The Prodigal Girl (36 page)

The gray morning came up, with a sullen sky, the morning that was to have been Christmas Day, and Betty Thornton lay out alone on a billow of snow, slowly freezing to death.

She had read that people freezing to death did not suffer pain. It was true, then. She was satisfied to lie here and rest. The things that hurt, her chilled feet, the aching in her back, and the pull on her tired limbs and heart, were gone. Even the sting of the cold in her nostrils was not so bad when she did not have to breathe much, and her throat did not hurt so much if she did not try to swallow. She would go to sleep a little while, and perhaps when she woke up the sun would shine and the snow would be melted at least enough to show her the way.

She closed her eyes with a little sob and let her body rest down in the feathery bed of snow, and suddenly she could hear the family singing the old song, down in the living room of the farmhouse. Chris’s baritone and Daddy’s tenor. Jane singing also and Mother carrying the soprano all alone, her voice sounding weak and trembling like a sob in the end of the words, and Betty not there to help! She tried to open her lips and sing. Perhaps they would hear her and come to help her out. But when the sound came out in a little cracked squeak her throat hurt her so terribly that she had to give it up. But what were those words they were singing, the words she had formed with her lips but could not utter?

“
While I draw this fleeting breath,

When my eyelids close in death,

When I rise to worlds unknown,

See Thee on Thy judgment throne.”

Then she was dying. This was almost her last breath! Her eyelids were closing in death, and she was going to an unknown world. There would be a judgment throne, and she would be tried for all the things she had done that were wrong and for all the things she ought to have done that were right. And God would be there!

Suddenly she knew that God was there now, out there in the white fields just beyond; that He had been out there all the time looking at her in His kind, sad way, watching how far she had gone away from home. She had tried to get away from Him but she had only got away from those she knew and loved, and God who frightened her had come along. She could not get away from God!

She could hear her father praying now with agonized tones, kneeling on the snow out there, with his head bowed and tears in his voice, or was it in the living room at the farm he was kneeling?

She was not sure. It was not at home in Briardale, she was sure of that, for he never prayed in Briardale except sometimes in church, a very formal polite prayer that had not seemed like prayer at all and had not bothered her in the least. But he was praying now, in tones that tore her young heart: “Oh God, find my little Betty! Save my little Betty!” She could hear it over and over again, with the tears in his voice, and her mother sobbing in between; Jane sobbing too, and Chris wiping his eyes—and even little Doris and John crying, kneeling there beside the old sofa and crying, or was it out in the snow? She could not tell. Strange that she could see them all so plainly, hear them, too, and she could not make herself known to them. But perhaps she was already dead. Her feet were dead, anyway. It was a long time since she had felt them at all. And there was something packed away inside her lungs that made it hard to breathe. It hurt like a knife now when she tried.

And God was out there yet. She had not opened her eyes but He was there! Yes, she must be dead already, and this was the judgment God had come for. So, there
was
a God after all! The teachers in high school had not known. Was Dudley dead, too? Did he know, too, that there was a God? Would they be judged together for what they had tried to do?

It was just then, perhaps, that Betty suddenly grew up and became a woman.

Chester had not received any of the frantic messages that were sent to him. He had not gone to the places where he might reasonably have thought to go. He had found one or two important matters that must be attended to at once, and he had used every minute of time and attended to them, with the one object in view, to get back to the farm Monday evening and spend Christmas Eve with his family. He had not even taken time to call on the phone, he was going back so soon. Instead he took the time to purchase gifts—not the gifts he had planned for them on that evening when he had first known of his new prosperity, but sensible things that could be used on the farm and make the winter in the cold and isolation a delight. He telephoned an order for skis, and snowshoes and a new kind of sled for sledding and some better skates and warm sweaters, and a lot of games that could be played indoors on stormy days. He bent his every energy to getting back, that this Christmas might yet be one of the happiest that they had ever spent together.

He reached the farm about nine o’clock Christmas Eve and burst through the door with a shout of welcome.

They all came rushing to meet him, Eleanor with tears upon her face, eager expectancy in her look.

“Oh, have you found her?” she cried as he stooped to kiss her. “Where is Betty? Didn’t you bring her back with you? Oh,
couldn’t
you bring her back? Was it too late?”

She looked with blank eyes past him to the closed door where no Betty stood as she had hoped.

“Bring her back?” said Chester. “Back from where? Has Betty gone down to the village alone at this time of night? Surely you didn’t let her go alone!”

It was a long time before they could make him understand, and finally Chris had to break in:

“Now, Muth, dear,” he said gently, “you just wait, and let me han’l this! I’ll tell Dad. He left me in charge!”

And so they finally made the whole terrible story clear.

It appeared that they had done every one of the things that he suggested eagerly as the story was unfolded. Yes, they had telephoned this one and that; yes, they had wired to all the stations. Yes, they had—

He walked the floor in his first frantic realization of truth that Betty had been gone three days, and no word had come from her.

It was too late to hope to stop the folly of a marriage. Too late to do anything but try to find her and keep her from further folly if possible.

“It is all my fault!” he exclaimed as he wheeled at one end of the room and started pacing back again. “I have not been the right kind of a father! I have not watched my children! I am like Eli. My children have become vile, and I have not restrained them! It is my fault, and now my punishment has come!”

