 CHAPTER 1 DEL'S RETURN HOME What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. She was dressed in a plain, neat, buff linen traveling suit and looked fresh and comfortable despite the heat and dust of the august day. She stood in the doorway of a village railway depot, tapping the toe of one neatly booted foot on the sill of the door in a manner that might have been tokened in patience or restlessness. Turning occasionally, she let her bright eyes rove over the ill-built, ill-kept, never-cleaned room where luckless travelers were doomed to pass their waiting time and her rosy lip curled in a scornful or disgusted way. Up the long, dusty hill leading to the depot buildings, straggled a middle-aged man with his hands in his pockets and his straw hat on the back of his head. He quickened his pace a very little when he saw the fair picture framed in the doorway and presently mounted the steps and stood before her speaking in a tone that was half-greeting and half-surprise. Well, and so you are really here! The young lady thus adressed, jumped down from the doorstep, and standing beside the man, reached up and touched two rosy lips to his hard, brown cheek, ere she answered, "'Didn't you expect me, father?' And now it was your turn to be surprised. You had never have guessed the relationship. This little lady was so dainty and neat and graceful, and the man was so rough and coarse and ungainly. He answered his daughter's question with a half-flat, half-grumble. "'Oh, kind of, and kind of not. Your fine folks out there have so bamboozled you up that I wasn't sure you would any of you remember that you had a father. Well, where's your luggage?' "'Here are my checks. There are two trunks, and there's a little box besides. That's for you.' Uncle Edward sent you some of Grandma's choice books. "'Thank you for nothing,' the man said gruffly. We need a thousand things more than we do books. Old rubbish, not worth paying to have them carried home. I have a good mind to leave them here to be used for firewood.' The girl's bright eyes flashed, but she spoke in a cool, quiet tone. "'If you can't afford to have them carried down, father, get a rope for me and bore a hole in the box, and I'll drag them home. I can as well as not.' Her father gave her a curious puzzled look, but seemed to make nothing of her grave face. "'Oh, I'll have them taken down,' he said at last, but I don't set any great store by him myself. Your Uncle Edward aired all the reading-taste there ever was in our family. "'Here, you build grimes,' he added, raising his voice and beckoning to a man in the distance with a cart. Just give me a lift here, won't you? My team is away today.' The man drove around to the deposte steps, and the two were busy about trunks and bundles, the young man giving the dainty maidens slight glances whenever Chance favored him, until she turned toward him and said, with frank kindness, "'How do you do, Mr. Grimes? You remember me, don't you?' Then he doffed his calf awkwardly enough, while the red blood mounted to his very hair, and could go no further, even when the elder man put his hands on his fat sides and shook with laughter. "'Mr. Grimes,' he ejaculated, when he could speak. Now if that ain't the richest note.' And he went off into another laugh. "'I reckon you ain't heard that name before since the old man died, have you, Bill? Come, come, Dow, you mustn't go to putting on airs here. You ain't down in Boston, now you must remember.' The imperturbable calm of the young girl's face and the composure of her voice seemed to awe her father into puzzled silence. She only said, "'I shall certainly try to call people by their right name's father, here in Lewiston, just as I would anywhere else.' Her father's next remark was made when the last trunk was securely strapped to the cart. Now we're ready. I guess you and I will jog on ahead, Dell.' And the walk through the long, dusty, sleepy village streets was commenced. The houses straggled at irregular and uncertain intervals on either side of the street, and every single one of them looked as though the paint had been worn off by the third-generation back. There were blinds hanging by one hinge, suggestive of many a delicious creek and groan when once the November wind had fair play among them. In the center of this delightful old town there stood a great square, weather-worn, sorrowful-looking wooden barn named by courtesy a church. This seemed to be the climax to the forlorn picture, and to Dell Bronson's Boston accustomed eyes only her heart could tell how forlorn it all seemed. Her father, glancing furtively up at the still creature beside him, saw the wondering gaze that she cast about her and questioned, how does it all look, natural-like? It looks, said Dell, speaking slowly and with great gravity, as though all the people had gone away two hundred years ago and never came back and must have been glad of it ever since. Ha-ha-ho-ho, chuckled the father. You're a cute one, I guess. That's pretty good. And then they had reached their home. Home! No, the wooden church had not been the climax after all. It was here in this long, low, once yellow-painted, now dirt-begrimed, wooden-shuttered, broken-windowed village tavern, with dirty piazzas running the entire length of the building, garnished with five wooden chairs, on which chairs launched five of the most disgusting creatures that ever tilted back on the piazza of a third-rate hotel, and smoked and chewed and spit and stared. Well, here you are, home at last, the father said, as he pushed open the great yellow door. Home! Was it actually her home? She shivered a little, not outwardly, and sped up the uncarpeted stairs without letting herself glance at any of the objects inside of that door. The room into which she ushered herself was long and narrow. In one corner stood a single bedstead, on which was mounted a feather bed, suggestive of a sweltering night, and the finishing touch was a blue and green patchwork quilt put on crooked. It was an indication of this girl's character, that before she took off her hat and sack, or even her gloves, she walked over to the bed and straightened the quilt, tucking it neatly in at the sides, and then drawing it out again, because on the whole it looked less forlorn drooping over the sides than it did to have it hidden away, thereby revealing the long, narrow, ungainly rails. Then she shook up the mites of pillows, and turned down the sheets in a dainty way. So much air she took in the rest of the room. There was little enough to see. A queer, old-fashioned, twisted-legged table, a square wooden wash stand with the paint worn off and with one leg shorter than the others, so that it toddled whenever it was touched, making a racket over the nicked wash bowl and dingy pitcher. Three chairs, one a dingy rocker, with a pitiful green and purple cushion on the seat. These completed the furnishing of the room, except, indeed, a faded red and green and yellow carpet, which in its best and brightest days could not have been pretty. Dell untied the white cord that fastened the blue paper window curtain almost to the ceiling, and shot out the glaring sun, then went to the 10-inch-looking glass and unfastened her hat, taking a grave, earnest look at her round, young face, with its rosy cheeks and great bright eyes. Not so bright, but that one could detect a touch of sadness in their brown depths. She sighed again just a little touch of a sigh, quickly caught and suppressed, but there were visions of a little white and green room in which she had stood only yesterday at this time. Such a gem of a room, just those two colors, from the mossy carpet that pressed her feet to the tiny sea green bedstead in its dress of perfect white. Her own room it had been for several years. Uncle Edward's home and Aunt Laura's, but nonetheless it had seemed hers. As she brushed her hair she thought about it all. Years and years ago, a lifetime ago it seemed to her, Uncle Edward had come and carried her away from this very room to her own green and white one in Boston. Seven years ago. Why, was it only seven? Yes, for she was almost 11 years old, and now last month she was 18. She remembered the morning very well, and the weeks before that morning, and especially that one day in which her mother died, that white, tired mother who never wore other than the sad, patient, gentle face in the midst of all her discouraging surroundings and how discouraging they were. Del was just beginning to have a faint gleam of an idea. Well, one day, suddenly, unexpectedly, after lying for some weary weeks on a high bed in a dreary room, having very little company in her loneliness, and Del suspected now anything but proper care, the burden of living was dropped, and for the first time in many years the tired woman rested body and heart and brain. Del remembered it all, remembered especially the solemn funeral, and how frightened and dreary the father looked, and how her tall, pale-faced Uncle Edward seemed to her to belong to another race of human beings. After the funeral, Aunt Nancy, her father's sister, came to live with them and assumed the endless cares of the dead woman, and Uncle Edward went back to his city home, taking Del with him. She was his only sister's only child, and had been to him in all respects as his own, never really given up to him by her father, yet the years had slipped by, and saved once when she was nearly fourteen and had come to stay a week with her father, and had quarreled with Aunt Nancy in three days and been sent back to Boston, she had never left the beautiful home of her adoption, where she had been the carefully nurtured and much petted darling. By degrees it had nearly gone out of her life the remembrance of any other home, until one day there had come a letter from her father, an unusual thing, for he was not given to letter-writing. This one was brief but startling, thus it was in detail. Dear Del, this is to tell you that your Aunt Nancy is dead. She died three months ago very sudden, since which I have rubbed along alone, and it has been pretty rubbing work. What, with all the sass of the girls and breaking things, I'm sick of it. If it so be that you are a mind to come home and do your duty by your father, why I'll be glad to see you and will do my duty by you. But I shant lay no commands on you. Them that has you and has done for you, maybe thinks they has the best right to you, and if so be that you think so too, why so be it. If you decide to come, write and let me know, and I'll come to the cars and get you. Your obedient servant, Jonas P. Bronson. This signature, not for any intended sarcasm, but from a vague memory that the few letters that he had been called upon to write closed in that manner. Del read this letter in the little summer parlor in Boston, standing leaning one arm on her piano, her white dress floating eerily around her, read at first to herself with the startled, shocked look on her face, settling into one of such marked pain that the fair-faced woman, sitting in the low rocker by the window, said, What is it, my darling? And Del passed the letter to her without a word. Now the next few sentences will tell you how this young girl had been nurtured, and upon what principles her actions were founded. The lady read the letter, and then said in quick-pained tones, Oh, my darling child! And Del, still standing there, beside her beloved piano, said in a firm, clear voice, Aunt Laura, when do you think I ought to go? A few minutes later, when Uncle Edward had joined them, he said inquiringly, There is no question as to your duty in this matter, Del. And she, raising her grave, earnest eyes to his face, answered, Is there any room for doubt, Uncle Edward? Will you tell me, my dear child, what thought you have in your heart that decides the matter for you so promptly? And the young girl, with eyes drooping and fast-filling with great tears, still answered steadily, Honor thy father and thy mother. So here she was in that long, nearer room, brushing her hair before the ten-inch glass. Is it a wonder she sighed a little over the contrast? But Del Bronson was not a girl that was much given to sighing. She gave some energetic twists to her wavy hair, and then addressed herself aloud, which she was rather in the habit of doing. It isn't a palace by no means, but then it is my father's house, and I shall live in it, and be happy besides if there is any such thing. With the expression, my father's house, a bright smile broke over her face, and she repeated, aloud and slowly, In my father's house there are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you. O Del Bronson, you must not forget that your father's house is a palace, and that you are a king's daughter. Remind the place in which you may have to stay for a little while, just to make your preparations, you know. There are a great many things to do. Meantime, Bill Grimes had appeared with her trunks, and they had been brought up to her room. So diving into the depths of one of them, she produced there from a white, daintily ruffled apron, and tying it on she ran gaily downstairs, more gaily than she felt, to conceal an aching desire at her heart for a loving greeting from somebody. Oh, for a mother to clasp tender arms about her! She felt young to begin life alone. Yet at that moment there came a bright memory to her heart of one who loved her with a love passing that of women. She remembered his eternal promise, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. And the gaity had toned down into a steady, sweet brightness by the time she opened the dining-room door. CHAPTER 2 THE YOUNG MISTRESS Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do. It was anything but an inviting picture upon which her eyes rested, that long dreary dining-room, with the sun