Cloudy Jewel

CHAPTER XV Leslie and Allison did not go to the Christian Endeavor meeting that second Sunday. They were tired out, and wanted to stay at home all the evening, and Julia Cloud felt that it would be unwise to urge them; so they sat around the fire and talked. Leslie sat down at the new piano, and played softly old hymns that Julia Cloud hummed; and they all went to bed early, having had a happy Sabbath in their new home.

But Monday evening quite early, just after they had come back from supper and were talking about reading a story aloud, there came a knock at the door. Their first caller! And behold, there stood the inefficient-looking young man who had led the Christian Endeavor meeting, the boy with the goggles who had prayed, and the two girls who had sat by the piano.

“We’re a committee,” announced the young man, quite embarrassed. “My name’s Herricote, Joe Herricote. I’m president of our Christian Endeavor Society, and this is Roy Bryan; he’s the secretary. This is Mame Beecher. I guess you remember her singing. She’s chairman of our social committee, and Lila Cary’s our pianist and chairman of the music committee. We’ve come to see if you won’t help us.”

“Come in,” said Allison cordially, but with a growing disappointment. Now, here were these dull people coming to interrupt their pleasant evening, and there wouldn’t be many of them, for college would soon begin, and they would be too busy then to read stories and just enjoy themselves.

182 Leslie, too, frowned, but came forward politely to be introduced. She knew at a glance that these were not people of the kind she cared to have for friends.

“We’re a committee,” repeated young Herricote, sitting down on the edge of a chair, and looking around most uncomfortably at the luxurious apartment. He had not realized it would be like this. He was beginning to feel like a fish out of water. As for the rest of the committee, they were overawed and dumb, all except the little fellow with the tortoise-rimmed glasses. He was not looking at anything but Allison, and was intent on his mission. When he saw that his superior had been struck dumb, he took up the story.

“They appointed us to come and interview you, and see if you wouldn’t give us some new ideas how to run our society so it would be a success,” he put in. “They all liked your speech so much the other night they felt you could help us out of the rut we’ve got into.”

“Me?” asked Allison, laughing incredulously. “Why, I told you I didn’t know the first thing about Christian Endeavor.”

“But we’ve gotta have your help,” said the young secretary earnestly. “This thing’s gotta go! It’s needed in our church, and it’s the only thing in the town to help some of the young people. It’s just gotta go!”

“Well, if you feel that way, you’ll make it go, I’m sure,” encouraged Allison. “You’re just the kind of a fellow to make it go. You know all about it. Not I. I never heard of the thing till last week, except just in a casual way. Don’t know much about it yet.”

“Well, s’pose it was one of your frats, and it wasn’t 183succeeding. What would you do? You saw what kind of a dead-and-alive meeting we had, only a few there, and nobody taking much interest. How would you pull up a frat that was that way?”

“Well,” said Allison, speaking at random, “I’d look around, and find some of the right kind of fellows, and rush ’em. Get in some new blood.”

“That’s all right,” said Bryan doggedly. “I’m rushin’ you. How do you do it? I never went to college yet; so I don’t know.”

Allison laughed now. He rather liked this queer boy.

“He’s a nut!” he said to himself, and entered into the talk in earnest.

“Why, you have parties, and rides, and good times generally, and invite a fellow, and make him feel at home, and make him want to belong. See?”

“I see,” said Bryan, with a twinkling glance at the rest of his committee. “We have a party down at my house Friday night. Will you come?”

Allison saw that the joke was on him, and his reserve broke down entirely.

“Well, I guess it’s up to me to come,” he said. “Yes, I’m game. I’ll come.”

Bryan turned his big goggles on Leslie.

“Will you come?”

“Why, yes, if Allison does, I will,” agreed Leslie, dimpling.

“That’s all right,” said Bryan, turning back to Allison. “Now, what do you do when you rush? You’ll have to teach us how.”

