The Witness Part 30

Courtland read it wearily, closed his eyes for a minute, pa.s.sed his hand over his brow, then he handed the note over to Pat. The understanding between the two was very deep and tender now.

Pat read without comment, but the frown on his brow matched the set of his big jaw. When he spoke again it was to tell Courtland of the job he had been offered as athletic coach in a preparatory school in the same neighborhood with the theological seminary where Courtland had decided to study. Courtland listened without hearing and smiled wearily. He was entering his Gethsemane. Neither one of them slept much that night.

In the early dawning Courtland arose, dressed, and silently stole out of the room, down through the sleeping city, out to the country, where he had gone once before when trouble struck him. It seemed to him he must get away to breathe, he must go where he and G.o.d could be alone.

Pat understood. He only waited till Courtland was gone to fling on his clothes in a hurry and be after him. He had noted from the window the direction taken, and guessed where he would be.

On and on walked Courtland with the burning sorrow in his soul; out through the heated city, over the miles of dusty road, his feet finding their way without apparent direction from his mind; out to the stream, and the path where wild flowers and gra.s.ses had strewn the ground in springtime; gay now with white and purple asters. The rocks wore vines of crimson, and goldenrod was full of bees and yellow b.u.t.terflies.

Gnarled roots bore little creeping tufts of squawberry with bright, red berries dotting thick between. But Courtland pa.s.sed on and saw it not.

Above, the sky was deepest blue and flecked with summer clouds.

Loud-voiced birds called gaily of the summer's ending, talked of travel in a glad, gay lilt. The bees droned on; the bullfrogs gave forth a deep wise thought or two; while softly, deeply, brownly, flowed the stream beside the path, with only a far, still fisherman here and there who noticed not. But Courtland heard nothing, saw nothing but the dark of his Gethsemane. For every nodding goldenrod and saucy purple aster was but a bright-winged thought to him to bring back the saucy, lovely face of Gila. She belonged now to another. He had not realized before how fully he had chosen, how lost she was to him, until another, and that his best friend, had taken her for his own. Not that he repented his decision or drew back. Oh no! He could not have chosen otherwise. Yet now, face to face with the truth, he realized that he had always hoped, even when he walked away from her, that she would find the Christ and one day they would come together again. Now that hope was gone forever.

She might find the Christ, he hoped--yes, hoped and prayed she would!--it was a wish apart from his personal loss, but she could never summon him now, for she had given herself to another!

He gained at last the rock-bound refuge where he knelt once before. Pat, coming later from afar, saw his old Panama lying down on the moss and knew that he was there. Creeping softly up, he a.s.sured himself that all was well, then crept away to wait. Pat had brought a basket of grapes and a great bag of luscious pears against the time when Courtland should have fought his battle and come forth. What those hours of waiting meant to Pat might perhaps be found written in the lives of some of the boys in that school where he coached athletics the next winter. But what they meant to Courtland will only be found written in the records on high.

Some time a little after noon there came a peace to Courtland's troubled soul.

When thou pa.s.sest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the floods they shall not overflow thee!

It was as near to him as whispers in his ear, and peace was all about him.

He stood up, looked abroad, saw the beauty of the day, heard the dreaminess of the afternoon coming on, heard louder G.o.d's call to his heart, and knew that there was strength for all his need. It was then Pat came with his refreshment like a ministering angel.

When they got back to the city that evening there was a note from Bonnie, the first Courtland had received since the formal announcement of her arrival and her grat.i.tude to him for being the means of bringing her to that dear home.

This letter was almost as brief as the first, but it breathed a spirit of peace and content. She enclosed a check on the funeral account.

Bonnie was well and happy. She was teaching the grammar-school where Stephen Marshall used to study when he was a little boy, and giving music lessons in the afternoons. She would soon be able to pay back everything she owed and to do a daughter's share in the home where she was treated like an own child. She closed by saying that the kindness he had shown her would never be forgotten; that he had seemed to her, and always would, like the messenger of the Lord sent to help her in her despair.

