“I suppose,” I remarked, “that the founder of the church was satisfied with her experiment—she hadn’t wholly wasted her money, for she had found the answers to interesting questions as to human nature—the vanity of rectitude, the pride of virtue, the consolations of hypocrisy.”
He looked at me questioningly, with his frank innocent eyes, as though estimating the extent to which he might carry his confidences.
“Let me say again that I shouldn’t be telling you all this if you didn’t have her ideas—and without ever knowing her! She lived on the corner below the church, where she could watch the door. She watched it for about two years, day and night, without ever seeing a soul go in, and people thought she’d lost her mind. And then, one Sunday morning when the whole town—all her old friends and neighbors—were bound for church, she came out of her house alone and walked straight down to that church she had built for sinners, and in at the door.
“You see,” he said, rising quickly, as though recalling his obligations to St. John’s Men’s League, “she was the finest woman in town—the best and the noblest woman that ever lived! They found her at noon lying dead in the church. The failure of her plan broke her heart; and that made it pretty hard—for her family—everybody.”
He was fingering his cards nervously, and I did not question the sincerity of the emotion his face betrayed.
“It is possible,” I suggested, “that she had grown morbid over some sin of her own, and had been hoping that others would avail themselves of the hospitality of a church that was frankly open to sinners. It might have made it easier for her.”
He smiled with a childlike innocence and faith.
“Not only not possible,” he caught me up, with quick dignity, “but incredible! She was my mother.”
THE SECOND-RATE MAN IN
POLITICS
[1916]