Cloudy Jewel

CHAPTER XIII A few minutes later Julia Cloud watched them go off into the dusk to the Christian Endeavor meeting. She was to follow them in a little while and meet them for the evening service. She wondered as she saw them disappear into the shadows of the long maple-lined avenue whether perhaps she was not overdoing the matter a little in the way of meetings, and was almost sorry she had not suggested staying home from the evening service. It would not do to make them weary of it all on this first Sunday.

As they walked along together, the brother and sister were thinking deeply.

“Say, Allison, isn’t this the very funniest thing we ever did, going off like this to a prayer meeting alone? What did we do it for?” asked the sister.

“Well, I guess just because Cloudy wanted it,” replied the brother. “She’s given up her home and everything for us; we ought to. But say, Les, there’s a whole lot in what Cloudy was reading this afternoon. If it’s all true, it’s a wonder more people don’t try it. I’ve often wondered why we were alive, anyway, haven’t you? There doesn’t seem much sense to it unless there’s something like this.” “Oh, I don’t know, Allison; it’s nice to be alive. But of course we never will feel quite as if this is the only place since Mother and Dad aren’t here any more. Aren’t things queer, anyway? I wish there was some way to be sure.”

“Well, I s’pose the Bible claims to be sure. Perhaps we could find out a lot if we read it.”

154 “We’re likely to read it quite a good deal, don’t you think?” asked the sister archly. “But really, now, it was interesting, and isn’t Cloudy a dear? If Christians were all like that, I’d believe in them.”

“Perhaps they are, real Christians. Perhaps the ones we mean aren’t anything but shams.”

“Well, there’s a good many shams, then.”

The big, noisy bell began to bang out a tardy summons now; but the two young people did not feel the same antipathy toward it that they had felt the night they heard it first. It seemed somehow to have a homely, friendly sound. As they neared the open door, they grew suddenly shy, however, and drew back, lingering on the corner, watching the few stragglers who walked into the pathway of light that streamed from the doorway.

“Some bunch!” growled Allison. “I should say they did need waking up, but I don’t hanker for the job.”

They slipped in, and followed the sound of voices, through a dimly-lighted hall, smelling of moldy ingrain carpet, into a wide, rather pleasant, chapel room. There were branches of autumn leaves about the walls, reminiscent of some recent festivity, and a bunch of golden-rod in a vase on the little table by the leader’s chair.

Two girls were turning over the hymn-book, picking out hymns for the evening; and a tall, shy, girlish young fellow was making fancy letters on a blackboard up in front. Three more girls with their arms about one another had surrounded him, and were giggling and gurgling at him after the manner of that kind of girl. Another plain-faced, plainly-dressed young woman sat half-way up at one side, her hands folded and a look 155of quiet waiting on her face. That was all that were in the room.

Allison and Leslie found a seat half-way up on the other side from the plain-faced girl, and sat down. No one noticed them save for furtive glances, and no one came near them. The three giggling girls began to talk a little louder. One with her hair bobbed and a long view of vertebrae above her blue dress-collar began to prattle of a dance the night before.

“I thought I’d die!” she chortled. “Bob had me by the arm; and here was my dress caught on Archie’s button, and he not knowing and whirling off in the other direction; and the georgette just ripped and tore to beat the band, and me trying to catch up with Archie, and Bob hanging on to me, honest.––You’d uv croaked if you could uv seen me. Oh, but Mother was mad when she saw my dress! She kept blaming me, for she knew I hated that dress and wanted a new one. But me, I’m glad. Now I’ll get after Dad for a new one. Say, when’s Mary’s surprise? Is it true it’s put off till next week?”

“I’m going to have a new dress for that and silver slippers,” declared the girl next her, teetering back and forth on her little high-heeled pumps. “Say, Will, that letter’s cock-eyed. What are you giving us? What’s the old topic, anyway? I don’t see any use in topics. They don’t mean anything. I never can find a verse with the words in. I just always ask for a hymn, and half the time I give out any old number without knowing what it is, just to see what it’ll turn out.”

