Part 13

Mrs. McGowan so far recovered her health and her eyesight that she was able to take the greater share of the household cares upon herself, thus leaving Mrs. Thorpe and Margaret free to devote their time to the school. A strange school it was; there were no hard and fast rules; no one was compelled or commanded, but he who denies that love has power to rule denies because he has not love in his heart and is a stranger to its transfiguring power. It was, perhaps, more of a community of interest than a well-regulated school, but its influence was unmistakable.

Little children were amused and instructed and taught to be kind to each other. There were classes at regular hours that were given instruction from the standard text-books. Boys and girls who had never been to school and who were ashamed to go to Edgerly now, came here to learn to read and write. Girls brought their sewing and were given instruction in the art of cutting and making garments. Housewives were encouraged to come in and learn to cook. Daily it was impressed upon Mrs. Thorpe's mind that the harvest was ripe but the laborers were few. She did each day all that the limit of her strength allowed, but she carried no burdens and permitted herself no load of care. The work was hers, her heart and soul were in it; it strengthened her and put heart and zest into her life.

In the evening after her day's work was done she often spent an hour with Jamie, teaching and amusing him. She felt strangely drawn to the unfortunate child, and often talked to him about her work and related to him any pleasing incident that occurred during the day.

The boy had never attempted to walk, had never stood upon his feet. Dr. Eldrige Jr. had taken a special interest in him and had done much toward removing his physical deformity and freeing him from pain. He still had hopes that continued treatment would enable him to walk, but all his efforts to get him on his feet had so far proved futile.

Mrs. Thorpe was sitting in the gloaming one evening talking to the boy. He sat in his invalid's chair facing a flaming, fire-like cloud, the trailing garment of the setting sun.

"Please sing for me to-night, Mrs. Thorpe," he said. "I love to hear you sing while I sit here and watch the glory cloud fade out of the sky."

Mrs. Thorpe went to the piano that had been hers from the days of her girlhood and let her hands wander over the keys, recalling snatches of song and old, half-forgotten melodies.

Mrs. McGowan came into the room and seated herself in the easy chair that had been set apart for her. She leaned her head back against the cushion and closed her eyes, and a sense of peace and blessing welled up in her heart. She had seen many hard places in life and their influence had lingered with her. But to-night she had a peculiar feeling as of all her cares rolling from her and only that which was glad and good remained, and her spirit seemed light and free as in the days of her young womanhood, before care and trouble called her.

Mrs. Thorpe ceased the desultory snatches of song and melody and, turning the leaves of her song-book, she came to a song especially dear to her. Her voice was sweet and low, and when she sang her soul poured forth the joy of her spirit, and all that stood between her and her heart's happiness seemed to recede and slip away from her.

The low, sweet strains of the instrument rose and fell in pleasing cadence, and the tender, pleading voice floated out on the soft evening air.

Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh, When the tired waketh, and the shadows flee, Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight, Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee.

The words came to Mrs. McGowan like a confirmation of that which her heart had felt, and she seemed to feel the ever presence of infinite Love. An intensity of feeling swept over her, an ecstasy of peace and joy that seemed almost pain, so sure and keen it was. She did not move nor stir; she felt that she scarcely breathed.

Margaret, looking at her mother, saw the glory of the sunset reflected on her quiet face. How peaceful and quiet it was; how strangely still, as though it was the glory divine that rested there.

With an indescribable feeling in her heart, half worship, half wonder, she turned instinctively to Jamie and saw that his eyes had left the flaming west and were fixed upon Mrs. Thorpe's face. His lips were parted, his eyes aglow, his thin, white face eager with unspoken desire, and--was it the sunset that touched his yellow curls, transforming them into a crown of light?

Alone with Thee, amid the seeming shadows, The solemn hush of being newly born, Alone with Thee, in breathless adoration, In the calm dew and freshness of the morn.

