Stranger within the Gates

They were sitting at the breakfast table when the mail was brought in, Mary Garland and her children.

It was three years since Paul Garland had died, and his children had begun to feel it was an event of the dim past. For things went on in much the same gentle, pleasant way that they had when he was alive. But they still missed his bright smile, his keen eyes upon them, and his eager interest in all that they did. He was still a part of themselves, and when any important event occurred, they still in their thoughts turned their eyes to his to get his calm, sane reaction.

Young Paul had been in college a year when his father died so suddenly. And the fortune made out of inherited capital had been sufficient to keep things going just as the father had planned for his young family. Not that they ever thought of themselves as wealthy, just comfortably off. They still lived in the old house their father had inherited from his father. It wasn't the last word in architecture, but it was substantial and handsome and large enough for them all. They loved it.

Young Paul would graduate in the spring. Rex, the second son, two years later. Both boys were attending their father's college, a hundred miles away from home. Sylvia, the oldest daughter, was attending the university in the nearby city, and Fae and Stan were still in high school.

It was Fae who sprang to take the bundle of mail from the housemaid who brought it in.

"Oh, shoot!" she said, twisting her pretty young face into a grimace. "I thought my picture puzzle would come this morning. I sent for it a week ago."

"You did not!" said Stan gravely. "I carried your letter to the mailbox, and it was only last Saturday morning you sent for it."

"Oh, well, that's plenty of time for it to have got here by now," said the positive young sister. "Mother, here's a letter from Rex. He must be sick or something. His letters are scarce as hen's teeth."

She plumped it down beside her mother's plate and went on around distributing the mail.

Sylvia sat with a book propped open beside her plate. She was studying for an examination. She cast only a casual glance at the letter her sister laid beside her plate. Her brother gave her a mocking look. "Remove the debris, Fae," he said, "it must be from the wrong fella. Look at Syl's face."

"It's only a notice of a class meeting," said Sylvia, looking up from her book with a withering glance.

Then there was an exclamation from their mother, who had opened her son's letter and was reading it. They all looked up and saw that her face was white and drawn. Suddenly she bowed her head over the letter and sat there with her shoulders quivering.

Sylvia sprang to her feet and went over by her mother, her searching eyes spying the letter.

"What's the matter, Mother? Is Rex sick?"

One week before Christmas! Was something like that coming to them to spoil Christmas?

Her eyes searched Fae's face.

"
Was
that letter from Rex, Fae?" she asked under her breath.

Though the question had not been asked of Mary Garland, it was her anguished voice that gasped out, "Yes." Then as Sylvia stooped and gathered her mother's head into her arms and lifted her face from the table, Mary Garland fumbled at the letter and motioned Sylvia to read it.

The letter was brief and to the point:

 

Dear Mom:

 

This is just a short note to tell you I was married last week, and I would like to bring my wife home for Christmas! She is a nice girl, and I know you will love her. She hasn't any home, and I'm sure she'll enjoy our Christmas.

 

Your loving son,

Rex

 

P. S. I haven't told Paul yet; he is so busy getting ready to graduate in the spring. You can do as you like about telling him.

 

Stan and Fae had come quickly around the table and were reading over their sister's shoulder to see what had upset Mother. Mother simply never cried, not since their father died. And Mother was crying! Still, slow tears. And something like a suppressed groan whispered from her pale lips.

"Gosh! Can you believe that!" said Stan in a grown-up tone, still staring at the letter. "I thought he had some sense!"

"Oh, I
hate
him!" uttered Fae between her teeth. "He----he--he's
wicked
! Doing that to Mother!" And Fae broke into violent sobs and went to the dining room couch, burying her face in the cushions.

"Be still, can't you, children!" said Sylvia, gathering her mother closer in her arms and looking at her brother and sister with angry, stricken eyes. "Get up, Fae, and let Mother lie down!" Her strong arms drew her mother to the couch.

It was only a moment that Mary Garland succumbed to her grief, as the three children sat silently, angrily dismayed, trying to wink the tears back and find some solution for this awful problem suddenly thrust upon them to solve. They were not used to solving problems. Their mother had usually done that for them. And now she quickly roused to her responsibility and sat up in spite of Sylvia's strong, detaining hand.