“Oh, say! Did you hear Chauncey Cramer singing last Sunday night?” broke out the third girl with a side glance at the strangers. “He was perfectly 156killing. He was twisting the words all around in every hymn. He had girls’ names and fellers’ all mixed up, and made it rhyme in the neatest way. I thought I’d choke laughing, and Dr. Tarrant was just coming in, and looked at me as if he’d eat me. Oh, my goodness! There he comes now. We better beat it, Hattie. Come on, Mabel. Let’s sit back in the last row.”

The three girls toppled down the aisle on their high-heeled pumps, and rustled into the back row just as the pastor entered and looked about the room. His eyes brightened when he saw the brother and sister, and with a pleasant “Good-evening” to the three whispering misses in the back seat he came over to shake hands with Allison and Leslie. But, when he expressed a most cordial hope that the two would come in and help in the young people’s work, Allison was wary. He said they would have to see how much time they had to spare after college opened. It was altogether likely that they would be exceedingly busy with their college work.

The minister, watching their bright faces wistfully, and knowing their kind, sighed, and thought how little likelihood there was that his Christian Endeavor society would see much of them.

A few more people straggled in, and one of the girls who had been picking out hymns went and sat down at the piano. The other girl sat near her. The young man at the blackboard took his place at the little table in front of the desk, and the elaborate colored letters which he had just made were visible as a whole for the first time.

“The Great Companion: How to Live with Him.”

There was something startling and solemn in the 157words as they stood out in blue and gold and crimson and white on the little blackboard. Allison and Leslie looked and turned wonderingly toward the young leader. He had corn-colored hair, light, ineffective blue eyes, and a noticeably weak chin. He did not look like a person who would be putting forth a topic of that sort and attempting to do anything about it. His face grew pink, and his eyelashes seemed whiter in contrast as he stood up to give out the first hymn. It was plain that he was painfully embarrassed. He glanced now and then deprecatingly toward the visitors with an anxious gasp as he announced that they would open the meeting by singing number twenty-nine. The two young strangers opened their hymn-books and found the place, marvelling how such a youth had ever been persuaded to get himself into such a trying situation. Allison found himself thinking that there must be some power greater than the ordinary influences of life that made him do it. He seemed so much out of his element, and so painfully shy.

“All to Jesus I surrender!” chirped the little gathering gayly. They had good voices, and the harmony was simple and pleasing. Allison and Leslie joined their beautiful voices in with the rest, and liked it, felt almost as if they were on the verge of doing something toward helping on the kingdom of heaven.

They sang another hymn, and more young people came in until there were twenty-four in the room. Then the leader called upon Tom Forbes to read the Scripture, and a boy about fourteen years old read in a clear voice the story of the walk to Emmaus. To the brother and sister whose Bible knowledge was limited to the days of their very young childhood, it 158was most interesting. They listened intently, but were surprised to notice a tendency to whisper on the part of some, especially the girls in the back seat, who had been joined by three young fellows of about their own age and caliber. Leslie, glancing over her shoulder at the whisperers, saw they had no thrill over the story, no interest save in their own voluble conversation. The story went on to the point where Jesus at the table blessed the bread, and the two men knew Him, and He vanished out of their sight, without an interruption in the whispering. The Great Companion had come into the room and gone, and they had not even known it.

The leader rose, and cleared his voice with courage; and then in a tone of diffidence he recited the few words he had learned for the occasion.

“Our topic to-night is ‘The Great Companion: How to Live with Him.’ It seems hard to realize that Christ is still on the earth. That He is with us all the time. We ought to realize this. We ought to try to realize it. It would make our lives different if we could realize that Christ is always with us. I expect some of us wouldn’t always feel comfortable if we should find Him walking along with us, listening to our talk. We ought to try to live so we would feel all right if we should find Christ walking with us some day. And I heard a story once about a boy who had been a cripple, and he had been a great Christian; and, when he came to die, they asked him if he was afraid; and he said no, he wasn’t afraid, that it was only going into another room with Jesus. And I think we ought to all live that way. We will now listen to a solo by Mame Beecher, after which the meeting will be open, and I hope that all will take part.”

