mrs. wopp had a request from mrs. williams. she, the requestor, was ill with a touch of “pewmonia,” as mrs. wopp afterward related, and would mrs. wopp the requestee oblige by taking her sunday-school class for the following sunday afternoon.
mrs. williams was a round-faced dimpled persuasive lady; and mrs. wropp, being non-coax-proof and flattered by the request, consented.
that ardent daughter of jubal sighed, not for the encroachment on her sunday afternoon leisure hour, but because she had found out the lesson was to be on jonah and the whale. she had always been partial to the story of the ravens feeding elijah and to the parable of the prodigal son. she felt that her temperament inclined her most to stories where hospitality and mouthwatering descriptions of hunger appeased provided the dramatic interest. well she knew that the tishbite and the erring son who returned to the feast of fatted calf would have received full justice at her hands. as for jonah, and the whale with the inordinate oesophagus, she would do her best.
after the opening exercises of the sunday-school session, mrs. wopp was pained to notice that some of her scholars did not consider attention to the lesson any part of their duty. however, that strict disciplinarian had a vast store of startling reprimands that set all eyes gazing on her sincere countenance.
but minds may stray though eyes seem attentive. two boys began to indulge surreptitiously in the mild amusement of extracting toothsome kernels from refractory shells. cracking nuts not being conducive to alertness of mind, mrs. wopp promptly confiscated a large bag of filberts which proved to be the joint property of pat bliggins and pete stolway.
the infant class which was to be under the guidance of mrs. wopp for the day, consisted of seven small pupils. they were seated on a low bench in one corner of the church. green denim curtains were hung in such a way that, after the preliminary devotional exercises, the little class could be screened from the adults and older pupils. a blackboard stood on the floor, and upon a table near by were many colored crayons. the infantile mind required such aids to the imagination.
mrs. wopp viewed with misgiving the ornate writing not yet erased from the previous lesson. she feared her own handwriting would suffer by comparison.
“mith wopp,” offered lila williams with a dignity befitting her eight years and her enviable position as daughter of the regular teacher, “my ma wont let pete and pat thit together, they act too thilly.”
acting on this timely suggestion, mrs. wopp deposited the mischievous youths on small chairs, one on each side of her table, directly under her watchful eye. cracking nuts seemed to have been the special proposed form of amusement for the afternoon. by the end of five minutes the substitute teacher had set several large noisy paper bags on the window ledge.
it took some time to focus her intellect on the proper placing of mirthful youngsters, but at last, after singing “like a little candle burning in the night,” all were in readiness to imbibe biblical learning.
mrs. wopp drew the green curtains together and turned to the smallest girl in the class.
“what’s the golden text, norer?”
norah bliggins, whose nose was already moist from the effects of domestic discord, thrust a chubby finger into her mouth and began to pucker up her eyes preparatory to emitting a howl of dismay at being singled out for the first question. her brother pat, sensing the situation, put up his hand eagerly and answered for her.
mrs. wopp repeated the words, slowly rolling them on her tongue as though to extract every ounce possible of scriptural nutriment, “so they took up joner and carst him forth inter the sea.”
choosing a piece of bright yellow chalk she began to inscribe the golden text on the blackboard. she pressed too hard and the chalk cracked and fell to the floor. pete stolway vaulted out of his chair to capture the yellow pencil, but he had the misfortune to step on both the pieces of crayon, crushing them to sand, a heap of yellow grit.
“never min’, pete, an’ thank you anyways, but sence the lesson’s a hull lot about the sea, i’ll jist write with blue chork.”
the light shone through the colored glass window, casting a bluish tinge over the large earnest countenance of the teacher, and a distinct whisper was heard to the effect that “mrs. wopp’s face was blue moulderin’.”
impressed with the importance of her task of instilling wisdom into the minds of her young listeners, mrs. wopp ignored this remark and continued the narrative into which she had already launched.
“here was joner scourin’ down to jopper to take the ship to tarshidge arter the lord hed distinctly told him to go to niniver, an’ fer punishment the lord hed him swallered by a whale.”
the eloquent teacher looked to see some immediate tangible effect from this bald statement of the result of jonah’s disobedience, and during her recital gazed sternly on pat bliggins and pete stohway as objects the most in need of her oratory.
“when joner got to jopper, bein’ an honest man, he paid his fare.”
a hand shot up at this point in the lesson and a thin voice piped, “please, mis’ wopp, i was to the fair last year.”
not deigning to notice this irrelevant interruption the teacher proceeded.
“but the lord hed his eye on joner an’ put an orful wind on the sea.”
several hands waved wildly and a chorus of voices eagerly broke in; through the childish babel could be heard a lisping narrative.
“please, mith wopp, the latht windthorm upthet our hen-houth.”
mrs. wopp lurched heavily in her endeavor to calm the tumult of excited voices. quiet was at length restored after several pupils had given thrilling accounts of catastrophes caused by windstorms.
