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'stoo 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'scome for me!Oh—I'm—a—gon' ta—die!An' I'mafrrrr-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. Youaresorry, 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'sgreat!”
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'stoo 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 befelt, 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 Youwill! 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?”
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 quitenotorious. 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.
Opal paused in the doorway and looked at the picture first, shyly, shamedly, as though it were no place for her to enter, then curiously at the little children, with a kind of wistful yearning, as if here were something she had missed of her own fault. Lynn called out a charming baby and made her shake hands and bow and say a few listing smiling words. Opal turned to Lynn with a strangely subdued look and spoke in a moved tone:
“I guess you're right,” she said, “You wouldn't fit at my company. You're different! But some day I'm coming after you and bring you home all by yourself for a little while. I want to find out what it is you have that I need.”
Then she turned with swift steps and went down the hall and out the door to her waiting limousine, and Lynn smiled wonderingly as she saw her whirled away into the world again.
Lynn had not seen Mark.
Laurie Shafton had called upon her many times since those two trips they had taken around the settlements and looking over his condemned property, but she had been busy, or out somewhere on her errands of mercy, so that Laurie had got very little satisfaction for his trouble.
But Mark had seen Lynn once, just once, and that the first time she had gone with Laurie Shafton, as they were getting out of his car in front of one of his buildings. Mark had slipped into a doorway out of sight and watched them, and after they passed into the building had gone on, his face whiter and sadder than before. That was all.
Marilyn was to spend only a month in New York, as at first planned, but the month lengthened into six weeks before the friend whose place she was taking was able to return, and two days before Marilyn was expecting to start home there came a telephone message from her mother:
“Lynn, dear, Mrs. Carter is very low, dying, we think, and we must find Mark at once! There is not a minute to lose if he wants to see her alive. It is a serious condition brought on by excitement. Mrs. Harricutt went there to call yesterday while everybody else was at Ladies' Aid. And Lynn,she told her about Mark!Now, Lynn, can you get somebody to go with you and find Mark right away? Get him to come home at once? Here is the last address he gave, but they have no telephone and we dare not wait for a telegram. See what you can do quickly!”
It was four o'clock in the afternoon when this message came. Lynn put on a uniform of dark blue serge and a poke bonnet that was at her disposal whenever she had need of protection, and hurried out.
She found the address after some trouble, but was told that the young gentleman was out. No one seemed to know when he would return.
Two or three other lodgers gathered curiously, one suggesting a restaurant where he might be found, another a club where he sometimes went and a third laughed and called out from half way up the stairs:
“You'll find him at the cabaret around the corner by ten o'clock to-night if you don't find him sooner. He's always there when he's in town.”
Sick at heart Lynn went on her way, trying carefully each place that had been suggested but finding no trace of him. She met with only deference for her uniform wherever she went, and without the slightest fear she travelled through streets at night that she would scarcely have liked to pass alone in the daytime in her ordinary garb. But all the time her heart was praying that she might find Mark before it was too late. She tried every little clue that was given her, hoping against hope that she would not have to search for her old friend in a cabaret such as she knew that place around the corner must be. But it was almost ten o'clock and she had not found Mark. She went back to the first address once more, but he had not come, and so she finally turned her steps toward the cabaret.
Sadly, with her heart beating wildly, hoping, yet fearing to find him, she paused just inside the doors and looked around, trying to get used to the glare and blare, the jazz and the smoke, and the strange lax garb, and to differentiate the individuals from the crowd.
Food and drink, smoke and song, wine and dance, flesh and odd perfumes! Her soul sank within her, and she turned bewildered to a servitor at the door.
“I wonder, is there any way to find a special person here? I have a very important message.”
The man bent his head deferentially as though to one from another world, “Who did you want, Miss?”
“Mr. Mark Carter,” said Marilyn, feeling the color rise in her cheeks at letting even this waiter see that she expected to find Mark Carter here.