159 It was a crude little speech, haltingly spoken, and the speaker was evidently relieved when it was over. Yet there had been amazing truth in what he had said, and it came to the two visitors with the force of newness. As he mopped his perspiring brow with a large handkerchief and sat down, adjusting his collar and necktie nervously, they watched him, and marvelled again that he had been willing to be put in so trying a position. There had been a genuineness about him that brought conviction. This young man really believed in Christ and that He walked with men.

Allison, always ready to curl his lips over anything sissified, sat watching him gravely. Here was a new specimen. He didn’t know where to place him. Did he have to lead a meeting? Was he a minister’s son or something, or did he just do it because he wanted to, because it seemed his duty to do it? Allison could not decide. He knew that he himself could have made a much better speech on the subject, but he would not want to. He would hate it, talking about sacred things like that out to the world; yet he was frank enough to see that a better speech might not have been so acceptable to God as this halting one full of repetition and crudities.

The girl up by the piano was singing the solo. Why did she let herself be called “Mame” in that common way? She was a rather common-looking girl, with loud colors in her garments and plenty of powder in evidence on her otherwise pretty face; but she had a good voice, and sang the words distinctly.

“In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide! Oh, how precious are the lessons which I learn at Jesus’ side!”

160 The words were wonderful. They somehow held you through to the end. The girl named Mame had that quality of holding attention with her voice and carrying a message to a heart. There were two lines that seemed particularly impressive,

“And whene’er you leave the silence of that happy meeting-place, You must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face.”

Leslie found herself looking around the room to see whether any one present bore that image, and her eyes lingered longest on the quiet girl in the plain garments over on the other side of the room. She had a face that was almost beautiful in its repose, if it had not worn that air of utter reticence.

There was a long pause after the soloist was done, and much whispering from the back row, which at last terminated in a flutter of Bible leaves and the reading of three Bible verses containing the word “companion,” without much reference to the topic, from the three girls on the back seat, passing the Bible in turn, with much ado to find their respective places. Another hymn followed, and a prayer from a solemn-looking boy in shell-rimmed spectacles. It was a good prayer, but the young man wore also that air of reticence that characterized the girl on the other side of the room, as if he were not a part of these young people, had nothing in common with them. Allison decided that they were all dead, and surely did need some one to wake them up; but the task was not to his liking. What had he in common with a bunch like that? In fact, what had any of them in common that they should presume to form themselves into a society? It was rank nonsense. You couldn’t bring people together that had 161nothing in common and make them have a good time. These were his thoughts during another painful pause, during which the pastor in the back seat half rose, then sat down and looked questioningly toward the two visitors. The young leader seemed to understand the signal; for he grew very red, looked at Allison and Leslie several times, cleared his throat, turned over his hymn-book, and finally said with painful embarrassment:

“We should be glad to hear from our visitors to-night. We’d like to know how you conduct things in your society.”

He lifted agonized eyes to Allison, and broke down in a choking cough.

Allison, chilled with amazement, filled with a sudden strange pity, looked around with growing horror to see whether it was really true that he had been called upon to speak in meeting. Then with the old nonchalance that nothing ever quite daunted he rose to his feet.

“Why, I,” he began, looking around with a frank smile, “I never was in a Christian Endeavor meeting before in my life, and I don’t know the first thing about it. My sister and I only came to-night because somebody wanted us to; so I can’t very well tell about any other society. But I belong to a college frat, and I suppose it’s a good deal the same thing in the long run. I’ve been reading that pledge up there on the wall. I suppose that’s your line. You’ve got good dope all right. If you live up to that, you’re going some.

