"I would not like to be baptized when the water was high, either. I would do like Millie König"—her eyes turned toward one of the youngest of the sisters, a girl about Matthew's age, with a meaningless, saintlike beauty. "I would take a nice day like Millie." She looked again at the downcast eyes and the crossed hands. "I hate Millie," said she calmly. Then her weariness became acute. It was dreadful to have to sit here while the world went on, dreadful, dreadful. She began to pity herself and saw her whole life wasted.
Suddenly she was acutely disturbed. It was not alone the admonitory motion of Matthew's shoulder; it was the preacher's eyes, bent directly upon Matthew and upon her. She sat upright. Something was going to happen after all—she anticipated that it was something more trying than the monotony.
"There are those in our midst who should be of us," said Grandfather, with jealous passion. "The children of a good mother who was a Seventh-Day Baptist should follow in her footsteps, should go down into the cleansing flood and there wash themselves clean of sin, should make a fresh start in the world, should put upon themselves the badge of separation. They have heard the call many times; they must be no longer disobedient to the heavenly vision. Brother Matthew, Sister Ellen, is it well that you should postpone what is right for you to do, that you should longer reject the peace of God?"
Ellen's head turned sharply, her eyes seeking her brother's. A shaft of sunshine fell upon his thick, light hair and across his smooth cheek. For a long time he did not answer and an awful fear began to take shape in her heart. Was he not going to answer, to get somehow between her and the dreadful eyes, the deathlike beard of Grandfather? Still he sat motionless.
Grandfather lifted his arms in supplication.
"Father in Heaven, Thou that takest care of the least of Thy children, Thou who rejoicest over each lamb brought into the fold, help us in this hour!"
Ellen leaned forward and grasped the edge of the seat with both hands. Was not Matthew angry, would he not be angry, would he not take her and himself away from this glittering, searching eye? She thought with sick longing of her father, so comfortable at home, or riding to see a patient. No one would dare, she was certain, to talk to him about his soul, or to suggest that he should take off his clothes and put on a long black robe and kneel in Cocalico Creek and let Grandfather dip him back and forth! Neither would Matthew submit to such indignity. Outraged and insulted, she tried to find his hand to assure him of her sympathy.
But her hand was not taken. Matthew sat motionless staring at the floor. Her eyes sought the watching faces. Mothers had lifted their heads, the few fathers in Israel bent forward. Sister Herman was crying. Sister Millie's eyes were different from the rest; their expression was sharper and more eager; they were hungry eyes, bent upon Matthew's thick, light curls. Without understanding, Ellen hated her even more vehemently. Her hand, creeping into Matthew's, would not be withstood.
"Oh, Matthew, let us go home!"
Holding her hand, Matthew rose. It seemed that only the blood of his mother filled his veins. The love of the soil was in him and of the heavy, unthinking, comfortable life which his mother's people had lived for generation upon generation, life founded upon a conviction that in the next world all would be well. He could not remember his mother, but he had thought much about her.