The man looked up puzzled. He was rather new at the place. He summoned another passing one of his kind:
“Carter, Carter?” the man said thoughtfully, “Oh, yes, he's the guy that never drinks! He's over there at the table in the far corner with the little dancer lady—” The waiter pointed and Lynn looked, “Would you like me to call him, Miss?” Lynn reflected quickly. Perhaps he might try to evade her. She must run no risks.
“Thank you, I will go to him,” she said, and straight through the maze of candle lighted tables, and whirling dancers, in her quiet holy garb, she threaded her way hastily, as one might have walked over quicksands, with her eye fixed upon Mark.
She came and stood beside him before he looked up and saw her, and then he lifted his eyes from the face of the girl with whom he was talking, and rose suddenly to his feet, his face gone white as death, his eyes dark with disapproval and humiliation.
“Marilyn!” His voice was shaking. He knew her instantly in spite of poke bonnet and uniform. She was the one thought present with him all the while, perhaps for years wherever he had been. But he did not look glad to see her. Instead it was as if his soul shrank shamedly from her clear eyes as she looked at him:
Marilyn had not known what she was going to say to him when she found him. She did not stop to think now.
“Mark, your mother wants you. She is dying! You must come quick or she will be gone!”
Afterwards she repeated over the words to herself again and again as one might do penance, blaming herself that she had not softened it, made it more easy for him to bear. Yet at the time it seemed the only thing there was to say, at such a time, in such a place. But at the stricken look upon his face her heart grew tender. “Come,” she said compassionately, “We will go!”
They went out into the night and it was as if they had suddenly changed places, as if she were the protector and he the led. She guided him the quickest way. There was only a chance that they might catch the midnight train, but there was that chance. Into the subway she dived, he following, and breathless, they brought up at the Pennsylvania station at their train gate as it was being closed, and hurried through.
All through that agonized night they spoke but few words, those two who had been so much to one another through long happy years.
“But you are not going too?” he spoke suddenly roused from his daze as the train started.
“Yes, I am going too, of course, Mark,” she said.
He bowed his head and almost groaned:
“I am not worthy,—Marilyn!”
“That—has nothing to do with it!” said Marilyn sadly, “It never will have anything to do with it! It never did!”
Mark looked at her, with harrowed eyes, and dropped his gaze. So he sat, hour after hour, as the train rushed along through the night. And Marilyn, with head slightly bent and meek face, beneath the poke bonnet with its crimson band, was praying as she rode. Praying in other words the prayer that Billy murmured beside his bed every night.
But Billy was not lying in his bed that night, sleeping the sleep of the just. He was up and on the job. He was sitting in the Carter kitchen keeping up the fires, making a cup of tea for the nurse and the doctor, running the endless little errands, up to the parsonage for another hot water bag, down to the drug store for more aromatic spirits of ammonia, fixing a newspaper shade to dull the light in the hall, and praying, all the time praying: “Oh, God, ain'tcha gonta leave her stay till Mark gets here? Ain'tcha gonta send Mark quick? You know best I 'spose, but ain'tchagonta?” and then “Aw Gee! I wisht Miss Lynn was here!”
In the chill before the dawning the two stepped down from the train at a little flag station three miles from Sabbath Valley on the upper road that ran along the Ridge. They had prevailed upon the conductor to let them off there. Mark had roused enough for that. And now that they were out in the open country he seemed to come to himself. He took care of Lynn, making her take his arm, guiding her into the smooth places, helping her over rough places. He asked a few questions too. How did she know of his mother's condition? How long had she been this way? Had she any idea that his mother's heart was affected? Did she have a shock?
Lynn did not tell all she knew. It was hard enough without that. He need not know that it was the knowledge of his disgrace that had brought her to the brink of death.
So, walking and talking almost as in the old days, they passed into Sabbath Valley and down the street, and Christie McMertrie listening perhaps for this very thing, crept from her bed in her long flannel night gown, and big ruffled night cap, and looked out the window to see them go by. “Bless them!” she breathed and crept back to her bed again. She had nursed all day, and all the night before, and would have been there too to-night, only Mary Rafferty took things in her own hands and had her go to bed, herself taking charge. Mrs. Duncannon was there too. There really was no need of her, but Christie could not sleep, and after they passed she rose and dressed and slipped down the street with a hot porridge that had been cooking on the stove all night, and the makings of a good breakfast in her basket on her arm.
