And what--what--of her dreams? Could she, she asked herself that
night, could she go into that life, day after day, and still have a
heart left for dreaming? Against the unclean strength that threatened
her, where would she find the strength to keep her womanhood pure and
strong for the holy mission of womanhood?
Clear and sweet from out the darkness of the night came the sound of a
bell. Then another, and another, and another, until, from every
quarter of the city, their music came, as though in answer to her
question. Some, near at hand, rang loud, triumphant, peals as though
rejoicing over victories already won; others, farther away, in softer
tones, seemed to promise strength for present need; while still
others, in more distant places, sounding soft and far away, seemed to
gently warn, to beckon, to call, to plead. Lifting her tear filled
eyes from the lights of the streets the woman looked at the stars,
and, so looking, saw, lifting into the sky, the church spires of the
city.
In a little, the music of the bells ceased. But the woman, at the
window, sat still with her face upturned to the stars.
Gone, now, were the city lights that to her had seemed as beacon fires
on the outskirts of hell. Gone, now, the horrors of that life to which
night comes not as a benediction. Gone, now, her fears for her dreams.
The woman lived again a Sunday evening in her Yesterdays.
It may have been the flaming glory of the sky; it may have been the
music of the bells; it may have been the stars--whatever it was--the
woman went again into the long ago. Once again she went back into her
Yesterdays--to a Sunday evening in her Yesterdays.
The little girl was on the front porch of her home with mother. The
sun was going down behind the great trees in the old churchyard at the
cross roads while, across the valley, the voice of the bell was
calling the people to evening worship. And, with the ringing of the
bell, the boy and his mother came to sit with them while the men were
gone to church.
Then, while the mothers, seated in their easy chairs, talked in low
tones, the boy and the girl, side by side, on the steps of the porch,
watched the light go out of the sky and tried to count the stars as
they came. As the twilight deepened, the elms in the pasture across
the road, the maples along the drive, and the willows down by the
creek, became shadowy and indistinct. From the orchard, an owl sent
forth his quavering call and was answered by his mate from the roof of
the barn. Down in the shadow of the little valley, a whip-poor-will
cried plaintively, and, now and then, a bat came darting out of the
dusk on swift and silent wings. And there, in the darkness across the
valley, shone the single light of the church. The children gave up
trying to count the stars and grew very still, as, together, they
watched the lights of the church. Then one of the mothers laughed, a
low happy laugh, and the children began telling each other about God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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