ONE November it became
clear to childish minds in certain parts of Whilomville that the Sunday-school
of the Presbyterian church would not have for the children the usual tree on
Christmas eve. The funds free for that ancient festival would be used for the
relief of suffering among the victims of the Charleston earthquake.
The plan had been born
in the generous head of the superintendent of the Sunday-school, and during one
session he had made a strong plea that the children should forego the vain
pleasures of a tree, and, in a glorious application of the Golden Rule, refuse
a local use of the fund, and will that it be sent where dire distress might be
alleviated. At the end of a tearfully eloquent speech the question was put
fairly to a vote, and the children in a burst of virtuous abandon carried the
question for Charleston. Many of the teachers had been careful to preserve a
finely neutral attitude, but even if they had cautioned the children against
being too impetuous they could not have checked the wild impulses.
But this was a long
time before Christmas.
Very early, boys held
important speech together. "Huh! you ain't goin' to have no Christmas tree
at the Presperterian Sunday- school."
Sullenly the victims
answered, "No, we ain't."
"Huh!"
scoffed the other denominations, "we are goin' to have the all-fired-est
biggest tree that ever you saw in the world."
The little
Presbyterians were greatly downcast.
It happened that Jimmie
Trescott had regularly attended the Presbyterian Sunday-school. The Trescotts
were consistently undenominational, but they had sent their lad on Sundays to
one of the places where they thought he would receive benefits. However, on one
day in December Jimmie appeared before his father and made a strong spiritual
appeal to be forthwith attached to the Sunday- school of the Big Progressive
church. Doctor Trescott mused this question considerably. "Well,
Jim," he said, "why do you conclude that the Big Progressive
Sunday-school is better for you than the Presbyterian Sunday-school?"
"Now --it's
nicer," answered Jimmie, looking at his father with an anxious eye.
"How do you
mean?"
"Why --now --some
of the boys what go to the Presperterian place, they ain't very nice,"
explained the flagrant Jimmie.
Trescott mused the
question considerably once more. In the end he said: "Well, you may change
if you wish, this one time, but you must not be changing to and fro. You decide
now, and then you must abide by your decision."
"Yessir,"
said Jimmie, brightly. "Big Progressive."
"All right,"
said the father. "But remember what I've told you."
On the following Sunday
morning Jimmie presented himself at the door of the basement of the Big
Progressive church. He was conspicuously washed, notably raimented, prominently
polished. And, incidentally, he was very uncomfortable because of all these
virtues.
A number of
acquaintances greeted him contemptuously. "Hello, Jimmie! What you doin'
here? Thought you was a Presperterian?"
Jimmie cast down his
eyes and made no reply. He was too cowed by the change. However, Homer Phelps,
who was a regular patron of the Big Progressive Sunday-school, suddenly
appeared and said, "Hello, Jim!" Jimmie seized upon him. Homer Phelps
was amenable to Trescott laws, tribal if you like, but iron-bound, almost
compulsory.
"Hello,
Homer!" said Jimmie, and his manner was so good that Homer felt a great
thrill in being able to show his superior a new condition of life.
"You 'ain't never
come here afore, have you?" he demanded, with a new arrogance.
"No, I
'ain't," said Jimmie. Then they stared at each other and manoeuvred.
"You don't know my
teacher," said Homer.
"No, I don't know
her," admitted Jimmie, but in a way which contended, modestly, that he
knew countless other Sunday- school teachers.
"Better join our
class," said Homer, sagely. "She wears spectacles; don't see very
well. Sometimes we do almost what we like."
"All right,"
said Jimmie, glad to place himself in the hands of his friend. In due time they
entered the Sunday-school room, where a man with benevolent whiskers stood on a
platform and said, "We will now sing No. 33 --'Pull for the shore, sailor,
pull for the shore.'" And as the obedient throng burst into melody, the
man on the platform indicated the time with a white and graceful hand. He was
an ideal Sunday-school superintendent --one who had never felt hunger or thirst
or the wound of the challenge of dishonor.
Jimmie, walking
carefully on his toes, followed Homer Phelps. He felt that the kingly
superintendent might cry out and blast him to ashes before he could reach a
chair. It was a desperate journey. But at last he heard Homer muttering to a
young lady, who looked at him through glasses which greatly magnified her eyes.
