Chapter 22

The doctor had come with a bound up the aisle and was kneeling with Billy in his arms. Mark was leaning over the rail with a white anxious face. The minister was trying to make a way through the crowd, and the sergeant-at-arms was pushing the crowd back, and making a space about the unconscious boy. Some-one opened a window. The Chief and one of his men brought a cot. There was a pillow from the car, and there was that medicine again--bringing him back--just as he thought he had made God hear--! Oh, _why_ did they bother him?

Suddenly down by the door a diversion occurred. Someone had entered with wild burning eyes dressed in a curious assortment of garments. They were trying to put him out, but he persisted.

The word was brought up: “Someone has a very important piece of evidence which he wishes to present.”

Billy's gray eyes opened as the man mounted to the witness stand. He was lying on the cot at one side and his gaze rested on the new witness, dazedly at first, and then with growing comprehension. Old Ike Fenner, the tailor, Cherry Fenner's father!

Mark was looking at Billy and had not noticed:

But the man began to speak in a high shrill voice:

“I came to say that I'm the man that killed Dolph Haskins! Mark Carter had nothin' to do with it. I done it! I _meant_ to kill him because he ruined the life of my little girl! _My baby!_”

There was a sudden catch in his voice like a great sob, and he clutched at the rail as if he were going to fall, but he went on, his eyes burning like coals:

“I shot him with Tom Petrie's gun that I found atop o' the door, an' I put it back where I found it. You take my finger prints and compare 'em with the marks on the gun an' the winder sill. You ask Sandy Robison! He seen me do it. You ask Cherry! She seen me too. She was facin' the winder eatin' her supper with that devil, and I shot him and she seen me! _I_ did it--”

His voice trailed off. He swayed and got down from the stand, groping his way as if he could not see. The crowd gave way with a curious shudder looking into his wild burning eyes as he passed. A girl's scream back by the door rang through the court. The man moaned, put out his hands and fell forward. Kindly hands reached to catch him. The doctor left Billy and came to help.

They carried him outside and laid him on the grass in front of the court house. The doctor used every restorative he had with him. Men hurried to the drug store. They tried everything, but all to no avail. Ike Fenner the tailor was dead! He had gone to stand before a higher court!

When it was all over, the finger prints and the red tape, and the case had been dismissed, Mark came to Billy where he was lying in the big car waiting, with his eyes closed to keep back weak tears that would slip out now and then. He knelt beside the boy and touched his hand, the hand that looked so thin and weak and so little like Billy's:

“Kid,” he said gently, “Kid, you've been a wonder! It was really you that saved me, Buddy! _My Buddy!”_

Billy's tears welled over at the tone, the words, the proud intimate name, but he shook his head slowly, sadly.

“No,” he said, “No, it wasn't me. I tried, but I wasn't fit! It had to be _Him_. I didn't understand! They wouldn't believe me. But _He_ came as soon as I ast!”

Mark looked at the doctor.

“Is he wandering a little?” he asked in a low tone:

“I shouldn't wonder. He's been through enough to make anyone wander. Here, son, take this.”

Billy smiled and obediently accepted his medicine. Mark held his hand all the way home. He knew that Mark didn't understand but he was too tired to tell him now. Sometime he would explain. Or perhaps Miss Lynn would explain it for him. He was going home, home to Saxy and Sabbath Valley and the bells, and Mark was free! He hadn't saved him, but Mark was free!

It was like a royal passage through the village as they came into Sabbath Valley, for everybody came out to wave at Mark and Billy. Even Mrs. Harricutt watched grimly from behind her Holland shades. But Billy was too weak to notice much, except to sense it distantly, and Mark would only lift his hat and bow, gravely, quietly as if it didn't matter, just as he used to do when they carried him round on their shoulders after a football game, and he tried to get down and hide. Why did Mark still have that sad look in his eyes? Billy was too tired to think it out. He was glad when they reached Aunt Saxon's door and Mark picked him up as he used to do when he was just a little kid, and carried him up to his room. Carried him up and undressed him, while Saxy heard the story from the doctor's lips, and laughed and cried and laughed again. The nervy little kid! He would always be a “little kid” to Saxy, no matter what he did.

