Treasured Brides Collection (27 page)

All the time he had been reading he had been conscious of a pair of scrutinizing eyes turned upon him by a grizzled old man who sat across the aisle. He had been so occupied that he did not look at the man until the letter was folded and put back in his pocket. And then he became aware of that steady gaze once more and instantly recognized an old farmer from near his native town. Lawrence Earle, as a little boy, had many a time hitched his sled to this man’s load of wood. He rose and went to him at once, and the man seemed pleased beyond measure.

“Wal, yas,” he said, “I am a good piece out o’ my way. Been up to Bawson to my brother’s funeral. I calc’lated to git back yesterday, but couldn’t settle up things in time. I be’n a-settin’ here spec’latin’ on whether this was you or not. You seem to have growed some, and yit you ain’t changed so much, after all.”

The old man eyed the clean-shaven, tanned face before him with keen satisfaction. There was something about Lawrence Earle that was most winning. The old man was tremendously flattered that he had come over to speak to him, and that he had remembered who he was. There were not so many young men in these days who bothered to talk to plain old men. But Lawrence Earle always was somehow different from the other boys. The old man grew talkative, giving bits of information about the changes in the hometown; how the courthouse had been torn down at last and a new one built: how the Presbyterian church had a new tower for the chimes that Mr. Blakesley had given in memory of his wife; how they were building two new public schools to accommodate the children; how the old political boss was dead and the new one had no use for farmers and was doing all he could against the farm bills they were trying to get through.

Then he relapsed into gossip about the townspeople.

“And there is that youngest Martin gal; they used to call her Effie. There ain’t anybody more changed than she. She’s growed up strong and straight as a young saplin’, and she ain’t lost none of her sooppleness either; she can pitch a baseball as good as ever. I seen her do it last week at the church picnic. She’s just as fine, an’ purty and healthy-lookin’ as ever, spite of having nursed her mother through a long sickness for nigh about three years, and took care of the house and her father and all. She’d be affine wife for some young feller. Why, sir, that gal was jes’ the mainstay o’ that family. Her pa, he couldn’t akep’ up nohow, with his wife down with nervous prostration for two year goin’ on three, if that gal hedn’t a done fer him and cheered him up. They do say she’s done ez well ez her mother could by them boys, too, and her a little slip of a thing that hed never done a thing but play, when her mother was took sick.”

The young man went back to his seat after a time and mused on what he had heard. So the little girl had been thinking on those things of good report all these years, and had found the virtue and the praise.

At New York he changed for his homeward-bound train, and here again he met a friend, a clerk in the home bank, on his way back from business in New York. They talked together a few moments while they waited for the train to be called. “Speaking of changes,” said young Brownleigh, “do you remember a little Martin girl, a regular tomboy? Effie, they called her. Well, sir, you wouldn’t know that girl now. She dresses plain, but awfully neat and well fitting, and they say she makes all her own clothes, too. Oh, yes, she’s good, too, altogether too good for comfort! But a fellow would almost be willing to be good to get a girl like that to smile on him.”

Lawrence Earle listened in wonder and a growing delight. How strange it was that he should begin to hear Euphemia’s praises sounded the moment he came near the hometown!

And then, at the station, he was met by an eager group of very young girls, headed by his own little cousin, among them the Bessie Chipley of whom his mother had written. There was a small Garner girl and a small Bradley sister and a number of other children who were mere tots when he went away. They surrounded him noisily and demanded that he make a “date” with them at once before any of the older girls had a chance to invite him. They considered that he was their own property, their friend of the years. One would have thought to hear them talk that he was to have nothing else to do but attend parties and rides. They talked eagerly and all at once. He felt that same note of hardness in their speech that his mother had deplored. Yet they were still children. Perhaps they could be helped back to things clean and fine. He thought of Euphemia, and just then his cousin spoke of her, eagerly, almost out of breath in her excitement.