There was a ring so fresh and strong and true in this little letter, that he could but recognize it. He sighed and thought how strange it was that he should almost resent it, coming as it did in contrast with Gila's falseness. Gila who had professed to love him so deeply, and then had so easily laid that love aside and put on another. Perhaps all girls were the same. Perhaps this Bonnie, too, would do the same if a man turned out not to have her ideals.

He answered Bonnie's note in a day or two with a cordial one, returning her check, a.s.suring her that everything was fully paid, and expressing his pleasure that she had found a real home and congenial work. Then he dismissed her from his mind.

A week later he went to the seminary, and Pat accompanied him as far as the preparatory school where he was to enter upon his duties as athletic coach.

Courtland found the atmosphere of the seminary quite different from college. The men were older. They had chosen definitely their work in the world. Their talk was of things ecclesiastical. The happenings of the day were spoken of with reference to the religious world. It was a new viewpoint in every sense of the word. And yet he was disappointed that he did not find a more spiritual atmosphere among the young men who were studying for the ministry. If anywhere in the world the Presence might be expected to be moving and apparent it should be here, he reasoned, where men had definitely given themselves to the study of the Gospel of Christ, and where all were supposed to believe in Him and to have acknowledged Him before the world. He found himself the only man in the place who was not a member of any church, and yet there were but three or four that he had the feeling he could speak to about the Presence and not be looked upon as "queer." There was much worldly talk.

There was a great deal of church gossip about churches and ministers; what this one was paid and what that one got; the chances of a man being called to a city church when he was just out of the seminary. It was the way his father had talked when he told him he wanted to study theology.

It turned him sick at heart to hear them. It seemed so far from the att.i.tude a servant of the Lord should have. He was in a fair way to lose his ideal of ministers as well as of women. He mentioned it one day bitterly to Pat when he came over to spend a spare evening, as he frequently did.

"I think you're wrong," said Pat, in his queer, abrupt way. "From what I can figure there was only a few of those guys got around Christ and knew what he really was! You didn't suppose it would be any different now, did you? Guess you'll find it that way everywhere, only a few _real_ folks in _any_ gang!"

Courtland looked at Pat in wonder. He was a constant surprise to his friend, in that he grew so fast in the Christian life. He had a little Bible that he had bought before he left the city. It was small and fine and expensive, utterly unlike Pat, and he carried it with him always, apparently read it much. He hadn't been given to reading anything more than was required at college, so it was the more surprising. He told Courtland he wanted to know the rules of the game if he was going to get in it. His st.u.r.dy common-sense often gave Courtland something to think about. Pat was bringing his new religion to bear upon his work. He already had a devoted bunch of boys to whom he was dealing out wholesome truths beginning a new era in the school. The head-master looked on in amazement, for morality hadn't been one of the chief recommendations that the faculty of the university had given Pat. They had, in fact, privately cautioned the school that they would have to watch out for such things themselves. Instead, however, of finding a somewhat lawless man in their new coach, the head-master was surprised to discover a purity campaign on foot, a ban on swearing and cigarette-smoking such as they had never been able to establish before. It came to their ears that Pat had personally conducted an offender along these lines out to the boundaries of the school grounds, well behind the gymnasium, where there was utmost privacy, and administered a good thras.h.i.+ng on his own account. The faculty watched anxiously to see the effect of such summary treatment on the student body, but were relieved to find that the new coach's following was in no wise diminished, and that better conduct began presently to be the order of the day.

Pat and Courtland were much together these days, and one Sunday afternoon in late October, while the sun was still warm, they took the athletic teams a long hike over the country. When they sat down to rest Pat asked Courtland to tell the boys about Stephen, and the Presence.

That was the real beginning of Courtland's ministry, those unexpected, spontaneous talks with the boys, where he could speak his heart and not be afraid of being misunderstood.

