CHAPTER XV
SUNDAY
"FOR once in my life," said Blue Bonnet, with a long-drawn sigh, "I'mready for a day of rest."
"Please don't begin to rest till you've done the dishes," beggedKitty.
Blue Bonnet tossed her head scornfully. "I wouldn't trouble troubletill trouble troubles you, Kitty-Kat. If you can go to church with asclear a conscience as mine, I'll take off my hat to you. One lapsedoesn't make a sinner!"
"One?" Kitty echoed, and would have continued scathingly had not Sarahinterrupted with--
"I don't see how we can go to church with such looking clothes."
"Sarah's regretting the white pique skirt you wouldn't let her bring,"said Kitty.
"Why, Sarah," Blue Bonnet turned a pained look on the serious youngperson, "I would never have believed you would be one to stay awayfrom church for lack of an Easter bonnet."
"I didn't mention Easter--nor bonnets either," Sarah declaredindignantly. "The idea,--to hear you girls talk any one would think Iwas completely wrapped up in clothes!"
"Everybody is, you know--except savages," returned Blue Bonnet.
Sarah's expression at this caused Mrs. Clyde to rise hurriedly andvanish within her tent. Freed from this restraint Kitty went onwickedly:
"Anyway, Dr. Judson has been a missionary in Africa and I'm sure he'dexcuse you if--"
Sarah left the table with great dignity, leaving the other girls weakwith laughter.
Carita appeared a little later with her denim dress looking fresh,clean, and wrinkleless.
"It looks as if it had just been ironed," Sarah silently commented.When Mrs. Clyde called to the girls that it was time to go over toCamp Judson, Miss Blake was nowhere to be found.
The church service was held in the "Druid's Grove," a place of mingledshade and sunshine, where a little tumbling creek was the onlyaccompaniment to the hymns, and the birds trilled an obligato. An oldtree-stump served as pulpit, and here Dr. Judson talked rather thanpreached to his youthful congregation.
Blue Bonnet, listening to him, unconsciously let her eyes wander, asthey always did in the church at Woodford, in search of the memorialwindow 'Sacred to the memory of Elizabeth Clyde Ashe' that wasinseparably linked in her mind with religious service. Instead of thefigure of the Good Shepherd with the lamb in his arms, the branches ofthe live oaks here formed a Gothic arch, in the shadow of which satMrs. Judson with little Joe asleep on her lap. The look on themother's face was full of the same brooding tenderness that the artisthad given to the eyes of the Shepherd of Old.
When they rose to sing, the young voices rang out clear and joyous,quite unlike the droning that too often passes for singing in agrown-up congregation.
"Bright youth and snow-crowned age, Strong men and maidens meek: Raise high your free, exulting song! God's wondrous praises speak!
"With all the angel choirs, With all the saints of earth, Pour out the strains of joy and bliss, True rapture, noblest mirth!"
The stirring verses, sung with a will by every one, seemed to soar tothe very tree-tops, making the branches sway with the rhythm andspirit of the hymn.
Blue Bonnet heaved a sigh of regret as they rose to leave the grove."It's so sweet,--I wish it could last all day."
"I don't remember ever having heard you make a remark like that aboutchurch before," remarked Kitty.
"I don't care much for anything that's held indoors," Blue Bonnetconfessed. "And I don't like preachers who make their voices soundlike the long-stop on an organ. Now that last hymn we sang makes mefairly bubble inside."
"Don't let Sarah hear you say that. She seems to think one ought todraw a long face on the Sabbath,--a sort of 'world-without-end'expression, you know. I believe she thinks it almost wicked to behappy on Sunday."
"Well, Sarah may be as blue as she likes,--this is the kind of a daythat makes me feel bright pink!"
"Where is Sarah, anyway?" asked Kitty. "I haven't seen her sincebreakfast. Surely she didn't miss the service?"
"No, I saw her sitting by a big tree 'way at the back," said Amanda.
"It isn't like Sarah to take a back seat--at church," remarked BlueBonnet. "I believe she must be cross because we teased her thismorning."