Mark Carter reached home in time to take his mother in his arms and bid her good-bye. That was all She roused at his voice and touch, and reached out her little pretty hands toward him. He took her in his big strong arms and held her, kissed her with tender lips and she drew a beautiful smile of perfect content, and slipped away, with the graying golden hair straying out over Mark's sleeve to the pillow in a long curl, and a quiver of her last smile on the pretty curve of her lips, as if this was all that she had waited for, the little pretty girl that had gone to school so long ago with golden hair and a smile. Billy, standing awed in the doorway whither he had come to say there was more hot water ready, caught the vision of her face, remembered those school days, and felt a strange constriction in his throat. Some day Saxy would have to go like that, and would show the little girl in her face too, and he maybe would have to hold her so and think of how cross he had been. Aw Gee! Whattaqueer thing life was anyhow! Well, hadn't his prayer been answered? Didn't Mark get here in time? Well, anyhow it was likely better for Mrs. Carter to go. But it was rotten for Mark. Aw Gee!Mark! Wasthisthe way he had to learn it? Aw Gee! Well, God would have to show him.Hecouldn't dope it out anyhow.
During the days that followed Mark hardly stirred from the side of the pretty little clay that had been his mother except when they forced him for a little while. An hour before the service he knelt alone beside the casket, and the door opened and Marilyn came softly in, closing it behind her. She walked over to Mark and laid her hand on his hand that rested over his mother's among the flowers, and she knelt beside him and spoke softly:
“Oh, God, help Mark to find the light!”
Then the soul of Mark Carter was shaken to the depths and suddenly his self control which had been so great was broken. His strong shoulders began to shake with sobs, silent, hard sobs of a man who knows he has sinned, and tears, scalding tears from the depths of his self-contained nature.
Marilyn reached her arm out across his shoulders as a mother would try to protect a child, and lifted her face against his, wet with tears and kissed him on his forehead. Then she left him and went quietly out.
“Well,” said Mrs. Harricutt with satisfaction as she walked home after the funeral with Christie McMertrie, “I'm glad to see that Mark Carter has a little proper feeling at last. If he'd showed it sooner his Ma mighta ben in the land of the living yet.”
Christie's stern face grew sterner as she set her teeth and bit her tongue before replying. Then she said with more brrrr than usual in her speech:
“Martha Harricutt, there's na land that's sa livin' as tha land where Mark Carter's mither has ganged tae, but there's them that has mair blame to bear fer her gaein' than her bonny big son, I'm thinkin', an' there's them in this town that agrees with me too, I know full well.”
Down in front of the parsonage the minister had his arm around Mark Carter's shoulders and was urging him:
“Son, come in. We want you. Mother wants you, I want you. Marilyn wants you. Come son, come!”
But Mark steadily refused, his eyes downcast, his face sad, withdrawn:
“Mr. Severn, I'll come to-morrow. I can't come tonight. I must go home and think!”
“And you will promise me you will not leave without coming, Mark?” asked the minister sadly when he saw that it was no use.
“Yes, I will promise!” Mark wrung the minister's hand in a warm grip that said many things he could not speak, and then he passed on to his lonely home. But it was not entirely empty. Billy was there, humbly, silently, with dog-true eyes, and a grown up patient look on his tired young face. He had the coffee pot on the stove and hot sausages cooking on the stove, and a lot of Saxy's doughnuts and a pie on the table. Billy stayed all night with Mark. He knew Saxy would understand.
In the middle of the night the fire bell rang out wildly. Three minutes later Mark and Billy were flying down the street, with Tom McMertrie and Jim Rafferty close after and a host of other tried and true, with the minister on the other side of the street. The Fire Company of Sabbath Valley held a proud record, and the minister was an active member of it.