“Well,” said Allison thoughtfully, “we generally pick out our best rushers, the ones that can talk best, 184and put them wise. We never let the fellow that’s rushed know what we’re doing. Oh, if he has brains, he always knows, of course; but you don’t say you’re rushing him in so many words. At college we meet a fellow at the train, and show him around the place, and put him onto all the little things that will make it easy for him; and we invite him to eat with us, and help him out in every way we can. We appoint some one to look after him specially, and a certain group have him in their charge so the other frats won’t have a chance to rush him–––”

“I see. The other frats being represented by the devil, I suppose,” said the round-eyed boy keenly without a smile.

Allison stared at him, and then broke into a laugh again.

“Exactly,” he cried; “you’ve got onto the idea. It’s your society over against the other things that can draw them away from what you stand for. See? And then there’s another thing. You want to have something ready to show them when you get them there. That’s where our alumni come in. They often run down to college for a few days and help us out with money and influence and experience. If you’ve got good working alumni, you’re right in it, you see. We generally appoint a committee to talk things over with the alumni.”

“You mean,” said Bryan, drawing his brows together in a comical way behind his goggles, “you mean––pray, I suppose.”

“Why,” said Allison, flushing, “I suppose that would be a good idea. I hadn’t thought of it just in that way.”

185 “You called Christ our alumnus the other night,” reminded the literal youth solemnly.

“So I did,” acknowledged Allison embarrassedly. “Well, I guess you’re right. But I don’t know much about that kind of line.”

“I’m afraid there don’t many of us,” put in the bashful president. “I wouldn’t hardly know who to appoint on such a committee. There’s only two or three like to pray in our meetings. There’s Bryan; we always ask him because he doesn’t mind, and I––well, I do sometimes when there’s no one else, but it comes hard; and there’s old Miss Ferby, but she always prays so long, and gets in the president and all the missionary stations–––”

“I should think you’d ask that Jane Bristol,” spoke up Leslie earnestly. “I know she must be able to. She talked that way.”

“I suppose she would,” responded the president hesitatingly, looking toward the two ladies of the committee with a half apology. “What do you girls think about it?”

“Oh, I suppose she could pray,” said the girl called Mame, with a shrug. “She does, you know, often in meeting.”

Then with a giggle toward Leslie she added as if in explanation, “She works out, you know.”

“It must be very hard for her,” said Leslie, purposely ignoring the inference.

“Well, you know she isn’t in our set. Nobody has much to do with her.”

“Why not? I think she is very unusual,” said Leslie with just the least bit of hauteur.

“Well, it wouldn’t be wise to get her into things. 186It might keep some others out if we made her prominent,” put in Lila Cary with some asperity. “We must have some social distinction, you know.”

“In our frat one fellow is as good as another if he has the right kind of character,” remarked Allison dryly. “That girl sounded to me as if she had some drag with your alumni. But of course you know her better than I.”

“She is a good girl all right and real religious,” hastened Lila to amend. “I suppose she’d be real good on a prayer committee, and would help to fill up there, as you haven’t many.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” said Allison, “if you really want to succeed, you’ve got to pull together, every member of you, or you won’t get anywhere. And I should think that you’d have to be careful now at first whom you get in. Of course after you’re pretty strong you can take in a few just to help them; but, if you get in too many of that lame kind, your society’ll go bad. The weak kind will rule, and the mischief will be to pay. I shouldn’t think it would help you any just now to get in any folks that would feel that way about a good girl just because she earns her living.”

Mame Beecher and Lila Cary looked at each other in alarm, and hastened to affirm that they never felt that way about Jane Bristol. They thought she was a real good sort, and had always meant to get acquainted with her; only she always slipped out as soon as meeting was over.

Back in the dining-room behind the rose-lined blue-velvet hangings Julia Cloud lingered and smiled over the way her two children were developing opinions and character. How splendid of them to take this stand! 187And who was Jane Bristol? Assuredly she must be looked up and helped if that was the way the town felt about her, poor child!

“Well,” said Bryan in a business-like tone, “I’m secretary. Joe, you call that prayer committee together Thursday night at your house at half-past seven, and I’ll send a notice to each one. You make Jane Bristol chairman, and I’ll be on the committee; and I’ll go after her and take her home. Now, who else are you going to have on it?”

