CHAPTER XII
Sunday School
Charlie and Elsie Linden had not forgotten the little black kitten, and had called at the Owens' flat more than once to renew their acquaintance with it. On one of these occasions Charlie described the delights of his Sunday School, which was connected with the Shining Light Chapel, with so much enthusiasm that Frankie Owen obtained his mother's permission to accompany his friend the following Sunday. Dressed in his best—a suit made out of one of his mother's dresses—with his long curls carefully brushed, a most unnecessary process from Frankie's point of view, he waited impatiently for Charlie to call for him, and both boys started off in high feather.
The school was not conducted in the chapel itself but in a large lecture hall under it. At one end was a small platform raised about six inches from the floor; on this were a chair and a small table. A number of groups of chairs and benches were arranged at intervals round the sides and in the centre of the room, each group accommodating a separate class. On the walls, which were painted a pale green, were a number of coloured pictures—Moses striking the Rock, the Israelites dancing round the Golden Calf, and so on.
Frankie had never been to a Sunday School of any kind before, and he stood for a moment looking in at the door and half afraid to enter. The lessons had already commenced, but the scholars had hardly settled down to work.
The scene was one of some disorder, some of the children talking, laughing, or playing, and the teachers alternately threatening and coaxing them. The girls' and the very young children's classes were presided over by ladies; the boys' teachers were men, including Mr Rushton and Mr Hunter and Mr Didlum, the furniture dealer. On this occasion, in addition to the teachers and other officials of the Sunday
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