“Behave yourself, Van!”
Now the unlucky star of a certain small boy decreed that on this particular Sunday he should be asked to display his accomplishments by accompanying the children with his violin, on which he had been taking lessons for nearly four months. A proud father and mother had urged him on, and there he stood beside the pianist, with his bow raised.
Down it came on the strings in the first strains of “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” the voices of all the school joining in, in fine, childish harmony.
At the first wail of the instrument Van leaped to a point of vantage on the seat. He did not wait for a hymn-book; he simply lifted up his voice and joined the chorus in a song without words—a long-drawn, mournful howl! He could sing that hymn with the best of them; he would show them!
“Stop, Van!” Betsy tried to shut him off by putting her hand over his mouth, but he wriggled free, barked an evil defiance, and continued his heartrending strains. Who was she that she should interfere with the religious devotions of the son of kings, a hero, and a singer of songs? The teachers tried their best to look shocked, and the superintendent openly grinned.
She fled with him down the aisle
Betsy no longer shunned publicity. She was flooded with it anyway. Seizing the singer she fled with him down the aisle, leaving the room swept by a gale of laughter that might have been heard almost to India’s coral strand! It was a shocking end to a devotional exercise.
Betsy did not go back; she took Van out in the vestibule and spanked him. She haled him home; she told him that he was a young imp; and that if ever he followed her to Sunday School again she would know why.
After this Van decided to try another service. Mary the cook loved him too, and Mary was a good Catholic. Perhaps he was too old and too musically-inclined for Sunday School. The next Sunday he followed Mary as she started to Mass.