The Enchanted Barn

by Grace Livingston Hill

"Please give them just what you had intended. I want the real thing, just as a boy would get it from you. Will the rest of them come in the car with us?"

Shirley was very quiet during the ride to church. She let the rest do all the talking, and she sat looking off at the woods and praying for help, trying to calm the flutter of her frightened heart, trying to steady her nerves and brace herself to teach the lesson just as she had intended to teach it.

She watched him furtively during the opening exercises, the untrained singing, the monotonous prayer of an old farmer-elder, the dry platitudes of the illiterate superintendent; but he sat respectfully listening, taking it all for what it was worth, the best service these people knew how to render to their Maker.

Somehow her heart had gained the strength she needed from the prayers she breathed continually, and when the time for teaching the lesson arrived she came to her class with quietness.

There was a little awe upon the boys because of the stranger in their midst. They did not fling the hymn-books down with a noisy thud, nor send the lesson leaves flying like winged darts across the room quite so much as they were wont to do. They looked askance at Harley, who sat proudly by the visitor, supplying him with Bibles, hymn-books, lesson leaves, and finding the place for him officiously. But Graham sat among the boys without ostentation, and made as little of his own presence as possible. He smiled at them now and then, put a handful of silver into the collection envelope when they would have passed him by, and promised a ride to one fellow who ventured to ask him hoarsely if that was his car outside the church.

Shirley had made up her mind to forget as far as she could the presence of the visitor in the class, and to this end she fixed her eyes upon the worst little boy present, the boy who got up all the disturbances, and made all the noises, and was the most adorable, homely, sturdy young imp the Valley Church could produce. He sat straight across from her, while Graham was at the side, and she could see in Jack's eye that he meant mischief if he could overcome his awe of the stranger. So before Jack could possibly get started she began her story, and told it straight to Jack, never taking her eyes from his face from start to finish, and before she was half-way through she had her little audience enthralled. It was a story of the Bible told in modern setting, and told straight to the heart of a boy who was the counterpart in his own soul of the man whom Christ cured and forgave. What Graham was thinking or looking Shirley did not know. She had literally forgotten his existence after the first few minutes. She had seen the gleam of interest in the eyes of the boy Jack; she knew that her message was going home to a convicted young soul, and that he saw himself and his own childish sins in the sinful life of the hero of her tale. Her whole soul was bent on making him see the Saviour who could make that young life over. Not until the story was almost finished did any one of the listeners, unless perhaps Harley, who was used to such story-recitals, have a suspicion that the story was just a plain, ordinary chapter out of the Bible. Then suddenly one of the elder boys broke forth: "Aw! Gee! That's just the man in the Bible let down through the roof!" There was a slight stir in the class at the discovery as it dawned upon them that the teacher had "put one over on them" again, but the interest for the most part was sustained breathlessly until the superintendent's bell rang, and the heads drew together in an absorbed group around her for the last few sentences, spoken in a lower tone because the general hum of teaching in the room had ceased.

Graham's face was very grave and thoughtful as she finished and slipped away from them to take her place at the little organ. One could see that it was not in the teacher alone, but in her message as well, that he was interested. The boys all had that subdued, half-ashamed, half-defiant look that boys have when they have been caught looking serious. Each boy frowned and studied his toes, or hunted assiduously in his hymn-book to hide his confusion, and the class in various keys lifted up assertive young voices vigorously in the last hymn.

Graham sat beside Shirley in the little crowded church during the rather monotonous service. The regular pastor, who was a good, spiritual man if not a brilliant one, and gave his congregation solid, practical sermons, was on his vacation, and the pulpit was supplied by a young theologue who was so new to his work that his sermon was a rather involved effort. But so strong was the power of the Sunday-school lesson to which he had just listened that Graham felt as if he were sitting in some hallowed atmosphere. He did not see the red-faced, embarrassed young preacher, nor notice his struggles to bring forth his message bravely; he saw only the earnest-faced young teacher as she spoke the words of life to her boys; saw the young imp-faces of her boys softened and touched by the story she told; saw that she really believed and felt every word she spoke; and knew that there was something in it all that he wanted.

The seat was crowded and the day was warm, but the two who looked over the same hymn-book did not notice it. The soft air came in from the open window beside them, breathing sweet clover and wild honeysuckle, and the meadowlarks sang their songs, and made it seem just like a little bit of heaven.

Shirley's muslin frills trembled against Graham's hand as she reached to catch a fluttering leaf of the hymn-book that the wind had caught; once her hand brushed the coatsleeve beside her as they turned the page, and she felt the soft texture of the fine dark blue goods with a pleasant sense of the beautiful and fitting. It thrilled her to think he was standing thus beside her in her own little church, yielding himself to the same worship with her in the little common country congregation. It was wonderful, beautiful! And to have come to her! She glanced shyly up at him, so handsome, standing there singing, his hand almost touching hers holding the book. He felt her glance and answered it with a look and smile, their eyes holding each other for just the fraction of a second in which some inner thought was interchanged, some question asked and answered by the invisible flash of heart-beats, a mutual joining in the spiritual service, and then half-frightened Shirley dropped her eyes to the page and the soft roses stole into her cheeks again. She felt as if she had seen something in his eyes and acknowledged it in her own, as if she had inadvertently shown him her heart in that glance, and that heart of hers was leaping and bounding with an uncontrollable joy, while her conscience sought by every effort to get it in control. What nonsense, it said, what utter folly, to make so much of his coming to church with her once! To allow her soul to get into such a flutter over a man who had no more idea of noticing her or caring for her than he had for a bird on the tree.