There were two or three professors in the seminary who struck Courtland as being profoundly spiritual and sincere in their lives. They were old men, noted for their scholars.h.i.+p and their strong faith the world over.

They taught as Courtland imagined a prophet might have taught in the days of the Old Testament, with their ears ever open to see what the Lord would have them speak to the children of men. At their feet he sat and drank in great draughts of knowledge, going away satisfied. There were other professors, some of them brilliant in the extreme, whose whole att.i.tude toward the Bible and Christ seemed to have an undertone of flippancy, and who fairly delighted to find an unauthentic portion over which they might haggle away the precious hours of the cla.s.s-room.

They lacked the reverent att.i.tude toward their subject which only could save the higher criticism from being destructive rather than constructive.

As the year went by he came to know his fellow-students better, and to find among them a few earnest, thoroughly consecrated fellows, most of them plain men like Burns, who had turned aside from the world's allurements to prepare themselves to carry the gospel to those who were in need. Most of them were poor men also, and of humble birth, with a rare one now and then of brains and family and wealth, like Courtland, to whom G.o.d had come in some peculiar way. These were a group apart from others, whom the rest respected and admired, yet laughed at in a gentle, humoring sort of way, as if they wasted more energy on their calling than there was any real need to do. Some of them were going to foreign lands when they were through, had already been a.s.signed to their mission stations, and were planning with a special view to the needs of the locality. Courtland felt an idler and drone among them that he did not yet know what he was to do.

The men, as they came to know him better, predicted great things for him: wealthy churches falling at his feet, brilliant openings at his disposal; but Courtland took no part in any such discussions. He had the att.i.tude of heart that he was to be guided, when he was through his studies, into the place where he was most needed; it mattered not where so it was the place G.o.d would have him to be.

In February Burns had a farewell service in his church. He had resigned his pastorate and was going to China. Pat and Courtland went down to the city to attend the service; and Monday saw him off to San Francisco for his sea voyage to China.

Courtland, as he stood on the platform watching the train move away with his friend, wished he could be on that train going with Burns to China.

He was to take up Burns's work around the settlement and in the factory section; to see some of his friend's plans through to completion. He was almost sorry he had promised. He felt utterly inadequate to the necessity!

Spring came, and with it the formal announcement of Tennelly's and Gila's engagement. Courtland and Pat each read it in the papers, but said nothing of it to each other. Courtland worked the harder these days.

He tried to plunge into the work and forget self, and to a certain extent was successful. He found plenty of distress and sorrow to stand in contrast with his own; and his hands and heart were presently full to overflowing.

Like the faithful fellow-worker that he was, Pat stuck by him. Both looked forward to the week that Tennelly had promised to spend with them. But instead of Tennelly came a letter. Gila's plans interfered and he could not come. He wrote joyously that he was sorry, but he couldn't possibly make it. It shone between every line that Tennelly was overwhelmingly happy.

"Good old Nelly!" said Courtland, with a sigh, handing the letter over to Pat, for these two shared everything these days.

Courtland stood staring out of the window at the vista of roofs and tall chimneys. The blistering summer sun simmered hot and sickening over the city. Red brick and dust and grime were all around him. His soul was weary of the sight and faltered in its way. What was the use of living?

What?

Then suddenly he straightened up and leaned from the window alertly! The fire alarm was sounding. Its sinister wheeze shrilled through the hot air tauntingly! It sounded again. One! two! One! two! three! It was in the neighborhood.

Without waiting for a word, both men sprang out the door and down the stairs.

CHAPTER XXIX

"The Whited Sepulcher," as some of the bitterest of her poorly paid slaves called the model factory, stood coolly, insolently, among her dirty, red-brick, grime-stained neighbors; like some dainty lady appareled in sheer muslins and jewels appearing on the threshold of the hot kitchen where her servitors were sweating and toiling to prepare her a feast.

