MATCHED PEARLS (25 page)

Constance listened in amazement, studied the bright young faces leaning out of the bus windows singing with all their might, with as much fervor and eagerness as ever some other young people might have sung the hilarious popular jazz of the hour, or the latest radio favorite. Was it possible that there were young people who had separated themselves from the world and yet had a good time?

But she had not time to think, for the first bus, which was now more than full, burst into song as if in response to the others:

Just at this moment a last comer came running from a trolley, climbed in, and the signal was given to start. And then the three bus loads poured the strength of their young voices into the next verse of the same song:

And as they streamed away in a joyous procession in the distance, back came the triumphant words of the chorus:

Constance, sitting alone in her car watching the vanishing campers, watching the amazed crowds who stood on the sidewalk to stare and listen and wonder, felt a sudden thrill of gratitude that her brother was going away to be three days in such company and then felt a great loneliness upon herself and a desire to put her head down on the wheel and cry!

Was it really true that there were young people in the world who had chosen a life like that and were as happy as that in it? Could people come out from the world and enjoy it? Yes, there was Seagrave. He seemed happy. He was young. But he was the first one she had ever seen who was like that.

Of course these young people who had just driven away were only boys and girls, not yet out in society—perhaps some of them never would be because of their simple station in life; nevertheless she knew enough of modern high school people to know that they were aping their seniors in every frivolity of life.

And these had just been normal happy young people, enjoying their outing, yet willing to bring God into it; not only willing but eager about it, for there was no mistaking the thrill in their songs. They were sung from the heart as if the boys and girls meant every word and were trying to broadcast their message to others who did not know about it.

Wistfully she trailed the bus procession for several miles, keeping far enough behind them not to be recognized, yet near enough to catch the echo of their songs.

“I need Jesus!” came the next song through the crowded highway where people were slowing their cars to turn and look and listen, and Constance’s heart echoed the song. Yes, she needed Jesus, but—was she willing to take Him? Grandmother had forgiven her, but would He? She had not made it right with God yet. She was not sure she knew how to believe, to just take salvation as a gift and accept it simply as Seagrave had told Doris to do.

Then back from the Bible conference procession came a new song winging faint and far away, but snatches of words gained clearness even above the sound of traffic:

And her heart cried out as she drove, “Oh, God! Give me that power! Take away my sin! Make me sure of salvation and happy as they are!”

When Constance reached home she went straight to her grandmother’s room.

“Where is your brother, my dear?” asked the invalid who had been allowed to sit up as long as she chose that day and had attained to walking around the room by herself.

“Why, he’s gone away for the weekend, Grand! Gone to the most extraordinary place. I just can’t make it out. Frank willing to go to such a place! But he seemed as happy as a clam to be going.”

“What is it, Connie?” The grandmother looked a little anxious. She had heard echoes of arguments about getting her grandson’s baggage ready to take, and it had apparently worried her.

“Well, it seems to be a sort of glorified camp meeting as far as I can find out,” said Constance, and she sat down and told in detail all she had seen and heard, even remembering some of the words of the songs to repeat. When she had finished she looked up and caught a beatific look on her grandmother’s face.

“Praise the Lord!” she said softly. “I am being allowed to live to see my grandchildren serving the Lord. I believe He is answering my prayers before I go! I knew He would save you both sometime, but I had begun to think it would have to be through a lot of tribulation and after I was taken. Praise the Lord!”

Constance sat and looked at her grandmother in amazement. Every day now was revealing new and unsuspected sides to her character. Fancy Grandmother having been worried all these years about her and Frank—their salvation! It was a new and strange thought to Constance. And she had imagined Grandmother as shut within a formal world of ceremonies and stately habits!

Presently she went up to her room and took down the Testament. She came on verses that reminded her dimly of other songs she had heard that afternoon, and she wished that she might have gone with those high school children and listened in the background to see what was said and what they did. She wished she had somebody to tell her the meaning of some of these strange verses she read. Grandmother might know in an old-time way, but there were new, vital things that Seagrave had said that made the truths more comprehensible to a modern person.

Then she began to think about her Sunday school class. What a farce it was, her teaching! What could she teach them about God and the Bible, she who knew nothing whatever herself? Well, she must get rid of that. That at least she could do for them, find a teacher for them who knew these things. Then Miss Howe stood some chance of getting the joy of those young people in the buses.

Why had Dillie been the only one of her class to go on that trip? Didn’t the rest know about it? Weren’t they asked? Or didn’t they care to go? Perhaps that was something she could do for them, get them interested in such things. Only how could she when she didn’t know herself? Well, how could she learn? There must be some place. Where did all these other people learn? Where had Seagrave found his knowledge? Just in the Bible without any outside help? If he ever came back and gave her a chance she would ask him and then she would go and find out for herself.

Late Sunday night Constance was sitting lonesome in the hammock on the porch in the dark by herself.

She was thinking how she had come to a sort of standstill in her life, a kind of deadlock with nothing in view. School all done, no plans ahead. She was ready to live now, but strangely she had no zest for living. She might go to Europe as she had planned, but she didn’t especially want to. Why had all her eagerness to have a good time ebbed away? Was it Doris’s death or Grandmother’s illness or both, perhaps? She was restless, unhappy, longing for something, she didn’t know what. Oh, why had her life fizzled out this way just when she had thought it was going to be gorgeous to do just what she pleased? Couldn’t one ever do what one pleased and have it work out right?

