In a little, the music of the bells ceased. But the woman, at the window, sat still with her face upturned to the stars.
Gone, now, were the city lights that to her had seemed as beacon fires on the outskirts of hell. Gone, now, the horrors of that life to which night comes not as a benediction. Gone, now, her fears for her dreams. The woman lived again a Sunday evening in her Yesterdays.
It may have been the flaming glory of the sky; it may have been the music of the bells; it may have been the stars—whatever it was—the woman went again into the long ago. Once again she went back into her Yesterdays—to a Sunday evening in her Yesterdays.
The little girl was on the front porch of her home with mother. The sun was going down behind the great trees in the old churchyard at the cross roads while, across the valley, the voice of the bell was calling the people to evening worship. And, with the ringing of the bell, the boy and his mother came to sit with them while the men were gone to church.
Then, while the mothers, seated in their easy chairs, talked in low tones, the boy and the girl, side by side, on the steps of the porch, watched the light go out of the sky and tried to count the stars as they came. As the twilight deepened, the elms in the pasture across the road, the maples along the drive, and the willows down by the creek, became shadowy and indistinct. From the orchard, an owl sent forth his quavering call and was answered by his mate from the roof of the barn. Down in the shadow of the little valley, a whip-poor-will cried plaintively, and, now and then, a bat came darting out of the dusk on swift and silent wings. And there, in the darkness across the valley, shone the single light of the church. The children gave up trying to count the stars and grew very still, as, together, they watched the lights of the church. Then one of the mothers laughed, a low happy laugh, and the children began telling each other about God.
Many things the boy and the girl told each other about God. And who is there to say that the things they told were not just as true as many things that older children tell? Though, I suppose, as the boy and girl did not quarrel or become angry with each other that Sunday evening, their talk about God could scarcely be considered orthodox. Their service under the stars was not at all regular, I know. With childish awe and reverence—with hushed voices—they only told each other about God. They did not discuss theology—they were not church members—they were only children.
Then, by and by, the father and uncle came, and, with his parents, the boy went home, calling through the dark, as he went, many good nights—each call sounding fainter and farther away. And, when she could neither hear nor make him hear more, the little girl went with her mother into the house, where, when she was ready for bed, she knelt to pray that old familiar prayer of the Yesterdays—forgetting not in her prayer to ask God to bless and keep the boy.
Oh, childish prayers of the Yesterdays! Made in the strength of a childish faith, what power divine is in them to keep the race from death! Oh, childish understanding of God, deep grounded in that wisdom to which scholars can never attain! Does the Master of Life still set little children among His disciples in vain?
The woman no longer feared that which lay in the darkness of the city. She knew, now, that she would have strength to keep the treasures of her womanhood safe for him should he come to lead her into the life of her dreams. She knew, now, what it was that would help her—that would enable her to keep that which Life had committed to her.
As she turned from the window, strength and peace were in her heart.
As she knelt beside her bed to pray, her prayer was that prayer of her
Yesterdays. The prayer of a child it was—the prayer of a woman who
knows that she is a woman it was also.