Margaret, watching the boy, felt her awe and wonder growing upon her. His slight body inclined forward as though in waiting expectation. A warm glow had come to his cheeks and there was a strange light in his eyes.

And still the low, sweet words flowed on.

So shall it ever be in that bright morning, When Divine sense bids ev'ry shadow flee, And in that hour fairer than daylight dawning, Remains the glorious thought I am with Thee.

Quietly, without seeming effort, the boy slid from his chair and, steadily, erect, he crossed the room and stood by Mrs. Thorpe's side. The red glory encircled him and the pleading melody seemed to fold him about, hold and sustain him.

Margaret, as though fearful that she was looking upon something too sacred for mortal vision, covered her face with her hands and a quivering sob fell from her lips.

Mrs. McGowan sat erect, and instantly her eyes sought the boy's chair; she arose in consternation. Then in the waning red light she saw him standing by Mrs. Thorpe's side. A great trembling seized her; but amid her confusion of thought, before words came to her, she was conscious that a prescience of this thing that had happened had been with her since she first came into the room.

"Jamie!" she cried, "oh, Jamie, Jamie!" She was by his side, her arms about him. "My child, my child! That I have lived to see the goodness of the Lord! That I have lived to see this blessed day!"

The song had ended, and with a quivering note the music ceased. Mrs. Thorpe turned and confronted the mother and child and at once comprehended the meaning of what she saw.

"Christ is the Healer Divine!" she cried, and she kissed the boy's white brow and clustering curls.

Margaret knelt beside them, and her tears flowed unrestrained. "Little brother, little brother!" she said, "cured by the great Physician!"

The boy threw his arms about her neck. "I can walk, Margy, I can walk! But why do you cry, Margy?--mother, Mrs. Thorpe--you are not surprised--you believed--the Lord has promised--don't you know? And I believed--I truly did believe!"

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*THE HEART'S DESIRE*

At the approach of cold weather Mrs. Thorpe was obliged to close the school, but she and Margaret worked among the people during the winter and were rewarded by the fact that there was less suffering and sickness than there had been the year before.

Some of the older boys and girls came to Mrs. Thorpe's cottage for instruction, and prepared to enter the Edgerly school in the spring. The classes in sewing and cooking were also continued, although necessarily on a reduced scale.

In the spring when the school was again opened there was no difficulty in arousing interest and enthusiasm. The garden lots were in great demand, and the children begged for a corner for flowers. The vines that had been cared for and trained the year before now climbed about the posts and columns and transformed the old Resort into a mass of greenery and rioting bloom.

The sweet summer days drew on with golden sunshine and lavish promise, and the Flat received something of Nature's benediction. Throughout the summer Mrs. Thorpe and Margaret continued their work. Day by day they bound the sheaves; day by day they saw dear smiles break on childish faces and light dawn where darkness had reigned before.

Yet there were times when the magnitude of the work arose before Mrs. Thorpe and appeared to her like a Red sea in her path. The ignorance and immorality, the poverty and the want, the small, poorly built homes and lack of order and law massed themselves into a rolling sea which she could see no way around and no way through unless the Lord of Hosts should cleave the waters for her. But with characteristic faith she resolved that should the command ever come to her "To lift up thy rod and stretch out thine hand over the sea and divide it," she would be ready to obey. And for her there was consolation in the thought that her work had come to her with no uncertain appeal; she had sought it and it had found her. She loved it with her heart and soul, this work of hers, and stripped of its gruesome exterior, beneath the sackcloth of poverty and misfortune, the loving, throbbing heart of it responded to her.

The long summer days slipped by and the frost of autumn was again in the air. Red and yellow leaves fluttered down from the trees, sported with the winds, and lay in garlands along the streets and pathways. Mrs. Thorpe and Margaret left the school together at the close of one blue, balmy day; but at the gate they parted.

"I shall not go directly home," Margaret said. "I am going for a walk, over to Cedar Brook, perhaps; I shall be back before dark."

