarding-school came to her in Bensalem; four days every week she studied at the parsonage with Miss Marion, her cousin Don’s “brown girl”; the dinner was the boarding-school part; often she was persuaded to stay to supper, and sometimes there would be an excuse for her to remain over night.

Aunt Rody thought the excuses were much oftener than need be; she said “it seemed” that something was always going on at the parsonage; the parsonage was a worldly place with games, and company and music.

Cephas replied that the parsonage folks were not going out into the world, but bringing the world in and consecrating it; she must not forget that “God so loved the world.”

Aunt Rody retorted that He commanded his people not to love it, anyway. In his slow way Cephas replied: “He never told His people not to love it _His_ way.”

The worldliness was not hurting Judith; nothing was hurting the little girl her mother left, when she shut her eyes upon all that would ever happen to her.

How it happened that she went to boarding-school she never knew; she knew Aunt Affy cried and could not sleep all one night, that for once in his sweet-tempered life Uncle Cephas was angry, and as he told the minister, “talked like a Dutch uncle to Rody”; she knew a letter came from cousin Don to Aunt Rody herself, and that Aunt Rody did not speak to anybody in the house, excepting innocent Joe, for three whole weeks.

In spite of Aunt Rody, Agnes Trembly made new dresses from the materials Miss Marion took Judith to New York to select, and a box of school books was sent by express, and another box with every latest thing in the way of school-room furnishing. A bureau in Miss Marion’s room was placed at the disposal of her goods, and one corner of a wardrobe was made ready for her dresses.

Still, with all her happy privileges, there was no place she called home; she said: “Aunt Affy’s” and “the parsonage.”

Once, speaking of Summer Avenue, she said “home” unconsciously. She rarely spoke of her mother. All her loneliness and desolation and heartaches she poured out in her letters to cousin Don. He understood. She never thought that she must be “brave” for him.

Nothing since her mother went away comforted her like her boarding-school.

During one heart-opening twilight she confided to Marion about casting lots in the Bible to find out if she would ever go to boarding-school.

“What _did_ you find?” asked Marion.

If she were shocked she kept the shock out of her voice. She told Roger afterward she was almost too shocked to speak.

“The queerest thing that meant nothing: ‘And a cubit on the one side and a cubit on the other side.’”

“I am glad you found that,” said Marion, “I think God wanted to help you by giving you that.”

“But it _didn’t_ help; how could it?”

“It helps me.”

“It doesn’t sound like a Bible verse; it is just nothing,” persisted Judith.

“God’s words can never be ‘just nothing.’ Those words were something to somebody, and they are a great deal to me. Do you remember something Christ says about a cubit?”

“No; did he ever say anything?”

“He said this: _Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?_ You were taking thought to add something to your life. Your thought-taking has not done it,” said Marion, thinking that her own thought-taking had added no cubit to her own life.

“No, indeed; I never should have thought of the parsonage boarding-school. Who did think of it besides you, Miss Marion?”