“He says, ‘Tell Philena that cripples can be conquerors,’” sang Thurley in a clear monotone, “cripples can be conquerors—there—I guess you’ll be as good a missionary as ever lived.”
Philena repeated it in an awed tone. “That’s beautiful—now I don’t care about my crutch ... but how can you tell for sure it’s God talking?”
Thurley’s eyes were like sapphires in the sun. “Something taps at my heart and I know I’m going to have a wonderful something told me—or a terrible scolding—and then whatever it is God wants to say is just _sung_ into my head and I know—I do know, Philena, I am right.”
“I wouldn’t tell any one, if I was you,” Philena suggested enviously.
“No, there’s as much about children that grownups don’t understand, as there is about grownups we don’t understand,” Thurley said sagely. “But you can always remember that God said that straight to me—‘cripples can be conquerors’—just like He told me at Midland City, Illinois, ‘You let me catch you cutting off your hair and trying to run away and I’ll stop your singing mighty quick!’ See, Philena?”
“Isn’t it funny?” Thurley told her father that night, “I’m to belong to the gang and play robbers and Indians, and I’m to be a missionary with Philena, and there must be different halves of me, and Dan has seen one half and thinks it is a whole, and so has Philena. I wonder what I’d do if the gang met the same day I’d promised to play missionary?”
A cough answered her. “Is there any more rum?” he fretted.
Regretfully Thurley produced the bottle. “Don’t drink until you see things,” she begged. “Makes me shiver when you talk down low—there—that’s enough for now.... I guess if the gang met on missionary day, I’d make ’em all sit down in front of me and I’d sing to ’em—something awful different from gang stuff or missionary hymns, and then neither could be cross.”
“I guess,” her father hiccoughed, “you’ll—hic—always be a good fellow.”
It was not until Thurley allied herself with the gang at Wood’s Hollow that she came into possession of the Corners’ great mystery—Abigail Clergy who lived in solitary grandeur in the red brick mansion overlooking the lake.
After Thurley had proved herself as great a success as a good fellow to the gang as she had at convincing Philena of her possibilities as a missionary, and had played hi-spy half the afternoon, she wandered by chance towards the first of the deserted summer houses in lieu of a new hiding place and became fascinated by these silent buildings. She began exploring one after the other, forgetful of the faint “Hul-l-o-o—Thur-lee” which the gang sent in her direction.