"That's not saying much for it, either," he said gloomily.
"Well, now, I think it is,"—said Pearl. "In lots of countries you'd pass for an awful good man. It's on'y when you stood up beside Christ, who was so good and kind and straight, that you can see you're not what you ought to be. If it wasn't for the Bible and Christ we wouldn't know how good a man should be."
"I haven't read the Bible for a goad many years," he said slowly. "I don't believe I ever read much of it."
Pearl looked straight into his face, and said without a minute's hesitation: "Well, I'll bet you a dollar some one read it for you and passed it on to you."
Sandy Braden looked straight ahead of him, down the deeply tinted prairie road, at the hazy outlines of the sand-hills, with their scattered spruce trees, blurred now into indistinctness—that is, his eyes were turned toward them, but what he really saw in one of those sudden flashes of memory which makes us think that nothing is ever entirely forgotten, was a cheerful old-fashioned room, with a rag-carpet on the floor and pictures in round frames on the wall. The sun came in through the eastern windows, and the whole place felt like Sunday. He saw his mother sitting in a rocking-chair, with a big Bible on her knee, and by her side was a little boy whom he knew to be himself. He saw again on her finger the thin silver ring, worn almost to a thread, and felt the clasp of her hand on his as she guided his finger over the words she was teaching him; and back through the long years they came to him: "Love one another as I have loved you." He remembered, too, and smelled again the sweet-mary leaves that were always kept in his mother's Bible, and saw again the cards with big coloured birds on them that he had got at Sunday-school for regular attendance, and which were always kept between its pages; and while he mused on these things with sudden tenderness, there came back again the same numb feeling of sorrow that he had had when he came home, a heartbroken boy, from his mother's funeral that day so many years ago, and buried his face in the sweet-mary leaves in the old Bible, and blotted its pages with his tears; for it seemed more like her than anything else in the house. He remembered that the undertaker's black mat with its ghastly white border was still in the front window, where the coffin had rested, and that the room smelled of camphor.
Pearl saw that memory was busy with him, and said not a word.
At last he spoke. "You're right, Pearl," he said. "Some one did read it and pass it on to me, and it would have been better for me if I'd stayed closer to what she taught me."
"Ain't it queer how things turn out?" Pearl exclaimed, after a long pause. "Now, I've often wondered why Christ had to die—it seemed a terrible thing to happen to Him, and Him that lovin' and kind—do you mind how gentle and forgivin' He was?"
Sandy Braden nodded.
"Well, Mr. Donald and I have been talkin' about it quite a bit, and at first we thought it shouldn't have happened, but now it looks as if God had to strike hard to make people listen, and to show them what a terrible thing sin is. Death ain't nothin' to be afraid of, nor sufferin' either. Sin is the only thing to be real scared of. It wasn't the rusty nails through His hands that made the dear Lord cry out in agony—it was the hard hearts of them that done it. Bill Cavers's death has done good already, for it has closed your bar, and no one knows how many men and boys that may save; and you're a different man now, thinking different thoughts, ain't you?"