The little muddy sled on which he had drawn the child many a mile was standing on the front doorstep, and he took it to the pump and cleaned it and carried it to the garret and hung it away reverently, sadly, as we put aside some article the dead have worn. As he came down the stairs he met Chance, holding something white in his mouth, and shaking his head and stamping his feet, his way of attracting attention. It was one of Connie’s handkerchiefs, used on Christmas Day, and left in the inclosure to which Chance, on his way home from the station, had made a detour. It was stained with sugar and grape juice, but Kenneth washed it at the pump as he had the sled, and taking it to the garret, spread it over the sled to dry.

Two days later there came a letter from Mrs. Hart, telling of her safe arrival home, and saying Connie was well and sent her love and a prayer-book to Kenneth. It was a very handsome edition, and on the fly leaf Connie had printed in big letters, “To Kenneth, from Connie.” She had wanted to add, “with love,” but her aunt objected. So she printed on a piece of paper which she put in the book: “With Connie’s love, and you’ll find ‘I believe’ and ‘stir up’ and ‘miserable sinners’ and everything in it.”

Kenneth read it through, and began, in a dim way, to understand what was done in churches like the one Connie attended, and the following Sunday he drove to St. Jude’s in Rocky Point, a distance of six or seven miles. He had seen but little of the world, and the pretty church, with its three or four memorial windows and candles on the altar, seemed a great contrast to the primitive building at The 4 Corners, where there was seldom even a flower to brighten it. The candles puzzled him, as he could not see why they were needed, when the sun was shining brightly. He was interested in the vested choir, in which he recognized one or two boys who attended the Millville Academy with him, but thought it would take a great deal to make him march with that white gown on, as they did. He was seated near the door, where he could see everything, and as he had brought his prayer-book, he tried to follow the service, succeeding pretty well, and finding the “I believe” and the “miserable sinners,” but failing in the “stir up.” It was all very new and very strange, but it was Connie’s church, and must be right, he said to his father when, on his return home, he told what he had seen and heard.

“All ceremony,” the deacon said, shaking his head. “All ceremony, except the ‘I believe’ you talk about. That’s our creed, too, though I don’t think it has been said in Sunday-school in years. It ought to be, and I’ll speak to the superintendent to have the children learn it. That’s all right, and the rest may be. I won’t judge too harsh. I wasn’t brought up that way, but I’ll see to that creed.”

As a result of the little mustard seed Connie had sown, the children in the church at The 4 Corners, and the grown people as well, were in a few weeks rehearsing what they believed in a manner which would have been highly satisfactory to Connie, could she have heard them. Kenneth’s voice usually took the lead, and there was always in his heart a thought of the little girl, and the prayer she had said, with her head in his lap, and the Christmas tree by the ledge of rocks, sacred to him now as the church itself, because Connie had been there and told him of things he was learning to understand.

Three weeks after Mrs. Hart’s departure there came an express package from New York directed to Mrs. Stannard, who, never having received one before, was in a state of great excitement until it was opened, and greater still when she saw the contents,—a dress pattern of black cashmere, finer and more expensive than she would ever have bought for herself, with all the linings and trimmings and directions how to have it made. There was also a silver-backed clothes brush for Kenneth, but the manicure set was omitted. These, Mrs. Hart wrote, were presents from Connie, who had been greatly interested in buying and sending them. They were going South for February and March, and she would possibly go abroad in the spring. This was late in January, and some time in February Kenneth received a newspaper from Jacksonville announcing the arrival of Mrs. Hart, niece and maid at the St. James, while the deacon received a few lines from Mrs. Hart, asking that Connie’s quarterly remittance be sent to St. Augustine, and that it be as large as possible, in order to meet the increase of expenses. The money was sent and a receipt returned, and then for years the chapter of Kenneth’s life, as connected directly with Connie, was closed.

CHAPTER VIII
AFTER MANY YEARS

Fourteen years is a long time to look forward to, but looking back it does not seem very long, since Kenneth bade good-bye to Connie, and hung her sled in the attic, with the stained handkerchief drying upon it. The sled is hanging there still, and the handkerchief is lying in one of Kenneth’s bureau drawers, yellow and soiled, for no water has touched it since he washed it at the pump and put it away to dry. The prayer-book shows marks of constant usage, and Kenneth goes regularly to St. Jude’s, which to himself he still calls Connie’s church. He has worked his way through college, and at his graduation no one stood higher in his class than Kenneth Stannard, the boy from The 4 Corners, who swept the halls and did many menial offices to help himself along.

Connie has been at the farmhouse but once since her first visit there, and that was in the summer eight years after the memorable Christmas, and when she was fourteen and Kenneth twenty-two. He had dreamed of her coming night after night, and always saw her in her blue cloak and hood, as she had been when he bade her good-by. He knew there must be a change, but was not quite prepared for the slender, dignified girl, who wore an enormous hat and called him Mr. Stannard. She was, however, inexpressibly lovely, he thought, with her flower-like face and great blue eyes, which laughed when she laughed, but oftener drooped shyly under long, thick lashes. But for the eyes, and the smile which lighted up her whole face, Kenneth would hardly have recognized in her the little girl of six whom he had drawn for miles and miles through slush and mud. Did she remember it, he wondered, and the Christmas tree? If she did, she made no sign, and he would not refer to it, or tell her that he knew the contents of the prayer-book now as well as she did. She could only spend a day, or a part of it, as her aunt had left her at the station, while she went on to Albany to visit a friend, and was to call for her in the evening. She was very sweet and gracious, but a little too dignified for her years, Kenneth thought, as he tried to entertain her.

“Would you like to go to the huckleberry pasture?” he asked, after dinner was over.