CHAPTER VIIVAN GOES TO CHURCH

Go back, Van!“‘Go back, Van!’”CHAPTER VIIVAN GOES TO CHURCH

Go back, Van!“‘Go back, Van!’”

“‘Go back, Van!’”

“‘Go back, Van!’”

MR. JOHNS went over and closed the door carefully, when Betsy had been excused after lunch.

“By the way, Kate, I received a letter this morning from that father of hers.”

“Oh, the poor baby! He isn’t going to bother her, is he?”

“Read it.”

Mrs. Johns took the soiled bit of paper and read:

“Dr. Johns, Sir, I bin told you have taken my Betsy and are a-bringing of her up. I am expecting a good job up-State, and if I git it I can take her off your hands. I need her to help my new woman keep house for me who aint very strong, but she can train Betsy all right. You can just put her on the train at New York, and she can come strait here without no change, and she wont be no more expense to you,Yours truly,Alvin Wixon.”

“Dr. Johns, Sir, I bin told you have taken my Betsy and are a-bringing of her up. I am expecting a good job up-State, and if I git it I can take her off your hands. I need her to help my new woman keep house for me who aint very strong, but she can train Betsy all right. You can just put her on the train at New York, and she can come strait here without no change, and she wont be no more expense to you,

Yours truly,Alvin Wixon.”

“Oh, Ben!” gasped Mrs. Johns. “You won’t let him?”

“Of course not. He’s a low, drunken scoundrel, and his first wife starved to death. He can easily be proved unfit as a guardian; no court would sustain any claim of his, and I can be appointedBetsy’s legal guardian. She’s a bright, capable child, and it would be a pity to have such good material wasted washing dishes for a stepmother, who probably would not be any kinder to her than her father has been.”

“Oh, Ben, we mustn’t let it happen! Why, I couldn’t let her go now. She’s like my own, and growing dearer every day. Have you answered the letter?”

“Yes. I told him the facts of the case. I think he will make no further trouble.”

“I hope not. Dear, dear! I wish the child would show more affection for me. Perhaps it is just timidity, but she looks like a startled fawn when I kiss her. The only thing so far that seems to reach her is Van.”

“Don’t hurry her. It’ll come. She can’t help loving you, Kate. Nobody could. But she’s not accustomed to the shows of love. Van is a dog. He simply forces himself on her. If she doesn’t cuddle him, he cuddles her. He’s the most taking bit I ever saw on four legs.”

“If he can only break down that uncanny coldness! If she would only be a child instead of a little old woman, I could get at her.”

“Wait,” replied Dr. Johns. “At this stage Van is the educating principle in matters of the heart. You are doing well in other ways. By the way, she ought to know other children.”

“There are none on the Hill-Top of the kind I want her to know now. I’m trying to improve her English, and for a little while I want her to hear only the best. When school opens, that will help. I’ll tell you,—I might send her in town to Sunday School. She’ll hear correct English there, and see children who have nice manners.”

So Betsy started to Sunday School. She wore her prettiest clothes and walked stiffly, as if trying to do her duty by the dainty garments. She was introduced to a teacher, and for a few Sundays Aunt Kate asked no questions, waiting for developments. Betsy went dutifully, but made no sign.

At last Aunt Kate said,

“Do you like your Sunday School, Betsy?”

“Good enough. The folks there think that God punishes you for your sins. I know better. I’ve been awful bad sometimes and He hasn’t punished me a mite.”

“I think we are punished when we break God’slaws. Sometimes we are punished by seeing the ones we love suffer.”

Betsy thought a moment.

“Maybe so,” she said at last. “When I’ve been bad, Ma was sorry, and that made me sorry.”

“I think, little Betsy,” said Aunt Kate, slowly, “that when we are born we have in us the seeds of either good or bad, and it is the seeds we care for and train as we grow up, that make us good or evil. How are you getting on with the girls in the class?”

“Oh, all right, I guess. I don’t get acquainted much. They’re sort of—different, or else—I’mqueer. But I’m watchin’ ’em, Aunt Kate, like I do you at the table, and I don’t feel so different as I did at first.”

“Good! Everything will come out right after a while, when the girls know my Betsy as well as I do.”

Betsy did not answer, but there was a soft little light in her eyes.

She continued her attendance, and Van, who had watched her weekly disappearance, dressed in her Sunday best, determined to make a closerinvestigation of affairs. There must be some special charm about these daytime excursions from which he was excluded.

One fine Sabbath morning he was on the lawn, sunning himself, when he saw Betsy come out of the house, book in hand, best hat on, and start down the hill toward town. Van dropped in happily behind her.

“Go back, Van!” said Betsy.

Van tossed his royal head and ran on, pretending that he was bent on his own affairs.

“I’ll get rid of him when I get on the car,” thought Betsy.

She climbed on at the trolley-station, and did not see the little brown and white streak dashing madly along behind, clear into the town. There were many stops for the church-goers, so Van was able to keep the car in sight. It stopped in front of the church just as the Sunday School bell was ringing, and all the good little Episcopalian children were walking sedately in at the door, dressed in their prettiest and cleanest Sunday-go-to-meeting frocks and coats. As Betsy mounted the steps she was greeted by a member of her class.

Just then Van ambled up, with his tongue out, and his eye lighted with the excitement of adventure.

“There’s your dog, Betsy.”

“Oh, my goodness! I thought I got away from him. Go home, Van! Go straight home, I tell you—this minute!”

Van dropped his head, lowered his tail slightly, and turned his back dutifully, looking sideways to see if Betsy were keeping an eye upon him. But she had disappeared in the doorway.

Van went a few steps toward home, then stopped to consider. Betsy being out of sight, at the very least he might take a look around and see what a church was like.

