"Dare? yes, indeed, I'd dare for both of us if there were anything to be afraid of. But there isn't, Percy. Why, nobody comes here; it's out of everybody's sight. We won't tell a soul; and as for asking leave, no one owns it, so there's no one to ask. And we can't hurt it." The pulpit spoke with authority and slight impatience. The pew replied gently but persistently.
"It would be the greatest fun, and it's just like you to think of it, Reba; I only mean that perhaps it would be wrong to play and make good times here. Remember, it's a church, Reba."
"Well, let's remember it's a church," answered the pulpit, meeting the scruples with a ready argument as skillful as any that may have proceeded from it before: "let's agree, to begin with, that we'll always behave when we're here, and just run outside if we want to be cross, or selfish, or anything not fit for a church. We won't do anything here that we'd be ashamed to do if we remembered its being a church. That will make it all right, for I'm sure, Percy, a church is the very place to be good in."
The pew was convinced. Percy fairly clapped her hands, and cried, "It will be the very best secret we ever had, Reba!" as they helped each other enlarge upon the plan.
And I think myself that few girls have a nicer secret. With tidy housekeeping instincts that they had learned at home, Percy and Reba first set themselves to make the place as neat as circumstances would allow. They picked up the litter, and swept the floor over and over. Many a torn leaf of catechism and hymn-book they lingered to read over as they labored, imagining that they should find there something new and strange. They never did, and the catechism answers did not stay long in their memories; but a single couplet of one hymn that they found afterward they never did forget, perhaps because it was so associated with the sweeping of the old church. The line was this well-known verse,
"Who sweeps a room as by Thy laws
Makes that and the action fine."
As high as they could reach they rid the place of dust and cobwebs. Percy chose one square pew, and Reba another, to be peculiar personal property, in which to set up housekeeping, and many an imaginary comedy or tragedy they enacted in those pews, many an odd treasure came to be stored there with nobody to say, "Do take that rubbish off!" Oh! it felt grand to have so much room, so much airy, unused space, and to be able to trim up whenever they liked with evergreen branches, blossoming boughs, and all the lavish greenery they had patience to bring! Here they learned their lessons together; here they practiced each other on the "pieces" that were to be declaimed at school on exhibition-day. It was fine to see Reba ascend the broken stairs, and courtesying to Percy with a flourish, recite "Casabianca" or "We are Seven," until it would seem the very hornets' nest must be thrilled with her accents. Percy, somehow, never was willing, when her turn came, to occupy the same high place, but she used to be sure that she would make no mistake on exhibition-day if only she could have that same broken window, filled in with blue sky, to fix her eyes upon as she spoke.
She would not forget, nor let Reba forget, the compact they had agreed upon. To be sure, they were not often tempted to be cross or unjust to each other, but there did occur a crisis sometimes when one or the other would stop in the middle of an impatient word and run out of the church. Nearly always her companion would follow after; in the open air it would all be made up, and with arms entwined they would go peacefully back into the church again.
But there came a week when everything seemed to go wrong. It was intensely hot and dry. Reba complained fretfully that nothing but heat, dust, and flies came in at their windows. Percy declared that the hum of the hornets made her nervous.
"And, Reba," said she, "I don't think it's fair for you to disarrange the things in my part. You never used to do it."