273CHAPTER XXIV
“Guardy Lud” was the first visitor, just for a night and a day. He had come East for a flying business trip, and could not pass by his beloved wards without at least a glimpse. He dropped down into their midst quite unexpectedly the night before college closed, and found them with a bevy of young people at the supper-table, who opened their ranks right heartily, and took him in. He sat on the terrace in the moonlight with them afterwards, joking, telling them stories, and eating chocolates with the rest. When they gathered about the piano for a sing, he joined in with a good old tenor, surprising them all by knowing a lot of the songs they sang.
After the young people were gone he lingered, wiping his eyes, and saying, “Bless my soul!” thoughtfully. He told Julia Cloud over and over again how more than pleased he was with what she had done for his children, and insisted that her salary should be twice as large. He told her she was a big success, and should have more money at her command to do with as she pleased, and that he wanted the children to have a larger allowance during the coming year. Allison had spoken of his work among the young people of the church, and he felt that it would have been the wish of their father and mother both that the young people should give liberally toward church-work. He would see that a sum was set aside in the bank for their274use in any such plans as they might have for their Christian Endeavor work.
They talked far into the night, for he had to hear all the stories of all their doings, and every minute or two one or the other of the children would break in to tell something about the other or to praise their dear Cloudy Jewel for her part in everything.
The next day they took him everywhere and showed him everything about the college and the place, introduced him to their favorite professors, at least those who were not already gone on their vacations, and took him for a long drive past their favorite haunts. Then he had to meet Jane Bristol and Howard Letchworth. Julia Cloud was greatly relieved and delighted when he set his approval upon both these young people as suitable friends for the children.
“They are both poor and earning their own living,” said Julia Cloud, feeling that in view of the future and what it might contain she wanted to be entirely honest, that the weight of responsibility should not rest too heavily upon her.
“All the better for that, no doubt,” said Guardy Lud thoughtfully, watching Jane Bristol’s sweet smile as she talked over some committee plans with Allison. “I should say they were about as wholesome a couple of young people as could be found to match your two. Just keep ’em to that kind for a year or two more, and they’ll choose that kind for life. I’m entirely satisfied with the work you’re doing, Miss Cloud. I couldn’t have found a better mother for ’em if I’d searched heaven, I’m sure.”
And so Julia Cloud was well content to go on with her beloved work as home-maker.
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But the day after Guardy Lud left, just as the three were sitting together over a great State map of roads, perfecting their plans for a wonderful vacation, which was to include a brief visit to Ellen Robinson at Sterling, a noisy Ford drew up at the door, and there was Ellen Robinson herself, with the entire family done up in linen dust-coats and peering curiously, half contemptuously, at the strange pink-and-white architecture of the many-windowed “villa.”
Allison arose and went down the terrace to do the honors, showing his uncle where to drive in and put his car in the little garage, helping his aunt and the little cousins to alight.
“For mercy’s sake, Julia, what a queer house you’ve got!” said Ellen the minute she arrived, gazing disapprovingly at the many windows and the brick terrace. “I should think ’twould take all your time to keep clean. What’s the idea in making a sidewalk of your front porch? Looks as if some crazy person had built it. Couldn’t you find anything better than this in the town? I saw some real pretty frame houses with gardens as we came through.”
“We like this very well,” said Julia Cloud with her old patient smile and the hurt flush that always accompanied her answers to her sister’s contempt. “Cherry doesn’t seem to mind washing windows. She likes to keep them bright. We find it very comfortable and light and airy. Come inside, and see how pretty it is.”
Once inside, Ellen Robinson was somewhat awed with the strangeness of the rooms and the beauty of the furnishings, but all she said after a prolonged survey was: “Um! No paper on the wall! That’s276queer, isn’t it? And the chimney right in the room! It looks as though they didn’t have plaster enough to go around.”
Leslie took the children up-stairs to wash their faces and freshen up, and Julia Cloud led her sister to the lovely guest-room that was always in perfect order.
“Well, you certainly have things well fixed,” said Ellen grudgingly. “What easy little stairs! It’s like child’s play going up. I suppose that’s one consolation for having such a little playhouse affair to live in; you don’t have to climb up far. Well, we’ve come to stay two days if you want us. Herbert said he could spare that much time off, and we’re going to stop in Thayerville on the way back and see his folks a couple of days; and that’ll be a week. Now, if you don’t want us, say so, and we’ll go on to-night. It isn’t as if we couldn’t go when we like, you know.”
But Julia Cloud was genuinely glad to see her sister, and said so heartily enough to satisfy even so jealous a nature as Ellen’s; and so presently they were walking about the pretty rooms together, and Ellen was taking in all the beauties of the home.