"A new boy," she said, in a deeply religious voice.
"Yes'm," said
Jimmie, trembling.
The five other boys of
the class scanned him keenly and derided his condition.
"We will proceed
to the lesson," said the young lady. Then she cried sternly, like a
sergeant, "The seventh chapter of Jeremiah!"
There was a swift
fluttering of leaflets. Then the name of Jeremiah, a wise man, towered over the
feelings of these boys. Homer Phelps was doomed to read the fourth verse. He
took a deep breath, he puffed out his lips, he gathered his strength for a
great effort. His beginning was childishly explosive. He hurriedly said,
Trust ye not in lying
words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of
the Lord, are these."
"Now," said
the teacher, "Johnnie Scanlan, tell us what these words mean." The
Scanlan boy shamefacedly muttered that he did not know. The teacher's
countenance saddened. Her heart was in her work; she wanted to make a success
of this Sunday-school class. "Perhaps Homer Phelps can tell us," she
remarked.
Homer gulped; he looked
at Jimmie. Through the great room hummed a steady hum. A little circle, very
near, was being told about Daniel in the lion's den. They were deeply moved at
the story. At the moment they liked Sunday-school.
"Why --now --it
means," said Homer, with a grand pomposity born of a sense of hopeless
ignorance --"it means --why, it means that they were in the wrong place."
"No," said
the teacher, profoundly; "it means that we should be good, very good
indeed. That is what it means. It means that we should love the Lord and be
good. Love the Lord and be good. That is what it means."
The little boys
suddenly had a sense of black wickedness as their teacher looked austerely upon
them. They gazed at her with the wide-open eyes of simplicity. They were
stirred again. This thing of being good --this great business of life --
apparently it was always successful. They know from the fairy-tales. But it was
difficult, wasn't it? It was said to be the most heart-breaking task to be
generous, wasn't it? One had to pay the price of one's eyes in order to be
pacific, didn't one? As for patience, it was tortured martyrdom to be patient,
wasn't it? Sin was simple, wasn't it? But virtue was so difficult that it could
only be practised by heavenly beings, wasn't it?
And the angels, the
Sunday-school superintendent, and the teacher swam in the high visions of the
little boys as beings so good that if a boy scratched his shin in the same room
he was a profane and sentenced devil.
"And," said
the teacher, "'the temple of the Lord' --what does that mean? I'll ask the
new boy. What does that mean?"
"I dun'no',"
said Jimmie, blankly.
But here the
professional bright boy of the class suddenly awoke to his obligations.
"Teacher," he cried, "it means church, same as this."
"Exactly,"
said the teacher, deeply satisfied with this reply. "You know your lesson
well, Clarence. I am much pleased."
The other boys, instead
of being envious, looked with admiration upon Clarence, while he adopted an air
of being habituated to perform such feats every day of his life. Still, he was
not much of a boy. He had the virtue of being able to walk on very high stilts,
but when the season of stilts had passed he possessed no rank save this
Sunday-school rank, this clever-little- Clarence business of knowing the Bible
and the lesson better than the other boys. The other boys, sometimes looking at
him meditatively, did not actually decide to thrash him as soon as he cleared
the portals of the church, but they certainly decided to molest him in such
ways as would re-establish their self-respect. Back of the superintendent's chair
hung a lithograph of the martyrdom of St. Stephen.
Jimmie, feeling stiff
and encased in his best clothes, waited for the ordeal to end. A bell pealed:
the superintendent had tapped a bell. Slowly the rustling and murmuring
dwindled to silence. The benevolent man faced the school. "I have to
announce," he began, waving his body from side to side in the conventional
bows of his kind, "that --" Bang went the bell. "Give me your
attention, please, children. I have to announce that the Board has decided that
this year there will be no Christmas tree, but the --"
Instantly the room
buzzed with the subdued clamor of the children. Jimmie was speechless. He stood
morosely during the singing of the closing hymn. He passed out into the street
with the others, pushing no more than was required.
Speedily the whole idea
left him. If he remembered Sunday-school at all, it was to remember that he did
not like it.