He turned over in his own bed, _his bed_, and smelt the sweet breath of the honeysuckle coming in at the window, heard the thrushes singing their evening song up the street. The sea had been great, but Oh, you Sabbath Valley! Out there was the water spout, and some day he would be strong enough to shin down it, and up it again. He would play football this Fall, and run Mark's car! Mark, grave, gentle, quiet, sitting beside him till he got asleep, and his mother not knowing, down the street, and Miss Lynn--!

“Mark--you'll tell Miss Marilyn about it all?” He opened his eyes to murmur lazily, and Mark promised still gravely.

He shut his eyes and drifted away. What was that the Chief had told him down at Economy in the car? Something about three strange detectives stepping off the train one day and nabbing Pat? And Pat was up at Sing Sing finishing his term after A.W.O.L. Was that straight or only a dream? And anyhow he didn't care. He was home again, Home--_and forgiven!_

Night settled sweetly down upon Sabbath Valley, hiding the brilliant autumn tinting of the street. Lynn had made a maple nut cake and set the table for two before she left the Carters, for her mother had slipped out of the court room and telephoned her, and a fire was blazing in the little parlor with the lace curtains and asters in every vase all gala for the returning son. The mother and son sat long before the fire, talking, pleasant converse, about the time when Mark would send for her to come and live with him, but not a word was said about the day. He saw that his friends had helped to save his mother this one great sorrow that she could not have borne, and he was grateful.

Marilyn, up at the parsonage, with a great thankfulness upon her, went about with smiling face. The burden seemed to have lifted and she was glad.

But that night at midnight there came the doctor from Economy driving hard and stopping at the parsonage. Cherry Fenner was dying and wanted to see Miss Marilyn. Would she come?

XXVII

Cherry's little bedroom under the roof was bright with the confusion of cheap finery scattered everywhere and swept aside at the sudden entrance of the death angel. A neighbor had done her best to push away the crude implements of complexion that were littering the cheap oak bureau top, and the doctor's case and bottles and glasses crowded out the giddy little accessories of beauty that Cherry had collected. Two chairs piled high with draggled finery, soiled work aprons and dresses made a forlorn and miscellaneous disorder in one corner, and the closet door sagged open with visions of more clothing hung many deep upon the few hooks.

Mrs. Fenner stood at the head of the bed wringing her hands and moaning uncontrolledly, and Cherry, little Cherry, lay whitely against the pillow, the color all gone from her ghastly pretty little face, that had lately hid its ravished health and beauty behind a camouflage of paint. There were deep dark circles under the limpid eyes that now were full of mortal pain, and pitiful lines around the cherry mouth that had been wont to laugh so saucily.

The doctor stood by the window with the attitude of grave waiting. The helpful neighbor lingered in the doorway, holding her elbows and taking minute note of Marilyn's dress. This might be a sad time, but one had to live afterward, and it wasn't every day you got to see a simple little frock with an air like the one the minister's daughter wore. She studied it from neck to hem and couldn't see what in the world there was about it anyway to make her look so dressed up. Not a scratch of trimming, not even a collar, and yet she could look like that!

Mercy! Was that what education and going to college did for folks?

The light of a single unshaded electric bulb shone startlingly down to the bed, making plain the shadow of death even to an inexperienced eye.

Marilyn knelt beside the bed and took Cherry's cold little hand in her own warm one. The waxen eyelids fluttered open, and a dart of something between fright and pain went over her weird little face.

“Can I do anything for you Cherry?” Marilyn's voice was tender, pitiful.

“It's _too late_,” whispered the girl in a fierce little whisper, “Send 'em out--I--wantta--tell--you--someth--!” The voice trailed away weakly. The doctor stepped over and gave her a spoonful of something, motioned her mother and the neighbor away, tiptoeing out himself and closing the door. The mother was sobbing wildly. The doctor's voice could be heard quieting her coldly:

The girl on the bed frowned and gathered effort to speak:

“Mark Carter--didn't mean no harm--goin'--with me--!” she broke out, her breath coming in gasps, “He was tryin'--to stop me--goin'--with--_Dolph--!_” The eyes closed wearily. The lips were white as chalk. She seemed to have stopped breathing!

