Judgment Day

SHE sat in her own room, knitting in the sun. She was cold, even in the sun, and tired. She dropped her hands in her lap, where they lay like fallen leaves. They were thin and withered, and she remembered how old she was. Her thoughts, too, drifted like falling leaves. She was so cold. It must be October.

‘It is June,’ said a voice behind her.

She did not turn; she held her breath, for fear He would go. It was God’s voice. She had almost heard His voice two or three times lately. He was standing behind her.

‘Have you been outdoors to-day?’ asked the voice. And she knew He was disappointed. In fact He was gone again.

She rose to go outdoors, and while groping with her hand in her bureaudrawer for a handkerchief, she drew out a broad blue ribbon. She had kept it for many years, having bought it because she loved it. Her mother had liked her best in pink, her husband had wanted her to wear brown. Then other people said black, because it is worn for the dead. This was a shining ribbon, like a strip cut from the sky. She smiled as she saw it.

‘I made that blue ribbon,’ He said.

‘Yes,’ she answered softly, waiting, not turning. He loved it, you could see.

‘And I made you loving blue.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then, don’t you see,’ He explained, gently as if He had remembered He was talking to a very old woman, ‘that I might mind your never wearing it?’

She was sorry for Him. She had not even thought of Him. She took the blue ribbon and knotted it carefully in her dress.

She went down into the garden. And it was June. She held her breath, afraid it might go. She was startled to see it. June! The sky — the air — the earth. No wonder He had wanted her to see it. His June. And she had been sitting indoors.

On the way to her seat under the apple tree she met the bread-man. He had her favorite rolls in his basket.

‘But you never buy them.’

She listened, startled, for she thought it was His voice; but it was only the bread-man.

Out under the apple tree she sat, and broke bread, and ate. It was His she remembered, given for her. Yet all these long years she had bought what others liked, not what God had given to her. Her old hands trembled with penitence as she ate.

Would there be, even in Heaven, anything lovelier than this June day? Her gaze went on, past the garden, to the fields and trees and sky beyond. Yet as she looked she doubted. Was this June day not just a part of Heaven?

‘No, indeed.’ He spoke again. ‘It is yours. Yours. Your June on earth. I made it lovely on purpose.’

And again she saw how her doubt had hurt Him.

Yet now, even as she sat under the apple tree, a strange uneasiness growing within her drew her to her feet. She looked about her with a kind of alarm that was almost terror. She was cold. It was too shady under the apple tree.

Besides, she was not in the right place.

She went back to her room and sat in her chair. That was not the place. She lay down on her bed. It felt good for a minute, but presently she saw that it was not the right place.

She went back to the garden, and wondered at it as she passed through — at its strange, unfamiliar look that almost terrified her. She hurried as best she could through the garden and out into the fields beyond.

She paused and looked about her, a little reassured. The field looked more familiar. She recognized the daisies in the grass with a sigh of relief, and walked more slowly.

Yes, there were the daisies. This was more like the place. Little, round, serious daisies in the tall grass brushed softly against her knees as she went;— very slowly.

On beyond was a clump of young trees that looked familiar. Perhaps t hat was the place.

It looked like the place, if she could reach it.

With slow, difficult steps she crept toward it, reached it, and with a cry of joy she recognized the daisies in the grass again.

She recognized the tall grass itself. And the straight young trees.

Following their trunks up, with her eyes, she saw, full of joy, the great blue sky stretched out over her. It was the place.

It was the place. And she let her tired body down on the grass under the trees. She watched the slender grasses about her. She watched the round, sweet, white daisies in the grass. Surely there would be nothing prettier in Heaven than those. She would like to take some with her, to show to those who came from other worlds. But she found she could not even raise her hand to pick them, she was so tired. Yet they stood all about her, near and friendly.

It was the place.

‘I made it,’He said from somewhere in among the clump of young trees.

‘Yes,’ she answered, gratefully, glad that He, too, was there.

It was the place to leave her tired body. It lay so heavily in the grass now, that she knew she could never lift it again.

She was glad to leave it there, as she passed on.

‘The earth was lovely,’ she told Him as she saw Him.

‘I am glad you loved it,’ He answered, welcoming her.