The fire was up in the plush mill and had already spread to a row of shackley tenements that the owners of the mills had put up to house the foreign labor that they had put in. They called them “apartment” houses, but they were so much on the order of the city tenements of several years back that it made Lynn's heart ache when she went there to see a little sick child one day. Right in the midst of God's trees and mountains, a manfor moneyhad built a death trap, tall, and grim and dark, with small rooms and tiny windows, built it with timbers too small for safety, and windows too few for ventilation, and here an increasing number of families were herded, in spite of the complaints of the town.
“I ben thenkin' it would coom,” said Tom as he took long strides. “It's the apartmints fer sure, Jimmy. We better beat it. There'll be only a meenit er so to get the childer oot, before the whole thing's smoke!”
They were all there, the doctor, the blacksmith, the postmaster, the men from the mills, and the banks, and the stores. Economy heard the bells for Marilyn had hurried to the church and added the fire chime to the call and came over with their little chemical engine. Monopoly heard and hurried their brand new hook and ladder up the valley road, but the fire had been eating long in the heart of the plush mill and laughed at their puny streams of water forced up from the creek below, laughed at the chemicals flung in its face like drops of rain on a sizzling red hot stove. It licked its lips over the edge of the cliff on which it was built, and cracked its jaws as it devoured the mill, window by window, section by section, leaping across with an angry red tongue to the first tall building by its side.
The fire had worked cunningly, for it had crept out of sight to the lower floors all along the row, and unseen, unknown, had bitten a hold on each of those doomed buildings till when the men arrived it went roaring ghoulishly up the high narrow stairs cutting off all escape from above, and making entrance below impossible. Up at the windows the doomed people stood, crying, praying, wringing their hands, and some losing their heads and trying to jump out.
The firemen were brave, and worked wonders. They flung up ladders in the face of the flames. They risked their lives every step they took, and brought out one after another, working steadily, grimly, rapidly. And none were braver among them all than Mark Carter and the minister, each working on the very top of a tall treacherous ladder, in the face of constant danger, bringing out one after another until the last.
The next house to the mill had caved in, and Mark had come down just in time with an old woman who was bedridden and had been forgotten. The workers had paused an instant as the horrible sound of falling timbers rent through the other noises of that horrible night, and then hurried to increase their vigilance. There were people in the top floor of the next house and it would go next. Then the word went forth that no more must go up the ladder. The roof was about to fall in, and a young mother shrieked, “My baby! My baby! She's up in the bed. I thought Bob had her, but he couldn't get up!” Mark Carter looked at her sharply. “Which window?” he asked, and was up the ladder before detaining hands could reach him, and Billy, sliding under the arm of the Fire Chief, swung up just behind.
The crowd watched breathless as they mounted round after round, Aunt Saxon standing with a shawl over her head and gasping aloud, “OhWillie!” and then standing still in fear and pride, the tears streaming down a smiling countenance on which the red glare of the fire shone. The ladder was set crazily against the flaming window and swayed with their weight. Every step seemed as if it would topple the building, yet the ladder held, and Mark sprang through the blazing window out of sight. It seemed an eternity till he returned bringing a tiny bundle with him, and handing it out to Billy waiting below.
The boy received as it had been a holy honor, that little bundle of humanity handed through the fire, and came solemnly down amid the breathless gaze of the crowd, but when they looked to the top again Mark had disappeared!
A murmur of horror went round the throng, for the flames were licking and snapping, and the roof seemed to vibrate and quiver like a human thing. Then before any one could stop him or even saw what he was going to do, the minister sprang forward up the ladder like a cat, two rounds at a time,—three! He dashed through the fire and was gone!
For an instant it seemed that the people would go mad with the horror of it.Those two!Even the Fire Chief paused and seemed petrified. It was Billy who sensed the thing to do.
“Getcher canvas man? Are ya' asleep?”
And instantly a great piece of canvas was spread and lifted. But the building tottered, the flames ate on, and the window seemed entirely enveloped. The moment lasted too long for the hearts that waited. A groan rent the air. Then suddenly a breath seemed to part the flames and they saw the minister coming forward with Mark in his arms!
