Granny, her face deathly pale, every hint of the Christmas joy of the early evening gone from her eyes, now dulled with agony, arose trembling in her pew.
But Brother Sutton’s eyes brightened as he saw her.
“Our aged sister wishes to speak to us, I see,” he said, kindly, “and I know all the little folks will be very quiet.”
“I jest want to say,” gasped Granny, clutching nervously at the pew in front of her, “I jest want to say that I’m a wicked old sinner, that I’m a liar and a cheat and a disgrace to my church.”
The audience, as if electrified, turned toward her in amazement; even the children dropped their gifts to stare at Granny, as she stood pale, wild-eyed, and self-accusing.
“My heart’s ’most bustin’ with your goodness,” went on the quavering old voice, “and I’ve got to tell or I’ll die ’fore mornin’, an’ I can’t go to John an’ ’Rastus an’ little Mary with a lie on my soul, even if the good Lord would forgive me for their sakes an’ let me in. That day I set out to buy a gif’ fer every man, woman, an’ child in the church the devil kept tellin’ me they wouldn’t be nothin’ fer old Granny Simmers, an’ the more I thought the more I got a hankerin’ to hear my name read with the rest; an’ the bad man he said to me, says he, ‘Granny Simmers, why don’t you buy some things for yourself an’ put them on the tree; nobody’d be the wiser. Needn’t buy anything extravagant,’ says he, ‘jest plain needcessities that Marthy’s been urgin’. Since you are buyin’ for everybody in the church, there’s no harm—John said every man, woman, an’ child.’
“I didn’t have an idee that anybody would think of old me, so I says to the bad man at last, says I, ‘Jest a few things, devil, jest a few—a milk-strainer that Marthy has been jawin’ about, a coal-hod, a tack-hammer, an’ a new calico I had been needin’ for some time; then I got a couple of new pie tins an’ a soapstone ’cause Marthy cracked the old one. An’ I never once thought of it bein’ a sin, an’ I tied ’em up with ribbons an’ tissue-paper, an’ sung as I did it—I was just as happy as a child. But when I saw how you’d all remembered me, an’ heard Brother Knisley readin’ gif’ after gif’, an’ I seed how I’d doubted your friendship an’ knowed you never dreamed I was actin’ a lie, I just felt so pusly mean I couldn’t stand that you should believe all them gif’s come from love. I guess I ain’t fit for anything but churchin’.”
Shaking with sobs, the little woman dropped back in her seat to be received into Martha’s loving arms.
“Brother Sutton”—it was Mrs. Keel’s asthmatic wheeze that broke the silence—“Brother Sutton, I’ve got a few words to say, and as I look about at the streamin’ eyes of this congregation I know you’ll all agree with me. If there is a dear saint on earth, who has stood by us in our sorrows an’ our joys, who’s hovered over our death-beds and welcomed our babies, it’s Granny Simmers. If there’s a soul of honor, a childlike conscience, and one of the Lord’s own, it is this blessed little woman. I don’t know how the rest of you feel, but my heart’s ’most broke for the poor little soul. Ain’t no more sin in her gentle little heart than there is in a baby’s.”
“Amen!” came from every side.