Grandmother and Sarah were already deep in preparations for dinnerwhen the others straggled into camp. The well-cooked meal of muffins,fried ham, potatoes and stewed dried fruit they served met withvisible as well as audible approval.
"Picnic lunches are more fun, but this kind of a meal ismore--filling," said Blue Bonnet. "Let's eat all we can now and havejust bread and milk for supper--we've two cans of fresh milk in thecreek."
"Blue Bonnet seems to have developed a sudden liking for 'jarringnotes,' doesn't she, girls?" asked Kitty.
When dinner was done and the dishes washed, they all sought thebuck-board seats in the lounging room.
"If we only had a book now, it would be fine to have Grandmother readaloud," remarked Blue Bonnet.
"You wouldn't let Sarah bring any books," Amanda reminded her.
"Nevertheless, methinks Sarah looks as if she had one up her sleeve,"said Debby.
"Not up my sleeve," Sarah confessed, "--but in my bag. I'll go getit,--it's 'Don Quixote,' in Spanish and English both."
"Did you bring the drawn-work, too?" asked Kitty. "My, Sarah, but youare a first-rate smuggler!"
"Now that suspicion has raised its snaky head, I'd like to know--whyis Sarah, long after the dishes are done, still wearing that apron?"Blue Bonnet had sent a random shot, but to her surprise Sarah flushedto the roots of her blond hair.
She rose hastily to go in search of "Don Quixote," but the other girlswere too quick for her. They pitilessly tore the shielding apron fromher shoulders, and the newly sponged and pressed middy jacket andkhaki skirt stood revealed in all their guilty freshness.
"They've been ironed!" gasped Kitty.
"What do you think of that for selfishness,--not to let a soul knowshe had an iron?" demanded Debby.
"I got it over at Mrs. Judson's. And none of you said you wanted aniron," said Sarah.
"And do you mean to say that our Sarah, daughter of the ReverendSamuel Blake, wilfully broke the Sabbath by ironing?" Concentratedhorror appeared on Kitty's saucy countenance.
"She probably thinks 'the better the day the better the deed,'" saidBlue Bonnet.
"If Mrs. Judson could press Carita's dress, I don't see that it wasany worse for me to press mine," Sarah protested. "I'm used to lookingrespectable at church."
"It's no wonder you refused to sit by so unrespectable a crowd as therest of us!" exclaimed Blue Bonnet.
Mrs. Clyde was laughing inwardly, but she came to the aid of theunhappy Sarah.
"I think good nature has ceased to be a virtue, Sarah," she declared."Hereafter you have my permission to resort to violence if necessaryto protect yourself. Quiet down, girls,--remember it is Sunday."
Much relieved, Sarah brought forth the contraband book and the longpeaceful afternoon was spent in listening to the various mishaps thatbefell the valiant Don and his faithful Sancho Panza.
"If it weren't for setting a dangerous precedent, I'd tell Sarah howglad we all are that she defied the authorities and did somesmuggling," remarked Kitty. She and Debby had gone to the creek tobring up the milk for supper, and now made a pretty picture as theycame up the willow-grown path, bearing the tall cans.
"You look like somebody-or-other at the well," Blue Bonnet declared asKitty came into sight.
"Are you sure you don't mean thing-a-ma-bob?" laughed Kitty. "If youmean Rebecca, I don't agree with you. I'll wager Rebecca never wore amiddy blouse or carried a tin milk-can!"
That evening the inmates of both camps again sat about a big bonfire.But this time the frolics and rollicking airs had given way to adecorous singing of patriotic songs, stirring hymns and a pleasant"sermonette" by the pastor of this youthful flock.
Long after this Sunday was past, Blue Bonnet rememb
ered it as one ofthe sweetest Sabbaths she had ever spent; and she could never decidejust what part of the day she had liked most,--the hour in the Druid'sGrove; the afternoon when Grandmother with her pleasant voice had readaloud from "Don Quixote;" or the evening, when they sat about theglowing logs, alternately singing, and listening to Dr. Judson.
"I'm going to ask Sandy to recite," Knight whispered to her as therefell a silence.