“It's all right--Cherry--” Marilyn breathed softly, “It's all right--I understand! Don't think any more about it!”

The eyes opened fiercely again, a faint determination shadowed round the little mouth:

“You gotta know--!” she broke forth again with effort. “He was good to me--when I was a little kid, and when he found I was in trouble--” the breath came pitifully in gasps--“he--offered--to--_marry me!_”

Marilyn's fingers trembled but she held the little cold hand warmly and tried to keep back the tears that trembled in her eyes.

“He--didn't--_want to_--! He--just--_done it to be kind!_ But I--couldn't--see--it--! That's--what--we--_argued--!_” Her voice grew fainter again. Marilyn with gentle controlled voice pressed the little cold hand again:

“Never mind, Cherry dear--it's all right!”

Cherry's eyes opened with renewed effort, anxiously:

“You won't--blame--Mark--? He never--did--nothin'--wrong--! He's--_your_--friend!”

“No, Cherry! It's all right!”

The girl seemed to have lost consciousness again, and Marilyn wondered if she ought not to call the doctor, but suddenly Cherry screamed out:

“There he is again! He's _come for me!_ Oh--I'm--a--gon' ta--_die!_ An' I'm _afrrrr-aid!”_

Cherry clutched at Marilyn's arm, and looked up with far off gaze in which terror seemed frozen.

The minister's daughter leaned farther over and gathered the fragile form of the sick girl in her arms tenderly, speaking in a soothing voice:

“Listen Cherry. Don't be afraid. Jesus is here. He'll go with you!”

“But I'm afraid of Jesus!” the sharp little voice pierced out with a shudder, “I haven't been--_good!”_

“Then tell Him you are sorry. You _are_ sorry, aren't you?”

“Oh, _yes!”_ the weak voice moaned. “I--never--_meant_--no--harm! I only--wanted--a little--good time--!”

The eyes had closed again and she was almost gone. The doctor had come in and he now gave her another spoonful of medicine. Marilyn knew the time was short.

“Listen, Cherry, say these words after me!” Cherry's eyes opened again and fastened on her face, eagerly:

“Jesus, I'm sorry--!”

“Jesus--I'm--sor-ry--!” repeated the weak voice in almost a whisper.

“Please forgive me,” said Marilyn slowly, distinctly.

“Please--for--give--!” the slow voice repeated.

“And save me--save--!” the voice was scarcely audible.

The doctor came and stood close by the bed, looking down keenly, but Cherry roused once more and looked at them, her sharp little voice stabbing out into the silence piercingly,

“Is that--_all?_”

“That is all,” said Marilyn with a ring in her voice, “Jesus died to take care of all the rest! You can just rest on Him!”

“_Oh-h!_” The agony went out of the pinched little face, a half smile dawned and she sank into rest.

As Marilyn went home in the dawn with the morning star beginning to pale, and the birds at their early worship, something in her own heart was singing too. Above the feeling of awe over standing at the brink of the river and seeing a little soul go wavering out, above even the wonder that she had been called to point the way, there sang in her soul a song of jubilation that Mark was exonerated from shame and disgrace. Whatever others thought, whatever she personally would always have believed, it still was great that God had given her this to make her know that her inner vision about it had been right. Perhaps, sometime, in the days that were to come, Mark would tell her about it, but there was time enough for that. Mark would perhaps come to see her this morning. She somehow felt sure that at least he would come to say he was glad she had stayed with his mother. It was like Mark to do that. He never let any little thing that was done for him or his pass unnoticed.

But the morning passed and Mark did not come. The only place that Mark went was to see Billy.

“Billy, old man,” he said, sitting down by the edge of the bed where Billy was drowsing the early morning away, just feeling the bed, and sensing Saxy down there making chicken broth, and knowing that the young robins in the apple tree under the window were grown up and flown away. “Billy, I can't keep my promise to you after all. I've got to go away. Sorry, kid, but she'll come to see you and I want you to tell her for me all about it. I'm not forgetting it, Kid, either, and you'll know, all the rest of my life, _you and I are buddies!_ Savvy, Kid?”