pouring in as blindingly as it could, through cobwebby, fly-stained windows, slanting its beams toward the table, spread for supper. Del went resolutely toward that table, and made her eyes take in all the details. It is safe to say that she received there her first knowledge as to how wretched a thing a table set for supper could be made to look. The cloth was stained with coffee and tea and dobb'd with egg and molasses and gravy. The sun had accomplished a melting process with the butter, and five or six flies had found oily graves. The bread was evidently that which had been cut at noon and left over, and, being unable to melt, had taken to drying instead. The flies were holding a perfect carnival over the uncovered sugar bowls, apparently never missing those who were sailing around in the milk-pitchers. In a certain house in Boston there was one of the daintiest of dining-rooms, with a bay window all aglow with geraniums and tea roses, and one great white lily. It was next to impossible that Del should not think of that dining-room and of the vacant side where she sat only last evening. She thought of it, but the thought did not appear in her words. She gathered up the skirt of her buff linen dress about her, looked at the floor, and said, Oh my patience, I wonder if I have enough of that commodity for this occasion. It is too late to mob, but there are several other things to be done. First, though, where is father? Nobody was in the dining-room, and, after hesitating a moment, she stepped across the hall to the bar-room. There were five or six loungers who looked at her as if she had been in apparition. Confused by her unusual position, it was some minutes before she could single her father out from among the group whose feet were disposed around the room on the backs of chairs and settees. When she did, she promptly summoned him to a conference in the hall. Father, she said, closing the door on the staring men with a little jester of disgust, am I the housekeeper? Then the father stared and finally chuckled. I don't know about that, he said at last. I shouldn't wonder if Sally thinks she is. Who is Sally? She is the cook, and you'll have to do about right if you don't want to get turned out, and like enough you'll get turned out anyhow if her back happens to get up about anything. I've been expecting leave to go off and on these three months. But Father, I want to be housekeeper myself. I can't do anything for your comfort unless I am mistress, and I want to have things different. It isn't comfortable in there. This was an indication of her head toward the dining-room. Her father shrugged his shoulders expressively. No more it ain't, he said earnestly. I've most forgot the meaning of the word. By Del I ain't had no comfort since your mother died. There was a plaintive sound to his voice as he repeated the last sentence impressively that brought tears to Del's eyes. Poor father, she said, with a gentle caressing touch of her hand on his coat sleeve. Well, we'll have things different after a while. Then I'm to be mistress, am I? Whereupon her father shook his head again. I don't know about that, you must keep on the right side of Sally, and Kate she ain't far behind, though I do think she ain't quite so obstetarous like. Who is Kate? Well, she's the chambermaid and dining-room girl and maid of all work, sort of pretty decent kind of a girl when she ain't mad, which she is mostly. But Father, I want it the other way. I want them to be trying to keep on the right side of me. Mr. Bronson looked thoughtfully down at the young creature before him, then presently he laughed. What would you do if they should both flare up and leave? He asked, with an air of one who had presented a formidable trouble, but her answer was prompt and decided. Get others in their place, of course. And suppose they sass you and don't pay no attention to your notions. Then I should dismiss them. There really seemed to be something refreshing to the father in his daughter's brisk bright words and ways. He looked down at her admiringly and chuckled his answer. You're pretty cute, I guess. I'll fight it out with Sally and Kate, if you can. I'll back you. But you'll get sick of it and dodge and leave things go to everlasting smash as I have. But even as he said this, he had a dim notion that this daughter of his was different from himself and would be very likely to accomplish what she undertook. And as he went back to that horrid bar-room, he winked confidently to old Joe Simmons and said, She's a brick, now I tell you. As for Del, she went directly to the kitchen. Oh, the kitchen! Adjectives would fail in their attempt to describe it. Del on the threshold paused and said in an undertone of dismay, Shall I ever be able to eat any more dinners as long as I live? Then seeing that the two splatternly beings who occupied the space between the stove and the sink had each two sharp eyes, she stepped forward and spoke pleasantly. How do you do? I know your names, but I don't know just which of you own each name. Which is Sally and which is Kate, please? The red-haired creature answered, with arms pressed against her fat sides, I am Sally and her is Kate. Do you want anything out here? Several things was Del's prompt answer. In the first place, Sally, I want to know if you have any clean tablecloths. Perhaps I has and perhaps I hasn't. What about it? Only that Kate and I want a clean one right away. We're going to set the table over again and that cloth in there is all ready for your wash tub. Kate giggled and Sally frowned. The table is set for supper, she said wrathfully, and it is about time to have it, and it's going to be had, too, and folks as doesn't belong to the kitchen had better keep out and not spoil their fine clothes. Del's voice was clear and firm and yet gentle. Then we'll delay supper for half an hour and get the table into proper order, and Sally, I may as well explain to you now that I am Mr. Bronson's daughter and I have come here to take charge of his house. I am very much obliged to you for doing it all the while. He must have been hard for you to have had so much care and a great deal of work besides, but now I have come home to share the work and I hope it will not be very hard for either of us. Sally's face had grown ominously dark during this little speech gracefully worded and gently spoken though it was and at its close she burst forth. Indeed, I think it won't be hard for me any longer. I'll not do another stroke of work in this house. I'll not be bossed about by any red-cheeked chit like you. I'll tell you that." Air she had done speaking, Del's hand was in her pocket. She drew forth her portamonna and spoke in a calm, dignified tone. Very well, how much do I owe you? Poor cross Sally, her favorite weapon which she had held over the heads of so many helpless mistresses with which she had endless times driven poor Mr. Bronson back to the bar room in despair had never before met with such a response. She stood silent and dismayed where at Kate could not forbear giggling again. Del saw her advantage and with rare diplomacy followed it up. With quiet dignity she returned her portamonna to her pocket and spoke gently and pleasantly. I will overlook your improper language to me, Sally, because I see you have allowed yourself to become angry. I will even give you time to change your mind. If after thinking the matter over you decide that you want to try whether we cannot get along comfortably together and be helps to each other, we will say no more about this. But if you still want to go you may come to me tomorrow morning for your wages. Then she turned instantly to Kate with a bright smile. Now Kate, if you will get that tablecloth you and I will set to work and see how soon we can get supper ready. Then she left the kitchen in some doubt as to whether she would see either Kate or the tablecloth, but she set resolutely to work clearing the dishes to a side table, then presently Kate appeared with a beautifully clean tablecloth hanging over her arm. Del's eyes fastened upon it in genuine pleasure. It was possible then to have something clean. Who does the ironing, she said eagerly, as they spread out the cloth with its crisp, fresh folds. I does mostly, Kate answered. I irons the tablecloth. It is beautifully done, the young mistress said brightly. I never saw one look nicer than this. Kate's face broke into a broad-pleased smile. It was new to her to hear words of commendation. She tramped briskly about doing Del's bidding with an air of satisfaction, and Del, as she looked at her round, homely face, knew that Kate's heart was one. They were very busy during the next half hour, with some pleasant explanation one improvement after another was suggested. The knives rubbed a little. A damp cloth was taken to the glass sugar bowl. Fresh milk-pitchers brought, freshly cut cakes of butter on glittering squares of ice, freshly cut plates of bread, and goblets washed until they shone. It do make a difference, Kate said philosophically, and Del thought it did. She could hardly make it seem the same table that she had surveyed half an hour before. A few more touches, and the supper was ready. Do you wait on the table, Del asked of Kate, with many an inward misgiving as to the girl's slaternly appearance. Maggie, the girl who waited at Aunt Laura's table, was such a picture of neatness. But if she had but known it, Kate looked much better than usual, having smoothed her hair and put on a net in honor of the expected newcomer. She remembered it, and conscious of her superior appearance, she answered blandly, I does. Then I believe we're ready, aren't we, Sally? I'll take in your tea-cakes, Kate, while you roll down your sleeves. And do you wear white aprons? You have one, haven't you? Suppose you run and get it then, and I'll ring the bell. La, said Kate, with a touch of grumbness. Yes, I has one, but I don't wear it. They does not care. If I only gives them tea enough and bread and butter, that's all they want. They doesn't know whether my apron be white or black. Very likely, Dell said, with unfailing good humor. But then you see, we care, and we want to have everything very nice tonight. Do you iron aprons as nicely as you do tablecloths? Run and get yours on until I see if you do. And Kate, much to her own astonishment, went. The tea-bell rang, and they lounged in from the bar room and piazza, among them two brisk young clerks who had just come, one from the post office, and the other from the store. Dell, in the pantry, just off the dining room, waited to watch Kate's movements and heard the comments. The two clerks sat opposite each other, and they looked into each other's astonished eyes. I say, Tom, one of them ejaculated, the millenniums come. Did you know it? Clean cloth, clean knives, and no flies in the milk as true as you're alive. Yes, and look at the butter, will you? Tisn't the millennium its paradise. This was his companion's response. Dell heard their comments and smiled inside, smiled over their evident satisfaction, and sighed to think that perhaps this was really their highest idea of that paradise, which their tongues so lightly syllableed. Presently her father came in, and Dell watched eagerly to see if he would note the changes. He took his accustomed seat, looking slowly down the length of the table, and then deliberately arose, and, lounging out to the kitchen sink, washed his hands. Then, disappearing for a moment, returned with his hair brushed and a linen coat covering his soiled shirt sleeves, and Dell gleefully clapped her hands over this emphatic comment on the new order of things. Alone in her room that night, she tried to think calmly about this new life that had opened to her. She tried to shut out that fair green room with its dainty belongings, the luxurious home in its elegant beauty, appealing to every one of her delicately educated senses, tried to shut out the vivid sense of the difference between the pure, pale, refined, life-ennobled face of her uncle Edward, and the uncultured, stolid face of her father. Failing in both these efforts, she turned resolutely away from them all, and drawing from her pocket her tiny Bible, she read about that other home of hers where they had no need of the sun in his glory because of the eternal glory that was beyond all earthly brightness, and about the other father of hers, the shining of whose face was the light of heaven, read until her own face shone with the reflection of all this unutterable grandeur, and earthly homes and friends faded and were forgotten. CHAPTER 3 THE LETTER AND THE VISITOR I will guide thee with mine eye. Before Del had been at home a week, she received one morning a letter from her uncle Edward. She rushed with it to her own room and fairly hugged it to her heart, and covered the soiled envelope and inky postage stamp with kisses before she said about devouring its contents. How delightfully familiar the smooth-flowing letters looked. Boston, August 15, 18-something. My dear Del, dear daughter I had nearly said, so much does it seem to me that I am writing to my own child, but even while I sighed to remember that you are not my daughter, and therefore not with us today, I rejoiced over the thought that you are a daughter of the eternal God, and that your father has you in his constant care and keeping. Your aunt Laura sends love and a wish for your presence because of canned fruit or fruit that is to be canned, or something of that sort. Not of course for any other reason. We attended the concert last evening without you. That part was sad, the concert was fine. Do you think much during these concert days which you were to enjoy, of the great multitude which no man can number, closed in white and with palms in their hands, who sing with a loud voice and cease not day nor night? I