It was just at this instant that Lynn came flying down the street. She had kept the bells going till she knew all the help had come from a distance, and now she was coming to see if there was anything else for her to do. There before her she saw her father standing in that awful setting of fire, with Mark limp and lifeless in his arms! Then the flames licked up and covered the opening once more.Oh, God!Were theyboth gone?
Only for an instant more the suspense lasted, and then the cateclysm of fire came. The roof fell carrying with it the floors as it went, down, down, down, shuddering like a human thing as it went, the rain of fire pouring up and around in great blistering flakes and scorching the onlookers and lighting their livid faces as they stood transfixed with horror at the sight.
The canvas fluttered uselessly down and fire showered thick upon it. Timbers and beams crumbled like paper things and were no more. The whole flimsy structure had caved in!
Paralyzed with terror and sorrow the firemen stood gazing, and suddenly a boy's voice rang out: “Aw Gee! Git to work there! Whatterya doin'? Playin' dominoes? Turn that hose over there! That's where they fell. Say, you Jim, get that fire hook and lift that beam—!Aw Gee! Ya ain't gonta let 'emdie,are ya,—?Them two!”
Billy had seized a heavy hose and was turning it on a central spot and Jim Rafferty caught the idea and turned his stream that way, and into the fire went the brave men, one and another, instantly, cheerfully, devotedly, the men who loved the two men in there. Dead or alive they should be got out if it killed them all. They would all die together. The Fire Chief stood close to Billy, and shouted his directions, and Billy worked with the tallest of them, black, hoarse and weary.
It seemed ages. It was hours. It was a miracle! But they got those two men out alive! Blackened and bruised and broken, burned almost beyond recognition, but they were alive. They found them lying close to the front wall, their faces together, Mark's body covered by the minister's.
Tender hands brought them forth and carried them gently on stretchers out from the circle of danger and noise and smoke. Eagerly they were ministered to, with oil and old linen and stimulants. There were doctors from Economy and one from Monopoly besides the Sabbath Valley doctor, who was like a brother to the minister and had known Mark since he was born. They worked as if their lives depended upon it, till all that loving skill could do was done.
Billy, his eyelashes and brows gone, half his hair singed off, one eye swollen shut and great blisters on his hands and arms, sat huddled and shivering on the ground between the two stretchers. The fire was still going on but he was “all in.” The only thing left he could do was to bow his bruised face on his trembling knees and pray:
“Oh God, Ain't You gonta let 'em live—please!”
They carried Mark to the Saxon cottage and laid him on Billy's bed. There was no lack of nurses. Aunt Saxon and Christie McMertrie, the Duncannons and Mary Rafferty, Jim too, and Tom. It seemed that everybody claimed the honors. The minister was across the street in the Little House. They dared not move him farther. Of the two the case of the minister was the most hopeless. He had borne the burden of the fall. He had been struck by the falling timbers, his body had been a cover for the younger man. In every way the minister had not saved himself.
The days that followed were full of anxiety. There were a few others more or less injured in the fire, for there had been fearless work, and no one had spared himself. But the two who hung at the point of death for so long were laid on the hearts of the people, because they were dear to almost every one.
Little neighborhood prayer meetings sprang up quietly here and there, beginning at Duncannons. The neighbor on either side would come in and they would just drop down and pray for the minister, and for “that other dear brave brother.” Then the Littles heard of it and called in a few friends. One night when both sufferers were at the crisis and there seemed little hope for the minister, Christie McMertrie called in the Raffertys and they were just on the point of kneeling down when Mrs. Harricutt came to the door. She had been crying. She said she and her husband hadn't slept a wink the night before, they were so anxious for the minister. Christie looked at her severely, but remembering the commands about loving and forgiving, relented:
“Wull then, come on ben an' pray. Tom, you go call her husband! This is na time fer holdin' grudges. But mind, wumman, if ye coom heer to pray ye must pray with asmooch fervorfor the healin' o'Mark Carteras ye do fer the meenister! He's beloved of the Lord too, an' the meenister nigh give his life for him.”
