Sunday came again, and, having grown accustomed to attending church, she knew it would be a long day for her without doing so. She inquired of the people regarding a church, and was embarrassed to have the woman remark:
"Oh, you attend church! Well, there's a big Baptist church down the street and across five blocks; while there's a smaller one two blocks up."
"Thank you," said Mildred so sweetly, that the other looked after her with open mouth.
"I can't make that gal out," she said to her daughter, as they sat together at breakfast.
"I'm glad of it," growled the daughter, without looking up.
"She's a puzzle. Sells a book; but I will never bring myself to believe that she doesn't do something else on the side."
"Evil to him who evil thinks," said her daughter, still looking in her plate. "I think I might possibly have been something, Ma, if you hadn't been so evil. Now what right have you trying to trump up something against that girl. Supposing she ain't straight, does that give you any call for all time tryin' t' make her what she ain' showed herself t' be?" Myrtle was impatient, and her mother had a way of hushing up when she was in this mood.
"She c'n certainly make herself look good," commented the black woman, as Mildred passed out, and went down the street in the direction given to the big church.
"Has got some clothes, too," she commented further, as the other remained silent. "She certainly knows how t' have her men. Don't none of'm bother about where she lives; and 'she goes t' church on Sunday.'" She laughed a low, hard laugh, but did not look in her daughter's direction.
Mildred found the church. It was indeed a large structure. And a large crowd attended it. She sat to one side, where a window was raised, and the soft air floated in above her. As she caught the strains of the mammoth pipe organ, and heard the music from a score or more voices in the choir, she thought of her friends as never before, since she left them. She had told Wilson—who was so good—that some day he'd be the pastor of a big church. A big church like this, where thousands of people attended. Only forty members comprised his congregation; he was delighted, she recalled, when as many as one hundred attended. And she had wanted so much to help Wilson Jacobs and his sister in their great effort. As she recalled how unceremoniously she had left them, and at the very time they needed her more than ever, she experienced a pain that made her turn in the pew.