thought of it last evening. Your aunt Laura leaned forward to me during one of the parts in which we had expected to hear your voice and said, she will not be missing from the other concert. When the 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands sing the triumphal song, our Del will join the chorus. And I answered her, there is more to it even than that. I trust because of her not being with us tonight that there will be added voices to that chorus. Have you thought of it, Del? Perhaps the Father called you to that part of his vineyard just now in order that you might induce some singers to join in the song that the redeemed from every nation and kindred and people and tongue shall sing. Dear Del, don't go alone. I am sure there are people in Lewiston who have not thought about it who yet will be glad to go with you when you press them to join you. And the thought brings me to the main reason why I am writing this letter in some haste this morning instead of being in my counting room. God has opened a wonderful door to you. Do you remember the sentence in your Father's letter, no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven? You have been carefully and prayerfully taught that truth until I think you feel it in all its fullness and now the Father has called you to one of the centers where this truth is unknown or disregarded. That you may work and think and pray for the turning of tempted feet into the narrow path. I glory in your call, dear child. Be worthy of your commission. When he calls you home to give him your statement of the work, be sure that you have no undone duty pressing your conscience and see to it in that hour you are not found standing idle. I did not mean to preach a sermon, dear child. That is not my vocation, you know. I only mean to give you little hints here and there of the peculiar trust the Lord must have in you to have given you thus early in life so wide and solemn a working place in his garden. I think you have learned so well whose daughter you are and what the King expects of his child and how blessed that child is in having the great King for a father. That perhaps it is quite unnecessary to remind you of the great and eager longing that there should be in your heart for your earthly father. Carry the desire about with you constantly the longing to see him one day moving triumphantly among that countless throng. No, my dear Del, that is bad advice. I mean tell the great longing of your heart out freely to your elder brother and ask his daily, hourly help. Do you know that I have put myself in such a position that I cannot help you in this matter? I mean, of course, by personal help. Your father will hear no word from me because that word affects his business. At present it seems wiser for me to cease from personal effort. When you have reached that point, the King will make it known to you. Do not be afraid of entering doors that he has himself opened. There is much to say and as usual, very little time in which to say it. Is there less time in Boston than elsewhere, I wonder? Your class in Sabbath school troubles me. They do not seem to assimilate with Miss Terry. The truth is she wears too much bracelet, makes too marked a difference between her own toilet and that of the girls. Do you think it will do to give her a quiet little hint of the trouble? If she were only Del Bronson now, I would say it to her in all frankness and I think she would receive it. I do not mean Del Bronson receiving a bit of truth from her uncle Edward, but Del Bronson receiving it from her superintendent or from anyone who meant it for her good or broader than that from those who do not mean it for her good so she could gather good from it. You told me once that I thought too highly of you. Don't allow me to. Dear Del, grow far beyond my thinking or even hoping. There are glorious possibilities of grace to be attained, a possible flight high enough for the ambition of an angel. Advise me please in regard to Miss Terry. Joe Turner still continues to pinch his next neighbor black and blue every Sabbath afternoon so the neighbor says and resolutely refuses to show any indications of civilization. Here Aunt Laura and I have taken him for a special subject of prayer. At home all is as usual except the one great void made by your absence. Baby Laura has a new pearl, small and white, which she constantly uses, on rattle on silver dollar, on her luckless holder's finger as the case may be. I meant this letter to be brief and it will not terminate. There is no way but to cut it short. One word about the main thought in it. If you are at a loss how to proceed which way to turn, remember your father's letter of full and explicit instructions. Go to it and him for direction. Following this rule there is no possibility of mistakes. Good morning, dear child. Your loving uncle. Del folded the letter with a look on her face made up of eagerness and dismay. There was a little rush of tears to her eyes but she brushed them quickly away and indulged in her favorite employment talking to herself. What a singular letter that would be if it came from anyone in this world but Uncle Edward. The idea of congratulating me upon the door opened for me. Now my opinion would be that the door of temperance was shut and bolted and barred. Whoever heard of the daughter of a rum seller living in a hotel preaching temperance. Del's cheeks glowed as she spoke and her lips quivered. Yet this was the bear undeniable fact and such was her nature that she had to face disagreeable truths plainly and firmly in order to endure them at all. What on earth am I to do? She continued with eager tongue. If I were only a girl in a book now there would be no end to the wonders that I could perform. I should go on bended knees to my father and with tears in my eyes implore him not to sell any more rum and immediately he would shed tears and promise to listen to my petition. Then we too would empty all the rum barrels and convert the village and then travel around and convert the world. That is the way book girls do. But most unfortunately I am not that style of girl. And even if I were it would do no sort of good to beg my father to give up a money making business. Did not my poor mother's pale face beg for that every day of her life? I wish Uncle Edward had been more explicit. He must be right, he generally is. But what in the world I can do for the cause of temperance situated as I am at present is more than I can imagine. A more utterly hopeless cause could not be given me. My very eagerness to do something makes my powerlessness all the more plain. She was pacing up and down her room now with the eager look changed to one of perplexed thought. The letter had aroused the one great burden always crouched at her heart. Her father was a rum seller, a respectable licensed drunkard maker. She, Del Bronson, who had been brought up in her uncle's house to utterly loathe and abhor the sight of liquor to refuse its use in any shape or form. To work and plan and pray for its banishment from the civilized world must every day face an army of rum drinkers, must hear their silly jokes as she passed through the halls, must lie awake at night and listen to their drunken songs or quarrels or oaths, must pass by houses made wretched by the daily presence of the demon and remember that her father furnished the poison at so much a glass, must watch his own face grow redder, his eyes more bleared, his steps more uncertain every day and yet be absolutely powerless and helpless. She fairly groaned as the vivid picture of all this came before her. Did she remember that fearful sentence, no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven? Oh, did she not? Sometimes it seemed written in letters of fire all over the walls of this licensed hotel. How Del hated that word licensed nobody knew. No drunkard and her father not only made drunkards, but the law pronounced it a legitimate business, actually trafficked in souls at so much a soul. No, not even that, but reckoned them in masses, these souls that must live on and on forever, gave a man the right to ruin just as many of them as he possibly could, provided he paid for the privilege a few dollars a year. What can I do, she said in anguish's soul as her heart sickened at the thought of all this and at the added anguish that her father had bought the privilege of barring his own soul out of heaven as well as that of others. What does Uncle Edward think it possible for me to do? Why didn't he tell me? If he only realized as I do that I can do nothing, nothing. Then her eye fell on the closing lines in the letter. If you are at a loss how to proceed, which way to turn, remember your father's letter of full and explicit instructions. Go to it and to him for direction following this rule there's no possibility of mistakes. And as she re-read the words, gradually the look of pain died out from her face and there came first a calm and then a smile. My father's letter, she said softly, I am constantly forgetting that my father is watching and planning and is more interested than I can be. Uncle Edward is right. He must have something that he intends me to do else he would not have called me here. I wonder what my instructions are and where I shall look for them. She unclasped her little Bible, not with any definite end in view, for she knew she had no time just then to search for directions, but from a kind of habit she had of picking up the little book and just glancing at some earnest word or loving promise. But her whole face flushed and her eyes brightened as they caught the sentence, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. The promise was not new to her. It only came suddenly home to her heart with that wondrous power that every lover of the Bible understands, a power that makes it seem as though those particular words were spoken just then by some wonderfully distinct voice and spoken for you entirely and only. Del instantly shut her Bible and dropped upon her knees and the first sentences of her prayer were, my father, it is enough. I yield myself to thee. Instruct and guide me as thou wilt, lead where thou wilt. Thy daughter is ready to follow thee with her soever thou goest. Ah, dear father, perhaps I am not, I don't know, but make me willing, make all me that thou wouldst have me. Five minutes afterward she was summoned to the tea-room to see a collar. This same tea-room deserves a word on its own account. It was an emanation of Del's brain, not the room exactly, but its belongings and uses. It was a little square room with a side door leading into the yard and had been bare of furniture and had been appropriated to no better use than to serve as a sort of general storeroom for umbrellas, overcoats, hats, rubbers, shawls, anything that might be needed of a rainy day. Del had seized upon it, banished the rubbish to appropriate dark closets, dragged to light enough carpeting to cover its bit of floor, hung the windows in cream color, repapered the walls, brought from the attic an old table with three legs, coaxed the hostler into adding a fourth, covered it daintily with an old cream-colored curtain, brought from her mother's room an old worn chair, stuffed and padded its back, seat and sides, and dressed it in cloth of the same creamy tint, filled the window seat with little pots of sweet smelling flowers brought from her Boston home, strewn the table with bright inviting books, and altogether converted the former storeroom into one of the daintiest, softest, sunniest and quietest of little rooms that her father at least had ever seen. Del, in writing to Aunt Laura about it, said, I call it the tea-room for reasons that I will explain to you when my plans are fully developed, but between you and me, it might be more appropriately called the trap room and I mean it to wage war against that fearful bar room. How shall, with many other things, be told you hereafter? It had cost her two days of hard labor and her last act had been to lay the two daily papers that Uncle Edward had sent her on the little cream-colored table and inform her father, when she called him to survey the room, that he would always find the latest papers on that table and the armchair vacant at any hour of the day. So when, as she entered the room on this particular morning and beheld her father causally seated in the armchair, engaged in tearing the wrapper from the late paper, she flushed with pleasure and felt that her trap had commenced its work. Her collar was a wee sprite of a child daintily done up in a peak dress with blue ribbons floating at her waist and among her brown curls. Small and sweet and shy with a winning lady-like shyness and her voice was as clear as a flutes when she looked with her truthful blue eyes into Dell's brown ones and said, if you please, Miss Bronson, will you sign my temperance pledge? End of Chapter 3, Recording by Trisha G. Chapter 4 of The King's Daughter. This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. The King's Daughter by Pansy. Chapter 4, Signing the Pledge. Thou art my father, my God. Dell looked with amused eyes on the dainty little roll of peak and ribbon and then suddenly glanced toward her father. Evidently he had heard the little lady's petition for he shook out his paper with a disgusted air and muttered something that his daughter could not catch. For one moment she stood irresolute. It was a queer place to come to for signers to a temperance pledge but the innocent little morsel looking up at her did not appreciate the difficulties. Dell's mind was very promptly made up. The first thing to do had come to her and she meant to do it. Certainly I will sign it, she said in a bright voice. Why you have several names here already? Well, I will put mine down and then you will have seven. And she