"Oh, dear!" replied the small boy, and sobbed more loudly.
"Now, now!" said Father McGowan. "We can't all be Methodists, you know. The church wouldn't hold 'em.". The child still sobbed. "I'll tell you," went on Father McGowan; "you pray that we'll all belong to one church in Heaven. You do that. Wouldn't that be nice?"
"Uh huh," agreed the boy with tempered enthusiasm. He smeared his tears across his face with his coat sleeve. They left white streaks. "I couldn't believe you was a Catholic!" he said sadly. "You're so nice, and because of the pie and all." His face was long and his eyes melancholy.
"I'm sorry," said Father McGowan, "so sorry. How's Siberia to-day?" The child reported and then vanished to do his utmost in making a convert by prayer.
Father McGowan opened the rest of his mail, and then reached toward the letter of foreign stamp. He always kept the best 'til last.
"Dearest Father McGowan-dear:—" it began in a hand characteristic of many boarding schools, and yet showing a bit of individuality—"I have wanted to write you.... So many things to do that half the time all I get accomplished is my loving of you dear people, every day a little more, though more seems impossible. I love you, and Papa and John so much. So much that when I'm away from you, and think of you, I feel quite choked. It is rather beautiful, and terrible, this caring so deeply. I do not know how I could ever say good-bye."
There was a page of Cecilia's large scrawl. It contained no news, but Father McGowan read it closely. His eyes were the same as when, years before, he had looked on a table Cecilia had decorated in honour of a big, fat, Roman priest. Suddenly he laughed. "We have a small donkey," he had read, "whom we have named Clara, after the vicar's sister. Our donkey has long ears and a religious expression, too. The vicar's sister is really very nice, but our grey donkey looks so like her that we always expect her to stop in the middle of the road and talk of missionary barrels and Sunday School treats. The latter is a form of entertainment which contains much jam, tea, many pop-eyed little girls and boys, not to omit a large stickiness. (I went to one, and poured tea down Lord Somebody's neck. It was a great condescension for him to 'stop in,' and only the fact that I am of 'mad America' saved me from a public hanging.)
"Marjory and I have splendid times. I am so glad I am with her. It is nice for me, and I think for her. Mamma Aliston is one of those poor ladies who enjoys suffering. If she had lived where I did in my younger days, she would have said: 'I ain't feelin' so well. The doctor's give me three kinds of medicine. It's me nerves.' As this is not in order, she mutters of draughts, and places a pudgy and diamond-ringed hand above her heart many times a day, sighing expressively. Marjory has no sympathy with her. She only says, 'Don't eat that, Mamma; it is bad for you,' about anything Mamma enjoys. I am a beautiful buffer. (Please pardon the 'beautiful'; it refers to spirit.)
"The way those two people clash is utterly dreadful. I remember always, when I hear them, Saturday nights, years ago, when the gentlemen of our building used to tumble upstairs, very drunk, and I would then hear squawks and abuses. We are all the same, but people never realise it.... I laugh inside when they talk of 'lower classes.' I laugh but sometimes it hurts a little. I am ashamed, Father McGowan, that it should.... Coming home very soon. I want to give a man named Jeremiah Madden as many years of happiness as I can. I am coming home to play 'The Shepherd Boy' every evening after a lemon pie-ed dinner.
"Father McGowan-dear, I have been worried about John.... Here I see so many heavy-eyed boys slinking into manhood. Those boys who travel with their blindly indulgent mammas and leave a man at home, alone, across the seas.