“Oh, but I am her mother!” broke out Eleanor, sobbing as if her heart would break. “I have not been the right kind of a mother—”

“Stop!” said Chester, pausing before her and laying his hand on her bowed head. “You have been a wonderful mother! You have not gone out into the world to know the world as I have. You did not know—”

“Oh, I knew,” said Eleanor, “but I did not believe it was true. I didn’t think such things could ever happen to us. I thought people were exaggerating! Oh, if I could
only
go back and have Betty in my arms again, a little baby, I would do so differently. Those people who are teaching child psychology don’t know. They ought to be told that they are doing mothers harm—”

“They are blathering idiots!” said Chester viciously. “But that does not let us off. We were brought up in the fear of the Lord, you and I, and somehow we have failed to hand it on to our children. They have lost the sense of sin! They have lost the sense of right and wrong. I saw that the night I went out after Betty! I saw that when I found Jane dancing a vulgar dance in a drugstore for the edification of a lot of dirty-minded fellows. I saw it later when the letter came—”

He became aware of Chris’s miserable eyes upon him and little Jane’s dark head down upon the arm of the sofa as she huddled in its corner, her eyes smoldering with unhappiness.

“But we must not think of that now. We must do something!

You have been wonderful, Chris, I’m proud of you. But now I think that we cannot any longer keep this thing quiet. I will try to get in touch with Mansfield, our New York man who handles all the office detective work. Perhaps he can think of something else to do. Chris, you say you tried to get in touch with the Westons, how lately?”

“This afternoon,” said Chris, comforted that his father was satisfied with his action. “They are gone to New York, but the servant didn’t know the address.”

“Well, I’ll get Mansfield at once if I can. It’s a bad night, Christmas Eve, to expect to get anybody, but we’ll be able to find out something. Perhaps they’ll broadcast it tonight, though I’m afraid it is too late to get in now.”

“Oh, Chester!” wailed Eleanor. “Must we do that?”

“I’m afraid we must, dear, if we want results. But I’ll see what Mansfield says—”

“But Chester, you must have some supper.” Eleanor sprang up and went toward the kitchen.

“No, Eleanor. Not now. I couldn’t eat!” said Chester. “Not now. You go to bed. You look completely exhausted. I’ll come up and tell you what he says when I get him.”

“But just a cup of coffee—”

“No, Eleanor. Not now. I couldn’t swallow it. I’ll get something when I want it.”

Chester went into the library and shut the door. They heard the telephone ringing now and then; they heard Chester’s low voice talking and then long silences. The household settled to sleep at last, feeling the burden of responsibility rolled from their shoulders to a certain extent, feeling greatly comforted to have the husband and father at home again and undertaking.

But Chester, in the room below as he waited for Mansfield, who was reported to be out of town for a few hours, was kneeling beside his mother’s old rocking chair, praying. By his side on his father’s desk the old Bible was spread open, for Chester had been reading the word of God concerning Eli, trying to find some hope for his own sin. And when he could not find it he bowed in deep anguish and prayed, “Oh, God, forgive me! Have mercy upon me, a sinful father, that I have not seen nor knew what was coming to my children, and have not restrained them. Oh, God, have compassion on my little Betty! Oh, God,
find
my little Betty!
Save
my little Betty!”

Chapter 26

O
ut across the miles of snowy fields the echo of that prayer hovered in the air as it went up to the throne of God, its wavelengths lingering about through the gray dawn, while the father knelt and poured out his heart in the same words again and again: “Save my little Betty! Oh God,
find
my little Betty!” From heaven’s broadcasting station perhaps that prayer went back till Betty’s heart tuned in and heard—Betty, lying in the cold white snow, listening to her father’s prayer that had gone up to God and was sent back to her. Betty, finding God still following her, standing apart, across the snows of Christmas morning!

All had gone blank out there on the snow. Betty could no longer hear her father’s voice in prayer. She felt alone, forsaken! But God was still there. She could not rise nor look, for her body seemed to have gone dead, but she knew He was there.

Suddenly a hand touched her on the shoulder. She was surprised. She opened her eyes and saw a face bending over her and two pleasant eyes looking into hers.

“Are you God?” she thought she heard her own voice ask, her little frozen voice.

“No,” said a kindly voice, “but I’m God’s child! What are you doing here, sister?”

“My feet are dead,” she answered out of the case of fire and ice in which her body seemed to be fastened. “I think perhaps they are broken off.”

He stooped and lifted her in strong arms, and she felt the sucking bed of snow release her from its deadly hold.

She was too tired to look up, except for a glance at the kindly face and the pleasant eyes upon her, eyes that looked as though the sunshine was in behind them somewhere.

There was an old Ford standing out there in the road about five yards from the place where she had fallen. She wondered how it had got there without her hearing it. He put her in the backseat, brushing the snow from her garments. He unwound the tattered silk about her ankles that had slipped down farther and farther until they were mere ribbons cluttering about her feet.

“You poor kid!” he said as he unfastened the little inadequate shoes. “You poor kid! Your feet must be frozen!”

“Oh, are they there yet?” said Betty, rousing from the stupor into which she had immediately sunk. “I thought they were broken off!”

He cast a furtive, anxious glance at her flushed face and caught the hoarse rasp of her voice as she coughed. He took off his big driving gloves and took her cold, cold feet in both of his warm hands and rubbed them.

“You poor kid!” he said gently.

She laughed hoarsely.

“I ran away to get married,” she said, laughing again deliriously, “and I left my galoshes in the station!” He gave her a quick keen glance.