Then she heard soft, distant music, voices sweet and clear, and looked up sharply, thinking she must have fallen asleep and was dreaming. It seemed like angel voices on the soft night air:

The voices grew clearer with every phrase, till they were almost before the house, just halfway between the Fairchild house and theirs to be exact. She could see one of those big buses. Frank was helping Dillie out and bringing in her things, and now the people in the bus were driving away singing “God be with you till we meet again.”

She could see Frank upstairs in the lighted rooms of the Fairchild house putting down the suitcases, smiling at Mrs. Fairchild and saying good night. Then he came whistling across the lawn and through the hedge, picked up his own things which he had swung over the hedge when he got out of the bus, and came toward the house. But the tune he was whistling was “Lord, abide with me!” Had Frank caught it, too? Could that be possible? How pleased Grand would be if it were so!

“Oh, hello, kid!” was the lad’s half-embarrassed greeting as he suddenly realized his old familiar surroundings and began almost to withdraw into his same old shell.

“Well, what kind of a time did you have, buddy?” she asked, moving over to make room for him to sit down beside her in the hammock.

“Swell!” said he eagerly. “Oh boy! It was great! Say, kid, I wish you’d been along. I do really! You’d have liked it, I’m certain you would. They’re a crackerjack gang of kids, and they had a great line of speakers and leaders. It was swell! Simply swell!”

Then he began and told her about it, eagerly, pell-mell, jumbling things all up, fried potatoes and prayers and how many people got saved and what a swell teacher they had for the class in Hebrews and how all the fellows and girls called him “Bill” but not to his face, of course, and how they loved him and would do anything at all for him, simply anything at all! And how he made the Bible a grand book, simply like a storybook! And he was funny, too, sometimes. Why, he even told funny stories on himself that made you laugh till you cried, and then suddenly you found you were laughing and crying at your own self, and it hadn’t been him at all you were seeing in the verses he was illustrating, but you in your everyday life. He showed you how you forgot God and wanted your own way and didn’t really pray when you thought you were. It was so simply told you couldn’t forget it, just had to think about it the next day when you went around. It made you see just what kind of a fool you’d always been about things you’d always thought were all right.

He talked himself out at last and lay back in the hammock, thoughtfully remarking, “Well, I guess I gotta get at work pretty soon. I don’t wantta waste any more of my life the way I’ve been doing. I’ve got my eyes partway open at least.”

Connie, not knowing exactly what he meant and hoping to lead him on to show just what was in his mind, said, “I suppose you’ll be going to college in the fall. Have you definitely decided which college?”

“I thought I had—” he answered slowly and then sat up sharply. “But no, I don’t know that I’ll go, at least not yet.” He brought out the last words crisply as if they were a sudden decision.

“Not go?” questioned Constance. “Has Dad persuaded you to go into business instead? I knew he had some notion of that sort awhile ago. He thinks a lot of boys waste their time in college doing everything but study.”

“No, it’s not that,” said Frank slowly. “Dad said I might do as I pleased. Said he wanted me to choose my own future, after he had given me a lot of good advice on all sides. But I’ve got a new idea. I think I’ll go to college later, but I’ll go to Bible school first.”

“Bible school?” said Constance in amazement.

“Yes,” said he simply, “Dillie’s going and I think I’ll go, too. I know most folks think it ought to be the other way around and you ought to go to college first. Maybe it ought for some people, but not me. I’ve never had any real teaching about the way God looks at things. Oh, I know Mother and Grand taught us to say our prayers when we were kids, but this is different. I kind of think I ought to get to know a lot more about the Bible first and get a little real solid anchorage on the true foundation before I go into the world and get to studying what men think about things and get all muddled up. Men’s minds can make so many mistakes when they get thinking. I’d like to be able when a new question comes up to know right off the bat what the Bible has said about it so I can keep my bearings and not get switched off.”

“But,” said Constance in a daze, “I don’t understand, buddy. I never heard you talk like this before.”

“Well, I know. I’m different. You see, I’ve been born again, Connie. I’m looking at things from a different angle from what I did. Up there in the woods you sort of have to get saved or quit. There’s no halfway spot, and Dillie and I both accepted Christ. And we promised we’d do the Lord’s work if He wanted us. That’s why, see? I wantta be able ta tell others about it, and I can’t waste time on other studying till I know how, see? Why, Dillie and I might even go to the foreign mission field or somewhere, and we need to get a lotta Bible knowledge so we can keep it in the back of our minds all through any other studies we’d havta take. And, why, the Bible isn’t a bit dull as I supposed it was. It’s a swell book! It really is a swell book! No kidding!”

When Constance went up to her room that night, she looked at the little Testament with new reverence. It must indeed be a great book when it had been able to catch and hold the attention of her young brother. Frank a missionary in a foreign land! Could anything be more inconceivable? But wouldn’t Grand be glad? Would wonders never cease? Her brother with the light of something strange and wonderful in his eyes! Another added to the list of those who understood and turned to God for peace and joy. Seagrave and Doris and Emil and Harriet Howe and Grandmother, Dillie, and Dillie’s mother, and now Frank! What made it? How had it happened? Was there some mysterious law by which it came to some people and not to others?