“Why don’t we have church outdoors, Mr. Dale? And why don’t we just kneel down in our work clothes, bareheaded? I’d like to know! The trouble with church is that we only have it once a week and in the house. If we had it in the woods or fields and we didn’t go dressed up—oh, a body’d feel so much nearer to heaven!”
“The woods were God’s first temples,” I said gently.
“I’d like to go to church in the woods, and to school in the woods. When I am sick—even sick-hearted—the out of doors seems to cure me, Mr. Dale.”
“Nature is sanative,” I agreed.
Her eyes fired. “I love every tree and every shrub, and every rose and every trillium—yes, even the weeds—yarrow ain’t so bad! It’s got a fine nutty flavor, hasn’t it now? I love the scarred old mountains, and I love the dew on fine mornings, and the sky on stormy nights.”
“Heaven’s terrible bonfires, and the delicate rainbow belt—the purple of the new day,” I murmured dreamily.
Wanza drew her feet up beneath her gown, and clasped her knees with her hands. Looking across them she put a wistful question: “Does it seem long to you since you were a little boy, Mr. Dale?”
“Rather long,” I answered drearily.
“I feel still as if I was a little girl. Funny, ain’t it? I like such wee things—flowers and birds, and kittens and puppies.”
“You seem very childlike, Wanza—your mind is like that of a child—I mean—you think like a child.” Here I broke off, catching an indignant flash in her eye.