“And this is your bedroom!” she paused in the middle of the rose-and-gray room, and looked about her, taking in every little detail with an eye that would put it away for remembrance long afterwards. “Well, they certainly have feathered your nest well!” she declared as her eyes rested on the luxury everywhere. “Though I don’t like that painted furniture much myself,” she said as she glanced at the French gray enamel of the bed; “but I suppose it’s all right if that’s the kind of thing you like. Was it some of their old furniture from California?”
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“Oh, no,” said Julia Cloud quickly, the pretty flush coming in her cheeks. “Everything was bought new except a few little bits of mahogany down-stairs. We had such fun choosing it, too. Don’t you like my furniture? I love it. I hovered around it again and again; but I didn’t dream of having it in my room, it was so expensive. It’s real French enamel, you know, and happens to be a craze of fashion at present. I thought it was ridiculous to buy it, but Leslie insisted that it was the only thing for my room; and those crazy, extravagant children went and bought it when I had my head turned.”
“You don’t say!” said Ellen Robinson, putting a hard, investigating finger on the foot-board. “Well, it does seem sort of smooth. But I never thought my cane-seat chairs were much. Guess I’ll have to get ’em out and varnish ’em. What’s that out there, a porch?”
Julia Cloud led her out to the upper porch with its rush rugs, willow chairs, and table, and its stone wall crowned with blooming plants and trailing vines. She showed her the bird’s nest in the tree overhead.
“Well,” said Ellen half sourly, “I suppose there’s no chance of your getting sick of it all and coming back, and I must say I don’t blame you. It certainly is a contrast from the way you’ve lived up to now. But these children will grow up and get married, and then where will you be? I suppose you have chances here of getting married, haven’t you?”
The color flamed into Julia Cloud’s cheeks in good earnest now.
“I’m not looking for such chances, Ellen,” she said decidedly. “I don’t intend ever to marry. I’m happier as I am.”
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“Yes, but after these children are married what’ll you do? Who’ll support you?”
“Don’t let that worry you, Ellen, There are other children, and I love to mother them. But as far as support is concerned I’m putting away money in the bank constantly, more than I ever expected to have all together in life; and I shall not trouble anybody for support. However, I hope to be able to work for a good many years yet, and what I’m doing now I love. Shall we go down-stairs?”
“Have Allison and Leslie got any sweethearts yet?” she asked pryingly as she followed her sister down the stairs. “I suppose they have by this time.”
“They have a great many young friends, and we have beautiful times together. But you won’t see many of them now. College closed last week.”
For two long days Allison and Leslie devoted themselves religiously to their relatives, taking them here and there in the car, showing them over the college and the town, and trying in all the ways they knew to make them have a good time; but when at last the two days and two nights were over, and the Robinsons had piled into their car and started away with grudging thanks for the efforts in their behalf, Leslie sat on the terrace musingly; and at last quite shyly she said:
“Cloudy, dear, what makes such a difference in people? Why are some so much harder to make have a good time than others? Why, I feel as if I’d lived years since day before yesterday, and I don’t feel as if they’d half enjoyed anything. I really wanted to make them happy, for I felt as if we’d taken so much from them when we took you; but I just seemed to fail, everything I did.”
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Julia Cloud smiled.
“I don’t know what it is, dear, unless it is that some people have different ideals and standards from other people, and they can’t find their pleasure the same way. Your Aunt Ellen always wanted to have a lot of people around, and liked to go to tea-parties and dress a great deal; and she never cared for reading or study or music. But I think you’re mistaken about their not having had a good time. They appreciated your trying to do things for them, I know, for Aunt Ellen said to me that you were a very thoughtful girl. And the children enjoyed the victrola, especially the funny records. Herbert liked it that Allison let him drive his car when they went out. They enjoyed the eating, too, I know, even though Ellen did say she shouldn’t care to have her meals cooked by a servant; she should want to besurethey were clean.”
“Did she truly say that, Cloudy?” twinkled Leslie. “Isn’t she funny?” They both broke down and laughed.
“But I’m glad they came, Cloudy. I truly am. It was nice to play with the children, and nice to have a home to show our relatives, and nicest of all to have them see you––how beautiful you are at the head of the house.”
“Dear, flattering child!” said Julia Cloud lovingly. “It is so good to know you feel that way! But now here comes Allison, and we must finish up our plans for the trip and get ready to close the house for the summer.”
They had a wonderful trip to mountains and lakes and seaside, staying as long as they pleased wherever they liked, and everywhere making friends and having280good times; but toward the end of their trip the children began to get restless for the little pink-and-white cottage and home.
“We really ought to get back and see how the Christian Endeavor Society is getting along,” said Allison one day as they glided through a little village that reminded them of home. “I don’t see any place as nice as our town, do you, Cloudy? And I don’t feel quite right anywhere but home on Sunday, do you? For, really, all the Christian Endeavor societies I’ve been to this summer acted as if their members were all away on vacations and they didn’t care whether school kept or not.”
