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Page 24
"Do you think it was the prayer?" asked the girl suddenly.
"It may be!" said the man with wondering accent.
Then quietly, thoughtfully, they mounted and rode onward.
Their way, due east, led them around the shoulder of a hill. It was
tolerably smooth, but they were obliged to go single file, so there was
very little talking done.
It was nearly the middle of the afternoon when all at once a sound reached
them from below, a sound so new that it was startling. They stopped their
horses, and looked at each other. It was the faint sound of singing wafted
on the light breeze, singing that came in whiffs like a perfume, and then
died out. Cautiously they guided their horses on around the hill, keeping
close together now. It was plain they were approaching some human being or
beings. No bird could sing like that. There were indistinct words to the
music.
They rounded the hillside, and stopped again side by side. There below
them lay the trail for which they had been searching, and just beneath
them, nestled against the hill, was a little schoolhouse of logs,
weather-boarded, its windows open; and behind it and around it were horses
tied, some of them hitched to wagons, but most of them with saddles.
The singing was clear and distinct now. They could hear the words. "O,
that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me--"
"What is it?" she whispered.
"Why, I suspect it is a Sunday school or something of the kind."
"O! A school! Could we go in?"
"If you like," said the man, enjoying her simplicity. "We can tie out
horses here behind the building, and they can rest. There is fresh grass
in this sheltered place; see?"
He led her down behind the schoolhouse to a spot where the horses could
not be seen from the trail. The girl peered curiously around the corner
into the window. There sat two young girls about her own age, and one of
them smiled at her. It seemed an invitation. She smiled back, and went on
to the doorway reassured. When she entered the room, she found them
pointing to a seat near a window, behind a small desk.
There were desks all over the room at regular intervals, and a larger desk
up in front. Almost all the people sat at desks.
There was a curious wooden box in front at one side of, the big desk, and
a girl sat before it pushing down some black and white strips that looked
like sticks, and making her feet go, and singing with all her might. The
curious box made music, the same music the people were singing. Was it a
piano? she wondered. She had heard of pianos. Her father used to talk
about them. O, and what was that her mother used to want? A
"cab'net-organ." Perhaps this was a cab'net-organ. At any rate, she was
entranced with the music.
Up behind the man who sat at the big desk was a large board painted black
with some white marks on it. The sunlight glinted across it, and she could
not tell what they were; but, when she moved a little, she saw quite
clearly it was a large cross with words underneath it--"He will hide me."
It was a strange place. The girl looked around shyly, and felt submerged
in the volume of song that rolled around her, from voices untrained,
perhaps, but hearts that knew whereof they sang. To her it was heavenly
music, if she had the least conception of what such music was like.
"Glory," "glory," "glory!" The words seemed to fit the day, and the
sunshine, and the deliverance that had come to her so recently. She looked
around for her companion and deliverer to enjoy it with him, but he had
not come in yet.
The two girls were handing her a book now and pointing to the place. She
could read. Her mother had taught her just a little before the other
children were born, but not much in the way of literature had ever come in
her way. She grasped the book eagerly, hungrily, and looked where the
finger pointed. Yes, there were the words. "Glory for me!" "Glory for me!"
Did that mean her? Was there glory for her anywhere in the world? She
sighed with the joy of the possibility, as the "Glory Song" rolled along,
led by the enthusiasm of one who had recently come from a big city where
it had been sung in a great revival service. Some kind friend had given
some copies of a leaflet containing it and a few other new songs to this
little handful of Christians, and they were singing them as if they had
been a thousand strong.
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