The luxuriant vines were green and abundant, creeping coolly about the white walls, befringing the windows charmingly, laying delicate clinging fingers even up to the very eaves, and straying out over the roof. No matter how parched the ground in the little parks of the district, no matter how yellow the leaves on the few stunted trees near by, no matter how low the city's supply of water, nor how many public fountains had to be temporarily shut off, that vine was always well watered. Its root lay deep in soft, moist earth well fertilized and cared for; its leaves were washed anew each evening with refres.h.i.+ng spray from the hose that played over it. "Seems like I'd just like to lie down there and sleep with my face clost up to it, all wet and cool-like, all night!" sighed one poor little bony victim of a girl, scarcely more than a child, as the throng pressed out the wide door at six o'clock and caught the moist fragrance of the damp earth and growing vine.

"You look all in, Susie!" said her neighbor, pausing in her interminable gum-chewing to eye her friend keenly. "Say, you better go with me to the movies to-night! I know a nice cool one fer a nickel!"

"Can't!" sighed Susie. "'Ain't got ther nickel, and, besides, I gotta stay with gran'mom while ma goes up with some vests she's been makin'.

Oh, I'm all right! I jus' was thinkin' about the vine; it looks so cool and purty. Say, Katie, it's somepin' to b'long to a vine like that, even if we do have it rotten sometimes! Don't you always feel kinda proud-like when you come in the door, 'most as if it was a palace? I like to pertend it's all a great big house where I live, and there's carpets and lace curtings to the winders, and a real gold sofy with pink-velvet cus.h.i.+ngs! And when I come down and see one of the company's ottymobiles standin' by the curb waitin', I like to pertend it's mine, only I don't ride 'cause I've been ridin' so much I'd _ruther_ walk!

Don't you ever do that, Katie?"

"Not on yer _life_, I don't!" said Katie, with an ugly frown. "I hate the old dump! I hate every stone in the whole pile! I could tear that nasty green vine down an' stamp on it. I'd like to strip its leaves off an' leave it bare. I'd like to turn the hose off and see it dry up an'

be all brown, an' ugly, an' dead. It's stealin' the water they oughtta have over there in the fountain. It's stealin' the money they oughtta pay us fer our work! It's creepin' round the winders an' eatin' up the air. Didn't you never take notice to how they let it grow acrost the winders to hide folks from lookin' in from the visitor's winders there on the east side? They don't care how it shuts away the draught and makes it hotter 'n a furnace where we work! No, you silly! I never was proud to come in that old marble door! I was always mad, away down inside, that I had to work here. I had to go crawlin' and askin' fer a job, an' take all their insults, an' be locked in a trap. Take it from me, there's goin' to be some awful accident happen here some day! If a fire should break out how many d'you s'pose could get out before they was burned to a crisp? Did you know them winders was nailed so they wouldn't go up any higher 'n a foot? Did you know they 'ain't got 'nouf fire-escapes to get half of us out ef anythin' happened? Did you never take notice to the floor roun' them three biggest old machines they've got up on the sixth? I stepped acrost there this mornin'--Mr. Brace sent me up on a message to the forewoman--an' that floor shook under my feet like a earthquake! Sam Warner says the building ain't half strong enough fer them machines, anyway. He says they'd oughtta put 'em down on the first floor; but they didn't want to 'cause they don't show off good to visitors, so they stuck 'em up on the sixth, where they don't many see 'em. But Sam says some day they're goin' to bust right through the floor, an' ef they do, they ain't gonta stop till they get clear down to the cellar, an' they'll wipe out everythin' in their way when they go!

B'leeve me! I don't wantta be workin' here when that happens!"

"_Good night!_" said Susie, turning pale. "Them big machines on the sixth is right over where I work on the fifth! Say, Katie, le's ast Mr.

Brace to put us on the other side the room! Aw, gee! Katie! What's the use o' livin'? I'd 'most be willin' to be dead jest to get cool! Seems zif it's allus either awful hot er awful cold!"

They went to their stifling tenements and their unattractive suppers.