Billy looked at Mark with big understanding eyes. There was sadness and hunger and great self control in that still white face that he worshipped so devotedly. All was not well with his hero yet. It came to him vaguely that perhaps Mark too had even yet something to learn, the kind of thing that was only learned by going through fire. He struggled for words to express himself, but all he could find were:

“I say, Mark, why'n't'tya get it off'n yer chest? It's _great!_”

Perhaps there wouldn't have been another human in Sabbath Valley, except perhaps it might have been Marilyn who would have understood that by this low growled suggestion Billy was offering confession of sin as a remedy for his friend's ailment of soul, but Mark looked at him keenly, almost tenderly for a long minute, and shook his head, his face taking on a grayer, more hopeless look as he said:

“I can't, Kid. It's _too late!_”

Billy closed his eyes for a moment. He felt it wasn't quite square to see into his friend's soul that way when he was off his guard, but he understood. He had passed that way himself. It came to him that nothing he could say would make any difference. He would have liked to tell of his own experience in the court room and how he had suddenly known that all his efforts to right his wrong had been failures, that there was only One who could do it, but there were no words in a boy's vocabulary to say a thing like that. It sounded unreal. It had to be _felt_, and he found his heart kept saying over and over as he lay there waiting with closed eyes for Mark to speak: “Oh, God! Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself? Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself?” He wondered if Miss Lynn couldn't have shown Mark if he had only gone and talked it over with her. But Mark said it was too late, “Well, Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself, then? Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself, God,--_please!_”

Mark got up with a long sigh:

“Well, s'long, Kid, till I see you again. And I won't forget Kid, you know I won't forget! And Kid, I'm leaving my gun with you. I know you'll take good care of it and not let it do any damage. You might need it you know to take care of your Aunt, or--or--Miss Severn--or!”

“Sure!” said Billy with shining eyes clasping the weapon that had been Mark's proud possession for several years. “Aw Gee! Ya hadn't oughtta give me this! You might need it yourself.”

“No, Kid, I'd rather feel that you have it. I want to leave someone here to kind of take my place--watching--you know. There'll be times--!”

“Sure!” said Billy, a kind of glory overspreading his thin eager face. “_Aw Gee!_ Mark!”

And long after Mark had gone, and the sound of his purring engine had died away in the distance, Billy lay back with the weapon clasped to his heart, and a weird kind of rhythm repeating itself over and over somewhere in his spirit: “Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself, God? Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself? You will! I'll bet You _will_! yet!”

And was that anything like the prayer of faith translated into theological language?

Aunt Saxon went up tiptoe with the broth and thought he was asleep and tiptoed down again to keep it warm awhile. But Billy lay there and felt like Elisha after the mantle of the prophet Elijah had fallen upon him. It gave him a grand solemn feeling, God and he were somehow taking Mark's place till Mark got ready to come back and do it himself. He was to take care of Sabbath Valley as far as in him lay, but more particularly of Miss Marilyn Severn.

And then suddenly, without warning, Miss Marilyn herself went away, to New York she said, for a few weeks, she wasn't sure just how long. But there was something sad in her voice as she said it, and something white about the look she wore that made him sure she was not going to the part of New York where Mark Carter lived.

Billy accepted it with a sigh. Things were getting pretty dry around Sabbath Valley for him. He didn't seem to get his pep back as fast as he had expected. For one thing he worried a good deal, and for another the doctor wouldn't let him play baseball nor ride a bicycle yet for quite a while. He had to go around and act just like a “gurrull!” Aw Gee! Sometimes he was even glad to have Mary Little come across the street with her picture puzzles and stay with him awhile. She was real good company. He hadn't ever dreamed before that girls could be as interesting. Of course, Miss Marilyn had to be a girl once, but then she was Miss Marilyn. That was different.

Then too, Billy hadn't quite forgotten that first morning that Saxy got her arms around him and cried over him glad tears, bright sweet tears that wet his face and made him feel like crying happy tears too. And the sudden surprising desire he felt to hug her with his well arm, and how she fell over on the bed and got to laughing because he pulled her hair down in his awkwardness, and pulled her collar crooked. Aw Gee! She was just Aunt Saxy and he had been rotten to her a lot of times. But now it was different. Somehow Saxy and he were more pals, or was it that he was the man now taking care of Saxy and not the little boy being taken care of himself? Somehow during those weeks he had been gone Saxy had cried out the pink tears, and was growing smiles, and home was “kinda nice” after all. But he missed the bells. And nights before he got into bed he got to kneeling down regularly, and saying softly inside his heart: “Aw Gee, God, please why'n'tcha make Mark understand, an' why'n'tcha bring 'em both home?”