"Get him to do 'The Bridge!'" Blue Bonnet said with dancing eyes.
"I'm sure he'd rather do 'We are Seven,'" he replied, laughing.
"I wish he'd recite the 'Hymn of the Alamo,'" said Alec, who hadoverheard the conversation. "Ask him to, Knight,--he'll do anythingfor you, and that's a fine poem."
"Alec wrote an essay on the Alamo," Blue Bonnet explained to Knight,"and it won a prize--the Sargent prize--in our school this year."
Alec squirmed with a boyish dislike of hearing himself praised; butKnight slapped him on the shoulder enthusiastically.
"Bully for you, old chap! Tell the fellows the story of the Alamo,will you? Uncle Bayard likes them to hear historical things likethat--can't hear them too often."
Alec looked horrified at the idea, but Blue Bonnet joined Knight inurging him. "You tell the story of the fight and maybe Sandy willfinish with the Hymn."
Sandy promising to do his part, Alec finally yielded. Sinking far backin the shadow where his face could not be seen by any of the greatcircle of listeners, and his voice came out of the blackness with adecided tremor in it, the boy told, and told well, the story of thefrontier riflemen in their struggle for the liberation of Texas fromthe yoke of the Mexican dictator.
How the Texas lads thrilled at the recital of heroism, and thrilled atthe mention of such names as Travis and Crockett! It was not a newtale; not a boy there but knew the story of that handful of men--lessthan two hundred of them--who, barricading themselves within the Alamofortress, for ten days defied the Mexicans, over four thousand strong;only to be massacred to a man in the final heartrending fall.
Alec's voice lost its tremor and ended with a patriotic ring that madeBlue Bonnet glow with pride--pride in the heroes he told of, and inthe friend who told of them.
"It just needs Colonel Potter's poem to add the right climax to thatbit of history," Dr. Judson declared; and Sandy stood up at once.
Sandy was used to "talking on his feet;" and he stood in an easyposture, tossing his light reddish hair back from his broad forehead,and with one hand resting lightly on the alpenstock he had beencarving for Blue Bonnet.
Listening to him, Blue Bonnet lost all her early prejudice against theclever lad, and responding to the unbounded enthusiasm and the trueorator's ring in the boyish voice, thrilled warmly to the spirit ofthe lines:
HYMN OF THE ALAMO
"Arise! Man the wall--our clarion blast Now sounds its final reveille,-- This dawning morn must be the last Our fated band shall ever see. To life, but not to hope, farewell; Yon trumpet's clang and cannon's peal, And storming shout and clash of steel Is _ours_,--but not our country's knell. Welcome the Spartan's death! 'Tis no despairing strife-- We fall, we die--but our expiring breath Is freedom's breath of life!
"Here, on this new Thermopylae, Our monument shall tower on high, And 'Alamo' hereafter be On bloodier fields the battle-cry!" Thus Travis from the rampart cried; And when his warriors saw the foe Like whelming billows surge below,-- At once each dauntless heart replied: "Welcome the Spartan's death! 'Tis no despairing strife-- We fall--but our expiring breath Is freedom's breath of life!"
As Sandy resumed his seat amid a hush that was a greater tribute thanapplause, Blue Bonnet turned to Knight with glowing eyes.
"And to think those brave fellows did all that for Texas! Aren't youproud to belong to this state?"
"You'd better believe I am!"
"We've had some heroes in Massachusetts," Alec reminded them.
"And they were all _Americans_--and so are we." Knight's bigger way oflooking at the matter settled what threatened to grow into anargument.
"That Sandy boy's a wonder," Blue Bonnet exclaimed. "I take back everyuncomplimentary remark I ever made about him. Appearances are sodeceiving."
"'All that glitters isn't gold,'" said Knight, looking like his uncleas he gravely quoted this ancient maxim.
"It's a pity it isn't,--Sandy would be a millionaire with that hair ofhis!" Blue Bonnet laughed.
"I mean 'handsome is as handsome does,'" said Knight, "--that isn'tquite so dangerous a quotation. I expect to see Sandy President someday, or at least a senator."