“I remember when I first went to college the fellows began to rush me. I had bids from two or three different frats, and they had me going so hard I got bewildered. I didn’t know which I wanted to join. Then 162one day one of the older fellows got hold of me, and he saw how it was with me; and he said: ‘You want to look around and analyze things. Just you look the fellows over, and see how they size up in the different frats. Then you see what they stand for, and how they live up to it; and lastly you look up their alumni.’ So I began to size things up, and I found that one frat was all for the social doings, dances, and dinners, and always having a good time; and another was pretty wild, had the name of always getting in bad with the faculty, and had the lowest marks in college; three fellows had been expelled the year before for drunkenness and disorderliness. Then another one was known as ranking highest in scholarship and having the most athletes in it. I looked over their alumni, too, for they used to come around a good bit and get in with us boys; and you could see just which were making good out in the world, and which were just in life for what they could get out of it; and I made my decision one day just because of one big man who had been out of college for ten years; but he had made good in the world, and was known all over as being a successful man and a wonderful man, and he used to come back to every game and everything that went on at the college, and sit around and talk with the fellows, and encourage them; and, if anybody was falling down on his job, he would show him where he was wrong and how to get into line again, and even help him financially if he got in a tight place. And so I thought with men like that back of it that frat was a pretty good thing to tie up to, and I joined it, and found it was even better than I expected.

“And I was thinking as I looked at the blackboard, 163and heard you talking about the Great Companion, it was something like that man. If all that’s true that you’ve been reading and saying to-night, why, you’ve got pretty good things back of you. With an Alumnus like that”––nodding toward the blackboard––“and a line of talk like that pledge, you sure ought to have a drag with the world. All you’ve got to do is to make everybody believe that it is really so, and you’d have this room full; for, believe me, that’s the kind of dope everybody wants, especially young people, whether they own it or not.”

Allison sat down abruptly, suddenly realizing that he had just made a religious speech and had the interest of the meeting in his hands. His speech seemed to set loose something in the heart of the young leader; for he rose eagerly, alertly, his embarrassment departed, and began to speak:

“I’m glad our friend has spoken that way. I guess it’s all true what he has just said. We’ve got the right dope; only we aren’t using it. I guess it looks mighty like to the world as if we didn’t really believe it all, the way we live; but believe me, I’m going to try to make things different in my life this week, and see if I can’t make at least one person believe we have something here they want before next Sunday.”

He seemed about to give out another hymn, but the plain girl spoke up and interrupted him. She was sitting forward in her chair, an almost radiant look upon her face that quite changed it; and she spoke rapidly, breathlessly, like a shy person who had a great message to convey. She was looking straight at Allison as if she had forgotten everyone else in the room.

“I’ve got to speak,” she said earnestly. “It isn’t 164right to keep still when I’ve had such a wonderful experience, and you spoke as if it might not all be true about Christ’s being our companion every day.” In spite of himself Allison met her eyes as though they were talking alone together, and waited for what she should tell.

“I’ve always been just a quiet Christian,” she went on; “and I don’t often speak here except to recite a Bible verse. I’m sort of a stranger myself. But you all ought to know what Christ has done for me. When my people died and everything in my life was changed, and troubles came very thick and fast, there wasn’t anybody in the world I could turn to for every-day help and companionship but Jesus; and one day it came to me how my mother used to feel about Him, and I just went to Him, and asked Him to be my companion, as He used to be hers. I didn’t half believe He would when I asked Him; but I was so hurt and alone I had to do something; and I found out it was all true! He helped me in so many little every-day ways, you wouldn’t believe it, perhaps, unless you could have lived it out yourself. I guess you really have to live it out to know it, after all. But I found that I could go to Him just as if I could see Him, and I was so surprised the first day when He answered a prayer in a perfectly wonderful way. It all came over me, ‘Why, He loves me!’ And at first I thought it was just happening; but I tried it again and again, and every day wonderful things began to come into my life, and it got to be that I could talk with Him and feel His answer in my heart. If it were not for Him, I couldn’t stand life sometimes. And I’m sure He’ll talk with any one that way who wants Him enough to try and find Him,” 165she finished; and then, suddenly conscious of herself, she sat back, white and shy again, with trembling lips.

