Growing Up: A Story of the Girlhood of Judith Mackenzie

by Mrs. Nathaniel Conklin

—H. S. Sutton.

It was Saturday afternoon; Judith had been busy in the kitchen all the morning with Aunt Rody, and she (not Aunt Rody) had kept her temper; that was one happening that made the day memorable and delightful, and then there were three others: one was her miracle, another the maidens that were going out to draw water, and the disciple from Antioch, and, most memorable of all, the plan for boarding-school.

The miracle happened in this way: Aunt Rody sent her to take a basket of things to Nettie Evans, a “Sunday surprise,” Judith called it; tiny biscuits, jelly cake, and a little round box of figs.

Nettie had had a wearisome day (very much more dreadful than a Saturday morning in the kitchen with Aunt Rody, Judith told herself), and Mrs. Evans thought it better for her not to go up to Nettie’s room, for the pain in her back was better, she had fallen asleep and she was afraid to have her disturbed.

“May I get a drink of water?” Judith asked. She always felt thirsty when she came near the plank that formed the ascent from the ground where the kitchen had been to the bit of floor that was left for the sink to stand on. The old kitchen had been torn down this summer, and nothing remained of it excepting the sink which contained the pump (the water came from the well where Nettie’s lilies grew), the window over the sink, the roof overhead, and the walls on each side of the sink. She liked the fun of running up and down this plank, and she liked to stand and look out of this window toward the east. It was a window toward the east. Sometimes she thought about the Jews praying toward the east. She wished once that something would happen to this window because it was a window toward the east. A window facing the east in a house was not at all remarkable; but a window that was not in a house brought itself into very interesting prominence.

And this afternoon her something happened. There was a wonder in the heavens.

It was afternoon; she knew it was, she was sure of it; dinner was over hours ago; Aunt Rody had helped her wipe the dinner dishes, and Aunt Affy had gone to town with Uncle Cephas to take the week’s butter to her customers; and she was on her way to the parsonage to sing hymns with Miss Marion, the hymns for church to-morrow, and she never went till afternoon. But there it was. The sun was in the east in the afternoon; round, peering through mist with a pale, yellow splendor; she saw something that no one in the world had ever seen. It was the sun rising in the afternoon.

It must be a miracle; a miracle in the window towards Jerusalem.

But the sun surely had not stood still ever since morning; it was high up when she stood in the back yard and rang the dinner bell for Uncle Cephas and Joe.