Chapter XII: Maybee’s “preach” and Practice

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have
kept the faith.”

A bit of black crape hung from the door of the little red house in the woods.

Aunty McFane had gone home.

Kind friends placed the poor wasted body in the plain coffin, covered it with fragrant flowers, and laid it away under the new-fallen snow.

“Fought the fight, the victory won!” sang Maybee that night, sitting in her little rocker before the open fire.

“I shouldn’t think you’d sing wight after you’ve been to a fooneral,” said Tod, curled up on the hearth-rug.

“Why, they sung it to-day, right beside the coffin,” said Maybee, “and mamma ’xplained it to me coming home, how Aunty McFane has been fighting most seventy-seven years, and trusted Jesus all the whole time, and how she has got through, and gone to stay with Him always.”

“Wimmins don’t fight,” said Tod, disbelievingly.

“Yes, they do; everybody does that kind of fighting. Don’t you know our Sabbath School hymn says,—

“‘I’m glad I’m in this army’?”

“Yes, but I thought it meant when we march Fourth of Julys and have flags and cannon and evewyfing.”

“Why, The-od-o-re Smith! I’m surprised! Don’t you know what fighting means, the Bible way? Suppose it’s time for you to go to bed and you don’t want to. It’s the ‘_don’t want to_’ you fight with, and if you beat and go straight along, just as aunty says, all pleasant, that’s being a conqueror; but if you don’t—”

“I’m weal hungwy, ain’t you?” interposed Tod. “Let’s go out and snowball so ’twill be supper-time quicker.”

Maybee was nothing loth, and after a nice frolic they sat down on the steps to rest and make snow images.

“Wouldn’t you like to be a sure-enough soldier?” asked Maybee, rolling up a tiny ball for a head.

“I’d wather be a cap’n or a gen’wal,” said Tod, “an wide a horse, and have folks say ‘Hurwah’!”

“Yes, but everybody can’t be generals, ’cause who’d carry the guns? And you know we can be ever so much greater.”

“No; how?”

“We can be greater than Napoleon or George Washington. The Bible says so. My mamma showed me the verse. It says, ‘_He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city._’”

“What is wuling his spiwit?” asked Tod.

“Oh, it’s being real mad and not saying a single word till you feel pleasant. I guess it means _feel_ right, soon as you can, too. I’ll show you. There comes Tom Lawrence and Jack Mullin. They’ll be sure to say something awful provoking, and I shall be just as polite. Good-morning, Tom—I mean good-afternoon.”

“Did anybody speak—I mean squeal?” queried Tom, staring all around. “I saw a couple of magpies—no; ’pon my word, one is a bumble-bee. Hear it buzz, now.”

But Maybee worked on without a word.

“Oh, she’s mad; regular spitfire, _she_ is. I wonder what she’s making,—a duck or a toad.”

Maybee reddened, but rejoined quite cheerfully, “Tod’s making a house. Mine is a soldier, and this stick is for a gun.”

“Look out, then! Here comes one of Carter’s three-hundred-pounders,” and sending a huge snowball over the fence, the two boys moved leisurely on.

It fell directly on the roof of Tod’s house, quite demolishing it.

“Never mind,” said Maybee, pulling a feather out of the wing on her hat, to stick in her soldier’s cap. “You saw how pleasant I was, didn’t you?”

“They didn’t skwush _your_ house all to nuffin, an’ you was just showing off, _you_ was. I wish I could fump ’em,” said Tod, excitedly.

“That’s very wicked; you can’t be one of Christ’s soldiers and wish such bad things,” said Maybee, plastering a knapsack on to her soldier. “I do, sometimes,” she added, more humbly, “but I don’t mean to ever again,—much,” and she began singing, louder than before,

“Fought the fight, the victory won.”

Tod worked away, rebuilding his house, putting on _two_ “chimleys” this time. By and by, just as Maybee was giving the finishing touch to her image, he reached over for a fresh handful of snow, lost his balance, and in trying to recover himself, managed to hit the poor soldier in the breast with his elbow, leaving him a shapeless ruin.

Maybee’s black eyes blazed. “Tod Smith! you did it a purpose.”

“Yes’m,” said Tod, sitting coolly down and facing her.