And so they went home to begin another happy winter. But the very first day there came a rift in their happiness in the shape of the new professor of chemistry, a man about Julia Cloud’s age, whom Ellen Robinson had met on her visit to Thayerville, and told about her sister. Ellen had suggested that maybe he could get her sister to take him to board!
To this day Julia Cloud has never decided whether Ellen really thought Julia would take a professor from the college to board, or whether she just sent him there as a joke. There was a third solution, which Julia Cloud kept in the back of her mind and only took out occasionally with an angry, troubled look when she was very much annoyed. It was that Ellen was still anxious to have her sister get married, and she had taken this way to get her acquainted with a man whom she thought a “good match”. If Julia had been sure that this idea had entered into her sister’s thoughts, she might have slammed the door in Professor Armitage’s face that night when he had the audacity to come and ask to be taken into Cloudy Villa as a boarder.
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“Why, the very idea!” said Leslie with snapping eyes. “As if we wanted amanalways around! No, indeed!Horrors!Wouldn’t that beawful?”
But Professor Armitage, like everybody else who came once to Cloudy Villa, liked it, and begged a thousand pardons for presuming, but came again and again, until even the children began to like him in a way, and did not in the least mind having him around.
But the day came at last, about the middle of the winter, or nearer to the spring, when Leslie and Allison began to realize that Professor Armitage came to see their Cloudy Jewel, and they met in solemn conclave to talk it over.
282CHAPTER XXV
It was out on a lonely road in the car that they had chosen to go for their conference, where there was no chance of their being interrupted; and they whirled away through the town and out to the long stretch of whiteness in glum silence, the tears welling to overflow in Leslie’s eyes.
At last they were past the bounds where they were likely to meet acquaintances, and Leslie broke forth.
“Do you really think it’s true that we’ve got to give her up? Are you sure it has come to that, Allison? It seems perfectly preposterous!”
“Well, you know if she cares for him,” said Allison gravely, “we’ve no right to hold on to her and spoil her life. You know it was different when it was old Pill Bowman. This is a real man.”
“Care for him! Howcouldshe possibly care for him?” snapped Leslie. “Why, he has a wart on his nose, and he snuffs! I never thought of it before till last night, but he does; he snuffs every little while! Ugh!”
“Why, I thought you liked him, Leslie!”
“So I did until I thought he wanted Cloudy, but I can’t see that! I hate him. I always thought he was about the nicest man in the faculty except the dean, and he’s married; but since I got onto the idea that he wants Cloudy I can’t bear the sight of him. I went way round the block to-day to keep from meeting him. He isn’t nice enough for Cloudy, Allison.”
“What’s the matter with him? Warts and snuffing283don’t count if you love a person. I like him. I like him ever so much, and I think he’s lonesome. He’d appreciate a home like ours. You know what a wonderful wife Cloudy would make.”
Leslie fairly screamed.
“O Allison! To think you have come to it that you’rewillingto give up our lovely home, and have Cloudy go off, and we go the dear knows where, and have to board at the college or something.”
“Some day we’ll be getting married, too, I suppose,” said Allison speculatively.
His sister flashed a wise, curious look up at him, and studied his face a minute. Then a shade came over her own once more.
“Yes, I s’poseyouwill, pretty soon. You’re almost done college. But poor me! I’ll have to board for two whole years more, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get married. The man I like might not like me. And you may be very sure I’m not going to live on any sister-in-law, no matter how much I love her, so there!”
Allison smiled, and put his arm protectingly around his sister.
“There, kid, you needn’t get excited yet awhile. It’s me and thee always, no matter how many wives I have; and you won’t ever have to board. But, kid, I’m not willing to give up our house and Cloudy and all; I’m just thinking that maybe weoughtto, you know. I guess we’re not pigs, are we? Cloudy has had a mighty hard life, and missed a lot of things out of it.”
“Well, isn’t she having ’em now, I’d like to know? I think Cloudy likes us, and wants to stay with us. I think she’s just loved the house and everything about it.”
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“Yes, I think so, too; but this is something bigger than anything else in the world if she really cares. Don’t you think we ought to give her the chance?”
“I s’pose so, if she really wants it; but how can we find out?”
“That’s it; just give her the chance. When Armitage comes in, just sneak out and stay away, and let her have a little time alone with him. It isn’t right, us kids always sticking around. We ought to go out or up-stairs or something.”
Leslie was still for a long time; and then she heaved a big sigh, and said, “All right!” in a very small voice. As they sped on their way toward home, there was hardly a word more between them.
It was after supper that very night that Leslie, having almost frightened Julia Cloud out of her happy calm by refusing to eat much supper, went off to bed with a headache as soon as the professor came in. Allison, too, said he had to go up to the college for a book he had forgotten; and for the first time since his advent the professor had a clear evening ahead of him with Julia Cloud, without anybody else by.