moved with a brisk step toward the little writing table. Her father spoke suddenly and more sternly than he had ever before spoken to her. Dell, what tomfoolery are you about now? Dell waited until her rapid fingers had glided over the blank space and left the name, Dell Bronson, in unmistakably clear letters before she answered cheerily. I'm signing a temperance pledge, father. Temperance fiddle stick, Mr. Bronson said angrily while Dell serenely folded the pledge and returned it to the little maiden. Are you going to put your name on that thing? I have done so, father. Well, it is a pretty business for you to be about, I should think. You ain't in Boston now and I reckon you better remember it. If your uncle Edward hasn't taught you anything but to go against your father in this fashion, you may as well go back to him. I won't have such doings going on here and you may as well know it first as last. The little buff peak cast a frightened glance at the surly looking man, hurriedly thrust the pledge into her might of a basket and moved briskly toward the door. Dell bowed and smiled her out, promised in an undertone to be present at the evening meeting if she could, then came back to her father. He had taken up his paper, but he still grumbled and waxing louder as he received no answer. At last his words became distinct again. Do you know what you are about? I'm dusting and rearranging this table. What is the matter, father? Don't you know enough to know that these meddling fools who are sneaking around with pledges and coaxing folks to come to their confounded meetings are trying to ruin my business? No, sir, that isn't their object. They're trying to save drunkards. Save fools, said the man very crossly and Dell answered promptly. Yes, sir, they are undoubtedly fools or they wouldn't need saving but that's what we are trying to do. Well, I don't choose to have a girl of mine make a fool of herself. No, sir, I haven't the slightest intention of doing so. I have signed the pledge, you know. The newspaper was angrily flung on the floor at this point and the rough father said in his roughest tone, you talk like a fool. You had no business to put your name to that paper. Dell turned from her dusting and looked with two bright, steady eyes at her father and spoke very quietly. Why not? Why not? Don't you know that I get my living and yours by selling rum? Truly Dell knew that, knew it to her bitter sorrow and shame. Her cheeks flushed but she answered still steadily. Yes, sir. And you want to help break down my business, do you? Pretty way to treat the business that close and feeds you. Father said Dell with a clear voice and very determined eyes. Do you want me to sell rum? No, of course not, he said testily. Nobody asked you to sell anything. What I want is, but she quietly interrupted him. Do you want me to drink it? And then there came to this father a sudden shiver as he fancied this bright, handsome daughter of his standing in his bar room drinking his liquor. He answered her in a very snarly way but still promptly and decidedly. No, I don't. Very well, sir, I promise not to do either. That is what I meant by signing the pledge. It is not by any means the first one I have signed. I am very sorry that rum selling is your business. I would be willing to live on bread and water and work hard for that if you would give it up. I am not in sympathy with it in the least. I expect to do everything in my power to hinder the sale and the use of rum. I don't mean to use it in any possible form. I mean to talk against it and work against it and pray against it as long as I live. It was a long speech for Dell to make. In some respects it was a strange one for a daughter to address to her father but Dell, you remember, had been most carefully educated on this very subject. She could not help having a pretty thorough knowledge of her father's character. She could not help feeling the marked difference between him and her uncle Edward. She had resolved on a very straightforward course in speaking of the subject with her father. She knew that she would have to go contrary to his views in many ways in nothing perhaps more frequently than in this matter. It surely was best to show her colors most decidedly at this first opportunity and await the consequence. Her father was much less angry than she had supposed he would be. He knew much better than she did, the very low ebb at which the temperance cause stood in the village. He knew he had supporters many and strong. He did not in the least fear the influence of the temperance people. They irritated him but he contented himself with calling them fools and fanatics and a few other rough and harmless names and sneering at their efforts, which be it known, were faint and weak enough to almost call for sneers instead of commendation, even from friends of the cause. Doll's outburst half angered, half amused him. She looked so pretty standing there before him in her dainty dress, her bright eyes flashing and her cheeks a brilliant red, so pretty and so utterly harmless he could certainly afford to laugh, albeit he did it in a sneering way. Might he be coming, your hysterics are to you. I suppose that's the reason your uncle trained you in him. He always had an eye for them kind of things. Well, well, you must have something to do, I suppose, and I have no kind of objection to your amusing yourself in this fashion if you want to, so long as you don't plague me about it. An awful sight of good you'll find you're talking and thinking and what not will do and folks will call you a fool for trying to knock out your own underpinning. But that's neither here nor there if you're suited. And having talked himself into a comparative good humor, Mr. Bronson launched out of the room. Doll stood where he had left her looking after him. She drew two or three quick, hard breaths. This, then, was her father. It rushed upon her with new and overwhelming force, the gulf between them. There was no common ground on which they met. In not one single thing could they seem to sympathize. Oh, to be at home once more in her beautiful room to feel herself again the center and joy of her uncle's home to escape from these surroundings, the great hot kitchen, with its cross and filthy Irish girls, the dining room with all the rough, ungainly set who gathered there to eat and stare, that awful bar room with the smoking, spitting, drinking crew. Couldn't she go? How they missed her there in that beautiful home. Who would miss her here? Her father would not object to her going back. Indeed she had a vague feeling that he disliked the sort of restraint that he almost instinctively put upon himself in her presence. She knew that in some respects he was half afraid of her. She knew that she should only have to go to him with a determined air and announce her intention of returning to Boston by the afternoon train. He would stare and frown a little and grumble and very likely he would even swear, but it would end in sending Joe to the cars with her trunks. She knew it was too thoroughly understood that she was her uncle Edward's adopted child to have her movements absolutely forbidden or even very closely questioned. Should she go? The thought, the possibility made her heart beat hard and fast and for a moment it seemed to her that she must go at once that very hour. But then, ah me, how all the difficulties and reasons why rushed in the moment she lifted the gate and let in that innocent sounding, but then. She looked around that cheery little morning room which her skill and determination had brought to pass. How pure and sweet it was in the very center of this dreary old tavern. Must there not be something refining in the atmosphere and surroundings of the room, this little bit of her Boston home set down here? Wouldn't he feel the difference after a while? She thought of that dining room clean and neat almost bright now. What a dreadful room it was that first time she looked in on it. The thought of the changes wrought in the kitchen of the wine she had banished from the pudding sauces of the brandy bottle filled for culinary purposes that she had deliberately smashed. Not much was this to do. Certainly very little could be gained so long as the hated poisons were so freely poured at the table. But there were at least two of the men who did not drink liquor at the table. They at least would not have the taste for it fostered by the food that they ate. There were numerous other changes that she had made and that she contemplated making. And besides all this, was he not after all her very own father? Should she desert him? She who that very morning prayed so earnestly to be helped and guided? Should she weakly yield to the struggle and run back to rest and peace? No, she wouldn't. He was her father, ignorant and coarse and degraded though he was. Despite the chewing and the spitting and the smoking and the drinking, though his clothing and body were so permeated with the fumes of tobacco, though his breath was so choked with the fumes of liquor that it made her faint to go near him, still she was his only child. There was no possibility of getting away from that fact. It made her fairly tremble with pain to think of it. What fathers she knew, grand noblemen, how lovingly she had seen some daughters lean on their father's arm, how reverently she had heard them pronounce the dear name. Her heart fairly ached with the pain and the longing and the hopelessness. And then suddenly over this gloom there broke Dell's rich sweet smile. A sudden thought had pressed home to her heart and sudden mingling of sweet and true and wonderful words, mingling with and breaking up the sadness. My father, thou art the guide of my youth. Did an angel whisper those words in her ear? They sounded lovingly through her brain. She had longed for a father to lean upon such as she had known other girls to have. She had sighed bitterly over her low estate. She had forgotten for a moment whose child she was, the king's daughter. She must not forget that. Truly she had a father whom not only all the earth but all heaven adored. Oh yes, she could ask counsel of her father. She could be guided by him in all things. He could not be mistaken. He would never die and leave her. He would never, never take his supporting arm away from her. Surely she could smile and be glad. She's a sharp one, Mr. Bronson told himself as he walked toward the bar room. Let her have her notions. Who cares? Don't hurt nobody. Won't do to treat her as if she was a baby or a common kind of a girl, for she ain't that so. She'll be scooting off to Boston first thing I know if I don't mind my peas and cues and I should miss her, now that's a fact. Things ain't never gone so smooth like in this house not since her mother died. As for them silly notions about temperance, she can't do no harm and she'll get over them. I'll be easy with her. All girls have them. They think it makes them big and independent. Besides, I don't want her to drink. It's a nasty habit for women. I never kept no woman kind about me that would drink. I won't have them. I don't think it's decent. And Mr. Bronson drew himself up virtuously and went straight to the bar and prepared himself a glass of brandy. As for Del, she went to the kitchen and made her father the daintiest little pudding that milk and eggs and sugar and fruit, beaten and mashed and foamed and otherwise mysteriously compounded, could produce. End of chapter four, recording by Trisha G. Chapter five of The King's Daughter. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The King's Daughter by Pansy. Chapter five, The Temperance Meeting. Who hath despised the day of small things? All the while Del was dressing for the temperance meeting, there was in her heart a sense of pleasure at the thought of meeting friends and co-workers. She had been used to many friends and much work, hearty, earnest, enthusiastic work. She was used to accompanying her uncle Edward to the great hall in Boston and mingling there with a throng of interested workers. She liked the whole of it, the music, the brilliant lights, the enthusiastic people, the eloquent speakers. She had missed it all. She was glad to enter into it again with all her heart. She thought about it as she went briskly down the straggling street of the village toward the church. Thought about it until her hand was on the door knob and she pushed open the door. Then what a sudden coming down from the clouds it was. Instead of the great hall brilliant with light and glowing with flowers and alive with well-dressed throngs of expectant people who poured in unceasingly amid the subdued tremble of wonderful music, there was that dingy, dusty, dismal church smelling as if the united breaths of the worshipers of a hundred years back were entombed there and lighted by those sputtering, hissing, smoking kerosene lamps. And the audience was composed of five boys, two of whom were playing football with their caps, a young man who was preparing with the aid of his jackknife and a bit of chip to trim the aforesaid lamps, two girls who whispered and giggled in one of the dark corners and the dainty little bundle of peak Dell's morning acquaintance. Now that young lady was of course aware that the village in which she was present living was very different in many respects from Boston. She knew it boasted of no public hall and certainly the tumbledown old church building was far enough from deceiving her as to its condition. But then she had lived all of her grown up life in Boston and public meetings of any sort had to do in her mind with gas illuminated buildings and swelling organs and throngs of people. She found she had been considering them as necessities. She stood still by the door trying to take in the situation. What a great bewildering disappointment