Part 9

“It doesn't seem nice for a missionary meeting.”

These remarks fell all together upon the president's bewildered ear the while (as she always said in compositions)--“the while” she was trying to adjust the ethics of this unexpected and difficult dilemma.

“It is a very puzzly question,” she said thoughtfully. “I could ask Aunt Jane if we had time, but I suppose we haven't. It doesn't seem nice to draw lots, and yet how can we settle it without? We know we mean right, and perhaps it will be. Alice, take this paper and tear off five narrow pieces, all different lengths.”

At this moment a voice from a distance floated up to the haymow--a voice saying plaintively: “Will you let me play with you, girls? Huldah has gone to ride, and I'm all alone.”

It was the voice of the absolutely-without-guile Thirza Meserve, and it came at an opportune moment.

“If she is going to be a member,” said Persis, “why not let her come up and hold the lots? She'd be real honest and not favor anybody.”

It seemed an excellent idea, and was followed up so quickly that scarcely three minutes ensued before the guileless one was holding the five scraps in her hot little palm, laboriously changing their places again and again until they looked exactly alike and all rather soiled and wilted.

“Come, girls, draw!” commanded the president. “Thirza, you mustn't chew gum at a missionary meeting, it isn't polite nor holy. Take it out and stick it somewhere till the exercises are over.”

The five Daughters of Zion approached the spot so charged with fate, and extended their trembling hands one by one. Then after a moment's silent clutch of their papers they drew nearer to one another and compared them.

Emma Jane Perkins had drawn the short one, becoming thus the destined instrument for Jacob Moody's conversion to a more seemly manner of life!

She looked about her despairingly, as if to seek some painless and respectable method of self-destruction.

“Do let's draw over again,” she pleaded. “I'm the worst of all of us. I'm sure to make a mess of it till I kind o' get trained in.”

Rebecca's heart sank at this frank confession, which only corroborated her own fears.

“I'm sorry, Emmy, dear,” she said, “but our only excuse for drawing lots at all would be to have it sacred. We must think of it as a kind of a sign, almost like God speaking to Moses in the burning bush.”

“Oh, I wish there was a burning bush right here!” cried the distracted and recalcitrant missionary. “How quick I'd step into it without even stopping to take off my garnet ring!”

“Don't be such a scare-cat, Emma Jane!” exclaimed Candace bracingly. “Jacob Moody can't kill you, even if he has an awful temper. Trot right along now before you get more frightened. Shall we go cross lots with her, Rebecca, and wait at the pasture gate? Then whatever happens Alice can put it down in the minutes of the meeting.”

In these terrible crises of life time gallops with such incredible velocity that it seemed to Emma Jane only a breath before she was being dragged through the fields by the other Daughters of Zion, the guileless little Thirza panting in the rear.

At the entrance to the pasture Rebecca gave her an impassioned embrace, and whispering, “Whatever you do, be careful how you lead up,” lifted off the top rail and pushed her through the bars. Then the girls turned their backs reluctantly on the pathetic figure, and each sought a tree under whose friendly shade she could watch, and perhaps pray, until the missionary should return from her field of labor.

Alice Robinson, whose compositions were always marked 96 or 97,--100 symbolizing such perfection as could be attained in the mortal world of Riverboro,--Alice, not only Daughter, but Scribe of Zion, sharpened her pencil and wrote a few well-chosen words of introduction, to be used when the records of the afternoon had been made by Emma Jane Perkins and Jacob Moody.

Rebecca's heart beat tumultuously under her gingham dress. She felt that a drama was being enacted, and though unfortunately she was not the central figure, she had at least a modest part in it. The short lot had not fallen to the properest Daughter, that she quite realized; yet would any one of them succeed in winning Jacob Moody's attention, in engaging him in pleasant conversation, and finally in bringing him to a realization of his mistaken way of life? She doubted, but at the same moment her spirits rose at the thought of the difficulties involved in the undertaking.

Difficulties always spurred Rebecca on, but they daunted poor Emma Jane, who had no little thrills of excitement and wonder and fear and longing to sustain her lagging soul. That her interview was to be entered as “minutes” by a secretary seemed to her the last straw. Her blue eyes looked lighter than usual and had the glaze of china saucers; her usually pink cheeks were pale, but she pressed on, determined to be a faithful Daughter of Zion, and above all to be worthy of Rebecca's admiration and respect.

“Rebecca can do anything,” she thought, with enthusiastic loyalty, “and I mustn't be any stupider than I can help, or she'll choose one of the other girls for her most intimate friend.” So, mustering all her courage, she turned into Jacob Moody's dooryard, where he was chopping wood.

“It's a pleasant afternoon, Mr. Moody,” she said in a polite but hoarse whisper, Rebecca's words, “Lead up! Lead up!” ringing in clarion tones through her brain.

Jacob Moody looked at her curiously. “Good enough, I guess,” he growled; “but I don't never have time to look at afternoons.”

Emma Jane seated herself timorously on the end of a large log near the chopping block, supposing that Jacob, like other hosts, would pause in his tasks and chat.

“The block is kind of like an idol,” she thought; “I wish I could take it away from him, and then perhaps he'd talk.”

At this moment Jacob raised his axe and came down on the block with such a stunning blow that Emma Jane fairly leaped into the air.

“You'd better look out, Sissy, or you'll git chips in the eye!” said Moody, grimly going on with his work.