“Yes, a regular party!” said Jane Duncannon squeezing her hand with understanding. “See, Mary has left her peas. You'd best put them on to boil for Mark. He'll be coming back pretty soon. Come, Christie, wumman, it's time we was back at our worruk!” and they hurried through the hedge and across the meadows to their home once more, but as they entered the Duncannon gate they marked Billy Gaston, head down, pedalling along over on Maple Street, his jaws keeping rhythmic time with his feet.
One hour later the smooth chug of a car that was not altogether unfamiliar to their ears brought those four women eagerly to their respective windows, and as the old clock chimed the hour of noon they beheld Mark Carter driving calmly down the street toward his own home in his own car. His own car! and Billy Gaston lounging lazily by his side still chewing rhythmically.
Mark's Car! Mark! Billy! Ah Billy! Three of them mused with a note of triumph in their eyes.
And Mrs. Harricutt as she rolled her Sunday bonnet strings mused:
“Now, how in the world did that Mark Carter get his own car down to Economy when he went up with the Chief? He had it down here this morning, I know, for I saw him riding round. And that little imp of a Billy! I wonder why he always tags him round! Miss Saxon ought to be warned about that! I'll have to do it! But how in the world did Mark get his car?”
Billy enjoyed his lunch that day, a bit of cold chicken and bread, two juicy red cheeked apples, and an unknown quantity of sugary doughnuts from the stone crock in the pantry. He sat on the side step munching the last doughnut he felt he could possibly swallow. Mark was home and all was well. Himself had seen the impressive glance that passed between Mark and the Chief at parting. The Chief trusted Mark that was plain. Billy felt reassured. He reflected that that guy Judas had been precipitate about hanging himself. If he had only waited and done a little something about it there might have been a different ending to the story. It was sort of up to Judas anyway, having been the cause of the trouble.
With this virtuous conclusion Billy wiped the sugar from his mouth, mounted his wheel and went forth to browse in familiar and much neglected pastures.
He eyed the Carter house as he slid by. Mrs. Carter was placidly shaking out the table cloth on the side porch. Mark had eaten his apple sauce and gone. He passed Browns, Todds, Bateses, chasing a white hen that had somehow escaped her confines, but in front of Joneses he suddenly became aware of the blue car that stood in front of the parsonage. It had come to life and was throbbing. It was backing toward him and going to turn around. On the sidewalk leaning on a cane stood the obnoxious stranger for whose presence in Sabbath Valley he, Billy Gaston, was responsible. He lounged at ease with a smile on his ugly mug and acted as if he lived there! There was nothing about his appearance to suggest his near departure. His disabled car still stood silent and helpless beside the curb. Aw Gee!
Billy swerved to the other side of the road to avoid the blue car at a hair's breadth, but as it turned he looked up impudently to behold the strange girl with the flour on her face and the green baseball bats in her ears smiling up into the face of Mark Carter, who was driving. Billy nearly fell off his wheel and under the car, but recovered his balance in time to swerve out of the way without apparently having been observed by either Mark or the lady, and shot like a streak down the road. Beyond the church he drew a wide curve and turned in at the graveyard, casting a quick furtive eye toward the parsonage, where he was glad not to discover even the flutter of a garment to show that Lynn Severn was about. That guy was there, but Miss Lynn was not chasing him. That was as it should be. He breathed a sigh from his heavy heart and stole sadly, back to the old mossy stone where so many of his life problems had been thought out. Still, that guy was there! He had the advantage! And Mark and that lady! Bah! He sat down to meditate on Judas and his sins. It seemed that life was just about as disappointing as it could be! His rough young hand leaned hard against the grimy old stone till the half worn lettering hurt his flesh and he shifted his position and lifted his hand. There on the palm were the quaint old letters, imprinted in the flesh, “Blessed are the dead—” Gosh yes! Weren't they? Judas had been right after all. “Aw Gee!” he said aloud, “Whatta fool I bin!” He glanced down at the stone as he rubbed the imprint from the fleshy part of his hand. The rest of the text caught his eye. “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!” There was a catch in that of course. It wasn't blessed if you didn't die in the Lord. “In the Lord” meant that you didn't do anything Judas-like. He understood. The people who didn't die in the Lord weren't blessed. They didn't go to heaven, whatever heaven was. They went to hell. Heaven had never seemed very attractive to Billy when he thought of it casually, and he had taken it generally for granted that he being a boy was naturally destined for the other place. In fact until he knew Lynn Severn he had always told himself calmly that he expected to go to hell sometime, it had seemed the manly thing to do. Most men to his mind were preparing for hell. It seemed the masculine place of final destiny, Heaven was for women. He had ventured some of this philosophy on his aunt once in a particularly strenuous time when she had told him that he couldn't expect the reward of the righteous if he continued in his present ways, but she had been so horrified, and wept so long and bitterly that he hadn't ever had the nerve to try it again. And since Marilyn Severn had been his teacher he had known days when he would almost be willing to go to heaven—for her sake. He had also suspected, at times, that Mr. Severn was fully as much of a man as Mark Carter, although Mark was his own, and if Mark decided to go to hell Billy felt there could be no other destiny for himself.
But now, face to face with realities, Billy suddenly began to realize what hell was going to be like. Billy felt hell surrounding him. Flames could not beat the reproach that now flared him in the face and stung him to the quick with his own sinfulness. He, Billy Gaston, Captain of the Sabbath Valley Base Ball team, prospective Captain of the Sabbath Valley Foot Ball team, champion runner, and high jumper, champion swimmer and boxer of the boy's league of Monopoly County, friend and often tolerated companion of Mark Carter the great, trusted favorite of his beloved and saintly Sunday School teacher, was in hell! He could never more hold up his head and walk proud of himself. He was in hell at fourteen for life, and by his own act! And Gosh hang it! Hell didn't look so attractive in the near vision stretching out that way through life, and then some, as it had before he faced it. He'd rather walk through fire somewhere and stand some chance of getting done with it sometime. “Aw Gee! Gosh! Whatta fool I bin!”