The president assented readily. He was one not used to taking the initiative, but he eagerly did as he was told when a good idea presented itself.

“We want you on it,” he said, nodding to Allison and then, looking shyly at Leslie, added, “And you?”

“Oh!” said Leslie, flushing in fright, “what would we have to do? I never prayed before anybody in my life. I’m not sure I even know how to pray, only just to say ‘Thank you’ to God sometimes. I think you could find somebody better.”

“We’ve got to have you this time,” said the president, shaking his head. “You needn’t pray if you don’t want to, but you must come and help us through.”

“But I couldn’t go and be a––a sort of slacker!” said Leslie, her cheeks quite beautifully red.

“That’s all right! You come!” said Bryan, looking solemnly at her.

When the visitors finally took themselves away, Allison, polite to the last, closed the door with a courteous “Good-night,” and then stood frowning at the fire.

Julia Cloud came softly into the room, and went and stood beside him with loving question in her eyes. He met her gaze with a new kind of hardness.

188 “Now, you see what you let me in for, Cloudy, when you made me go to that little old dull Christian Endeavor! But I won’t do it! That’s all there is to it. You needn’t think I’m going to. The idea! Why, what did we come here to college for? To run an asylum for sick Sunday schools, I’d like to know? As if I had time to monkey with their little old society! It’s rank nonsense, anyhow! What good do they think they can do, a couple of sissies, and two or three kid vamps, setting up to lisp religion? It’s ridiculous!”

He was working himself up into a fine frenzy. Julia Cloud stood and watched him, an amused smile growing on her sweet lips. He caught the amusement, and fired up at it.

“What are you looking like that at me for, Cloudy? You know it is. You know it’s all foolishness. And you know I couldn’t help them, anyhow. Come, now, don’t you? What are you looking like that for, Cloudy? I believe you’re laughing at me! You think I’ll go and get into this thing, but I’ll show you. I won’t! And that’s an end of it. Cloudy, I insist on knowing what you find to laugh at in this situation.”

“Why, I was just thinking how much you reminded me of Moses,” said Julia Cloud sweetly.

“Of Moses!” screamed Allison half angrily. “Why, he was a meek man, and I’m not meek. I’m mad! Out and out mad, Cloudy. What do you mean?”

“Oh, no, he wasn’t always meek,” said his aunt thoughtfully; “and he talked just as you are doing when God called on him first to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. He said he couldn’t and he wouldn’t and he shouldn’t, and made every excuse in the calendar; and finally God had to send along Aaron 189to help him, although God had said He would be with him and make him perfectly able alone to do what He wanted done.”

“I suppose I’m Aaron,” sighed Leslie, settling into a big chair by the fire. “But I don’t like those girls one bit! And I don’t care if they stay in seven Egypts.”

“Now, look here, Cloudy Jewel,” pleaded Allison. “You’re not going to get me into any such corner as that. The idea that God would call me to do any of His work when I never had anything at all to do with the church in my life, and I don’t want to. How should I know what to do? Why should He ever call me, I’d like to know, when I don’t know the first thing about churches? You’re all off, Cloudy. Think again. Why, I’m not even what you’d call a Christian. He surely wouldn’t call people that haven’t––well, what you’d call enlisted with Him, would He?”

“He might,” answered Julia Cloud reflectively. She was sitting on the end of the big blue couch, and the firelight played over her white hair with silvery lights, and cast a lovely rose tint over her sweet face. “There were several instances where He called people who had never known Him at all, who, in fact, were worshipping idols and strange gods, and told them to go and do something for Him. There was Paul; he was actually against Him. And there was Abraham; he lived among regular idol-worshippers, and God called him to go into a strange land and founded a new family for him, the beginning of the peculiar people through whose line was to come Jesus, the Saviour of the world. And Abraham went.”

“Oh, nonsense, Cloudy! That was in those times. Of course. There wasn’t anybody else, I suppose; and 190He had to take some one. But now there are plenty of people who go to church all the time and like that sort of thing.”

“How do you know, Allison? Perhaps you are the only one in this town, and God has sent you here just to do this special work.”