"Can't you imagine the newspaper headings: 'Senator Red-top ofTexas'--?" laughed Blue Bonnet.
"He's hoping to go East to college this fall," Knight remarked moreseriously.
"It's queer," said Alec, "how all the Western boys long to go East andall the Eastern fellows think they're just made if they can comeWest. I'd like to trade him my chance at Harvard for his health andstrength."
"Can't you arrange that trifling exchange for Alec?" Blue Bonnet askedKnight.
He shook his head. "Sandy won't take anybody's chances,--he's the sortthat makes his own."
"Some of us aren't allowed to."
Alec's voice had suddenly grown moody, and Blue Bonnet thought it timeto change the subject. In a moment her clear, sweet voice was leadingthe rest in "The Flag without a Stain."
"How do you like a Texas Sunday?" Blue Bonnet found herself besideSarah as they walked back to _Poco Tiempo_, and put the questionrather mischievously.
"It's been very nice, most of it," Sarah returned in a stiff manner,very unlike her usual one.
"What part didn't you like?"
Sarah made sure that the others were not listening, then answered in atone Blue Bonnet had never heard from her before:
"I didn't like being made to feel that whatever I do is the wrongthing. I never seem to please you any more, Blue Bonnet."
"Why, Sarah!" Blue Bonnet stopped still and gazed at Sarah inconsternation. Sarah paused, too, and in the faint rays from the firethe two girls looked at each other steadily for a moment withoutspeaking. Finally Blue Bonnet blurted out:
"I wish you'd tell me just what you mean."
"I mean that I've come to the conclusion that I should have stayed inWoodford. I don't seem to fit in here." Sarah's voice shook a little.
"Sarah!" was still all Blue Bonnet could stammer. It was all so suddenand unexpected; a bolt from a clear sky.
"Please don't think I'm thin-skinned and can't stand a littleteasing," Sarah continued, "for I'm sure I can--I always have had to.But lately I haven't said a thing that hasn't made one or other of you'hoot' as Kitty says. And everything I've wanted to do you've thoughtridiculous. Lately the boys have begun to laugh at me; even those Ihardly know."
This time Blue Bonnet said nothing; she was overcome by the thoughtthat all Sarah had said was quite true. She hastily reviewed the pastfew weeks, and as one by one she remembered various incidents, theforce of Sarah's complaints struck her anew.
Kitty's dare and that wild ride; the ban put upon Sarah's Spanishbooks and the much-loved drawn-work; and, lately, the almost concertedeffort of all of them to convert everything Sarah said and did intosomething unwarranted and absurd. By the time Blue Bonnet had reachedher own action of that very morning in tearing the apron forciblyfrom Sarah's shoulders, she was dumb with shame. This was the way shehad rewarded her friend for a loyalty that had been unswerving throughall that dreadful week in Woodford, when the other girls had sent herto Coventry; for all her sweet thoughtfulness that had proved itselfunfailing!
She suddenly threw her arms impulsively around Sarah's shoulders andfaced her squarely.
"I've been downright horrid," she said earnestly. "And a rude, selfishhostess. I haven't any right to expect you to forgive me, Sarah, dear,but if you can fin
d it in your heart to give another chance, I'll showyou I can and will be different."
"It isn't serious enough to talk of forgiveness," Sarah said in herhonest, straightforward way. "All I want to know is, that you'renot--sorry--I came."
"Sarah, don't say that! You make me hate myself!" Blue Bonnet shookher almost fiercely. "You mustn't think it either. I'm glad, glad,glad you came! I've meant you to know it, and I've wanted you to havea splendid time, and here all the while--" she stopped and swallowedhard.
Sarah's face lighted up happily and she did what was for her anunprecedented thing,--she drew Blue Bonnet to her and gave her ahearty hug.
"That's all I wanted to know," she said. "Please don't imagine Ihaven't enjoyed myself, Blue Bonnet. It's been the most wonderfulvisit! I'm queer, I know, but I can't help liking the things I like,and if only the girls would stop trying to make me over--"
"I'll make them!" Blue Bonnet declared; and at this threat they bothlaughed, and the storm was over.
Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party Page 17