"Very well, my dear," Mrs. Thorpe replied. "The walk will do you good, no doubt." She stood for a minute at the gate and watched the retreating figure. Many times of late she had seen the fire of the girl's spirit leap into the dark eyes; and all that day her heart had ached at the sight of the restless pain in the thin, dark face. Was the turbulent nature warring again?--the restlessness of her spirit not yet subdued?

"Keep my girl, dear God, keep my girl," she murmured, as she turned in at the gate. "Keep my dear, dear girl."

A man, gaunt and worn, with signs of recent illness upon his face, stepped out of one of the prosperous-looking, well-kept homes of Edgerly. His step was not so elastic as it once had been, but the face had lost none of its alertness, nor the eyes their keenness. He passed the Mayhew house; how familiar it looked. Not a tree or shrub seemed changed; he noticed the sweet-brier by the library window, and in fancy he could hear it tapping against the window-pane. Farther out he passed the home of Dr. Eldrige and saw the old doctor in an invalid's chair on the porch. He had heard the harrowing story of the old man's affliction, also some gruesome reports concerning it. That blood and froth oozed from his nostrils and mouth during his attacks, which contained a virus that poisoned all flesh that came in contact with it was supposed to be a fact; but that this poison exuded continually from his body was believed by most people to be an exaggeration of the case.

The next house was the home of Dr. Eldrige Jr. This was a cottage less pretentious than the house where the old doctor lived; but there were shrubs and flowers in the yard; the grass was well kept and vines grew over the door. A woman, partly screened by the greenery, was sitting on the porch rocking back and forth in a wicker chair, a woman with golden hair coiled about her head and soft, clustering curls about her face. And tenderly in her arms she was cradling a wee bit of a rosy child. Perhaps she was crooning a lullaby; the little one put out his hand, a little roseleaf hand, and the mother bent her head and laid her lips upon it.

The man, in passing, saw the mother and child, and his face lighted with a smile. During his absence his friends had kept him informed about the happenings at home. He knew that the woman with the crown of golden hair was married; his sister had written him about it at the time, and he remembered now that the news had brought him no sadness and no regret, but that in his heart he had been glad that it was so. And as he went on his way his thoughts went back to that far-away foreign land, to an island of the sea where he had been when this letter of his sister's reached him. For weeks he, with his regiment, had been in the deep heart of a forest and sometimes there were marshes to cross and streams to ford and their beds at night was the damp, black ground. In fancy it all came back to him now: the dusky natives with their scant raiment; the towering forests with their weird majesty, and the call and cry of the wild creatures that inhabited them; the smell of the reeking mould, where year after year the decaying mass of vegetation had not been disturbed; the reedy marshes where all through the lonesome nights the wind sighed and moaned in the long marsh grass.

And there in that sun-kissed, tropical land, where the stars came out at night, calm and familiar as in his native land, as he stretched his weary limbs on his blanket for his night's repose, sometimes a cool hand would be laid on his brow and a sense of peace and rest would steal over him, and then, sometimes, in the mist and clinging darkness a face would appear before his vision, and it was not the fair face of the woman with the shining golden hair, but a dark, slender face with great, dark eyes burning into his soul; pain and pleading and the anguish of a woman's heart were written there. And once on a misty night, when the darkness was thick and heavy with moisture and all the moaning forest was dripping wet, a white circle was outlined in the blackness and a slight, supple form glided close to him and knelt beside him in the mist and dripping rain; the thin fingers that he remembered so well were clasped in anguish and the face was wet as the dripping foliage about him--wet with a woman's tears. All the heart within him rose in anguish to meet her, and he would have given his life and soul to take her in his arms and soothe the remorse and despair from her anguished face; but when he put out his hand to touch her, a great fear came over her and she recoiled from him and shrank and shuddered in the darkness and was gone.