But Julia Cloud was distraught, and gave him little attention at first, with an attitude of listening directed toward the floor above. Finally she gently excused herself for a moment, and hurried up to Leslie’s room, where she found a very damp and tearful Leslie attempting to appear wonderfully calm.
“What is it, dear child? Has something happened?” she begged. “I know you must be sick, or you wouldn’t have gone to bed so early. Please tell me what is the matter. I shall send for the doctor at once if you don’t.”
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Then Leslie, knowing that her brother would blame her if she spoiled the test, sat up bravely, and tried to laugh, assuring her aunt that she was only tired from studying and a little stiff from playing hockey too long, and she thought it would be better to rest to-night so she could be all right in the morning.
Julia Cloud, only half reassured by this unprecedented carefulness for her health on the part of the usually careless Leslie, went down abstractedly to her professor, and wished he would go home. He was well into the midst of a most heartfelt and touching proposal of marriage before she realized what was coming.
His voice was low and pleading; and Leslie, lying breathless above, not deigning to try to listen, yet painfully aware of the change of tones, was in tortures. Then Julia Cloud’s pained, gentle tones, firmly replying, and more entreaty, with brief, simple answers. Most unexpectedly, before an hour passed Leslie heard the front door open and the professor go out and pass slowly down the walk. Her heart was in her throat, beating painfully. What had happened? A quick intuition presented a possible solution. Cloudy would not leave them while they were in college, and had bid him wait, or perhaps turned him down altogether! How dear of her! And yet with quick revulsion of spirit she began to pity the poor, lonely man who could not have Cloudy when he loved her.
A moment later Julia Cloud came softly up the stairs and tiptoed into her own room, and, horror of horrors! Leslie could hear her catch her breath like soft sobbing! Did Cloudy care, then, and had she turned down a man she loved in order to stick to them and keep her promise to their guardian?
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Quick as a flash she was out of bed and pattering barefoot into Julia Cloud’s room.
“Cloudy! Cloudy! You are crying! What is the matter? Quick! Tell me, please!”
Julia Cloud drew the girl down beside her on the bed, and nestled her lovingly and close.
“It’s nothing, dear. It’s only that I had to hurt a good man. It always makes me sorry to have to hurt any one.”
Leslie nestled closer, smoothed her aunt’s hair, and tried to think what to say; but nothing came. She felt shy about it. Finally she put her lips up, and touched her aunt’s cheek, and whispered, “Don’t cry, Cloudy dear!” and just then she heard Allison’s key in the lock. She sprang up, drew her bath-robe about her, and ran down to whisper to him on the stairs what had happened.
“Well, it’s plain she cares,” whispered Allison sadly, gravely, turning his face away from the light. “I say, Les, we ought to do something. We ought to tell her it’s all right for her to go ahead.”
“I can’t, Allison; I’d break down and cry, I know I would. I tried up there just now, but the words wouldn’t come.”
“Well, then, let’s write her a letter! And we’ll both sign it.”
“All right. You write it,” choked Leslie. “I’ll sign it.”
They slipped over to the desk in the porch room, and Leslie cuddled into a big willow cushioned chair, and shivered and sniffed while Allison scratched away at a sheet of paper for a few minutes. Then he handed it to her to read and sign. This was what he had written:
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“Dear Cloudy: We see just how it is, and we want you to know that we are willing. Of course it’ll be awfully hard to lose you; but it’s right, and we wouldn’t be happy not to have you be happy; and we want you to go ahead and not think of us. We’ll manage all right somehow, and we love you and want to see you happy.”
Leslie dropped a great tear on the page when she signed it; but she took the soft, embroidered sleeve of her nightgown, and dabbled it dry, so that it didn’t blur the writing; and then together they slipped up-stairs. Leslie went into her aunt’s room in the dark, and in a queer little voice said, “Cloudy, dear, here’s a note for you.” Laying it in her hand, Leslie hurried into her own room, shut her door softly, and hid in the closet so that Julia Cloud would not hear her sob.
A moment later Julia Cloud came into the hall with a dear, glad ring in her voice, and called: “Children! Where are you? Come here quick, you darlings!” and they flocked into her arms like lost ducklings.
“You blessed darlings!” she said, laughing and crying at the same time. “Did you think I wanted to get married and go away from you forever? Well, you’re all wrong. I’ll never do that. You may get married and go away from me; but I’ll never go away from you till you send me, and I won’t ever get married to any one on this earth at any time! Do you understand? I don’t want to get married,ever!”
They all went into Julia Cloud’s room then, and sat down with her on her couch, one on either side of her.
“Do you really mean it, Cloudy Jewel?” asked Leslie happily. “Youdon’t wantto get married, not even to that nice Professor Armitage?”
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“Look here! Leslie, you said he had a wart!” put in her brother.
