Grandma had been reading aloud from Pink’s Sunday-school paper and when she finished she said:
“We didn’t have anything like this when I was a little girl. We didn’t even have any Sunday school. The nearest thing to Sunday school was when we recited our memory verses on meeting day. Every week we learned so many verses from the Bible, and on meeting day the preacher heard us recite them.
“I remember one year—it was Reverend Bard’s second year—that in order to get the children to take more interest in learning the verses, the preacher offered a Testament to the one who could say the most verses by a certain time. We were all eager to get the Testament, and we did study harder than usual.
“The contest was to take place on Sunday afternoon. There was to be preaching in the morning, dinner on the grounds, and in the afternoon a prayer meeting and the memory-verse contest. There would be a large crowd, and anyone who wanted to could try for the Testament. Even the smallest children would say what verses they knew.
“Charlie was always hunting for the shortest verses, and he hadn’t learned very many of any kind till toward the last. Then he learned five or six a day and carried a Bible around in his pocket wherever he went and studied every spare minute.
“I had been getting my verses regularly every week and I had a good memory. So I wasn’t much afraid of anyone beating me except Charlie or Annie Brierly or maybe Betty Bard, the preacher’s granddaughter. Betty knew a lot of verses, but at the last minute she was likely to get to thinking of something else and forget them.
“On Saturday Betty and Annie came to see me, and Betty said that Lissy Carson was going to try for the Testament, too. The Carsons hadn’t been coming to meeting very long, but Betty, when she had been there to call with her grandfather a few days before, said Lissy knew fifty-one verses.
“‘And I think she ought to have the Testament,’ announced Betty. ‘Grandfather said it would encourage the whole family. If you two girls and Charlie and I let her say more verses than we do, she would get it.’
“‘But if we knew more verses and just let her get the Testament on purpose,’ put in Annie, ‘it wouldn’t be right, would it?’
“‘But see how hard she’s trying,’ argued Betty. ‘The Carsons have nothing but the big family Bible, and Lissy has to stand by the table and learn her verses out of it. If she works so hard and doesn’t get anything, she might think there’s no use in trying.’
“Annie looked stubborn.
“‘My Father said he would give me a dollar if I get the Testament,’ she said, ‘and I mean to try for it. You can do as you like, Betty, but I will say all the verses I know.’
“‘I should hate to have Lissy get ahead of me,’ I explained, ‘when I’ve always gone to meeting and she hasn’t and I am in the fifth reader and she is only in the third. It would look as if she was so much smarter than I am and Mother hates to have us thought a bit backward.’
“At these arguments Betty herself looked uncertain.
“‘Well, maybe you’re right,’ she remarked. ‘I know it would disappoint Grandfather if I only said a few verses, for he says I should be an example to the other children.’ Then she saw Charlie picking up some early apples in the orchard. ‘Let’s see what Charlie says,’ she cried, and was off across the road with Annie and me following.
“When we had explained the matter to Charlie, he looked at us scornfully. ‘I never saw such sillies,’ he said. ‘If you girls pull out, though, it will make it that much easier for the rest of us. I’m for the Testament.’ Then he pretended he was reading from a book he held in his hand, ‘Presented to Charles Purviance by his pastor for excellence—.’ Betty started after him, and then Annie and I chased him, too, and we got to playing ‘tag’ and forgot all about Lissy and the Testament.
“Sunday was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny. From miles around people came to attend the all-day service. There were many strangers. With the Orbisons came Mr. Orbison’s sister and her granddaughter, a little girl about my age named Mary Lou, who was visiting away from California. Mary Lou wore a silk dress and lace mitts and a hat with long velvet streamers and she carried a pink parasol.
Mary Lou wore a silk dress and lace mitts and carried a pink parasol
“Tables had been set up in the grove across from the church, and at noon, after the morning sermon, dinner was served. There was fried chicken and boiled ham and pickles and pie and cake and everything good you could think of, and the people had all they could eat.
“After dinner Mrs. Orbison brought Mary Lou over to where Annie and Betty and I were sitting and left her to get acquainted, so she said. But Mary Lou didn’t want to get acquainted with us. She just wanted to talk about herself. She told us that she had three silk dresses and eleven dolls and a string of red beads and a pony not much larger than a dog and ever so many other things.
“‘Don’t you have a silk dress for Sunday?’ she asked, looking at my blue sprigged lawn, which until then I had thought very nice.
“‘No,’ I replied. And I added crossly, ‘My mother says it’s not what you’ve got that counts but what you are,’ though I’m free to confess I didn’t get much consolation from this thought, then.
“Pretty soon we went into the church, and after a prayer and some songs the smaller children began to go up one by one to say their verses. Brother Bard kept count and as they finished each verse he would call out the number of it.
“After a while he came to Lissy Carson, and every one was surprised when she kept on until at last she had recited sixty-one verses, two more than anyone else had given so far.
“I looked at Betty, but she sat with downcast eyes and flushed cheeks. Annie looked scared, and I couldn’t see Charlie. Then Betty was called on and she said fifty-eight verses and quit.
“‘Are you sure that is all, Betty?’ her grandfather said in a puzzled tone.
“‘Yes, sir,’ Betty replied and took her seat.
“I came next and I had made up my mind by then that I wouldn’t keep Lissy from getting the Testament, so I recited fifty-nine verses. I can still see the amazement in Mother’s face when I sat down.
“Annie Brierly gave fifty-nine and Charlie sixty, though of course, like Betty and me, they each knew many more verses than that. Lissy would get the Testament, and I was glad of it when I saw her sitting there so proud and happy. Why didn’t Reverend Bard give it to her at once and be done with it? Whatever was he waiting for? Then I saw. Mary Lou, the strange little girl, was tripping up front in all her finery as self-possessed as you please.
“And what do you think? She said sixty-three verses and got the Testament!
“Well, you can imagine how Annie and Betty and Charlie and I felt, though Charlie wouldn’t talk about it even to me. He never admitted but what he’d said all the verses he knew, though I knew better. Hadn’t I heard him at home reciting chapter after chapter when he thought no one was listening?
“We girls went around behind the church to talk it over, and Annie cried a little, and Betty stamped her foot and said she wasn’t an example any more and she wished Mary Lou would tear her parasol and lose her mitts and get caught in a rain and spoil her hat. And we all got to laughing and forgot our disappointment.
“And now it’s bedtime for three little children I know.”