"Margaret!" he cried, and his heart broke within him--"Margaret!" The cry sounded dully through the heavy silence and a comrade partly awoke and asked him why he was moaning and calling in the night.

The man, with his thoughts still partly in the past and partly on the familiar objects about him, passed on through the streets of Edgerly and slowly, as one who toils, he climbed the incline up to the church. He seated himself on the church steps to rest for a time, and then perhaps he would go back--or perhaps--but his thoughts again became reminiscent; the spirit of the past was with him. His mind went over the long weeks spent in the hospital, where the doctors had pronounced his case hopeless and the nurses believed that he must die. Long, weary days he had lain on his bed of pain, and in his heart waged open rebellion against the power that held him there; then for many, many days he lay, too weak to struggle, too helpless to care. Down into the dark valley where the air was damp and dank, where gruesome things, weird and fantastic, glided noiselessly among the shadows--shadows ever growing deeper, darker, closer--down in the dark valley he left the last remnant of his vaunted power and felt himself a child--just a child--with the Everlasting Arms, the abiding, sustaining force of the universe, about him. And like a gnarled and cankered plant that the gardener cuts to the root that it may put forth a more vigorous and healthful growth, little by little he came again into the sunshine, and a new heaven and a new earth opened before him.

The great purpose of God is absolute in the universe; it reaches out, covers and enfolds the purposes of man as the shades of night cover and enfold the earth at eventide. All the struggling, sin-tossed creatures of earth are folded tenderly close to the great heart of God; yet our vain imaginings and foolish desires often take us a long and weary way, over mountains and vale and sea, before we lift up our eyes and know that God is love. When passion has burned itself out, when lust is dead, when the human is crucified and laid in the grave to rise again divine; when all the mocking demons of false belief and evil thought are rebuked and sent cowering from before our consciousness, then the soul comes into its own and the Kingdom of Heaven is ours.

Margaret was seated on a ledge of rock by the brook. Her eyes were strained far off to the dim blue hills in the distance; her heart was torn with restless pain, and her life's hunger was in her face, but her soul was anchored safe and secure.

"Expiation!" she murmured. "Dear God, only keep me from day to day--keep me--keep your child." Softly over her memory floated a fragment of the words that Mrs. Thorpe had read that morning: "He that keeps thee will not slumber."

The brook babbled at her feet and the curious droning voices of the woodland came to her. Every sense was alive; the wild seclusion of the place appealed to the turbulent passion within her, its peace and beauty enthralled her.

"Give unto me the strength of the towering forest pines," she whispered, "the humility of the woodland flowers, the steadfastness of the mist-hung hills."

A squirrel, intent upon his winter's store, was making little journeys from an acorn-filled treetop to his home at the tree's gnarled root; from the woods came the muffled drumming of a partridge. The call of a bird-note, faint in the distance, the nearby chirp of a cricket and the whispering of the wind in the treetops mingled with the low, vague sounds of the forest and blended into a symphony soft and sweet, then weird and haunting, as the falling of a leaf or the snapping of a twig broke the harmony.

The girl, with her eyes on the far-away hills, was bound by the spell of it all; yet to her finer sense there was wafted from the soft, thrilling melody and the fluttering breath of the forest a knowledge, vague, evanescent, yet so quickening and compelling that the past, the future, the present--life itself--trembled before it. A shower of leaves scattered by the provident squirrel fell at her feet; a twig snapped sharply and there was a rustling sound in the path beside her. But she did not move nor stir, and her eyes did not leave the hilltops--but she knew--she could not fail to know his presence, and when he came to her side, and stood close beside her, she shrank and shuddered, and yet her heart cried out with the exquisite pain of it.

"Margaret," he said, "Margaret, I have come over land and across seas. Have you no welcome for me? No word nor look?"

He had left the church and passed through the crooked, unkept street of the Flat and on past the old Resort out to Cedar Brook. Exhausted with his long walk, he seated himself on the ledge of rock. Margaret sank down on the soft, clinging moss beside the rock and buried her face in her hands.

