"The eternal woman!" commented John reverently. "So Mary waited at the tomb."
But other children were coming, and soon a fringe of little bodies was sitting around the platform, and soon a border of little feet decorated the second step, the girls' feet neatly, daintily composed; the boys' feet restless, clumsier, beating an insistent tattoo as they awaited the appearance of some grown-up who could admit them or explain.
One little girl set up the shout, and like a bevy the smaller children swarmed across the street and into the park to meet a very slender girl, perhaps sixteen years of age, with her light brown hair in half a dozen long, rolling curls that, snared at the neck by a wide ribbon, hung half way down her back.
Attended eagerly by this childish court, the babble of their voices rising about her, the girl mounted the steps, stood a moment in confusion before the locked and barred door, then looked about her helplessly, almost as the children had done.
"This is my cue," John declared with decision, rising from his seat and crossing to the chapel.
"My name's Hampstead," he began, taking off his hat to the girl. "I belong to the First Church, Los Angeles."
"How do you do, Brother Hampstead," she responded, in a voice that expressed instant confidence, while her large eyes, blue as the sky, lighted with pleasure and relief. "I am Helen Plummer, teacher of the infant class."
"You seem to be embarrassed," John proceeded.
"Whatever shall I do?" confessed the young lady, looking at the barred door, at her charges about her, and at John.
John laid his hand upon the plank at the end where it projected beyond the edge of the little, coop-like vestibule, and gave it a tentative pull. It did not spring much. Burbeck's nails had been long, and he had driven them deep. But John was strong. He swung his weight upon the end of the plank and it gave a little. He swung harder, and it yielded more. Presently he heard a squeaking, protesting sound from the straining nails, and increased his efforts till the veins knotted on his forehead.
"Bet y' he can't," speculated an urchin whose chubby toes were frankly barefoot and energetically digging into the sod of the lawn.
"Bet yuh he will," instantly countered another, shifting his gum.