The Girl from the Big Horn Country

  CHAPTER XV

  VESPER SERVICE

  The Sunday following the Vigilantes' mysterious discovery by theroadside, and immediately preceding the Easter holidays, was PalmSunday. It dawned beautiful--warm and sunny as a late spring clay--andas the hours followed one another, each seemed more lovely than thelast. Song sparrows sang from budding alder bushes, and robins flewhither and thither among the elms and maples, seeking suitable notchesin which to begin their homes. As if by magic, purple and goldencrocuses lifted their tiny faces on the southern sides of the cottagelawns; and the buds of the lilac trees, warmed and encouraged byyesterday's showers, burst into leaf before one's very eyes.

  The world seemed especially joyous to the girls, as they roamed thewoods in search of wild flowers, or sought about the campus for freshevidences of spring. The long winter months had gone; Easterhome-going was but five days away; and when they returned after twoweeks at home, spring would have really come, bringing with it all thejoys and festivities and sadnesses of the Commencement season.

  At four o'clock, as the westward-moving sun gleamed through the pines,and fell in wavering lights and shadows on the brown needles beneath,they gathered for their vesper service, coming from all directions,their hands filled with pussy-willows, hepaticas, and mayflowers,their faces glowing with health and happiness, in their eyes the oldmiracle of the spring. To Virginia, as to many of the others, thisSunday afternoon hour was the dearest of the week. She loved thegray-stone, vine-covered Retreat, and its little chapel within; sheloved the sound of its organ, and the voices of the girls singing; andmost of all, she loved the little talks which Miss King gave on Sundayafternoons--dear, close, helpful talks of things which she had learned,and by which she hoped to make life sweeter for her girls.

  To-day the chapel was especially lovely, for the altar rail was bankedwith palms, Easter lilies stood upon the white-covered altar, and thesun, shining through the high, narrow windows, flooded all with goldenlight. Virginia sat between Dorothy and Priscilla, holding a hand ofeach. It was so lovely to be there together! In her secret heart shewas glad that Imogene's mother had sent for her to come home the daybefore, for when Imogene was away Dorothy seemed to belong again tothem.

  Since St. Helen's held no Easter service, as the girls were always athome, Miss King spoke to-day of Easter--how it had always seemed to herthe real beginning of the New Year; how it signified the leaving offof the old and the putting on of the new; how it meant the awakeningof new thoughts, and the renewed striving after better things.

  "So, if we could only understand," she said in closing, whilethe girls listened earnestly, "that Easter is far more than acommemoration, that it is a condition of our hearts, then we should,I think, reverence the day rightly. For as beautiful as is the storyof the risen Christ, we do not keep Easter sacred merely by theremembrance of that story. The risen Christ is as nothing to usunless in our own hearts the Christ spirit rises--the spirit of loveand service, of unselfishness and goodness. When that spirit awakenswithin us, then comes our Easter day. It may be many days throughoutthe year; it might be--if we could only rightly appreciate ourlives--it might be every day. For every day is a fresh beginning, anEaster day, when we may decide to cast off the old and to put on thenew, the old habits of selfishness and jealousy, of insincerity andthoughtlessness--all those petty, little things that mar our lives; andto put on our new and whiter robes of unselfishness and simplesincerity. If the thousands who next Sunday morning will sing of therisen Christ, might all experience within themselves their own Eastermornings, then this world of ours would have realized itsresurrection.

  "Let the hepaticas which you hold in your hands give you the onlyEaster lesson worth the learning--the lesson which your paganforefathers in the forests of Germany taught their children centuriesago on their own Easter festival. You know how each spring theclusters beneath the pines are larger, if you are careful as you pickthe blossoms not to disturb the roots. The long months of fall andwinter are not months of sleep and rest for the hepaticas. Beneath thesnow in the winter silence they are at work, sending out theirrootlets through the brown earth, avoiding the rocks and sandy places,but taking firm hold upon that which will nourish them best. Thus dothey grow year by year, at each Easter time showing themselves largerand more beautiful than the spring before.

  "This is the Easter lesson which I wish you girls might all take toyourselves. As in the winter silence of the earth, the hepaticas sendout their rootlets toward the best soil, so in the silence of your owninner lives are you here and now also sending out rootlets, eithertoward the soil which will give you a healthful, wholesome growth, ortoward the barren places where you must cease to grow. Avoid the rocksof indolence and evil influence, the waste places of selfishness; butreach far out for the good, wholesome soil of good books, of a loveand knowledge of the out-of-doors, of friends who make you better, ofstudy which will enrich your lives. And as the flowers find themselvesmore firmly rooted year by year, so will you find yourselves growingin strength and self-control, in sincerity and firmness of purpose.Then, and only then, will you experience the real Easter--the awakeningto the realization in your hearts that you, through your own seeking,have found that better part, which can never be taken away from you."

  In the silence that followed, while the organ played softly, Virginiatouched with gentle fingers the tiny hepaticas in her lap. Was shesending out rootlets toward the right soil, she wondered? In the yearsto come would people seek her, as she sought the hepaticas in thespring, because she had found that "better part"? "That is why we goto Miss King and Miss Wallace," she thought to herself, "because theyhave found the best soil, and have grown sweeter every year." And,deep in her heart, she resolved to try harder than ever to avoid therocks and the sand, and to send her rootlets deep down into the soilwhich Miss King had described.

  Then she heard Dorothy by her side ask if they might sing the hymn ofher choosing, and they rose to sing words which somehow held to-day anew and deeper meaning:

  "Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our feverish ways; Re-clothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives Thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise."

  Silently they all passed out of the little chapel, and turnedhomeward. The sun, sinking lower, cast long shadows among the pines,and gilded with a farewell glow the chapel windows. Virginia,Priscilla, and Dorothy took the woodsy path that led to the campus. Noone cared to talk very much. When they reached The Hermitage Dorothywent with them to their room; and as they filled bowls of water forthe tired little hepaticas, and arranged them thoughtfully, for theysome way seemed more like persons than ever before, she said all atonce--looking out of the window to hide her embarrassment:

  "I just thought I'd tell you that I know I haven't been growing invery good soil this year; but I'm going to put out new roots now, andI'm not going to send them into sand either."

  The two Vigilantes dropped the hepaticas and hugged Dorothy hardwithout saying a word. Then, with their arms around one another'sshoulders, they stood by the western window, and watched the sun setbehind the hills--happier than they had been for weeks.