"Have you no word for me, Margaret? After all this time, not one word for me?" But he did not touch her; he dared not lay his hand on her. And she made no reply nor raised her face to his until she had gained complete control of herself; then she arose and stood before him.

He had heard of her reformation; he expected to find her changed, but he was not prepared for that which had had its birth and growth since he last saw her; and in this first moment of their meeting no other characteristic seemed so patent to him. He regarded her in silence. Here was the girl that he had known, the passionate, turbulent Margaret, but blended with her, permeating her personality, guarding and protecting her, was this other self--the ideal enshrined in his heart. Whence had she obtained this unnamable quality which, unvoiced and without conscious effort, aroused the reverence in his manhood? Always before he had controlled her, dominated her, often against her will by his superior force; now her personality, her selfhood stood out before him, silent yet indomitable, subtle, intangible, yet absolute. Reverently he extended his hand to her, and his voice was deep with pleading.

"Margaret, speak to me, all unworthy though I am to hear your voice--trust me, though I did so abuse your girlish trust--forgive me, forgive me and let me prove myself to you."

She took his proffered hand and looked unfalteringly into his eyes.

"You should not take all the blame," she said. "I, too, need to be forgiven."

He held her hand between his palms, then raised it to his lips.

"Margaret," he said, "you are the only woman I have ever loved."

"Max!" The word fell from her lips like a sob. "Max!"

He drew her to him and kissed the dark hair where it lay smooth against her forehead.

"Will you be my wife, Margaret, my loved and honored wife?"

Her eyes scanned his face; not a line of pain, not a mark of suffering escaped her. All his struggles, his rebellion, his victories, and all the soul within him lay bare before her deep-seeing eyes. She laid her hand on his face, that dear face so intense and strong, and wondered keenly in how many ages, how many worlds, how many lives, she had known him.

The squirrel, disturbed by their presence, stopped midway on the tree trunk and chattered noisily; again the drumming of the partridge and the woodland voices blended, now rich and full in a glad song of triumph, praise, victory.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*"WHERE IS YOUR FAITH?"*

Max and Margaret were quietly married in Mrs. Thorpe's little parlor. They made their home in a comfortable, roomy cottage which Max erected on the outskirts of the Flat not far from the old Resort.

Now, as never before, Max devoted himself to his business affairs and took stock of the amount of his wealth. He was part owner of a manufacturing plant in Edgerly, and before the year was out he had sold his interest and announced his intention of building a factory on the Flat. From the man Bolton he obtained possession of the Flat district. To tear down the old, decaying buildings, to clear the ground of rubbish and lay off straight, square lots and build comfortable cottages was no small task; but all this was accomplished while the new factory was building. In planning and executing this great amount of work Max found Mrs. Thorpe's counsel and advice invaluable. There were many interests to be considered and some obstacles to be overcome, and her knowledge of the work and acquaintance with the people helped him to plan wisely and to use judgment and discretion in his work.

He called at the school for Margaret one evening at the close of her day's work, and lingered for a talk with Mrs. Thorpe.

"I think we shall be able to have a regular school here another year," he said.

"I am sure all good things will come to the people here in time," she said. "What a world ours would be if every such place as this Flat had such a friend as you, Max."

"The work is yours, Mrs. Thorpe; you must know that it is all yours," he replied; and then after a moment's silence he continued: "There are emotions that words seem to degrade, this is why I have never attempted to put into words my admiration for what you have done for the people on this Flat, nor my gratitude for what you have done for me. But, after all, it is not protestations, desires nor words, but the way he lives his life that proves a man. My work among these people, my life devoted to the alleviation of needy humanity, these must be my spokesmen, to you first, Mrs. Thorpe, and to my fellow men; these must testify to the transformation of the man, and stand as a monument to his faith, a thank-offering to his God."