menu_book Chapter 6

chapter six of interrupted by pansy this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter six lifted up it was a very quiet cold-faced girl who presently obeyed the summons to dinner had it not been for those suspiciously red eyes and a certain pitiful droop of the eyelids mrs foster would hardly have ventured to break the casing of haughty reserve in which her young music teacher had decided to wrap herself a rare woman was mrs foster i wish you knew her well my pen pauses over an attempt to describe her i believe descriptions of people never read as the writer intended they should and there never was a woman harder to put on paper than this same mrs foster ostensibly she was the principal of this little academy which was at present engaged in reaping the results of years of mismanagement and third-rate work people shook their heads when she took the position and said that she was foolish she would never earn her living there in the world the academy at south plains was too much run down ever to revive and there never had been a decent school there anyway and they didn't believe there ever would be

and of course people of this mind did what they could with their tongues and their apathy so far as money and pupils were concerned to prove the truth of their prophecies but mrs foster wise sweet patient woman that she was quietly bided her time and worked her way through seemingly endless discouragements she was after much more than bread and butter in reality there was never a more persistent and patient and wise and wary fisher for souls found among quiet and little-known human kind than was mrs foster had they but known it there were communities which could have afforded to support her for the sake of the power she would have been in their midst nay there were fathers who could have afforded to make her independent for life so far as the needs of this world were concerned for the sake of the influence she would have exerted over their young and tempted sons and daughters but they did not know it and she being as humble as she was earnest did not half know it herself and expected nothing of anybody but a fair chance to earn her living

and do all the good she could in point of fact she had some difficulty in getting hold of the little badly used academy at south plains the people who thought she was utterly foolish for attempting anything so hopeless were supplemented by the people who thought she could not be much or she would never be willing to come to south plains academy so between them they made it as hard for her as they could claire benedict did not know it until long afterwards but the fact was that during her father's funeral services she had been selected as the girl whom mrs foster wanted with her at south plains it happened so we are fond of saying that mrs foster was spending a few days on business in the city that had always been claire's home and she saw how wonderfully large portions of that city were stirred by one death when sidney benedict went to heaven she speculated much over the sort of life he must have led to have gotten the hold he had on the people she began to inquire about his family about his children then she heard much of claire and grew interested in her in a manner which seemed strange even to herself

and when at the funeral she first caught a glimpse of the pale face and earnest eyes of the girl who looked only and with a certain watchful air at her mother as if she would shield her from every touch that she could mrs foster had murmured under her breath i think this is the girl i want with me she prayed about it a good deal during the next few days and grew sure of it and waited only to make the way plain so that she could venture her modest little offer and felt sure that if the master intended it thus the offer would be accepted and it was but in blindness so far as claire benedict was concerned i have sometimes questioned whether if a bright angel had come down out of heaven and stood beside claire and said the king wants you to go with all speed to south plains he has special and important work for you there he has opened the way for you the child would not have been more content and had much less of the feeling that her work was interrupted but i do not know she might rather have said why in the world must i go to south plains i had work enough to do at home and i was doing it and now it will all come to naught because there is no leader

it stands to reason that i in my poverty and obscurity down in that out-of-the-way village cannot do as much as i with my full purse and leisure days and happy surroundings and large acquaintances could do here we love to be governed by reason and hate to walk in the dark i have always wondered what philip said when called to leave his great meeting where it seemed hardly possible to do without him and go toward the south on a desert road that he went and promptly is i think a wonderful thing for philip well the red eyes of the young music teacher by no means escaped the watchful ones of mrs foster neither had her short almost sharp negative in reply to a somewhat timidly put question of a pupil as to whether she was going out to church that evening there were reasons why mrs foster believed that it would be much better for her sad-hearted music teacher to go to church than to remain blooming at home there were indeed very special reasons on that particular evening

the ansted girls uncle was going to preach she had heard but should she go to this young christian of whom she as yet knew but little and offer as a reason for church-going that a stranger was to preach instead of the pastor however she managed it mrs foster was sure she would not do that yet it will give you a hint of the little woman's ways when i tell you that she was almost equally sure she should manage it in some way half an hour before evening service there was a tap at claire's door and the principal entered and came directly to the point would miss benedict be so kind as to accompany fanny and ella ansted to church that evening miss parsons was suffering with sick headache and she herself could not leave her there was no other available chaperon for the young girls who were not accustomed to going out alone in the evening but who were unusually anxious to attend church as their uncle who had been stopped over the sabbath by an accident was to preach miss benedict had her lips parted ready to say that she was not going out but paused in the act what excuse could she give no sick headache to plead and nobody to care for the night was not stormy if it was sullen and the church was not a great distance away