She turned quickly, and lifted one foot. Another moment and Tod’s pretty cottage, with its “merandah” and bay-window, would have shared the fate of its predecessor; but a better thought came suddenly to Maybee, in the words of her song,—

“Fought the fight, the victory won.”

A _real_ victory this would be,—no make-believe, no mere “showing-off,” as Tod had called it; and to tell the truth, she _did_ feel just like the Pharisee mamma read about all the time she was being so polite, but _now_ she was—oh, so dreadfully angry! If she _could_ speak pleasant, wouldn’t that be “ruling her spirit,” “real, sure-enough.”

“I’ll try not to mind,” she said, slowly. “Let’s build some more houses, a whole village; yours is so pretty.”

“Oh, my gwief!” ejaculated Tod. “I wanted to see if you _would_ fight that Bible way, an’ you _did_, an’ I’m awful sorwy I made you, ’twas such a splendid soldier.”

“I just wanted to show it to papa,” sighed Maybee, furtively wiping away a few tears.

Tod sprang up, and set both feet squarely on the dainty snow-house. “There! my’ll punish my’s own self,” he cried, forgetting his nominative case in his excitement. “My is sorwy as my can be, my never will do so again. Please, won’t you forgive my this time?” and putting both arms around her neck, the little fellow burst into tears.

“I declare, there must be a thaw,—such a freshet! What _is_ the matter?” asked Dick Vance, coming up the walk, and sitting down beside them.

Tod explained as well as he could.

“I don’t feel much bad now,” said Maybee, “but I think that kind of fighting is better to _talk_ about than ’tis to _do_! Seems’s if it was a miser’ble kind of a world,—the good times all chopped up so you can’t get only the littlest bit to once.”

“That’s so,” said Dick, gravely. “I’ve just been riled myself, and know how it feels.”

“Did you fump ’em, or fight th’ other way,” inquired Tod, eagerly.

“I’m afraid I ‘fumped,’—that is, I felt real cross—”

“What’s the matter with you?” laughed Sue, coming out on the piazza.

“Oh! it’s Tom and Jack. You know they don’t come to Sabbath School scarcely any, now, but they keep promising to, and just now, when I asked them, they were so awfully provoking. I don’t believe I’ll ever say another word to them.”

“We mustn’t forget it’s a fight for life,” said Sue, gently. “You see, I’ve been talking with mother about this very thing. I do so want Bell to be a Christian, and I get _so_ discouraged. But mother says a soldier must not expect to win every battle with the first shot. Some places have to be besieged for months. And she says the very hardest kind of fighting is waiting patiently and bearing meekly, because it is then we get discouraged and give up trying. So I’m going to keep on praying for Bell and do everything I can. And we must remember how wild Tom has always been—”

“I’d better remember I was just as bad, and might not have been a bit better now if I hadn’t been shut right up there with Aunty McFane. Oh, how good she did use to talk!”

“Dear old aunty! Isn’t it nice to think of her up in heaven, all well and happy? Think what a Christmas she will have.”

“O me! I’d most forgot the miser’blest thing of all,” broke in Maybee, dolefully. “Uncle Thed isn’t going to have any Christmas tree. I heard him tell mamma so.”

“Not have any Christmas tree!” exclaimed Sue and Tod together.

“That is as you say,” said mamma, standing in the door. “He will leave it all to you. Come in to supper now and we will talk it over,—you, too, Dick, for if we decide on the new plan you may like to join us.”

They listened with wide-open eyes while she told them that, because of the hard times, a great many little boys and girls would have no Christmas at all, no presents, no dinner even; that what Uncle Thed’s annual Christmas party, tree, presents, supper and all cost would go a great ways towards making such children happy, and if they would agree to go without their nice presents, Uncle Thed would help them make out a list of names; they should decide on a present for each one, and Christmas Eve they could go around and leave the parcels on the doorsteps.

“Oh, oh! in a sleigh an’ eight tiny weindeer, just like St. Nicholas!” screamed Tod. “Won’t that be nice?”

“With Steady and Frolic instead of the reindeer,” laughed mamma.

“That would be a little bit nice,” said Maybee, gravely. “And then there’ll be the miser’ble part,—not having a single thing our own selves.”

“Not exactly so; we’ll make each other some little pretty present not costing any more than what we give the poor children. But take plenty of time to think it over before you decide,” said mamma.