Ethelyn's Mistake

by Mary Jane Holmes

For a moment Andy looked intently at her, as if trying to make out her meaning. Then, as it in part dawned upon him, he said sorrowfully: "Sister Ethie, if it's me you mean, I was more to blame than Dick, for I asked him not to tell you I was--a--a--wall, I once heard Miss Captain Simmons say I was Widder Markham's fool," and Andy's chin quivered as he went on: "I ain't a fool exactly, for I don't drool or slobber like Tom Brown the idiot, but I have a soft spot in my head, and I didn't want you to know it, for fear you wouldn't like me. Daisy did, though, and Daisy knew what I was and called me 'dear Andy,' and kissed me when she died."

Andy was crying softly now, and Ethelyn was crying with him. The hard feeling at her heart was giving way, and she could have put her arms around this childish man, who after a moment continued: "Dick said he wouldn't tell you, so you must forgive him for that. You've found me out, I s'pose. You know I ain't like Jim, nor John, and I can't hold a candle to old Dick, but sometimes I've hope you liked me a little, even if you do keep calling me Anderson. I wish you wouldn't; seems as if folks think more of me when they say 'Andy' to me."

"Oh, Andy, dear Andy," Ethelyn exclaimed: "I do like you so much--like you best of all. I did not mean you when I said I was disappointed."

"Who, then?" Andy asked, in his straightforward way. "Is it mother? She is odd, I guess, though I never thought on't till you came here. Yes, mother is some queer, but she is good; and onct when I had the typhoid and lay like a log, I heard her pray for 'her poor dear boy Andy'; that's what she called me, as lovin' like as if I wasn't a fool, or somethin' nigh it."

Ethelyn did not wish to leave upon his mind the impression that his mother had everything to do with her wretchedness, and so cautiously as she could she tried to explain to him the difference between the habits and customs of Chicopee and Olney. Warming up with her theme as she progressed, she said more than she intended, and succeeded in driving into Andy's brain a vague idea that his family were not up to her standard, but were in fact a long way behind the times. Andy was in a dilemma; he wanted to help Ethelyn and did not know how. Suddenly, however, his face brightened, and he asked, "Do you belong to the church?"

"Yes," was Ethelyn's reply.

"You do!" Andy repeated in some surprise, and Ethelyn replied, "Not the way you mean, perhaps; but when I was a baby I was baptized in the church and thus became a member."

"So you never had the Bishop's hands upon your head, and done what the Saviour told us to do to remember him by?"

Ethelyn shook her head, and Andy went on: "Oh, what a pity, when he is such a good Saviour, and would know just how to help you, now you are so sorry-like and homesick, and disappointed. If you had him you could tell him all about it and he would comfort you. He helped me, you don't know how much, and I was dreadful bad once. I used to get drunk, Ethie--drunker'n a fool, and come hiccuppin' home with my clothes all tore and my hat smashed into nothin'."

Andy's face was scarlet as he confessed to his past misdeeds, but without the least hesitation he went on: "Mr. Townsend found me one day in the ditch, and helped me up and got me into his room and prayed over me and talked to me, and never let me off from that time till the Saviour took me up, and now it's better than three years since I tasted a drop. I don't taste it even at the sacrament, for fear what the taste might do, and I used to hold my nose to keep shut of the smell. Mr. Townsend knows I don't touch it, and God knows, too, and thinks I'm right, I'm sure, and gives me to drink of his precious blood just the same, for I feel light as air when I come from the altar. If religion could make me, a fool and a drunkard, happy, it would do sights for you who know so much. Try it, Ethie, won't you?"