she had been wont to accommodate people always but she never felt so little like it as to-night however there stood mrs foster quietly awaiting an answer and her face seemed to express the belief that of course the answer would be as she wished very well came at last from the teacher's lips and she began at once to make ready it is for this i was hired she told herself bitterly i must not forget how utterly changed my life is in this respect as in all others i am my own mistress no longer but even in the matter of church-going must hold myself at the call of others as for the principal as she closed the door with a gentle thank you she told herself that it was much better for the poor child to go and that she must see to it what she could do during the week to brighten that room a little the stuffy church was the same nay it was more so for every vile lamp was lighted now and sent a sickly smoky shadow to the ceiling and cast as little light upon the surrounding darkness as possible but the uncle i do not know how to describe to you the difference between him and the dreary reader of the morning it was not simply the difference in appearance and voice

though really these were tremendous but he had a solemn message for the people and not only for the people whose sabbath home was in that church but for claire benedict as well she did not think it at first she smiled drearily over the almost ludicrous incongruity of the text as measured by the surroundings if i prefer not jerusalem above my chief joy the folly of supposing that any sane person preferred such a desolate modern jerusalem as this above his chief joy the very care with which the men brushed a clear spot for their hats on the dusty seats and the manner in which the women gathered their dresses about them to keep them from contact with the floor showed the place which the sanctuary held in their affections but as the preacher developed his theme it would seem that he had selected it for claire benedict's special benefit it was not what had been done or was being done that he desired to impress but rather what ought to be done

the earthly jerusalem instead of being one particular church building was any church of christ where a christian's lot was cast even for a single sabbath he or she was bound by solemn covenant vows to do all for that church which lay in his or her power as fully as unreservedly as though that church and that alone represented his or her visible connection with the great head what solemn words were these breaking in on the flimsy walls of exclusiveness which this young disciple had been busy all the afternoon building up about her the church itself plains her place of service actually bound to it by the terms of her covenant others had their message from that plainly worded intensely earnest sermon i have no doubt there was a special crumb for each listener it is a peculiarity belonging to any real breaking of the bread of life but claire benedict busied herself with none of them her roused and startled heart had enough to do to digest the solid food that was given as her portion

the truth was made very plain to her that she had no more right to build a shell and creep into it and declare that this church and this choir and this sunday-school and this prayer-meeting yes and even this smoking stove and wheezing organ were nothing to her because she was to stay in south plains but a few months and her home was far away in the city than she had to say that she had nothing to do with the people or the places on this earth no sense or responsibility concerning them no duties connected with them because she was to be here only for a few years and her home was in heaven gradually this keen-edged truth seemed to penetrate every fibre of her being this very church cobweb trimmed musty smelling was for the time being her individual working-ground to be preferred above her chief joy nay the very red curtain that swayed back and forth blown by the north wind which found its way through a hole in the window and which she hated became a faded bit of individual property for which she was in a sense responsible

she walked home almost in silence the girls about her chattered of the sermon pronounced it splendid and admitted that they would just a little rather hear uncle eben preach than anybody else and it was no wonder that his people almost worshipped him and had raised his salary only last month claire listened or appeared to and answered directly put questions with some show of knowledge as to what was being discussed but for herself dr ansted had gone out of her thoughts she liked his voice and his manner and his elocution but the force behind all these had put them all aside and the words which repeated themselves to her soul were these if i prefer not jerusalem above my chief joy what then why then i am false to my covenant vows and the possibilities are that i am none of his mrs foster was in the hall when the party from the church arrived wide open as to eyes and mental vision quiet as to voice and manner she had stayed at home and ministered to the victim of sick headache

she had been tender and low-voiced and deft-handed and untiring but during the lulls when there had been comparative quiet she had bowed her head and prayed that the sad-hearted young music teacher might meet christ in his temple that evening and come home uplifted she did not know how it was to be done she knew nothing about the anstead uncle save that he was an ambassador of christ and she knew that the lord could use the shabbily dressed ambassador of the morning as well as he she did not rely on the instruments except as they lay in the hand of god she did not ask for any special thought to be given to claire benedict faith left that too in the hand of the lord she only asked that she should be ministered unto and strengthened for the work whatever it was that he desired of her and she needed not to question to discover that her prayer while she had yet been speaking was answered the music teacher did not bring home the same thoughts that she had taken away with her she went swiftly to her room the fire had been remembered and was burning brightly

the first thing she did was to feed its glowing coals with the letter that had been commenced to mamma and dora during the afternoon not that there had been anything in it about her heaped-up sorrows or her miserable surroundings or her gloomy resolves but in the light of the present revelation she did not like the tone of it she went to her knees presently but it would have been noticeable there that she said almost nothing about resolves or failures her uttered words were brief were indeed only these dear christ it is true i needed less of myself and more of thee myself has failed me utterly jesus i come to thee End of chapter 6. Recording by Tricia G.