“by this time joner was snorin’ in the bottom of the boat, an’ the man that was bossin’ the ship comes up to joner an’ woke him an’ arsked him to pray.”
as the story became more intelligible to childish apprehension, several bright pairs of eyes rested on the teacher. “then,” continued mrs. wopp, “the sailors carst lots to see who should be throwed orf the ship, an’ the lot fell on joner.”
st. elmo mifsud, his angelic face framed in silky curls, now became the prey to the machinations of pete solway, who had eluded the vigilant eye of mrs. wopp during her dramatic recital. a roar of pain escaped the child as a sharp tweak was applied to his curls. recalled to matters entirely mundane, the teacher administered severe reproof.
“please did the lot hurt joner when it fell?” queried a sober-minded seeker of truth.
the perturbed lady wisely let the question pass not being absolutely clear herself as to the operation involved in the casting of lots. she hastened to take up the thread of the story.
“then they arsked joner what his job was an’ what he hed did to bring sich trouble on them. so joner up an’ confessed that he ran away. orl this time the sea was a-roarin’, the waves was a-dashin’, an’ the winds was a-howlin’, an’ the little vessel rocked in the trough.”
st. elmo’s face brightened with intelligence. he broke into the story to give a graphic account of how a little yellow chicken of his sister’s had got “dwownded” in the pig-trough.
this interlude gave mrs. wopp an opportunity to recover her equilibrium which had been disturbed by her vivid conception and realistic description of the storm, all of which had necessitated startling gestures and a swaying, rocking movement of the body, illustrative of a ship in distress.
“some o’ the men was sorft-hearted an’ agin hingin’ joner overboard, so they rowed reel hard to git to land.”
pat bliggin’s mind was undoubtedly wandering, so a drastic question was in order.
“now, pat, kin you tell me which was the best men, the ones that rowed reel hard to save joner, or the ones that leaned back an’ didn’t care a strawr.”
thus interrogated, the boy who had caught but one fleeting word of the sentence, reddened, and shuffling his feet, said he’d “often rode a wild cayuse.”
“’pears to me, pat bliggins, you haven’t been listenin’ proper to the story. these men rode a ship not a cayuse.”
“please,” answered the discomfited youth, “i aint never seen a ship of no kind.”
mrs. wopp’s face assumed a forgiving air as she accepted this defence. then began that portion of the story that leads up to the tragic culmination.
“so they took up joner an’ tossed him inter the sea.”
mrs. wopp then proceeded to enlarge on the horrific pilgrimage of jonah through the vasty interior caverns of the whale.
“for three days an’ three nights there was no sleep fer his eyes nor slumber fer his eyelets.”
a loud whisper from pete stolway disturbed the orator.
“peter stolway, may i arsk you to tell out loud what you was whisperin’?”
“i just said the whale must have been bustin’?” admitted pete, reluctantly. mrs. wopp could not logically argue the point with the astute peter, so she went on to depict vividly jonah’s further vicissitudes.
“the whale went splurgin’ an’ splutterin’ through the waves, mebbe blowin’ up a big waterspout like we see them doin’ in the jography picters. then joner prayed like everything an’ wrastled with the lord, an’ his prayer was heerd, an’ the whale spit him up on the bank.”
having thus disposed of jonah to her own evident satisfaction, and having as she considered, given much valuable instruction, mrs. wopp proceeded to question the children.
“peter stolway, what is a whale?”
“a whale is a fish bigger nor a house,” answered pete, with ready assurance.
“mannel rodd, did you ever ketch a fish?”
“mannel promptly hung his head and made no reply, being much too shy to attempt an answer in english, whatever his thoughts in russian might have been.
“well, time is near up younguns; has any one a question to arsk?”
“mith wopp, had jonah any little girlth or boyth at home?”
this was a poser for mrs. wopp, who was obliged to admit that her knowledge of biblical genealogy did not embrace the immediate relatives of jonah.
“was it dark for joner inside the whale?” asked pete stolway, who noted his father viewing him through the gaping curtain and wished to appear in earnest conversation with his instructor.
“i reckon joner hadn’t any too much light,” opined mrs. wopp.
at this point superintendent stolway rang the bell for general assembly. as she drew the curtains, mrs. wopp reflected that she had nobly pumped from the well of truth, crystal waters for the mental refreshment of her scholars.
vigorously all joined in the closing hymn and mrs. wopp’s high soprano could be heard above all the other voices. a sense of duty well performed added even greater power to the vocal billowing.
as betty wopp and maria mifsud, each holding a hand of st. elmo, left the church, they were highly entertained by that small boy’s account of a “man named jonah who had swallowed a dwate big fish called a whale.”
arrived at home almost bursting with information, the child recounted to his astonished mother a long complicated story of how “theh was a lot of bad men and they weh et by a big fish, the big fish met a man on the woad called jonah and asked him what he was doing on the woad and jonah pwayed weel hahd and wode on the fish and a big wind blowed him off, just like lila william’s hen-house.”