it was. Where was the meeting? Where were the people to make it of? At last she did what Dell was very apt to do in trying occasions. She laughed, not very loud but merrily. The extreme ludicrousness of the whole thing and the absurdity of her own expectations had just crapped over her. Her laugh ended. She cast about her as to ways and means. She brought the game of hatball to a sudden termination by an abrupt question addressed to the larger of the two boys. Is your name Johnny? No, ma'am, he said, wondering but respectful. It's Tommy, though. Oh, is it? Well, Tommy, though, what do you suppose is the reason that you and I don't let down some of these windows? How long do you suppose it will be before we will bake if we stay in this oven? I don't know, he answered laughing, but my name is Tommy Truman. Is it indeed? What a splendid name. Are you Tommy True Boy as well as man? I don't know, he said again, this time with a little touch of admiring thoughtfulness in his voice. You must be that if you mean to be the other, really and truly you know as well as in name. But about the windows, aren't we equal to them? Is your name Tommy True? This to the younger boy who turned toward her with a roguish but not ungraceful bow and answered, I'm Bob Mason at your service, ma'am. Thank you, then you want to know how you can serve me, of course. If you will go to the other side of the church and open every window, I shall consider myself delightfully served. He started at once, but suddenly turned back with a puzzled air. How shall I keep them up? There's no fastenings or anything. Ah, that's the question, I don't know. It shall be a part of your service to find out. The boy laughed, but when it wants to work and Tommy Truman was dispatched to the row of windows on the opposite side. Meantime the lamps after infinite pains and some burning of fingers were trimmed and sputtered less but looked dim and threatening, the young man turned toward Dell. Good evening, I shall have to introduce myself. My name is Nelson. I am bookkeeper at the factory. And this is Miss Bronson from the hotel Dell explained as he hesitated inquiringly. I beg pardon, he said with a little flush on his face. You are not connected with Mr. Bronson who keeps the hotel? I am his daughter, Dell answered quietly. Then her eyes gleaming with mischief. Where's the temperance beating, Mr. Nelson? Don't you see it? Mr. Nelson answered, indicating with eyes and gesture the five boys and the two giggling girls and answering the roguish look in her eyes with a frank laugh. Don't you know about this enterprise, Miss Bronson? Not in the least, except that a little midget invited me to attend a temperance beating tonight and I have come to attend it. And you don't find it, laughed Mr. Nelson. Well, it's in process of manufacture. Let me tell you about it. But first let me ask you, are you in sympathy with it? I don't know, said Dell gravely. I haven't seen it yet. He laughed again. Well, if you reside here, Miss Bronson, you know how completely this village is given over to Rum. I have never seen anything like it in a place of its size. I have not been here long, but long enough to get the heartache over some of these scenes I have witnessed. I have a class in the Sunday school and some little influence over the boys who compose it. I determined to make an effort in the way of a temperance society. I drew up a pledge and got my boys to sign it and two or three of their sisters signed. Then I prepared a pledge for each one and sent them out after recruits telling them to invite everyone they saw to sign the pledge and attend the temperance meeting this evening. I have some hope of seeing enough present to form a society and while we all work for temperance at the same time try to interest the people in a literary effort of some sort. And this is the result, said Dell, looking around on the eight small people waiting to see what was going to be done with them and while they waited, whispered together and giggled simultaneously every few minutes. This is the result, Mr. Nelson repeated with becoming gravity, folding his arms and taking a thoughtful survey of his audience and the room in general. Then the two pairs of eyes met and looked at each other for a moment. Then the owners of them laughed. Small potatoes and a few in a hill, quoted Mr. Nelson feelingly. Tall oaks from little acorns grow, responded Dell, ignoring the potatoes. Mr. Nelson, where is your pastor? Mr. Nelson's mustache and the lip under it curled very slightly as he answered. I have his sympathies and he hopes I will succeed and be able to do a good work and he is at Deacon Elliott's playing croquet with Ms. Emmeline. Oh, he is, what is the reason of all that? I mean going below surface reasons, why isn't he here? Because in the first place, Deacon Elliott doesn't approve of temperance societies, thinks pledges and infringement of personal liberty, et cetera, et cetera, and Esquire Burton believes in using the good things of this life as not abusing them and one of the good things is whiskey. And Mr. Traverse is an unqualified supporter of the anti-temperance cause and these three are the prominent men of the church and the village. And lastly, our pastor himself thinks good cider is an excellent thing. Have I given you reasons enough? Plenty and introduced your pastor to me besides. I don't want to slander him, Mr. Nelson said earnestly. He is a good man. I sincerely believe him to be one only he thinks on the subject as too many good people do. Del's spirits that had gone down to zero on her entrance into the dreary room began to rise as difficulties thickened around her. Well, she said in a brisk bright tone, looking with clear determined eyes into Mr. Nelson's face, let us have a temperance society, Mr. Nelson, and succeed, will you let me be your co-ajutor? I shall be most thankful for any assistance in any form under the present highly encouraging circumstances. What would you advise? What was your idea, a literary society? Something of that sort, the two combined, you know. Well, spoken with that inimitable little dash of energy that gave you courage and made you hopeful of results, let us have a literary society by all means. Of what, said Mr. Nelson with a comical sigh, of the material at hand to be sure, the little curly, come here, dear, thus summoned the little buff-peak morsel came daintily forward from her shy corner by the door, coaxed on by bright smile and winning gesture from Del. This is the little lady whose pledge I had the honor of signing this morning, she said, as she stooped in place to protecting arm around the little one. Now, my darling, don't you know a nice little verse to say to me, one that you say for papa sometimes, you know? I know Jesus loves me, the little girl said, with a shy, hesitating voice. The very thing, will you say it for me, darling? And the old church was very still, neither whispering nor giggling went on, while the sweet child voice was repeating that gem of child poetry. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. It is very sweet, Del said, and her ear had caught that peculiar clear round sound, which shows one skilled in such matters, that she had found that unusual thing among children, or indeed among those who have long ceased to be children, one who can recite poetry well and naturally. It is very sweet indeed, and you did it just as I thought you would. How old are you, little one? I'm almost seven. So I thought, now you will ask mama to let you come and see me tomorrow? Mama is in heaven, the child said, simply and gravely. Oh, is she? And Del's clasp of the little one tightened. Do you know my mama is in heaven too? Perhaps they love each other, your mama in mine. Well, is your papa here? Can you ask him? Yes. She explained papa was almost always in the study, but he let her come in sometimes when it was very necessary, and she could ask him. Well, ask him to let you come at four o'clock and stay an hour. I have something very beautiful to teach you. And with a kiss and a smile she was dismissed while Del turned triumphantly to Mr. Nelson. I have an exquisite piece of poetry to teach her and she will recite it beautifully. I knew she would from her eyes, so much is arranged for. What next asked that gentleman in an amused tone? He seemed suddenly to have slipped into a subordinate position and left this bright young lady at the head. Oh, a declamation we must have next. Mr. Nelson, that lamp nearest you smokes horribly. I don't think you trimmed it very well. I don't think you know quite as much about lamp trimming anyway as you might. Why, where is our Tommy True Boy? He can speak a piece for us, I think. She turned to look for him, praised the ingenious arrangements by which he had contrived to make all the windows stay up, contrived by skillful questioning to learn the extent of his oratorical powers, and finally came gleefully back to Mr. Nelson to announce the whole matter successfully arranged. Meantime his season of utter discouragement having passed, he began to enter with energy and amusement into the preparations and brought forward the giggling girls to present to Dell. They proved to be young misses of 14 who were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of temperance and quite capable of doing something besides whispering and laughing if only there could be found people wise enough to set them to work. The election of president, secretary and the like was by unanimous consent postponed until the next meeting, which was appointed for a week from that evening. But what shall we do for an audience, Mr. Nelson questioned at last in dismay? We are all performers, where are the listeners? Oh, we'll have listeners, Dell said, with an emphasis that seemed to decide the matter. In the first place, here are one, two, three, here are 10 of us, how many will promise to bring one friend with them next Friday evening, as many more as they can, but one certainly if it is possible? Up went her own hand in token of promise. Mr. Nelson promptly took the hint and raised his and all the others followed their example. Then there will be 20 at least. Oh, we'll do very nicely. 10 is not such a poor audience, Mr. Nelson. I'm not sure, but this is the nicest temperance meeting I ever attended, she added with a bright laugh. It's the funniest anyway. See here, Tommy Truman, are you going to be a gentleman and see me home? And as Mr. Nelson stood in the doorway of the old church and watched the boy walk proudly down the moon-lighted street, with the bright lady leaning on his arm, he felt that he would have been perfectly willing to have done that gentlemanly deed himself. End of chapter five, recording by Trisha G. Chapter six of The King's Daughter, This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The King's Daughter by Pansy, Chapter six, The Drunkard's Home. I know thy works and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is, and thou holdest fast my name and has not denied my faith. They walked briskly and merrily down the straggling street until they neared one of the tumbledown shanties, which had a way of appearing right in the midst of more pretentious buildings, but looking by that means more wildly out of place than they would have done had they been somewhat isolated. Dear me, said Dell in dismay, what a house, what a place to live in. How should you like to have such a crazy-looking, broken window to den as that for a home? I shouldn't like it, Tommy said emphatically. Well, between you and me, I don't believe the people who live there like it either in the least. I'll tell you what it is, Tommy Truman, when you get to be a man and have a family to take care of, if you go and live in such a way that by and by you have to move your family into such a rickety old hovel as that, why I shall be dreadfully disappointed in you. I never shall, you may depend, said Tommy, his tones bristling with earnestness and determination. I'm glad you are so decided about it, Dell answered approvingly, because now you see you are likely to set about keeping out of such places, set about it right away, I mean. Things don't happen all at once, you see. They begin to get ready away back years and years before we think about them. I have a fancy that even that old house didn't come into this wretched condition all at once. Perhaps there was a time when all the lights were in the windows. I know there was, answered Tommy decidedly. When that old fellow moved in here, there wasn't a pane of glass gone and things looked kind of decent. I remember the night Sam smashed the first one. He jammed his fist right through it and made it bleed like sixty-two. Further explanation from Tommy was checked by sounds of banging and scuffling issuing from the said house and finally a scream full of mingled terror and anger checked their footsteps and made Dell's heart at least beat faster. What can be the matter, she said anxiously as they stopped and peered back at the house which they had just passed? Oh, Sam is drunk, I suppose, Tommy exclaimed contemptuously. He is most every night of his life and he tears around like a madman. He's got a little girl only six years old and he whips her like all possessed. He'll kill her some time, folks think. He's whipping her now, said Dell excitedly as the sounds of blows and screams came out to them distinctly on the evening air. Tommy, this is dreadful. Can't anything be done? Can't you and I do something, don't you suppose? And she turned and went with swift steps back to the house. Oh, Miss Bronson, Tommy made answer earnestly. We can't do anything with him. When he's drunk, he's just like a crazy man. Folks are afraid to go near him. Nevertheless, he followed her back to the door. Dell had her hand on the latch and by way of answering, she