“If we can only get Euphemia to go with us tomorrow. She always makes things move so smoothly, and looks out for everything, and you don’t have to do a thing but have a good time. Everybody likes her, too, and you’ll be crazy about her. Do you remember her? She’s the youngest Martin girl. The only thing is, everybody is after her. I don’t know whether she can spare the time.”

Lawrence Earle paused in the framing of an excuse for not going on the ride, and with sudden interest in the affair and a new light in his eyes, said, “Yes, by all means, Louise, get Euphemia to go!”

New York City, Fall 1932

C
hristopher Walton closed the hymn book, put it in the rack, carefully adjusted his mother’s wrap on her shoulders as she sat down, arranged the footstool at her feet comfortably, and then sat back and prepared to get himself through the boredom of the sermon time.

Chris had no idea of trying to listen to the sermon. He never even pretended to himself that he was listening. He carried his tall, good-looking self to church regularly because it was the thing required by both Father and Mother that the household should attend church; but his soul was far away as possible from the dim religious light of the sanctuary. Nobody suspected, of course, that behind his handsome, polite exterior, the world was rushing cheerfully on in his thoughts. It would have been a most astonishing thing if the world in which his thoughts were reveling could have suddenly appeared in church. It would have created quite an uproar. Sometimes it was a football game with the grandstand rooting wildly, and he himself making a glorious touchdown. Sometimes it was a party he had attended the night before, with jazzy music stealing all through his thoughts. Sometimes it was a medley of his own plans for life, when he saw himself alternately writing a book that should set the world on fire; or becoming a central figure on the floor of the stock exchange; or again, a wealthy stockbroker who would finally get to the place where he could give great sums to charity and education.

But none of these things figured in his thoughts this morning. His mind was full of college. Three weeks more and he expected to be gone from this pew, gone back to college life. He drew a breath of secret satisfaction as he remembered that a college student could do as he pleased about attending divine service. If he had important lessons to study, or wasn’t feeling up to the mark, he could just stay away. There would be no compulsion. Oh, of course, there was no real compulsion at home. Nobody would have forced him to go if he had taken a grand stand against it perhaps; yet his father’s expectation and the grieved look in his mother’s eyes were as good as a law to him, and he would have felt most uncomfortable and out of harmony with his family if he had attempted to cut church here. And Chris loved his family. He enjoyed pleasing his father and mother, even though it was sometimes a bore.

His father was getting old, he reflected with a pang. His hair was deeply silvered. There were heavier lines coming into his kindly face. Chris was still a little anxious over the look that had come into his face at the breakfast table, as he finally yielded to their pleas that he stay at home this morning and nurse up the binding headache that had made it impossible for him to eat his breakfast.

Chris settled back comfortably in his father’s place at the head of the cushioned pew and reflected briefly on what a pleasant family he had. Nothing must ever be allowed to happen to his family! He paid them each brief tribute. Such a sweet mother, natural pink in her cheeks and a delicate look of refinement and peace about her. His sister, Elise, pretty and stylish and smart. She was off at a weekend house party today, and he missed her from her corner of the pew. They had always been good comrades. He was going to miss her when he went back to college.

College! Ah, now he was off! College! It would be his senior year. It was going to be great! Dad had been just wonderful about it. He had arranged to have him take one of the very best rooms in the whole dorm. And it was practically settled that Walt Gillespie was to be his roommate in place of that dub, Chad Harmon. They were to have a suite—two bedrooms and a spacious sitting room between. Of course, there were many students who couldn’t afford an outfit like that. And Mother had given up one of her finest oriental rugs, the one he had always admired the most, for his floor. Of course, she would have to buy a new one in its place, but he knew she loved this blue one, yet wanted him to have it. She said they wanted his last year to be the best of all. Then Dad was making a generous donation to their new fraternity building, and there had been a hint dropped that he would be suggested for president of their chapter next semester. Dad had been awfully generous in the way of money, too. Said he wanted him to have everything during his college life because one went to college only once. Dad had been pleased that he had been popular in his father’s fraternity. Of course, it was Dad’s influence that had gotten him in here at all, right at the first. They were a terribly exclusive bunch. It was wonderful having a father who was well off and able to put one into the front ranks of things.