“Now keep still, Allison. He was nice all the time; only I didn’t like him to want our Cloudy. He didn’t seem to be quite nice enough for her. He didn’t quite fit her. But if she wanted him–––”
“But I don’t, Leslie,” cried Julia Cloud in distress. “Ineverdid!”
“Are you really true, Cloudy, dear? You’re such a dear, unselfish Cloudy. How shall we ever quite be sure she isn’t giving him up just for us, Allison?”
“Children, listen!” said Julia Cloud, suddenly putting a quieting hand on each young hand in her lap. “I’ll tell you something I never told to a living soul.”
There was that in her voice that thrilled them into silence. It was as if she suddenly opened the door of her soul and let them look in on her real self as only God saw her. Their fingers tightened in sympathy as she went on.
“A long time ago––a great many years ago––perhaps you would laugh and think me foolish if you knew how many–––”
“Oh, no, Cloudy, never!” said Leslie softly; and Allison growled a dissenting note.
“Well––there was some one whom I loved––who died. That is all; only––I never could love anybody that way again. Marriage without a love like that is a desecration.”
“O Cloudy! We never knew–––” murmured Leslie.
“No one ever knew, dear. He was very young. We were both scarcely more than children. I was only fourteen–––”
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“O Cloudy! How beautiful! And you have kept it all these years! Won’t you––tell us just a little about it? I think it is wonderful; don’t you, Allison?”
“Yes, wonderful!” said Allison in that deep, full tone of his that revealed a man’s soul growing in the boy’s heart.
“There is very little to tell, dear. He was a neighbor’s son. We went to school together, and sometimes took walks on Saturdays. He rode me on his sled, and helped me fasten on my skates, and carried my books; and we played together when we had time to play. Then his people moved away out West; and he kissed me good-by, and told me he was coming back for me some day. That was all there was to it except a few little letters. Then they stopped, and one day his grandmother wrote that he had been drowned saving the life of a little child. Can you understand why I want to wait and be ready for him over there where he is gone? I keep feeling God will let him come for me when my life down here is over.”
There was a long silence during which the young hands gripped hers closely, and the young thoughts grew strangely wise with insight into human life and all its joys and sorrows. They were thinking out in detail just what their aunt had missed, the sweet things that every woman hopes for, and thinks about alone with God; of love, strong care, little children, and a home. She had missed it all; and yet she had its image in her heart, and had been true to her first thought of it all the years. Now, when it was offered her again, she would not give up the old love for a new, would not take what was left of life. She would wait till the morning broke and her boy met her on the other shore.
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Suddenly, as they thought, strong young arms encircled her, and held her close in a dear embrace.
“Then you’re ours, Cloudy, all ours, for the rest of down here, aren’t you?” half whispered Leslie.
“Yes, dear, as long as you need me––wantme,” she finished.
“We shall want you always, Cloudy!” said Allison in a clear man’s voice of decision. “Put that down forever, Cloudy Jewel. You are our mother from now on and we want you always.”
“That is dear,” said Julia Cloud; “but”––a resignation in her voice––“some day you will marry, and then you will not need me any more and I shall find something to do somewhere.”
Two fierce young things rose up in arms at once.
“Put that right out of your head, Cloudy Jewel!” cried Leslie. “You shan’t say it again! If I thought any man could be mean enough not to feel as I do about you, I would never marry him; so there! I would never marry anybody!”
“My wife will love you as much as I do!” said Allison with conviction. “I shall never love anybody that doesn’t. You’ll see!”
And so with loving arms about her and tender words of fierce assertion they convinced her at last, and the bond that held them was only strengthened by the little tension it had sustained.
Professor Armitage came no more to the little pink-and-white house; but Julia Cloud was happy with her children, and they were content together. The happy days moved on.
“I don’t see how you get time for that Christian Endeavor Society of yours, Cloud,” said one of the291professors to Allison. “I hear you’re the moving spirit in it; yet you never fall down on your class work. How do you manage it? I’d like to put some of my other students onto your ways of planning.”
“Well, there’s all of Sunday, you know, professor,” answered Allison promptly. “I don’t give so very much more time, except a half-hour here and there to a committee meeting, or now and then a social on Friday night, when I’d otherwise be fooling, anyway. My sister and I cut out the dances, and put these social parties in their place.”
“But don’t you have to study on Sundays?”
“Neverdo!” was the quick reply. “Made it a rule when I started in here at this college, and haven’t broken it once, not even for examinations. I find I’m fresher for my work Monday morning when I make the Sabbathreal.”
The professor eyed him curiously.
“Well, that certainly is interesting,” he said. “I’ll have to try it. Though I don’t see how I’d quite manage it. I usually have to spend the whole Sunday correcting papers.”
