Missy | Page 5

seemed
to stretch out to mingle with that heavenly colour. It was hard to
separate herself from that sound and colour which was not herself.
Tears came to her eyes; she couldn't tell why, for she wasn't sad. Oh, if
she could stand there listening forever!--could feel like this forever!
The choir was practising for a funeral that afternoon, but Melissa didn't
know that. She had never attended a funeral. She didn't even know it
was a funeral song. She only knew that when, at last, they stopped
singing and filed out of the choir-room, she could hardly bear to have
them go. She wished she might follow them, might tuck herself away in
the auditorium somewhere and stay for the church service. But her
mother didn't allow her to do that. Mother insisted that church service
and Sunday-school, combined, were too much for a little girl, and
would give her headaches.
So there was nothing for Missy to do but go home. The sun shone just
as brightly as on her hither journey but now she had no impulse to skip.
She walked along sedately, in rhythm to inner, long-drawn cadences.
The cadences permeated her--were herself. She was sad, yet pleasantly,
thrillingly so. It was divine. When she reached home, she went into the
empty front-parlour and hunted out the big, cloth- covered hymnal that
was there. She found "Asleep in Jesus" and played it over and over on
the piano. The bass was a trifle difficult, but that didn't matter. Then
she found other hymns which were in accord with her mood: "Abide
with Me"; "Nearer My God to Thee"; "One Sweetly Solemn Thought."
The last was sublimely beautiful; it almost stole her favour away from
"Asleep in Jesus." Not quite, though.
She was re-playing her first favourite when the folks all came in from

church. There were father and mother, grandpa and grandma Merriam
who lived in the south part of town, Aunt Nettie, and Cousin Pete
Merriam. Cousin Pete's mother was dead and his father out in
California on a long business trip, so he was spending that summer in
Cherryvale with his grandparents.
Melissa admired Cousin Pete very much, for he was big and handsome
and wore more stylish-looking clothes than did most of the young men
in Cherryvale. Also, he was very old--nineteen, and a sophomore at the
State University. Very old. Naturally he was much wiser than Missy,
for all her acquired wisdom. She stood in awe of him. He had a way of
asking her absurd, foolish questions about things that everybody knew;
and when, to be polite, she had to answer him seriously in his own
foolish vein, he would laugh at her! So, though she admired him, she
always had an impulse to run away from him. She would have liked,
now, in this heavenly, religious mood, to run away lest he might ask
her embarrassing questions about it. But, before she had the chance,
grandpa said:
"Why Missy, playing hymns? You'll be church organist before we
know it!"
Missy blushed.
"'Asleep in Jesus' is my favourite, I think," commented grandma. "It's
the one I'd like sung over me at the last. Play it again, dear."
But Pete had picked up a sheet of music from the top of the piano.
"Let's have this, Missy." He turned to his grandmother. "Ought to hear
her do this rag--I've been teaching her double-bass."
Missy shrank back as he placed the rag-time on the music-rest.
"Oh, I'd rather not--to-day."
Pete smiled down at her--his amiable but condescending smile.

"What's the matter with to-day?" he asked.
Missy blushed again.
"Oh, I don't know--I just don't feel that way, I guess."
"Don't feel that way?" repeated Pete. "You're temperamental, are you?
How do you feel, Missy?"
Missy feared she was letting herself in for embarrassment; but this was
a holy subject. So she made herself answer:
"I guess I feel religious."
Pete shouted. "She feels religious! That's a good one! She guesses
she--"
"Peter, you should be ashamed of yourself!" reproved his grandmother.
"She's a scream!" he insisted. "Religious! That kid!"
"Well," defended Missy, timid and puzzled, but wounded to unwonted
bravery, "isn't it proper to feel like that on the Sabbath?"
Pete shouted again.
"Peter--stop that! You should be ashamed of yourself!" It was his
grandfather this time. Grandpa moved over to the piano and removed
the rag-time from off the hymnal, pausing to pat Missy on the head.
But Peter was not the age to be easily squelched.
"What does it feel like, Missy--the religious feeling?"
Missy, her eyes bright behind their blur, didn't answer. Indeed, she
could not have defined that sweetly sad glow, now so cruelly crushed,
even had she wanted to.
Missy didn't enjoy her dinner as much as she usually did