XXVIII

Marilyn had not been in New York but a week before she met Opal. She was waiting to cross Fifth Avenue, and someone leaned out of a big limousine that paused for the congestion in traffic and cried:

“Why, if that isn't Miss Severn from Sabbath Valley. Get in please, I want to see you.”

And Lynn, much against her will, was persuaded to get in, more because she was holding up traffic than because the woman in the limousine insisted:

“I'll take you where you want to go,” she said in answer to Lynn's protests, and they rolled away up the great avenue with the moving throng.

“I'm dying to know what it is you're making Laurie Shafton do,” said Opal eagerly, “I never saw him so much interested in anything in my life. Or is it you he's interested in. Why, he can't talk of anything else, and he's almost stopped going to the Club or any of the house parties. Everybody thinks he's perfectly crazy. He won't drink any more either. He's made himself quite _notorious_. I believe I heard some one say the other day they hadn't even seen him smoking for a whole week. You certainly are a wonder.”

“You're quite mistaken,” said Lynn, much amused, “I had nothing to do with Mr. Shafton's present interest, except as I happened to be the one to introduce him to it. I haven't seen him but twice since I came to New York, and then only to take him around among my babies at the Settlement and once over to the Orphans' Home, where I've been helping out while an old friend of mine with whom I worked in France is away with her sick sister.”

“For mercy's sake! You don't mean that Laurie consented to go among the poor? I heard he'd given a lot of money to fix up some buildings, but then all the best men are doing things like that now. It's quite the fad. But to go himself and see the wretched little things, Ugh! I don't see how he could. He must be quite crazy about you I'm sure if he did all that for you.”

“Oh, he seemed to want to see them,” said Lynn lightly, “and he suggested many of the improvements that he is making himself. They tell me he has proved a great helper, he is on hand at all hours superintending the building himself, and everybody is delighted with him--!”

“Mmmm!” commented Opal looking at Marilyn through the fringes of her eyes. “You really are a wonder. And now that you are in New York I'm going to introduce you to our crowd. When can you come? Let's see. To-morrow is Sunday. Will you spend the evening with me to-morrow? I'll certainly show you a good time. We're going to motor to--”

But Lynn was shaking her head decidedly:

“I couldn't possibly spare a minute, thank you. I'm only out on an errand now. I'm needed every instant at the Home!”

“For mercy sake! Hire someone to take your place then. I want you. You'll be quite a sensation I assure you. Don't worry about clothes, if you haven't anything along. You can wear one of my evening dresses. We're almost of a size.”

“No,” said Lynn smiling, “It simply isn't possible. And anyway, don't you remember Sabbath Valley? I don't go out to play Sunday nights you know.”

“Oh, but this is New York! You can't bring Sabbath Valley notions into New York.”

Lynn smiled again:

“You can if they are a part of you,” she said, “Come in and see how nicely I'm fixed.”

Opal looked up at the beautiful building before which they were stopping.

“Why, where is this?” she asked astonished, “I thought you were down in the slums somewhere.”

“This is a Home for little orphan children kept up by the Salvation Army. Come in a minute and see it.”

Following a whim of curiosity Opal came in, and was led down a long hall to a great room where were a hundred tiny children sitting on little chairs in a big circle playing kindergarten games. The children were dressed in neat pretty frocks such as any beloved children would wear, with bright hair ribbons and neckties, and each with an individuality of its own. The room was sunny and bright, with a great playhouse at one end, with real windows and furniture in it and all sorts of toboggan slides and swings and kiddy cars and everything to delight the soul of a child. On a wide space between two windows painted on the plaster in soft wonderful coloring blended into the gray tint of the wall, there glowed a life size painting of the Christ surrounded by little children, climbing upon His knees and listening to Him as He smiled and talked to them.