Chapter XIV: Miss Lomy’s Sermon

“And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not
unto men.”

Miss Lomy was helping Mrs. Sherman with her fall sewing. There were three sisters who lived in the square two-story house on the hill. The house full of old-fashioned furniture was all their father left them, so Miss Lomy “went out” sewing, Miss Nancy “took in” work, and Dolly, the youngest, a staid, sober woman of fifty-five, attended to the housekeeping.

Miss Lomy had lost all her teeth, which puckered her mouth into the funniest little O; there were wrinkles all around her eyes,—in fact her face was so covered with wrinkles that when she laughed, as she did every five minutes, it made you think of the ripples chasing each other over a lake after a handful of pebbles has been thrown in, and her two merry blue eyes lighted them up for all the world like the sunshine. Everybody was glad when Miss Lomy came, and nobody could decide which flew the faster, her tongue or her needle.

“You know you promised to make my dollie a severless jacket to-day,” said Maybee, one morning.

“Yes, dear, if I get through with this mending before your ma has that other suit cut and basted,” returned Miss Shelomith, cheerily.

Maybee watched her needle creep in and out of the frayed edges of a fearfully long gash.

“I tore that getting through the hedge. It’s my every-day dress though: what makes you take such teenty-tonty stitches?”

“So it’ll look nice, to be sure.”

“Nobody’ll ever see it, because most always I wear an apron.”

“I reckon the Lord’ll know about it,” said Miss Lomy, with so much reverence in her tone you knew there was no levity in her meaning. Involuntarily, Maybee’s eyes went up to the ceiling, and then her wee bit of a nose followed, disbelievingly.

“You don’t suppose God looks at such things! Of course He don’t,” she said, slowly.

“Well, now, if He cares for the sparrows and the weeds and all such, and numbers the very hairs of our heads, it stands to reason He’ll notice whether little girls’ dresses are neat and whole,—which they wouldn’t be ketched together the way some folks do their darning. I reckon He sees all we do, big _and_ little, and it ain’t so much the ‘what’ as the ‘how’ he takes account of.”

“But, Miss Lomy, He has to see to the sun and the rain, and the ocean full of ships, and the things growing, enough to feed everybody.”

“_To_ be sure; and that’s what’s so wonderful,—to think of His holding the sea in the hollow of His hand, and not forgetting to show the little ant where to find its supper.”

“But He _has_ to do that; and He don’t have to notice everything we do.”

“No, He just wants to, and that’s the most wonderful of all. Because, you see, it’s as easy again to do things well when you are trying to please Him. Pleasing folks is a doubtful matter: you may, and then again, you mayn’t,—accordin’ as they’re cross or over-particular or feeling down in the mouth; and there may be times you mean well and don’t make out much, an’ they’ll blame you all the same. But the Lord knows just what we try to do, and gives us credit for that. He ain’t never out of patience neither. Then there’s another thing. Folks can’t watch you all the whole time, and there’s a temptation to sort of slip things over, the way we oughtn’t; but the Lord, He’s looking every minit, there’s no getting away from His eye; and so when you’re working to please Him, you’ll just do your best right straight along.”

It was a short sermon, so short and simple Maybee could stow it all away in her busy little brain. Some time afterwards she went with Sue to see Molly Dinah. Molly Dinah had happened in to Mrs. Flynn’s one day when Sue was reading to Abby.

“I’ve most forgot all I knowed of the Bible,” she said, sorrowfully. “You see, I can’t read a word, myself. I’m a member of the church, though, in good an’ reg’lar standin’, if I ain’t sot down in one for years. I ain’t lost my hope, neither, but it’s so old, sometimes I’m most afeared it’s worn out. I wish you’d come and read to me onct in a while, to sort of patch it up.”

So Sue went. Poor Molly! Cleanliness, like godliness, was with her a thing of the past. Once a year, perhaps, some of her neater neighbors, out of pity, gave her the benefit of a little lime and soap. Otherwise, dirt and disorder reigned undisturbed. Sue longed, but did not quite dare, to suggest a reform, although Molly listened very attentively to her reading.

That day, however, when Sue had shut up her Bible, Maybee broke out with, “Do you s’pose the Lord likes the way your house looks?”

“Well, whatever does the dear child mean?” said Molly, holding up both hands.

“Why, Miss Lomy says we ought to do things to please God, ’stead of men; so now, I don’t darst to throw in whole pods when I’m shelling beans. You get through quicker, but you don’t feel so nice when you shirk. Of course, if He’s looking, you want to do everything just perzactly right.”

“Well, to be sure! I never thought of that; but I don’t really think He sees in here much.”

“I shouldn’t think He _could_, through that window,” said Maybee, severely; “but if He counts the hairs on our heads, don’t you s’pose He’ll know whether our faces are clean?”

“Well, I _do_ declare! Didn’t seem as if it paid to slick up, so few folks come in; but if I thought the Lord really minded—”

“I’ll help you wash the window,” said Sue.

What a busy time they all had for the next two hours! The sun actually looked in and laughed before he said good-night. And at the end of the week—for Molly was capable enough when she set out—you would scarcely have known the place.

That Saturday afternoon it was that the minister sat in his study, utterly discouraged. What had his year’s work amounted to? Not one soul saved or comforted that he knew of. His eye fell upon his church manual; he took it up and read the name, Molly D. Inan. Some one had said that was the woman down at the Mills known as Molly Dinah. Some one ought to have looked her up, long ago. He took his hat and went out.

“To think the minister has actu’lly come to see me!” said Molly, drawing out her one wooden rocking-chair. “I do suppose if the church folks had only noticed me a leetle more, I shouldn’t never have stopped going. You see, I hadn’t thought _then_ about the Lord’s minding. I’m proper glad I’m slicked up. You ain’t no idee how it looked, an’ I never even mistrustin’ the Lord cared, till that little Miss put it into my head, how we should do everything to please Him instid of folks. And it does help wonderful, to think He’s lookin’ and mindin’. I jest scrub with a will, now.”

“You’ve cheered me up, ’mazingly,” she said, as the minister took his leave; but he carried away more cheer than he brought. He, too, could go to work “with a will,” remembering it was the Lord, not men, he was seeking to please.

And the next Monday morning little Benny Cargill, when he opened the store, swept down all the cobwebs he could reach, and brushed out all the corners, because the minister said in his sermon, “_Whatsoever_ ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men.”

PART FOURTH.