said, why it's our Sam, I can see him through the window. Then she pushed open the door and entered. Ain't you awful afraid? He asked Tommy, quaking even to the toes of his new boots, yet at the same time aching for an adventure. But Dell addressed her next remark to the crazy man inside. Why, Sam Miller, now aren't you ashamed of yourself? It does not need picturing the scene that met her eye. It was the same old miserable story that we Americans are so accustomed to and so delight in that we take few, if any, measures to prevent its daily repetition. A drunkard's home and whatever of squalid wretchedness and filth are needed to enliven the scene. A drunkard's wife cowering in a corner, alternately weeping and screaming, while her husband held by the shoulder with iron grip, their youngest child, six years old, and struck blows thick and fast with the round of a chair on the bare neck and arms or yellow head of the shrieking child. Not an unusual picture in the least, you perceive. In fact, only a very commonplace one, lacking in several details that are often added to make it more striking and noticeable. It was not new to Del, for with her uncle Edward, she had penetrated into all sorts of fearful spots where people huddled and called themselves at home. For this delightful rum that so beautifies every picture that it touches was to be found in Boston as well as in Lewiston. But there was one feature of it that was new to her and quite sufficiently striking. It was the first time that she had ever beheld such a picture, having a vivid sense of the fact that her father was the artist entitled to all the honors for the grouping of the scene and the vivid effects that had been produced. Hitherto Del, looking upon some poor drunken wretch, had shuttered with horror and mentally expended her bitter burning indignation on some unknown and terrible villain who had sold the rum. But didn't she know only too well where Sam Miller procured his poison? He was a habitual hanger on at her father's tavern, a regularly engaged help bringing for her use innumerable pales of water and papers or anything she chose to send him for in the course of the day and receiving his payment in rum. What an awful background to the picture before her. Meantime, Sam Miller eyed her glaringly and with dangerous menace at first and then as there stole over his bewildered senses a dim notion of who she was, a faint memory of the numberless kind words and pleasant smiles that she had bestowed on him during the last 10 days must have crossed his brain for the angry glare gave place to a sheepish side glance and muttering something about the young imp deeming a whipping every hour, he abruptly thrust her from him and stumbled rapidly up the rickety stairs out of sight and sound. Then a curious scene ensued. Del, having met with unexpected success, turned to comfort the wife who had caught up her child the moment it was released and met to her astonishment angry eyes and tongue. And what kind of manners do you call it for a fine lady to burst into a man's own house in the night when he's correcting his girl and ask him if he ain't ashamed of himself? It's yourself I am thinking might be ashamed seeing you've no more manners than that. Del taken utterly by surprise was silent with amazement, not so with Tommy. He burst forth with fiery indignation. Now, Mary Miller, that's a little the meanest thing out. You wanted little Mamie killed out and out, I suppose? He'd have done it with a few more thumps and you go and come down on the lady that saved her life. A great sob burst from the woman's throat and she went eagerly about ministering to the suffering child, but her voice retained all its bitterness. I don't care, she muttered. Them as thrives by the thing that makes a madman of him ain't the ones to ask him if he's ashamed. He ain't himself, Sam ain't. He wouldn't hurt Mamie more than he would his own self, nor so much if he knew what he was about. And it's her and hers that's made him what he is. I know who she is and who her father is and I hate them both. I know how she gets her fine clothes and things. My Sam and lots of others gifts them for her and she'd needn't flaunt them here in my face and tell my Sam to be ashamed of himself. I won't stand it, I won't, so now. And then the hard voice broke down in great bitter tears that seemed rung from her against her will each with a groan. Poor Dell, poor sad-hearted girl, standing there in her youth and beauty with her white robes floating snowily around her. What an aching heart they covered. She stood for a moment after the voice ceased, transfixed by the sting of the hard words until Tommy's voice roused her. Come, Miss Bronson, don't stay where people don't know enough to tell a friend from an enemy. Then she went swiftly forward to the woman's side and spoke rapidly. Mrs. Miller, you ought to put cold water on the child's head, bathe the lumps in ice cold water and it will keep them from swelling and relieve the pain. And Mrs. Miller, you think you know me but you don't. I hate it, this awful business, this selling poison with such a hatred as I haven't words to express. I am fighting against it and praying against it and I will do so as long as I live. Then she turned and went swiftly away. They walked along the deserted street in silence until they neared Dell's home. Tommy broke the stillness. Miss Bronson, don't feel bad about what that woman said. She was half crazy, you see, and she don't know anything anyhow. Dell smiled drearily and gave her attention to the three or four men who were staggering and swearing and whistling along the street, having just issued from her father's hospitable doors every one of them in different stages of intoxication. Oh Tommy, Tommy, she sighed. We need a temperance society, don't we? Yes we do, said sturdy Tommy Truman, true to his principles of strict temperance even then when he would have liked to comfort her heart with the assurances that nothing of the kind was needed. Dell replied with solemn eagerness. Well Tommy, let us have a temperance society, one that will be worth something. Let you and I work for it with all our might and main in every way that we can think of. Let us talk about it wherever we go and whoever we see. Let us think about it constantly and pray about it a great deal. Will you do it, Tommy? And Tommy, standing there in the moonlight, took off his hat and answered with very grave and earnest words. Yes, Miss Bronson, I will, just as sure as my name is Tommy Truman, I will do everything I possibly can. Dell led herself into the dismal house and paused with a kind of fascinated shutter at the bar room door. The loungers had dropped off into silence and drowsiness earlier than usual and their deep snoring breaths, mingled with the sizzling of the kerosene lamp, made the only sounds there were. Tilted back in his armchair, his feet on one of the tables, sat her father snoring with the rest. The red bloated face looking more red and more bloated than ever before and what light there was shown full on his thin hair, singling out from among the black locks many and many a white hair, telling of fast-coming age and swift decay. And he was her father, that bloated, disfigured, disgusting being. She turned and ran with swift steps away from the dreadful sight up to her own room and turned the creaking button to fasten herself in. Then she struck a light and dropping into her little sewing chair gave herself up to something as near as despair as Del Bronson's healthy, cheery nature ever reached. It is all true, she said bitterly, just as that poor woman said, I am a rum-seller's daughter. It must seem to lookers on as though the very clothes I wear are bought with the price of misery, such as I saw tonight. What can I do? My hands are just completely tied. Uncle Edward doesn't know. If he realized how it was, he would see that I can do nothing. It would be better for me to give up all public attempts, at least. What perfect mockery it must seem to people to have me mixing myself up with a temperance society. I live in a rum tavern and my father sells the rum with his own hands, yes, and drinks it too. He is almost as bad tonight as those poor wretches that I met. If he were to try and walk, he would stagger along just as they did, perhaps. Oh, father, father. Oh, why must I have such in one? There are such good fathers in the world. And then Dell's words broke into sobs and there came over her a perfect storm of tears. The weeping lasted but for a few minutes, however. This girl was not much given to crying. After a while she began to move around the room, gathering into their places the things which she had flung from her when she entered and otherwise tidying the place for the night. During the almost two weeks that she had been at home, she had wrought many changes in the room, the blue paper curtains had given place to full white muslin ones, the bed was spread in white as also was the little toilet table and many little feminine touches had softened its hard corners and given it a look of home. Still there was no sort of comparison between it and that green and white room in Boston and the poor homesick girl's thoughts went on swift wing back to that dear home that had surrounded her life with so much beauty and brightness. She had regained her composure but her face was sad as having completed her preparations for the night she took her little Bible and opened to the mark for her few verses of evening bread. She was reading in the book of Jeremiah and yesterday's date was placed after the 10th verse of the 29th chapter so the reading commenced. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you sayeth the Lord thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me and ye shall go and pray unto me and I will hearken unto you. Just there she paused with a sudden glad light flashing in her eyes and glowing over her face. Could her heart read more than those two verses just then? And ye shall go and pray unto me and I will hearken unto you. Was ever anything so marvelous? Why she had thought herself alone and desolate and forgotten and here was the king himself speaking to her and such words. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you sayeth the Lord. Yes, she had forgotten. She had thought for a little while that the whole weight of this burden rested on her whereas it was the Lord's affair. He knew all about it, all, all. The sorrow and the discouragement and the disgrace and his thoughts were of peace and not of evil. Then shall ye call upon me. Yes, she would. How could she have yielded to discouragement and tears? She, the daughter of the king, ye shall go and pray and I will hearken unto you. With these words on her lips Del saw an audience with her kingly father and the burden of her prayer was, Oh, Father in heaven, remember my poor tempted wandering earthly father, give him to me in answer to my prayer. And Father, do save Sam Miller that poor miserable man that I saw tonight. Show me how to work for them, help me. It was a very quiet spirit that Del carried with her to her rest that night and the last words that her lips murmured as she dropped into sleep were, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, sayeth the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. End of chapter six, recording by Tricia G. Chapter seven of The King's Daughter. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The King's Daughter by Pansy. Chapter seven, The Infant's Class. Enter not into the path of the wicked. Del Bronson stood in the cupboard that served as a hall for the dismal church, pretty well squeezed up against the wall to be out of the way of the people and fanned herself vigorously, waiting for the congregation to pass out and for what would come next. She looked remarkably pretty standing there in her Boston-made suit of white lawn, pure and fresh, belted with blue and a blue sash at her throat. Aunt Laura had been very fastidious as to her darling's appearance and to Del it had almost been made to appear a Christian duty to look fresh and neat and as pretty as she conveniently could. I think it is one. I wish the people who take exceptions to us who are on the radical side of the question of dress did not invariably suppose that because we do gravely and steadily object to the accumulation of silk and lace and flounce and ruffle and fold and double plates and single plates and box plates and double box plates and fringe and gimp and ribbons and bows and loops and masses of juke and mohair and horsehair and forests of curls and braids and frizzes that fashion orders for one poor little suffering body to carry around with her. We therefore of necessity believe that she must clothe herself in a straight up and down gray gown and never by any chance wear a bright ribbon or a dainty flower. Why must people be always supposed to run to extremes? The young people of Lewiston seemed to think that she looked very nice or very something for they stared at her in a manner that made her cheeks burn. Some of them said she had altogether too much style on for only a tavern keeper's daughter. In point of fact, she was very simply and inexpensively dressed. There were silks there rustling by her that cost almost as much a yard as her whole suit did for there were expensive silks worn even in Lewiston by people who every Sabbath rustled themselves into some forlorn old pew of the dingy church and complacently endured its dinginess. Why shouldn't they? It was not their parlors. It was only a church. But Dell had about her that indescribable air which marks some people of rare good breeding whether they chance to be close in calico or silk and which those who cannot explain it nor copy it always curl their lips at and call style. Mr. Nelson came hurriedly