The meeting closed then; but, while they were singing the last hymn Allison and Leslie were watching the face of the quiet girl with the holy, uplifted light on it.

“I think she is lovely, don’t you?” whispered Leslie after the benediction, as they turned to go out. “I’d like to know her.”

“H’m!” assented Allison. “Cloudy would like her, I guess.”

“I mean to find out who she is,” declared Leslie.

The minister came up just then with cordial greeting and urgent appeal that the young people would at once join their Christian Endeavor.

“That was a great talk you gave us to-night,” he said with his hand resting admiringly on Allison’s shoulder. “We need young blood. You are the very one to stir up this society.”

“But I’m not a Christian,” said Allison, half laughing. “I don’t belong here.”

“Oh, well,” answered the smiling minister, “if you take hold of the Endeavor, perhaps you’ll find you’re more of a Christian than you think. Come, I want you to meet some of our young people.”

The young people were all gathered in groups, looking toward the strangers, and came quite willingly to have a nearer glimpse of them. Last of all, and by herself, came the plain-faced girl; and the minister introduced her as Jane Bristol. He did not speak to her more than that, and it occurred to Allison that she seemed as if she came more at the instigation of some higher power than at the call of her pastor; for she 166passed quietly on again in a pleasant dignity, and did not stop to talk and joke with her pastor as some of the other young people had done.

“Who is she?” asked Allison, hardly aware that he was asking.

“Why, she is the daughter of a forger who died in prison. Her mother, I believe, died of a broken heart. Sad experience for so young a girl. She seems to be a good little thing. She is working at housework in town, I believe. I understand she has an idea of entering college in the fall. You are entering college here? That will be delightful. My wife and I will take pleasure in calling on you as soon as you are ready to receive visitors.”

Leslie’s eyes were on Jane Bristol as she moved slowly toward the door, lingering a moment in the hall. None of the other girls seemed to have anything to do with her. With her usual impulsiveness Leslie left Allison, and went swiftly down the aisle till she stood by Jane Bristol’s side.

“We are going to meet my aunt and stay to church. Would you come and sit with us to-night?” she asked eagerly. “I’d like to get acquainted with you.”

Jane Bristol shook her head with a wistful smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I could. But I take care of a little girl evenings, and I only get off long enough for Christian Endeavor. It’s dear of you to ask me.”

“Well, you’ll come and see me when I get settled in my new home, won’t you?”

Jane looked at her thoughtfully, and then gave her a beautiful smile in answer to Leslie’s brilliant one.

“Yes, if you find you want me when you get settled, 167I’ll come,” she answered, and, giving Leslie’s little gloved hand an impulsive squeeze, she said, “Good-night,” and went away.

Leslie looked after her a minute, half understanding, and then turned to find her brother beside her.

“She thinks I won’t want her because she works!” she said. “But I do. I shall.”

“Sure you will, kid,” said her brother. “Just tell Cloudy about her. She’ll fix things. That old party––I mean, the reverend gentleman–––”

“Look out, Allison, that isn’t any better; and there comes Cloudy. Don’t make her feel bad again.”

“Well, parson, then––doesn’t seem to have much use for a person who’s had the misfortune to have her father commit forgery and her mother die of a broken heart, or is it because she has to work her way through college? He may be all right, sister; but I’d bank on that girl’s religion over against his any day in the week, Sundays included.”

Then Julia Cloud came up the steps, and they went in to a rather dreary evening service with a sparse congregation and a bored-looking choir, who passed notes and giggled during the sermon. Allison and Leslie sat and wondered what kind of a shock it would be to them all if the Great Companion should suddenly become visible in the room. If all that about His being always present was true, it certainly was a startling thing.

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