“I don’t know, I’m sure. I just heard the train go by. I hope nothing’s wrong.”
“Not wrong, sure. The men are tossing their hats and cheering and the women—they’re laughing and talking like they’d struck a gold mine. They’re headed this way.”
But Mrs. Bump was too busy to look. She had a lot of clear-starching to do and she was engaged in a new, therefore interesting, task; she was teaching Polly to sing a hymn!
“Yes, you smart bird. If you can talk crab-man’s talk, that always sounds sort of wicked, though, of course, it isn’t, you can learn better things just as easy.”
“So I can, so I can. Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth,” answered Polly.
“Oh! I’m telling it, never fear. Learn it you shall. Now begin—”
But the lesson was interrupted. The voices of the crowd were near at hand; were at the door; were in the very room! What did it mean? William was placing Mary Jane in her mother’s arms, as if she had been the baby himself—helpful Mary Jane! And Mrs. McClure was clasping Mrs. Bump’s neck, and sobbing and laughing on her shoulder.
Everybody was talking at once, but suddenly somebody cleared a space and placed a chair behind the startled mistress of the house. She sank into it gratefully, her knees now trembling too much to support her. But the facts had penetrated to her consciousness, at last, and with a cry that hushed all speech of others, she held her precious “Sunday bairn” to her heart with a thankfulness beyond words.
Suddenly, upon this sacred silence, there fell a voice which seemed neither bird nor human, yet strangely reverent and opportune:
“Lord, in the morning Thou shalt, Thou shalt,