“Save ’em up till early Monday morning, and come over to our Christian Endeavor meeting. See if it isn’t worth while, and then see how much more you can do Monday morning at five o’clock, when you’re really rested, than you could all day Sunday hacking at the same old job you’ve had all the week. I’ll look for you next Sunday night. So-long!” And with a courteous wave he was off with a lacrosse stick, gliding down the campus like a wild thing. The professor stood and watched him a moment, and then turned thoughtfully up the asphalt path, pondering.
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“They are a power in the college and in the community, that sister and brother,” he said. “I wonder why.”
Down at the church they wondered also as they came in crowds to the live Christian Endeavor meetings, and listened to the clear, ringing words of the young man who had been president before him; as they praises sounded by his admiring friends, especially the young man who had been president before him; as they saw the earnest spirit that went out to save, and had no social distinctions or classes to hinder the fraternal interest. The pastor wondered most of all, and thanked God, and told his wife that that Endeavor Society was making his church all over. He didn’t know but it had converted him again, too. The session wondered as it listened to the earnest, simple gospel sermons that the pastor now preached, and saw his zeal for bringing men to the service of Christ.
Oh, they pointed out the four young people, the Clouds, Jane Bristol, and Howard Letchworth, as the moving spirits in the work; and they admitted, some of them, that prayer had made the transformation, for there were not many of the original bunch of young people who by this time had not been fully trained to understand that if you wanted anything in the spiritual world you must take time and give energy to getting acquainted with God. But, if they could have gone with some spirit guide to find out the true secret of all the wonderful spiritual growth and power of that young people’s society, they must have looked in about Julia Cloud’s fireplace on Sabbath afternoon, and seen the four earnest young people with their Bibles, and Julia Cloud in the midst, spending the long, beautiful hours293in actual spiritual study of God’s word, and then kneeling and communing with God for a little while, all of them on intimate terms with God. They were actually learning to delight themselves in the Lord. It was no wonder that other people, even outside the church and the Christian Endeavor Society, were beginning to notice the difference in the four, just as they noticed the shining of Moses’s face when he came down from the mountain after communing with God.
Julia Cloud stood at the window of her rose-and-gray room one Sabbath evening after such an afternoon, watching the four children walk out into the sunset to their Christian Endeavor meeting, and smiled with a tender light in her eyes. She had come to call them herfourchildren in her heart now, for they all seemed to love and need her alike; and for many a month, though they seemed not yet openly aware of it, they had been growing more and more all in all to one another; and she was glad.
She watched them as they walked. Allison ahead with Jane, earnestly discussing something. Jane’s sweet, serious eyes looking up so trustfully to Allison, and he so tall and fine beside her; Leslie tripping along like a bird behind with Howard, and pointing out the colors in the sunset, which he watched only as they were reflected in her eyes.
294CHAPTER XXVI
Howard Letchworth settled himself comfortably by an open window in the 5.12 express and spread out the evening paper, turning, like any true college man, first to the sporting page. He was anxious to know how his team had come out in the season’s greatest contest with another larger college. He had hoped to be there to witness the game himself, and in fact the Clouds had invited him to go with them in their car, but unfortunately at the last minute a telegram came from a firm with whom he expected to be located during the summer, saying that their representative would be in the city that afternoon and would like to see him. Howard had been obliged to give up the day’s pleasure and see his friends start off without him. Now, his business over, he was returning to college and having his first minute of leisure to see how the game came out.
The train was crowded, for it was just at closing time and every one was in a rush to get home. Engrossed in his paper, he noticed none of them until someone dropped, or rather sprawled, in the seat beside him, taking far more room than was really necessary, and making a lot of fuss pulling up his trousers and getting his patent leather feet adjusted to suit him around a very handsome sole-leather suitcase which he crowded unceremoniously over to Howard’s side of the floor.
The intruder next addressed himself to the arrangement of a rich and striking necktie, and seemed to have295no compunctions about annoying his neighbor during the process. Howard glanced up in surprise as a more strenuous knock than before jarred his paper out of focus. He saw a young fellow of about his own age with a face that would have been strikingly handsome if it had not also been bold and conceited. He had large dark eyes set off by long curling black lashes, black hair that crinkled close to his head in satiny sleek sheen, well-chiselled features, all save a loose-hung, insolent lip that gave the impression of great self-indulgence and selfishness. He was dressed with a careful regard to the fashion and with evidently no regard whatever for cost. He bore the mark at once of wealth and snobbishness. Howard, in spite of his newly-acquired desire to look upon all men as brothers, found himself disliking him with a vehemence that was out of all proportion to the occasion.
“Don’t they have any pahlah cars on this road?”
The question was addressed to him in a calm, insolent tone as if he were a paid servitor of the road. He looked up amusedly and eyed the stranger pitingly:
“Not so as you’d notice it,” he remarked crushingly as he turned back to his paper. “People on this road too busy to use ’em.”