And Mrs. Harricutt put up her apron to her eyes and entered the little haircloth parlor, while Tom, with a wry face went after the elder. The elder proved that underneath all his narrowness and prejudice he had a grain of the real truth, for he prayed with fervor that the Lord would cleanse their hearts from all prejudice and open their minds to see with heavenly vision that they might have power in prayer for the healing of the two men.
So, through the whole little village breaches were healed, and a more loving feeling prevailed because the bond of anxiety and love held them all together and drew them nearer to their God.
At last the day came when Mark, struggling up out of the fiery pit of pain, was able to remember.
Pain, fire, flame, choking gases, smoke, remorse, despair! It was all vague at first, but out of it came the memory slowly. There had been a fire. He had gone back up the ladder after Mrs. Blimm's baby. He remembered groping for the child in the smoke filled room, and bringing it blindly through the hall and back to the window where the ladder was, but that room had all been in flames. He had wished for a wet cloth across his face. He could feel again the licking of the fire as he passed the doorway. A great weight had been on his chest. His heart seemed bursting. His head had reeled, and he had come to the window just in time. Some one had taken the child—was it Billy?—or he would have fallen. Hedidfall. The memory pieced itself out bit by bit. He remembered thinking that he had entered the City of Fire literally at last, “the minarets” already he seemed to descry “gleaming vermilion as if they from the fire had issued.” It was curious how those old words from Dante had clung in his memory. “Eternal fire that inward burns.” He thought he was feeling now in his body what his soul had experienced for long months past. It was the natural ending, the thing he had known he was coming to all along, the road of remorse and despair. A fire that goes no more out! And this would last forever now! Then, someone, some strong arm had lifted him—God's air swept in—and for an instant there seemed hope. But only that little breath of respite and there came a cry like myriads of lost souls. They were falling, falling, down through fire, with fire above, below, around, everywhere. Down, down,—an abysmal eternity of fire, till his seared soul writhed from his tortured body, and stood aside looking on at himself.
There, there he lay, the Mark Carter that had started with life so fair, friends, prospects, so proud that he was a man, that he could conquer and be brave—so blest with opening life, and heaven's high call! And then—in one day—he had sinned and lost it all, and there he lay, a white upturned face. That was himself, lying there with face illumined by the fire, and men would call him dead! But he would not be dead! He would be living on with that inward fire, gnawing at his vitals, telling him continually what he might have been, and showing him what high heaven was that he had had, and lost. He saw it now. He had deliberately thrown away that heaven that had been his. He saw that hell was hell because he made it so, it was not God that put him there, but he had chosen there to go. And still the fire burned on and scorched his poor soul back into the body to be tortured more. The long weeks upon that bed seemed like an infinite space of burning rosy, oily flames poured upward from a lake of fire, down through which he had been falling in constant and increasing agony.
And now at last he seemed to be flung upon this peaceful shore where things were cool and soothing for a brief respite, that he might look off at where he had been floating on that molten lake of fire, and understand it all before he was flung back. And it was all so very real. With his eyes still closed he could hear the rushing of the flames that still seemed ascending in columns out a little way from shore, he could see through his eyelids the rosy hue of livid waters—of course it was all a hallucination, and he was coming to himself, but he had a feeling that when he was fully awake it would be even more terrible than now. Two grim figures, Remorse and Despair, seemed waiting at either hand above his bed to companion him again when he could get more strength to recognize them. And so he lay thus between life and death, and faced what he had done. Hours and hours he faced it, when they knew not if he was conscious yet, going over and over again those sins which he knew had been the beginning of all his walk away from Hope. On through the night and into the next morning he lay thus, sometimes drowsing, but most of the time alert and silent.