“Well, I won’t, and that’s flat, Cloudy; so you can put the idea right out of your head. I won’t, not even for you. Anything that has to do with your personal comfort I wouldn’t say that about, of course; but this belongs entirely to that little old ratty church, and I haven’t anything at all to do with it; and I want you to forget it, Cloudy, for I’m not going to do it!”

“Why, Allison, you’re mistaken about me. It isn’t my affair, and I don’t intend to make it so. I didn’t get this up. It’s between you and God. If God really called you, you’ll have to say no to Him, not to me. I don’t intend to make excuses to God for you, child. You needn’t think it. And, besides, there’s another thing you’re very much mistaken about, and that is that you haven’t anything to do with the church. When you were a little baby six months old, your father and mother brought you home to our house; and the first Sunday they were there they took you to the old church where all the children and grandchildren had been christened for years, and they stood up and assented to the vows that gave you to God. And they promised for themselves that they would do their best to bring you up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord until you came to years and could finish the bond by giving yourself to the Lord. I shall never forget the sweet, serious look on the face of your lovely girl-mother when she bowed her head in answer to the minister’s question, ‘Do you thus promise?’”

191 Allison had stopped in his angry walk up and down the room, and was looking at her interestedly.

“Is that right, Cloudy? Was I baptized in the old Sterling church? I never knew that. Tell me about it,” and he seated himself on the other end of the couch, while Leslie switched off the light and nestled down between them, scenting a story.

“Wasn’t I, too, Cloudy?” she asked hungrily.

“No, dear, I think you were baptized in California in your mother’s church, and I’m sorry to say I wasn’t there to see; so I can’t tell you about it; but I remember very distinctly all about Allison’s christening, for we were all so happy to have it happen in the East, and he was the first grandchild, and we hadn’t seen your father for over two years, nor ever seen his young wife before; so it was a great event. It was a beautiful bright October day, and I had the pleasure of making the dress you wore, Allison, every stitch by hand, hemstitching and embroidery and all. And right in the midst of the ceremony you looked over your father’s shoulder, and saw me sitting in the front seat, and smiled the sweetest smile! Then you jumped up and down in your father’s arms, and spatted your little pink hands together, and called out ‘Ah-Jah!’ That’s what you used to call me then, and everybody all over the church smiled. How could they help it?”

“Gee! I must ’a’ been some kid!” said Allison, slipping down into a comfortable position among the pillows. “Say, Cloudy, I knew a good thing when I saw it even then, didn’t I?”

“You know, Allison, that ceremony wasn’t just all on your father’s and mother’s part; it entailed some responsibility upon you. It was part of your heritage, and you’ve no right to waste it any more than if it 192were gold or bank stock or houses and lands. It was your title to a heavenly sonship, and it gave God the right to call upon you to do whatever He wants you to do. It’s between you and God now, and you’ll have to settle it yourself. It’s not anything I could settle for you either way, much as I might want it, because it is you who must answer God, and you must answer Him from the heart either way; so nobody else has anything to do with it.”

“Oh, good-night! Cloudy, you certainly can put things in an awkward way. Oh, hang it! Now this whole evening’s spoiled. I wish I hadn’t gone to the front door at all. I wish I’d turned out the lights and let ’em knock. And there was that story you were going to read, and now it’s too late!”

“Why, no; it’s not too late at all,” said Julia Cloud, consulting her little watch in the firelight. “It’s only quarter to nine, and I’m sure we can indulge ourselves a little to-night, and finish the story before we go to bed. Turn the light on, and get the magazine.”

With an air of finality Julia Cloud put aside the debated question, and settled herself in the big willow chair by the lamp with her book. Leslie went back to her chair by the fire, and Allison flung himself down on the couch with a pillow half over his eyes; but anybody watching closely would have seen that his eyes were wide open and he was studying the calm, quiet profile of his aunt’s sweet face as she read in a gentle, even tone, paragraph after paragraph without a flicker of disturbance on her brow. Allison was not more than half listening to the story. He was thinking hard. Those things Julia Cloud had said about obligations and Moses and Abraham and Paul stuck hard in his mind, and he couldn’t get away from them.

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