But the stranger did not crush easily:
“Live far out?” he asked, turning his big, bold eyes on his seatmate and calmly examining him from the toe of a well-worn shoe to the crown of a dusty old hat that Howard was trying to make last till the end of the season. When he had finished the survey his eyes travelled complacently back to his own immaculate attire, and his well-polished shoes fresh from the hands of the city station bootblack. With a well-manicured296thumb and finger he flecked an imaginary bit of dust from the knee of his trousers.
Howard named the college town brusquely.
“Ah, indeed!” Another survey brief and significant this time. “I don’t suppose you know any people at the college.” It was scarcely a question, more like a statement of a deplorable fact. Howard was suddenly amused.
“Oh, a few,” he said briefly. (He was just finishing his senior year rather brilliantly and his professors were more than proud of him.)
Another glance seemed to say: “In what capacity?” but the elegant youth finally decided to voice another question:
“Don’t happen to know a fellah by the name of Cloud, I suppose? Al Cloud?”
“I’ve met him,” said Howard with his eyes still on his paper.
“He’s from my State!” announced the youth with a puff of importance. “We live next door in California. He’s a regular guy, he is. Got all kinds of money coming to him. He’ll be of age in a month or two now, and then you’ll see him start something! He’s some spender,heis.”
Howard made no comment, but something in him revolted at the idea of talking over his friend in such company.
“I’ve got to hunt him up,” went on the young man, not noticing that his auditor appeared uninterested. “I’m to stay with him to-night. I was to send a telegram, but didn’t think of it till it was almost train time. Guess it won’t make much difference. The Clouds always used to keep open house. I suppose they have a swell place out here?”
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“Oh, it’s quite comfortable, I believe,” Howard turned over a page of the paper and fell to reading an article on the high price of sugar and the prospect of a fall.
“You ought to see their dump out in Cally. It’s some mansion, believe me! There wasn’t anything else in that part of the State to compare with it for miles around. And cahs! They had cahs to burn! The old man was just lousy with gold, you know; struck a rich mine years ago. His wife had a pile, too. Her father was all kinds of a millionaire and left every bit to her; and Al and his sister’ll get everything. Seen anything ofher? She ought to be a winner pretty soon. She was a peach when she was little. She’s some speedy kid! We used to play together, you know, and our folks sorta fixed it up we were just made for each other and all that sorta thing, you know––but I don’t know––I’m not going to be bound by any such nonsense, of course, unless I like. One doesn’t want one’s wife to be such an awfully good shot, fer instance, you know–––!”
A great anger surged up in Howard’s soul, and his jaw set with a fierce line that those who knew him well had learned to understand meant self-control under deep provocation. He would have liked nothing better than to surprise the insolent young snob with a well-directed blow in his pretty face that would have sent him sprawling in the aisle. His hands fairly twitched to give him the lesson that he needed, but he only replied with a slight inscrutable smile in one corner of his mouth:
“Itmightbe inconvenient forsome people.” There an aloofness in his tone that did not encourage298further remarks, but the young stranger was evidently not thin-skinned, or else he loved to hear himself babbling.
“I’m coming on heah, you know, to look this college ovah–––!” he drawled. “If it suits me, I may come heah next yeah. Got fired from three institutions out West for larking, and father thought I better go East awhile. Any fun doing out this way?”
“I suppose those that go to college looking for it can find it,” answered Howard noncommittally.
“Well––that’s what I’m looking for. That’s about all anybody goes to college for anyway, that and making a lot of friends. Believe me, it would be a beastly bore if it wasn’t for that. Al Cloud used to be a lively one. I’ll wager he’s into everything. See much of the college people down in town––do you?” He eyed his companion patronizingly. “S’pose you get in on some of the spoahts now and then?”
“Oh, occasionally,” said Howard with a twinkle in his eye. He was captain of the football team and forward in basket-ball, but it didn’t seem to be necessary to mention it.
“Any fellows with any pep in them out here? I suppose there must be or Al wouldn’t stay unless he’s changed. He used to keep things pretty lively. That’s one reason why I told dad I’d come out here. I like a place with plenty of ginger. It gets my goat to be among a lot of grinds and sissies! This is a co-ed college, isn’t it? That suits me all right if the girls have any pep and aren’t too straitlaced. Any place around here where you can go off and take a girl for a good dinner and a dash of life? I couldn’t stand for any good-little-boy stuff. Know any place around299here where you can get a drink of the real thing now and then, some place near enough to go joy-riding to, you know? I shall bring my cah of course–––! One can get away with a lot more stuff if they have their own cah, you know––especially where there’s girls. You can’t pull off any devilment if you have to depend on hired cahs. You might get caught. I suppose they have some pretty spicy times down at the frat rooms, don’t they? I understood the frats were mostly located down in the town.”
Howard suddenly folded his paper, looking squarely in the limpid eyes of his seatmate for the first time, with a cold, searching, subduing gaze.
