This afternoon, with the rain-charged wind rushing in fierce gusts against the windows, and twilight coming on all the sooner because the world was wrapped in blankets of wet clouds, the major was reading, but soon grew sleepy. A moment more and he was far away, following an imaginary tiger, when Mark woke him with the question:

“Are you ever afraid, Majie? Does the thunder and rain frighten you?”

The major sat bolt upright, rubbed his eyes, stretched himself, but quietly enough that Mark might not know he had waked him, and gave a hem as if pondering deeply instead of trying hard to gather wits enough to understand the question. When he trusted his voice not to betray him, he answered:

“Well, Mark, I can’t say I would like to be out in it.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Mark. “A day like this makes me feel ever so safe! For you know if God were to go to sleep and forget his little Mark, then he would forget that he was God, and would not wake again, and that could not be! He can’t forget me or you, majie, more than any one of the sparrows. Jesus said so. And what Jesus said, lasts forever. His words never wear out, or need to be made over again.—Majie, I do wish everybody was as good as Jesus! He won’t be pleased till we all are. Isn’t it glad! That’s why I feel so safe that I like to hear the wind roaring. If I did not know that he knows all about the wind, and that it is not the bad man’s wind, but the good man’s wind, I should be unhappy, for it might hurt somebody, and now it cannot. If I thought he did not care whether everybody was good or not, it would make me so miserable that I should like to die and never come to life again!—He will make Corney good—won’t he, majie?”

“Well, I hope so.”

“But don’t you think we ought to do something to help make Corney good? I don’t think we ought to leave Corney to mother all alone. It’s too hard for her! Corney never was willing to be good! I can’t understand that! Why doesn’t he like to be good? It’s surely good to be good.”

“Yes, Mark, but some people like their own way even when it’s selfish, better than God’s way when it’s nice.”

“But God must be able to let them know what foolish creatures they are, majie!”

Being so much with the boy, the major was unconsciously growing quite knowing in the lovely childlikeness that is like the Ancient of days. Some foolishly object that the master taught what others had taught before him, as if he should not be the wise householder with his old things as well as new. They recognize the old things—the new they do not understand. Who first taught that the mighty God, the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, was like a child! Who first said, “Love one another as I have loved you”?