Billy swerved to the other side of the road to avoid the blue car at a

hair's breadth, but as it turned he looked up impudently to behold the

strange girl with the flour on her face and the green baseball bats in

her ears smiling up into the face of Mark Carter, who was driving.

Billy nearly fell off his wheel and under the car, but recovered his

balance in time to swerve out of the way without apparently having been

observed by either Mark or the lady, and shot like a streak down the

road. Beyond the church he drew a wide curve and turned in at the

graveyard, casting a quick furtive eye toward the parsonage, where he

was glad not to discover even the flutter of a garment to show that

Lynn Severn was about. That guy was there, but Miss Lynn was not

chasing him. That was as it should be. He breathed a sigh from his

heavy heart and stole sadly, back to the old mossy stone where so many

of his life problems had been thought out. Still, that guy was

there! He had the advantage! And Mark and that lady! Bah! He sat

down to meditate on Judas and his sins. It seemed that life was just

about as disappointing as it could be! His rough young hand leaned hard

against the grimy old stone till the half worn lettering hurt his flesh

and he shifted his position and lifted his hand. There on the palm were

the quaint old letters, imprinted in the flesh, "Blessed are the dead--

" Gosh yes! Weren't they? Judas had been right after all. "Aw

Gee!" he said aloud, "Whatta fool I bin!" He glanced down at the stone

as he rubbed the imprint from the fleshy part of his hand. The rest of

the text caught his eye. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!"

There was a catch in that of course. It wasn't blessed if you didn't

die in the Lord. "In the Lord" meant that you didn't do anything

Judas-like. He understood. The people who didn't die in the Lord

weren't blessed. They didn't go to heaven, whatever heaven was. They

went to hell. Heaven had never seemed very attractive to Billy

when he thought of it casually, and he had taken it generally for

granted that he being a boy was naturally destined for the other place.

In fact until he knew Lynn Severn he had always told himself calmly

that he expected to go to hell sometime, it had seemed the manly

thing to do. Most men to his mind were preparing for hell. It seemed

the masculine place of final destiny, Heaven was for women. He had

ventured some of this philosophy on his aunt once in a particularly

strenuous time when she had told him that he couldn't expect the reward

of the righteous if he continued in his present ways, but she had been

so horrified, and wept so long and bitterly that he hadn't ever had the

nerve to try it again. And since Marilyn Severn had been his teacher he

had known days when he would almost be willing to go to heaven--for her

sake. He had also suspected, at times, that Mr. Severn was fully as

much of a man as Mark Carter, although Mark was his own, and if

Mark decided to go to hell Billy felt there could be no other destiny

for himself.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024