Just before daylight, when the other watchers were asleep, the power of the spirit came strong upon me. I bowed myself upon the boy's body, and prayed. My heart burned within me, for I felt his heart begin to beat! His eyes opened. I told him to arise, and he arose. He that was dead arose and was alive again!
_Pause. Mrs. Beeler's bell rings. Michaelis starts, looks about him as if awakened from a dream, then slowly goes toward the hall door. Rhoda follows and detains him._
I have heard that people have lain as long as that in a trance, breathing so lightly that it could not be told, except by holding a glass before the face.
_With bent head he goes out. Rhoda stands looking after him until the inner door closes, then sits before the fire in revery. Beeler comes in from the barn. He wears his old fur cap, and holds in one hand a bulky Sunday newspaper, in the other some battered harness, an awl, twine, and wax, which he deposits on the window seat. He lays the paper on the table, and unfolds from it a large colored print, which he holds up and looks at with relish._
These Sunday papers do get up fine supplements. I wouldn't take money for that picture.
"Pan and the Pilgrim." Guess you never heard of Pan, did you?
Call him heathen if you like! The folks that worshipped him thought he was orthodox, I guess.
_He pins up the print, which represents a palmer of crusading times surprised in the midst of a forest by the god Pan._
Well, Pan there, he was a kind of a nature god. The old Romans thought him out, to stand for a lot of things.
Natural things, with plenty of sap and mischief in 'em. Growin' plants, and frisky animals, and young folks in love.
_He points to the figure of Pan, then to the Pilgrim, as he talks._
There he sits playin' Jenny-come-kiss-me on his dod-gasted mouth-organ, when along comes one of them fellows out of a monastery, with religion on the brain. Pikin' for Jerusalem, to get a saint's toe-nail and a splinter of the true cross.
_Martha enters from the kitchen and potters about the room "redding up."_
Look at him! Do you think he'll ever get to Jerusalem? Not this trip! He hears the pipes o' Pan. He hears women callin' and fiddles squeakin' love-tunes in the woods. It'll take more than a monk's robe on his back and a shaved head on his shoulders to keep him straight, I reckon. He'll call to mind that young fellows had blood in their veins when Adam was a farmer, and whoop-la! he'll be off to the county fair, to dance ring-around-a-rosy with Matildy Jane!