“O, Chrishun’deavor!  Yes, I used t’ b’long,” answered Lizzie.  She had removed the gum from her mouth while she ate her supper, but now it was busy again between sentences.  “Yes, we have one down to our church.  It was real interesting, too; but I got mad at one of the members, and quit.  She was a stuck-up old maid, anyway.  She was always turning round and scowling at us girls if we just whispered the least little bit, or smiled; and one night she was leading the meeting, and Jim Forbes got in a corner behind a post, and made mouths at her behind his book.  He looked awful funny.  It was something fierce the way she always screwed her face up when she sang, and he looked just like her.  We girls, Hetty and Em’line and I, got to laughing, and we just couldn’t stop; and didn’t that old thing stop the singing after one verse, and look right at us, and say she thought Christian Endeavor members should remember whose house they were in, and that the owner was there, and all that rot.  I nearly died, I was so mad.  Everybody looked around, and we girls choked, and got up and went out.  I haven’t been down since.  The lookout committee came to see us ’bout it; but I said I wouldn’t go back where I’d been insulted, and I’ve never been inside the doors since.  But she’s moved away now.  I wouldn’t mind going back if you want to go.”

“Whose house did she mean it was?  Was it her house?”

“O, no, it wasn’t her house,” laughed Lizzie.  “It was the church.  She meant it was God’s house, I s’pose, but she needn’t have been so pernickety.  We weren’t doing any harm.”

“Does God have a house?”

“Why, yes; didn’t you know that?  Why, you talk like a heathen, Bessie.  Didn’t you have churches in Montana?”

“Yes, there was a church fifty miles away.  I heard about it once, but I never saw it,” answered Elizabeth.  “But what did the woman mean?  Who did she say was there?  God?  Was God in the church?  Did you see Him, and know He was there when you laughed?”

“O, you silly!” giggled Lizzie.  “Wouldn’t the girls laugh at you, though, if they could hear you talk?  Why, of course God was there.  He’s everywhere, you know,” with superior knowledge; “but I didn’t see Him.  You can’t see God.”

“Why not?”

“Why, because you can’t!” answered her cousin with final logic.  “Say, haven’t you got any other clothes with you at all?  I’d take you down with me in the morning if you was fixed up.”

CHAPTER XI

IN FLIGHT AGAIN

When Elizabeth lay down to rest that night, with Lizzie still chattering by her side, she found that there was one source of intense pleasure in anticipation, and that was the prospect of going to God’s house to Christian Endeavor.  Now perhaps she would be able to find out what it all had meant, and whether it were true that God took care of people and hid them in time of trouble.  She felt almost certain in her own little experience that He had cared for her, and she wanted to be quite sure, so that she might grasp this precious truth to her heart and keep it forever.  No one could be quite alone in the world if there was a God who cared and loved and hid.