He turned and went back to the stone steps, climbed them slowly, and went inside the open vestibule.

“Get out!” said the sexton to Van, not knowing that he was addressing royalty.

Van got out, and the sexton went into the big empty part of the church, to see that everything was ready for the evening meeting.

Once more Van entered the vestibule. One of the teachers came out of the Sunday School roomfor a minute, and then returned. He did not bother to look at Van.

But Van saw something. That door swung both ways, and had no latch—like the door between the pantry and dining-room at home. This was luck indeed. Van knew how to work that kind of door. You listen a moment to make sure that no one is coming from the other side to bang into your nose; next you stand on your hind legs and throw your whole weight on the door; then, when it swings open, you make a quick dash through the crack before it can come back at you and squeeze your tail—and there you are!

Van tried it. It worked! No one saw him. There was a man on a platform, but his eyes were shut and his head was bowed. All the little Episcopalian children were kneeling, and their heads, too, were bowed; the teachers were doing the same thing. Van did not know what it meant, but he walked calmly up the aisle.

A familiar white hat was bobbing at the end of one of the seats. Van saw it and made his way in that direction. Just as the prayer ended with a resounding “Amen!” Van plumped himselfdown contentedly at Betsy’s feet, and looked innocently upward.

“Van!” she whispered. “Van, you bad dog, what are you doing here? I told you to go home.”

Van put his nose on the floor between his forepaws, and sighed peacefully, as if he had not heard her. Unless force were used, he intended to stay and see the performance through.

Betsy’s heart was filled with misgivings; but rather than run the gauntlet of the whole school’s eyes, with a dog under her arm, she decided to hold him until the service was over. The teacher had not noticed; her eyes were on the heads and not the feet of the children.

Betsy tucked Van under the seat, where he lay until the lesson was over—as good a dog as ever lived, and far better than some of the children, who found it hard to keep their minds on holy things, with a small brown head and two bright eyes popping out every time a question from the catechism brought forth a childish answer.

Once more the superintendent lifted his voice in prayer, and Van crept softly out from under the seat to see if he could find out what it really meant.

Now the hymn was given out, the pianist took his seat, and began to run over the tune. This was fine! Van liked music and he pricked up his ears. Behind Betsy’s back he jumped up on the seat, and began to roll his eyes and cock his head to one side as if to take in the full beauty of the notes.

A small boy began to giggle, and the children all over the room craned their heads over the backs of the seats; some even climbed up to peer over, and the whisper went around,

“There’s a dog in Sunday School!”

Betsy tried to repress him without being noticed. But there was a decided tide of attention setting her way. The teacher began to take notice, too.

Betsy’s face was crimson. She could not carry Van out, just as they were beginning to sing. She put down her hand and whispered out of the corner of her mouth,

“Behave yourself, Van!”

Now the unlucky star of a certain small boy decreed that on this particular Sunday he should be asked to display his accomplishments by accompanying the children with his violin, on whichhe had been taking lessons for nearly four months. A proud father and mother had urged him on, and there he stood beside the pianist, with his bow raised.

Down it came on the strings in the first strains of “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” the voices of all the school joining in, in fine, childish harmony.

At the first wail of the instrument Van leaped to a point of vantage on the seat. He did not wait for a hymn-book; he simply lifted up his voice and joined the chorus in a song without words—a long-drawn, mournful howl! He could sing that hymn with the best of them; he would show them!

“Stop, Van!” Betsy tried to shut him off by putting her hand over his mouth, but he wriggled free, barked an evil defiance, and continued his heartrending strains. Who was she that she should interfere with the religious devotions of the son of kings, a hero, and a singer of songs? The teachers tried their best to look shocked, and the superintendent openly grinned.

She fled with him down the aisleShe fled with him down the aisle

She fled with him down the aisle

She fled with him down the aisle

Betsy no longer shunned publicity. She was flooded with it anyway. Seizing the singer shefled with him down the aisle, leaving the room swept by a gale of laughter that might have been heard almost to India’s coral strand! It was a shocking end to a devotional exercise.

Betsy did not go back; she took Van out in the vestibule and spanked him. She haled him home; she told him that he was a young imp; and that if ever he followed her to Sunday School again she would know why.

After this Van decided to try another service. Mary the cook loved him too, and Mary was a good Catholic. Perhaps he was too old and too musically-inclined for Sunday School. The next Sunday he followed Mary as she started to Mass.

“Look out, Mary!” called Treesa, “Van’s following you.”

“Ah, sure now the Boy-Heart can go down the hill wit’ me. I’ll hunt him home before I goes in.”

At the door of Mary’s church she “hunted him home,” and he turned as if to go, but the minute her back was turned he was behind her, and behind her he marched up the steps and up the aisle. In Mary’s pew he took his station, and at Mary’s feet he lay.

Father O’Givney came down from his pulpit after Mass, and Mary apologized.

“The Boy-O folleyed me, Father O’Givney, an’ I hunted him home, but right back he came. He sure do be liking it here, an’ a foine church it is, to be sure. He’s the great Boy—that.”

“I’ve a dog of my own at home,” said Father O’Givney. He was Irish, too, and Mary’s soft brogue was to him like the music of the Ould Sod. “Van’s behaving well, isn’t he?”

“Sure, he’s always the gentleman!” answered Mary, and Van was left, unrebuked and undisturbed.

No one will ever know how many times Van went to Mass with Mary. She kept her own counsel. But I have my suspicions that to-day Van is a full-fledged Roman Catholic, in good and regular standing; and I am sure that, if it were orthodox to admit dogs into the fold, Mary would, long ago, have had his name entered on the books.

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