"No, dear! I'm all right," she said in a hurt, kind voice that was so familiar to their ears. "It--just--got--me--for a minute! But----to think it should have been
Rex
! Rex, who isn't all grown up yet. Oh, I thought the fact that Paul was there would have restrained him from doing anything--foolish!"

"But he said Paul didn't know it! Maybe it's all right, only he just hasn't got around to telling Paul yet," eagerly suggested fourteen-year-old Fae.

"It couldn't be all right, not at his age!" said Stan in a superior tone. "He's nothing but a kid! He's only three years older than I am. Getting married! Gee! Why, even
I
would have had better sense than that, no matter how nice the girl was! And she couldn't be nice, not a girl that would marry a fella who wasn't halfway through college yet, could she? No nice girl would do that. Not when she knew his folks didn't know her yet. Not when she must have known they wouldn't like it! Gee! Our Rex!"

"Hush!" said Sylvia sternly. "Can't you see you're making it terribly hard for Mother?"

"Well, but, Syl," urged Fae earnestly, "haven't we got to help Mother decide what to do? Haven't we got to do something about it right away?" Just as if the whole responsibility rested on herself.

"Hush!" said Sylvia. "That's for Mother to decide. You wait till you're asked."

"You dears!" said the mother tenderly and gave them a loving, anguished look.

"Well, there's just one thing, Mother," said Fae. "The rest of us aren't married, and I think this'll be a good lesson for us. I don't think we'll any of us do a fool thing like this. I for one shall
never
marry!" And Fae suddenly beat a hasty retreat into the wide hall and crumpled down on the old-fashioned haircloth ancestral sofa, hard and uncompromising, pouring her tears down its shiny old covering, weeping her young heart out over the catastrophe that had without warning come upon the house of Garland.

"Aw, heck!" said Stan. Diving his hands deep down into his pockets, he strode over to the window, blinking and gazing out with unseeing eyes.

Suddenly the dining room clock chimed out the hour. One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Sharply, like an old familiar voice calling them to order. They all looked up and gave attention. Even Fae slid back to the dining room door and looked at the clock in startled meekness, as if it were something that had a right to reprimand them.

For the clock had been almost the last thing that the head of the house of Garland had bought and brought home before he lay down in his final illness and went away from them altogether. And in a way it had come to symbolize to them all the voice of authority, the voice of their dead father yet speaking.

When he had started that clock and they all stood about listening to its solemn ticking, its mellow chiming, Paul Garland had given them a bright little talk about it that they would always remember:

"When you hear that chime, you must always give attention! Always about-face and look up at the first stroke, and ask yourself what duty it is calling to remind you of. It is like a big musical conscience to remind you to work, or to tell you it is a time you may rest or relax, or go to your night's sleep. When it strikes eight on weekdays, it will be reminding you that it is time you started to school. . . ."

His words came back to them all now, and suddenly their several schools took form before their eyes. Their long habit of hurrying away to be on time asserted itself.

They gave one another startled looks, and then their glances melted into consternation as the new catastrophe thrust its memory in ahead of precedent.

"Oh!" quivered Fae. "We don't havta go ta school today, do we, Muvver?"

"Heck! No!" said Stan, whirling about and facing his mother almost defiantly. "Not me! To heck with school! We got other business to attend to. Good night, Moms, what we gonta do?"

Mary Garland lifted startled eyes, eyes that came back suddenly from gazing into the open door to despair, and went swiftly to the clock. For the clock had come to be a monitor to her also, a kind of religious obligation, representing her husband's loving authority.

Slowly--as her eyes took in the hour and her ears recalled its chiming from the faraway seconds since it had struck--that wild, desperate look faded from her eyes and sane common sense took its place. Then her voice quavered forth, growing clearer and more firm with each breath.

"Why, yes, you're going to school! Certainly!" she said decidedly. "What possible good could you do staying at home from school? This is something that has
happened
! There is nothing you can do to prevent it. It's just a fact that we have to face, and you can't make it any easier to face by sitting around here at home and glooming over it. Especially when you would be leaving duties undone. You know what your father would say. And this is an important day. Every one of you has tests or examinations to be passed, and you must get such good control over your nerves that you will pass them all better than you ever passed a test before. That will help you keep your minds off of the happening that troubles you."