over to Dell as she stood in her corner. Are you going to remain at Sabbath school Miss Bronson? Yes, she answered unhesitatingly. It would seem a strange thing for a young lady educated by Mr. Edward Stockwell of Boston not to remain to Sabbath school. This was her first Sabbath at church in Lewiston. The previous Sabbath a sick headache had kept her all day a prisoner so that she was a stranger. Well, could you be persuaded to take our infant class? The teacher is absent and I know of no one but yourself to take her place. The infant class, that was not new work to Dell. She had been one of the sub-teachers in the infant room of the Sabbath school that Uncle Edward super intended. Visions of it rose at once before her, the large, well-lighted, well-ventilated, neatly carpeted room with its rows and rows of seats arranged tier above tier all filled with bright baby faces. Its desk for the teacher's use with its large pictorial Bible and pictorial dictionary, the silver call-bell, the box of colored crayons and always at this season a dainty vase of sweet-smelling flowers. At the right of the table the handsome reversible blackboard and charts and illuminated texts and maps of Bible lands hanging in rich perfusion all along the walls. But today she hesitated. She was not given to hesitation either. Her religious education had been, do with thy might whatsoever thy hand findeth to do. Not that version of later day. Don't do anything that isn't perfectly agreeable to you in all its details nor even then unless you happen to feel like it. I am not prepared with the lesson you know, where is it? Mr. Nelson gave his shoulders a peculiarly expressive shrug. That need make no sort of difference. No one ever was I fancy who has taught that class. The lesson, why it's anywhere between the lids of the Bible or out of it for that matter if you happen to think of a story that won't hinge on a Bible verse. Dell looked aghast. You don't mean that they have no regular lesson? I meant just that. Each teacher revels through the realm of fact and fiction at her own sweet will, hinging her thoughts on Bible truth if she can. A wide sphere you see and if worse come to worst there is always Moses in the bull rushes you know though I can't promise you that they may not be weary of it as the little girl in the paper was. How was that? Have you not seen it? Why the story goes that the regular teacher of the class being absent, the substitute was doing Moses in the bull rushes and in the midst of her recitation, one weary little five-year-old raised her fat baby hand and on being allowed to speak said, oh please, Miss Jones, I'm just sick and tired of Moses in the bull rushes. Dell laughed softly. Most of the congregation were gone now and they were gathering for the Sunday school. Mr. Nelson perceiving this hastened his movements. The fact is, Miss Bronson, the infant class is an experiment and is not succeeding very well because of the inefficiency of the teacher. The one who has taken it is never present three Sabbaths in succession and sometimes I think it would be just as well if she were absent altogether. She doesn't understand the management of an infant class and doesn't interest herself to learn. If you would only take it today, where is their classroom? Up there. Dell looked about her and above her but saw no chance for a classroom. Do you mean that hole in the wall, she asked at last? Mr. Nelson laughed. Just about that, it would be a pretty fair description of the room though there are stairs to reach it by. Have you a blackboard? Not a bit of it, nor a chart, nor a picture, nothing but a bare room and some children. Without any lesson or any teacher, said Dell, her heart swelling with indignation. Poor things. Well, I will take the class and do the best I can for them and I shall say nothing about Moses in the bullrushes, Mr. Nelson. So presently he conducted her to the hole in the wall and left her there to do what she could. It was a long, narrow, dirty room with seats that were much too high so that the rows of little feet dangled and ambitious toes tried in vain to touch the floor. There were 17 children, most of them wee ones, all staring curiously at Dell. Among them she recognized her little peak acquaintance who was made happy and two inches taller by the gift of a special smile and bow. What can you sing was Dell's first question and after much circumlocution it was discovered that while one knew this piece and another that, they could not all unite on anything. They had not been in the habit of singing in the class and they smiled at the idea as something new and funny. Their teacher immediately commenced teaching them that blessed and world-known children's hymn, Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. And after a fashion they presently sung it and most thoroughly enjoyed doing so. Next a lesson and she soon discovered that she was expected to spend the precious half hour in hearing each child blunder through a verse of scripture that bore not the slightest connection to any other verse recited and that probably they had repeated several times to some of their numerous teachers. Such was not Dell's idea of Sabbath teaching. She looked about her thoughtfully. She had in mind a lesson prepared for her class in Boston but to teach that she needed a blackboard. One of the windows had a white curtain or one that once was white. The other was curtain-less that suggested the idea that the fallen curtain must be somewhere and after a short search she drew it out from a pile of fallen plaster and other rubbish over in the corner. Its condition certainly could not be greatly impaired by the addition of a few pencil marks. So her resolution was swiftly taken and in less time than it takes us to write it the curtain was securely fastened by four pins to the wall doing duty as a blackboard. Meantime every eye was fixed on her in silent and wondering attention. Then she gave them this verse. Enter not into the path of the wicked. Again and again the 17 little tongues repeated it until it seemed firmly fixed. Then she turned to the blackboard and drew two heavy black lines starting together and diverging gradually going as far apart at last as the limits of the curtain would allow. The line pointing upward was straight and firm and the lower one was very crooked. Now little folks, she said, speaking with a crisp energy that of itself would wake and dormant faculties I'm going to tell you a story about Charlie and Johnny. They were brothers, never mind their last name we will call them Charlie and Johnny. What is our verse? Yes, that little boy in the corner said it just exactly right. Enter not into the path of the wicked. Now this mark that goes away down to the lower end of the curtain I have made for a picture of that path of the wicked. You see it goes down, down and here at the end I will put a large letter H which shall stand for the name of the place where this path ends. Who can tell me the dreadful name that we don't like to speak or think of where God said wicked people must go? Dell's little girl friend pronounced the awful word in an awestricken voice. Yes, said Dell, that is the sad, sad word. We don't like to speak it and need not. God doesn't ask us to speak that dreadful word very often but we must never forget that there is such a place and that God said so. Now all the people who travel this road have a leader someone who helps them along and who when sometimes they want to get away coaxes them to stay and beside the letter H I will put the first letter of his name S. Who can tell me what the name is? The answer was promptly given. And now, said Dell, let us go up here to the end of the other line and for the place that the line ends in I can put another H and all who can may tell me the name of the beautiful city where all the people who travel on this straight line will go someday. Every eye was fixed on the curtain that was pinned to the wall and seventeen little tongues shouted out in chorus, Heaven! In the name of the leader for they have a leader on the road too and he is much greater and stronger than the other one and he is always looking out for people who are going on that crooked road down there and urging them to come up to him. His name too commences with S but it is oh so different from the other name. I will print the S right here by this H and you may tell me the name and they were ready those eager little ones to speak the name. Savior! And now, said Dell again for our story about Johnny and Charlie they were what relation were they? And every one of the seventeen tongues shouted Brothers! In a way that must have astonished the people in the church below. Yes, they were brothers. Every single one of you remembered. I am glad of that. They both started on their journey up here in this thick line and for a while they kept pretty close together. They both knew about these two roads and where they led in the two leaders. Their mother had told them all about it and of course they thought that they didn't want to travel down on the crooked road with such a dreadful leader and they almost made up their mind that they wouldn't. Boys always do. I never saw a boy or girl in my life who really wanted to go on the crooked road. They every one almost make up their minds not to. They don't quite decide it though for if they did they would be safe. Nobody can possibly make them go on that road if they are quite determined not to. These two boys walked along together very near the straight line you see not on it because they were not quite decided but they thought they were and they meant to be very good and sometimes they tried. They said their prayers at night and they tried to obey their mother during the day and you see how it was by this line that I am drawing. They almost got on the straight road. One day some wicked boys asked them to run away from school, coaxed them and after a while don't you think they both decided to go and then you see where they went right down toward the crooked line as fast as they could. And with her pencil Dell turned the course of their lives downward. But Charlie felt very sorry that he had started and soon he began to coax Johnny to turn back and Johnny wouldn't. So after a while Charlie left him and went up this way toward the straight line. He told his mother how he had been tempted and almost gone into the wicked path and he asked the savior to forgive him and he almost decided to go up into the straight path and take the savior for his guide. But he was not quite decided yet so he stayed below so near you see that he almost touched the straight line. But poor Johnny, here he is down here. He had entered the path of the wicked. I wish I had time to tell you of all the sad things that happened to him. I'll tell you of one. Down here where I make this mark there was a place where they sold rum and there Johnny got in the habit of going. He bought the liquor and drank it. He began to like the taste of it very much. Just at this point an excited little fellow in the corner called out. Was it down to this tavern on the corner where he went? Poor Dell, her own home brought forward to point her story. Her cheeks were very red but she answered steadily. No, that was not the place but it was just like that place and that tavern would do just as much harm to those who are coaxed into it as this one did that I am telling you of. Sometimes Johnny felt very sorry that he had entered into this wicked path and once or twice he made up his mind to come up out of it and he got out. Here is the line to show where he went. He stopped drinking rum and he tried to do some right things and you see he went up toward the straight line but not into it because he couldn't quite make up his mind to ask the savior to lead him. If he had he would have been safe but the wicked people came after him and Satan tried to get him to go back to that place and drink more rum and so one day he went down down right into that place again and he kept on going there and doing a great many wicked things and one day when he had been drinking a great deal they turned him out into the street and he lay in a gutter all night and in the morning he was dead and Dell's pencil and line pointed in solemn silence right at the edge of that fearful letter H and the children odd and impressed as probably they had never been in their lives before looked and were silent. It was about that time continued Dell at last when she could command her voice that Charlie began to try harder than ever to get into the straight road and yet he didn't try in quite the right way. He didn't ask the savior to lead him. He would keep quite near the straight road for a whole day and then he would do something wrong and go away down like this but one day after he was almost discouraged in trying to help himself the savior kept whispering come to me and I will help you and after thinking it all over he quite decided to go and that very hour he went up this way and as Dell's pencil touched the firm straight line her little friend who had been growing more eager and interested every moment suddenly broke the stillness by exclaiming he's in, he's in, oh I am so glad. The bell rang below and Dell's half hour was gone she had done her best with what result God knew. End of chapter seven, recording by Tricia G. Chapter eight of The King's Daughter. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The King's Daughter by Pansy. Chapter eight, finding recruits for the Temperance Army. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. The cracked bell in the old church steeple claimed faithfully on that Friday evening. Dell attended to the matter. She went herself to the sexton and coaxed him into promising to ring it for just 10 minutes. She stood in the hall already with one exception. She had failed to secure the promised one anyway as a surety of an audience. She had tried several persons but they all with one accord began to make excuse. As she stood leaning against the doorway wondering if there was not another last effort that she could make somewhere a bright thought came to her. Sam Miller was at that moment sawing wood out in the woodyard. She could hear the lazy motion of his saw scraping back and forth. She could ask him. Of course it was more than likely that he wouldn't go but it could do no harm to try. She ran out to him. Sam, she said, gathering up her dainty dress and poising herself on an unsan stick of wood. I've come for you. I want you to go to the Temperance Meeting with me tonight, will you? Sam looked first aghast then amused. Why, he said, I can't go to them sort of things. It ain't no use. It ain't of any account. Go and try one. I don't believe you have ever been. We are going to have singing. I know you are fond of music. I heard you singing Molly Bond this morning. I like your voice. I want you to come and help us sing. Sam leaned on his saw meditatively. You'd be wanting me to sign the pledge now, I daresay, if I went there, he said inquiringly with a cunning look in his eyes. Why, of course, I should invite you to do so. Are you so afraid of a pledge that you won't even dare to meet one face to face for a few minutes? You won't be made to sign it, you know, if you don't choose to do so. Sam's voice took a plaintive turn. It ain't no good for me to have to do with them kind of things, Ms. Bronson. It ain't truly. I'm nothing but an old loafer nowadays, and I know it, and I keep away from nice folks. I'm all gone to wreck and ruin, ain't worth taking any notice of. Del stooped and picked up a chip and broke it into little bits while she talked. You don't mean a word of that, Sam, not a single word of it. If anyone should say it to you, you would be angry enough to choke them. You know you are worth a good deal, and now and then when you look at little Mamie, you think that you'll never drink another drop of that horrid rum, and that you will work hard so that Mamie can have nice things to wear and go to school and have as good a chance as any girl of her age. She had tried him at a venture and had touched the tender spot in his heart. He put up his rough, hard hand and brushed it across his eyes. That's true, he said at last, true as preaching. Sometimes I think I'll manage somehow to give her a chance, but then you see it's no kind of use. I can't do it. I've tried and tried and made promises by the bushel, and it never did the least might of good. I've got to drink. There was a genuine plaintiveness in his voice this time, and Del felt that it was time to turn comfort her. You've never tried the help that the pledge would give you, she said cheerily. Suppose you make a grand start, sign the pledge, and that of itself will give you strength, and then temperance people will know that you are trying, and we will all help you. But Sam Miller was not to be so easily won. He really wanted to reform, that is, now and then he did when he thought of Mamie, but the wish was very weak and wouldn't bear the test of a stern, strong effort. He turned from Del and took his saw again with a mournful shake of his head. I can't do that. I know I wouldn't keep it, and where would be the use? I'd be worse off than I was before I tried. Del decided to waive that part of the subject. I have a very special reason for wanting you to go to the meeting with me tonight, she said eagerly. You see, we each promised last week that we would bring someone with us this evening, and now if you fail me, I shall have to go alone, and I don't like to at all. Sam Miller turned halfway around again from a stick of wood and laid down his saw. This was evidently a new phase of the question. The bright young creature before him had not been bestowing smiles and kindly words on him all the week for nothing. Why, if it would be a kind of an accommodation like, he said, speaking slowly and in much embarrassment, why, I suppose I could go. It would be a real accommodation. I want to keep my promise, you know, but you won't ask me to sign one of them pledges, will you? I'll ask you to certainly if I get a chance, but of course no one will compel you to sign it if you really make up your mind that you won't. Sam meditated still further. Well, he said at last, you go on and tell him your someone is coming. I'll come along that way by and by, I guess. Oh no, said Delpersuasively. She was very fearful of the attractions of the bar room that he would be likely to pass through. That wouldn't be bringing someone with me. That's what I promised. I want you to walk down the street and into the church with me. Well, said Sam again, giving his stick of wood an emphatic kick and speaking with energy and decision, as if he had conquered an invisible foe. I'll go now, I'll be hanged if I won't. And he went. He shambled through the one long street by the side of the dainty, well-dressed young lady and more than one lounger at the village stores looked after them with curious eyes. The bell had ceased its clanging and there was quite a little company gathered inside the church. Much pains had been taken to spread the news of the meeting and curiosity had drawn in several who were not deeply interested in the cause. There's forty-four folks in the church this very minute, Tommy Truman announced in a very loud and very gleeful whisper to Del as she entered the door. There are, isn't that splendid? The young lady responded in a voice not so loud but every bit as gleeful. Then Mr. Nelson made his way toward her. Are the lamps better? He asked gravely. Haven't I improved in the art of cleaning and trimming them? Shall we open this remarkable meeting with a song if we can get anybody to sing it? A great deal brighter, Mr. Nelson. The church really looks most cheerful. I should think it would be better to open with prayer. The serial comic look on Mr. Nelson's face faded into one of perplexed gravity. Why should you? he asked in a grave and troubled tone. Why, I don't suppose it makes much difference which way it is, Del said cheerily. It only struck me as the most appropriate way. Would you prefer to sing first? I, I had not thought it necessary to have prayer at all, he said hesitatingly. It was Del's turn to look grave and surprised. I confess, she said, speaking with quiet dignity, that to me it seems almost if not quite a necessity. There is no one here to call on giving a switch glance around the room. Can't you call on yourself, Mr. Nelson? Not very well, I'm not in the habit of it. Are you praying in public, you mean? Yes, or in private either, he answered her quickly with a slightly embarrassed laugh. I don't wish to dress in sheep's clothing, Miss Bronson. I see you have mistaken my character. Del was silent from utter surprise and disappointment, but Mr. Nelson almost immediately added in a relieved tone. Oh, we are all right after all. Here comes Mr. Tresavant, and he has Miss Emmeline Elliott with him. I think she will play for us. And while he hastened to meet the minister, Del slid quietly into a seat still wearing her grave face. It had been a great disappointment. She had thought she had recognized one of the children of the king. Mr. Tresavant immediately went forward and offered a very fervent prayer. To be sure he did not say the word temperance, but he slid around it and glided almost up to it in that dexterous way that some good and skillful people have a habit of doing who do not quite like to give a square utterance to the obnoxious word. After the prayer a great whispering ensued. Miss Emmeline Elliott was being coaxed to play, and she looked smiling and accommodating and persistently shook her head. She had not thought of such a thing. She only came in for a little while as a spectator. She could not think of taking any part in the exercises. She hated to play on a cabinet organ anyway and was not at all accustomed to it, Mr. Nelson knew, and that one was horribly out of tune. It made her teeth ache to even hear it, and well he really must excuse her. A timid girl in the corner was petitioned. She grew red from chin to forehead at the bare thought and looked so thoroughly frightened that Mr. Nelson did not wait for the refusal. Several others were tried with like results, Del meantime looking on, half amused and half provoked. What a time, she said to herself. Now why can't that man ask me to play? What is the use of his taking for granted that I can't do anything? I've a mind to offer my services. I won't either. He might at least venture the inquiry. It wouldn't take long. Let him go without music if he can't invite me. Now Del Bronson, that's a charming way to do. Your uncle Edward would be proud of his pupil, wouldn't he? The end of it was that she telegraphed Tommy Truman with her eye and sent him after Mr. Nelson. When he came, looking greatly perplexed and saying, I don't see what we shall have to do without music after all, she answered, if you would give me an invitation, how do you know what I would play for you? You, he said with a brightening face, can you? I can try, she answered demurely. And without further delay, she went forward to the instrument. She laughed a little inwardly at her position. It so happened that so far as being musician was concerned, the position was not at all novel. Even in cultured musical Boston, her playing and her voice were decidedly noticeable. And here were these people staring at her as though they could not recover from their surprise. Mr. Nelson brought her the old notebook and selected the piece he wished to sing. Shall I read it? Del questioned, and again he answered, if you can. And then her fingers swept the keys. It was a different touch from that to which the weasy old organ was accustomed and it rolled forth grandly in honor of its player. And when Del's rich, full, cultured voice filled the room, the squeak and the wheezing were alike forgotten. Lewiston had a surprise. Miss Emmeline Elliott straightened herself, let her lace shawl droop gracefully or otherwise as it pleased, and listened intently, discovering while she listened that she was no longer the player of Lewiston. That Del Bronson, the tavern keeper's daughter, could draw from those disordered keys such music as she had scarcely ever dreamed of. The church windows and doors were wide open and as the new powerful voice rolled out, passersby halted at the gate, listened, and by twos and threes strolled in. Sing twenty verses, and for once in its life the church will be full, whispered Mr. Nelson in one of the interludes, as he bent with shining eyes to turn the leaves. And Del, singing on, just gloried in the power that God had given her the power of song. Though she had sung so much, she had never realized the joy of her voice, the use to which it might be put as she did that night. That temperance meeting was a grand success. There was much singing, Del was not spearing of her voice, and it fulfilled its mission well. People gathered in so that when dainty little Laura Tresavant, Del's peak acquaintance, came forward in her freshest white dress to recite her peace, she was half frightened at the rows of eyes gazing at her. She had been carefully trained, and her soft little voice was clear and sweet as she commenced that most exquisite of child poems. There's no rain left in the heaven, there's no dew left on the daisies in clover. I've said my seven times over and over, seven times one are seven. I am old, so old I can write a letter, my birthday lessons are done. The lambs play always, they know no better, they are only one times one. O moon, in the night I have seen you sailing, and shining so bright and low, you were bright, ah bright, but your light is failing, you are nothing now but a bow. You moon, have you done something wrong in heaven that God hath hidden your face? I hope if you have you'll soon be forgiven and shine again in your place. O velvet bee, you're a dusty fellow, you've powdered your legs with gold. O brave Marshmary buds, rich and yellow, give me your money to hold. O Columbine, open your folded wrapper, where two twin turtledoves dwell. O cuckoo pint, told me the purple clapper that hangs in your clear green bell. And show me your nest with the young ones in it, I am old, you may trust me, linit linit, I am seven times old today. Tommy Truman did himself and his author credit. His round little voice rang clear and strong and indignantly over the rungs and woes of a drunkard's wife. Mr. Nelson made a strong, stirring little speech and then the singing swelled forth again. They stood together after the meeting, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Trecevant, Miss Elliot and Dell. Mr. Trecevant was expressing himself neatly and kindly concerning the success of the meeting and the superiority of the music. You have really given us a delightful surprise, Miss Bronson and Miss Elliot chimed in. Yes, indeed, I wasn't aware that you played or sang. You really sing remarkably well. Dell's eyes danced. She had heard comments on her music before, some of them quite equal to this one. I wish I could have been surprised, she said, turning to Mr. Nelson. I was in hopes that Sam Miller would surprise me by signing the pledge, but no such good fortune awaited me. Now, if I had been a girl in a book, how promptly he would have signed the pledge and been a reformed man from this very hour. But being out of a book and in a most matter-of-fact little town, I suppose I must bide my time. By the way, Mr. Trecevant, I don't see your name here. No, Mr. Trecevant said, flushing slightly, I am not in a book either and must therefore study my steps carefully. End of chapter eight, recording by Tricia G.