“I really couldn’t say,” he answered coldly.
“Oh, I s’pose you’re not interested in that sort of thing, not being in college,” said the other insolently. “But Al Cloud’ll put me wise. He’s no grind, I’ll wager. He’s always in for a good time, and he’s such a good bluff he never gets found out. Now I, somehow, always get caught, even when I’m not the guilty one.”
The boy laughed unroariously as if it were a good joke, and his weak chin seemed to grow weaker in the process.
Howard was growing angry and haughty, but it was his way to be calm when excited. He did not laugh with the stranger. Instead, he waited until the joke had lost its amusement and then he turned soberly to the youth with as patronizing an air as ever the other had worn:
“Son, you’ve got another guess coming to you about Allison Cloud. You’ll have the surprise of your young life when you see him, I imagine. Why, he’s been an A student ever since he came to this college,300and he has the highest average this last semester of any man in his class. As for bluff, he’s as clear as crystal, and a prince of a fellow; and if you’re looking for a spot where you can bluff your way through college you better seek elsewhere. Bluff doesn’t go down inourcollege. We have student government, and I happen to be chairman of the student exec. just now. You better change your tactics if you expect to remain here. Excuse me, I see a friend up at the front of the car!”
With which remarks Howard Letchworth strode across the sprawling legs of his fellow-traveller and departed up the aisle, leaving the elegant stranger to enjoy the whole seat and his own company.
Thus did Clive Terrence introduce himself to Howard Letchworth and bring dismay into the little clique of four young people who had been enjoying a most unusually perfect friendship. Howard Letchworth, as he stood the rest of the ride on the front platform of the car conversing with apparent interest with a fraternity brother, was nevertheless filled with a growing dismay. Now and then he glanced back and glared down the aisle at the elegant sprawling youth and wondered how it was that a being as insignificant as that could so upset his equilibrium. But the assured drawl of the stranger as he spoke of Leslie and called her a “speedy kid” had made him boil with rage. He carried the mood back to college with him, and sat gloomily at the table thinking the whole incident over, while the banter and chaffing went on about him unnoticed. Underneath it all there was a deep uneasiness that would not be set aside. The young man had said that the Clouds were very wealthy. That Leslie was especially so. That when she was of age301she would have a vast inheritance. There had been no sign of great wealth or ostentation in their living but if that were so then there was an insuperable wall between him and her.
It was strange that the question of wealth had never come up between them. Howard had known that they were comfortably off, of course. They had a beautiful car and wore good clothes, and were always free with their entertaining, but they lived in a modest house, and never made any pretences. It had not occurred to him that they were any better off than he might be some day if he worked hard. They never talked about their circumstances. Of course, now he came to think about it, there were fine mahogany pieces of furniture in the little house and wonderful rugs and things, but they all fitted in so harmoniously with their surroundings that it never occurred to him that they might have cost a mint of money. They never cried out their price to those who saw them, they were simply the fitting thing in the fitting place, doing their service as all right-minded things both animate and inanimate in this world should do. It was the first serpent in the Eden of this wonderful friendship at Cloudy Villa and it stung the proud-spirited young man to the soul.
Alone in his room that night he finally gave up all pretence at study and faced the truth. He had been drifting in a delightful dream during the last two years, with only a vague and alluring idea of the future before him, a future in which there was no question but that Allison Cloud AND his sister Leslie should figure intimately. Now he was suddenly and roughly awakened to ask himself whether he had any right to count on all this. If these young people belonged302to the favored few of the world who were rolling in wealth, wasn’t it altogether likely that when they finished college they would pass out of this comradely atmosphere into a world of their own, with a new set of laws whereby to judge and choose their friends and life companions? He could not quite imagine Allison and Leslie as anything but the frank, friendly, enthusiastic comrades they had been since he had known them––and yet––he knew the world, knew what the love of money could do to a human soul, for he had seen it many times before in people he had come to love and trust who had grown selfish and forgetful as soon as money and power were put into their hands. He had to confess that it was possible. Also, his own pride forbade him to wish to force himself into a crowd where he could not hold his own and pay his part. They would simply not be in his class, at least not for many years to come, and his heart sank with desolation. It was then, and not till then, that the heart of the trouble came out and looked him in the face. It was not that he could not be in their class, that he could not keep pace with Allison Cloud and come and go in his company as freely as he had done; it was that he loved the bright-haired Leslie, the sweet-faced, eager, earnest, wonderful girl. She held his future happiness in her little rosy hand, and if she really were a rich girl he couldn’t of course tell her now that he loved her, because he was a poor man. He didn’t expect to stay poor always, of course, but it would be a great many years before he could ever hope to compete with anything like wealth, and during those years who might not take her from him? Was it conceivable that such a cad as that youth who had boasted himself a playmate of her childhood could possibly win her?