Supper was put on the table, and the two girls began to get a little
acquainted, chattering over clothes and the arrangement of hair.
"Do you know whether there is anything in Philadelphia called 'Christian
Endeavor'?" asked Elizabeth after the supper-table was cleared off.
"O, Chrishun'deavor! Yes, I used t' b'long," answered Lizzie. She had
removed the gum from her mouth while she ate her supper, but now it was
busy again between sentences. "Yes, we have one down to our church. It was
real interesting, too; but I got mad at one of the members, and quit. She
was a stuck-up old maid, anyway. She was always turning round and scowling
at us girls if we just whispered the least little bit, or smiled; and one
night she was leading the meeting, and Jim Forbes got in a corner behind a
post, and made mouths at her behind his book. He looked awful funny. It
was something fierce the way she always screwed her face up when she sang,
and he looked just like her. We girls, Hetty and Em'line and I, got to
laughing, and we just couldn't stop; and didn't that old thing stop the
singing after one verse, and look right at us, and say she thought
Christian Endeavor members should remember whose house they were in, and
that the owner was there, and all that rot. I nearly died, I was so mad.
Everybody looked around, and we girls choked, and got up and went out. I
haven't been down since. The lookout committee came to see us 'bout it;
but I said I wouldn't go back where I'd been insulted, and I've never been
inside the doors since. But she's moved away now. I wouldn't mind going
back if you want to go."
"Whose house did she mean it was? Was it her house?"
"O, no, it wasn't her house," laughed Lizzie. "It was the church. She
meant it was God's house, I s'pose, but she needn't have been so
pernickety. We weren't doing any harm."
"Does God have a house?"
"Why, yes; didn't you know that? Why, you talk like a heathen, Bessie.
Didn't you have churches in Montana?"
"Yes, there was a church fifty miles away. I heard about it once, but I
never saw it," answered Elizabeth. "But what did the woman mean? Who did
she say was there? God? Was God in the church? Did you see Him, and know
He was there when you laughed?"
"O, you silly!" giggled Lizzie. "Wouldn't the girls laugh at you, though,
if they could hear you talk? Why, of course God was there. He's
everywhere, you know," with superior knowledge; "but I didn't see Him. You
can't see God."
"Why not?"
"Why, because you can't!" answered her cousin with final logic. "Say,
haven't you got any other clothes with you at all? I'd take you down with
me in the morning if you was fixed up."