And then, the crowning joy of all, Dad was going to let him have a car, one of the very best to take him. He had picked it out and it was coming tomorrow morning. He was to take it out on a trial trip alone and try it out thoroughly before the final deal was made. But it was practically bought already, for he was sure he would find nothing wrong with it. It was a great car.

The shining new car, in all its glory of flashing chrome and deep blue body, rolled slowly down the aisle, past his pew, and let him study it as the minister rose in the pulpit to announce and introduce a visiting preacher that morning. Chris was so interested in his car that he hardly heard what was going on, scarcely noticed the stranger on the platform.

Chris was thinking how he would take Gilda Carson out for a ride tomorrow after he had had a good long tour by himself. Gilda was rather snobbish and always boasting about Bob Tyson’s car and how he had taken her here and there. But Bob Tyson’s car wasn’t worth mentioning in the same breath with his new one. Gilda would boast about his now, he was sure.

Not that he cared so much what Gilda thought or did. She wasn’t especially his girl, but it had been a bit irksome having her always talking about Bob’s wonderful car. Well there wasn’t going to be anything wrong with his new car. It was a wonder. Such a purring engine, free-wheeling, adjustable seats, marvelous shock absorbers, and above all, speed! The car was doing eighty and even ninety now, up and down the stately aisles of the church, and Chris sat with a saint-like expression on his face and watched it. He almost wondered that the people about him did not turn and look after it in admiration.

Suddenly a new voice broke into his meditations. The minister had introduced the stranger.

He was announcing his text now—two texts. “Oh give thanks unto the Lord for He is good!” and “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

Chris recognized the first text as a part of the responsive reading they had just had, but the second seemed a little bit out of the ordinary, and he wondered idly what it could possibly have to do with the first. The opening words of the preacher’s sermon arrested his attention for an instant.

“It is easy enough to thank God when everything is going well and we have all that we want in our lives. The true test of a thankful heart is to be able to sing praise when things are going all wrong. When we have lost our money or our friends or are disappointed in our dearest ambitions, or when we are in a strange, unhappy environment, then we cry out, ‘How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’ ”

That was about all Chris heard of that sermon, and he only wondered idly a moment about it before he drifted back into his own thoughts. He averred to himself that, of course, it was ridiculous to expect anybody to be thankful for sorrow and disaster, for poverty and sickness and loss. The minister seemed to be giving an instance of someone who had said he was grateful for every trouble that had ever come to him, and through his disappointments had learned to praise the Lord for every one. Well, that was absurd. No one could thank the Lord for unhappiness. He was thankful that his life was laid in pleasant surroundings, and he paused long enough in his reflections to give a quick thanksgiving for his home, his parents, his pleasant environment, the happy college days that still lay before him, his new car. And then he was off again into the anticipations of his senior year at college and what he had to do before he went back. He tabulated different items mentally on his fingers, things he must not forget. Not the least among them was the trial of the new car tomorrow, and presently the car was rolling up and down the aisle again before his happy vision, and the minister with his absurd message about being glad for unhappiness was utterly forgotten.

He had arranged a full schedule for the next few days when, at last, the closing hymn was announced, and he found the place for his mother and arose with relief to join in the hymn of praise. He noticed, with a vague annoyance, there was a line in the hymn that conveyed that same illogical suggestion about giving thanks for trouble that the minister had suggested in the beginning of his sermon. But he raised his voice a little louder when it came to the refrain of praise and steadily thought of all the thrilling joys of his own life with true thanksgiving. He certainly was grateful that the lines had fallen to him in such pleasant places, and just now he was, more than all, grateful the service was over and he would soon be free to go back to the delightful details of everyday living.