It was a bright and sparkling morning. There was a tang of winter in the air. The leaves were gone from the apple trees at the window and the bare branches tapped against the water spout like children playing with a rattle. A dog barked joyously, and a boy on the street shouted out to another—Oh, to be a boy once more!And suddenly Mark knew Billy was sitting there. He opened his eyes and smiled: There were bandages around his face, but he smiled stiffly, and Billy knew he was smiling.
“Kid,” he said hoarsely from out the bandages, “This is God's world.” It seemed to be a great thought that he had been all this time grasping, and had to utter.
“Sure!” said Billy in a low happy growl.
A long time after this, it might have been the next day, he wasn't sure, or perhaps only a few minutes, he came at another truth:
“Kid, you can't get away from God—even when you try.”
“I'll say not,” said Billy.
“But—when you've sinned—!” speculatively.
“You gotta get it off yer chest.”
“You mean—confess?”
“Sure thing. Miss Lynn tells us in Sunday School about a fella in the Bible got downta eatin' with the pigs in a far country, an' when he come to himself he thought about his father's servants, an' he said 'I'll get up and beat it home an' say I'm sorry!'”
“I know,” said Mark, and was still the rest of the day. But the next morning he asked the doctor how soon he might get up. This was the first real indication that Mark was on the mend, and the doctor smiled with satisfaction. He meant to take off some of the bandages that morning.
That afternoon with his head unswathed, Mark began to ask questions. Before that he had seemed to take everything for granted:
“Billy, where's the minister?” For Billy have never left his idol's side except when Aunt Saxon needed him to help.
“Oh, he's up to tha parsonage,” responded Billy carelessly.
“But why hasn't he been to see me, Kid?”
“Why—he—hasn't been feelin' very good.” Billy's voice was brisk as if it wasn't a matter of much moment.
Mark turned his thoughtful gray eyes steadily on Billy:
“Now, look here, Kid, I'm well, and there's no further need to camouflage. Billy, is the minister dead?”
“Not on yer tin type, he ain't dead!”
“Well, is he hurt?”
“Well,some,” Billy admitted cheerfully.
“Kid, look me in the eye.”
Billy raised a saucy eye as well masked as Mark's own could be on occasion.
“Kid, how much is he hurt!Tell me the truth!If you don't I'll get right up and go and see.”
“I'll tell the world, you won't!” said Billy rising lazily and taking a gentle menacing step toward the bed.
“Kid!”
“Well—he's some hurt—but he's getting along fine now. He'll be aw'wright.”
“How'd he get hurt?”
“Oh, the fire, same's you.”
“How?” insisted Mark.
“Oh, he went up again after a fella when it was too late—”
“Billy, was it me?”
“Ugh huh!” nodded Billy.
Mark was so still that Billy was frightened. When he looked up worried he saw that a great tear had escaped out from under the lashes which were growing nicely now, and had rolled down Mark's cheek.Mark crying!
In consternation Billy knelt beside the bed:
“Aw Gee! Mark, now don't you feel like that. He's gettin' all right now they hope, an' Gee! He wasgreat!You oughtta seen him!”
“Tell me about it,” said Mark huskily.
“He just ran up that there ladder when it was shaking like a leaf, an' the wall beginning to buckle under it, an' he picked you up. Fer a minute there the flames kinda blew back, and we seen ya both, and then the roof caved, an' you all went down. But when we gotcha out he was layin' right atop of ya, 'ith his arms spread out, trying t'cover ya! Gee, it wasgreat!Everybody was just as still, like he was preachin'!”
After a long time Mark said:
“Billy, did you ever hear the words, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend?'”
“Yep,” said Billy, “That's in the Bible I think, if 'taint in Shakespeare. Miss Lynn said it over last Sunday. She says a lot of things from Shakespeare sometimes, and I kinda get'em mixed.”
But Mark did not talk any more that day. He had a great deal to think about.
But so did Billy, for looking out the window in the direction of the parsonage he had sighted the big Shafton car stopping before the door that morning. “Aw Gee!” he said. “That sissy-guy again? Now, how'm I gonta get rid of him this time? Gee! Just when Mark's gettin' well too! If life ain't justone thing after another!”