The Street of the City (24 page)

“No, I haven’t seen them anywhere. I was almost afraid I might have hurt one of them with that skate. That really wasn’t a very pleasant weapon to use on a face.”

“Well you used it most effectively. I think I noted a scar on the chin of that one they call Spike. I trust it taught him a good lesson.”

“Oh, but I didn’t mean to do anything like that!”

“No, of course not, but remember how much worse they might have done to you if I hadn’t come along and taken a hand. Well, let’s forget them.”

“Yes, let’s. But why do you suppose that girl wanted to come here again? I’m afraid I was pretty rude to her the first time.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Val. “I’m quite sure she gave you plenty of reason to be.”

“But I don’t want to hate her,” said Frannie with a troubled voice.

Val smiled down upon her in the moonlight.

“My mother used to tell me that I couldn’t always like the things that people did, but I could love them because God did, or something like that. Did you ever hear that?”

“Yes, my mother taught me that, too. She said that we were to love everybody that Christ loved, but we didn’t have to love what they did, and that made it possible for us to love them even when they were doing some very unpleasant things to us.”

“Well, it’s not always easy to get that point of view, is it? But it seems to me you have come mighty near to it. And now let’s forget her, too, and get ready to enjoy what’s before us.”

They turned in at the big white gateway and walked slowly toward the house, and then they saw more people coming from every direction.

“Why, they are turning in here,” said Frannie. “There must be a lot of them.”

“Yes, there are about fifty or sixty in the class, Lady Winthrop said,” said Val.

“So many? Isn’t that wonderful? I’m so glad you invited me!”

“Even though you had to miss the dance?”

They arrived at the door in a burst of giggles, which perhaps more than anything that had so far happened to them, made them feel better acquainted. And then they entered the wide, beautiful hall and were welcomed by the sweet old lady in a soft gray gown with her pretty white hair in lovely waves to frame her face, and a look of joy in her eyes. And right away she introduced them to this one and that one.

“These are two dear young friends of mine. I want you to know them. I hope they are going to enjoy our study so much that they will want to be with us every week.”

Frannie’s heart gave a pleasant little thrill of pleasure. It was so nice to be taken into the inner circle as it were by this sweet old lady.

“Our Bibles! We didn’t bring our Bibles!” whispered Frannie as she looked around at the rustling leaves of the many Bibles.

But almost instantly the need was supplied, for Lady Winthrop touched Val’s arm and motioned toward a pile of Bibles on a table by the door, and he quickly brought some, for them and for a few others who had come Bibleless. And then the meeting started with a song—somebody at the piano, Frannie couldn’t see who—and everybody taking part. It seemed somehow different from ordinary singing. It was so heartfelt. She stole a shy look at her escort and noted his fine, clear voice. His singing bore other voices along.

And then a young man to whom they had been introduced, and who was sitting near the piano, arose and began to pray, exactly as if he were seeking personal help for each one for the evening’s study.

And so the lesson began.

Frannie found she knew her way about her Bible pretty well, although she was greatly amazed at the startling truths that developed through this well-versed teacher. It had never occurred to her before that the Bible was so linked up together, every word definitely proved by some other word elsewhere.

And as they went on through the lesson, Frannie grew more and more absorbed in the thought of how the Bible itself claimed to be the Word of God, not in just a casual way, but in a clear, indisputable way, upholding its claims with unanswerable truths that she had never thought of before. As an undercurrent, she sensed its demand to be accepted and put to the test.

It had never occurred to Frannie before, nor perhaps to Val either, that the Holy Spirit was a real Teacher, who was ready to make clear the meaning of the Bible to any soul willing to accept and believe it even before it was proved. But now they were amazed to find that all these people looked on the Holy Spirit as a definite Person. They heard that the moment a soul accepts Christ as his Savior then the Holy Spirit comes into that soul to abide, never to leave it. That was all new to them. The Holy Spirit had been a part of their traditional belief, inherited from their families, but there had been no knowledge that He was a real Person. If they had heard the words before they had not taken them in. And now suddenly it was as if the Holy Spirit had come into the room and been introduced to them personally, so that hereafter there could be no Christian life, or even thought, without this consciousness of another Person within them who had power and rights and likes and dislikes.

Lady Winthrop sat across from these two new disciples and watched their faces, saw how new and wonderful it seemed to them, this teaching that was practical. She began praying in her heart for them. For she suddenly knew she loved these two whom she had watched going down her “street of the city” on their flashing skates, and whom she had been praying for. She had so wanted them to come to this class, yet she had been afraid they wouldn’t. They were so young and bright and cheerful looking, and they were of the age when young people want the pleasures of this world rather than study about another world that can only be seen by faith. Yet here were these two poring over the pages and finding the references as eagerly as the regular members of the class, their faces bright with interest, their eyes shining with each new nugget of truth they took in. Lady Winthrop’s prayers took on the semblance of thanksgiving.

They lingered a little while near the teacher, asking an intelligent question of him now and then, as did others, and when the gathering finally broke up they went thoughtfully away.

“I begin to see,” said Willoughby as they turned onto the bridge, “that there are questions ahead of me that I’ve got to face and settle before I’ll be fit to go on. It seems to me that they must even take precedence of my war work or I won’t be fit to do it rightly.”

Frannie looked up thoughtfully.

“Questions?” she said half wonderingly. “What questions?”

“Whether I’m saved or not,” said the young man. “I never considered that at all. I thought I was living a pretty decent sort of life and that would be all that was expected of me. But I see now that I must know whether I’ve really accepted what Christ has done for me, whether I have my papers all made out, my ‘application’ as it were. It’s just like getting in the army, or enlisting in defense work, only vastly more important, of course, and strangely I never gave it a thought before. I thought that people who kept talking about being saved were cranks who wasted a lot of time and didn’t amount to a row of pins. But now I see it’s the basic principle upon which this whole thing rests. Christ made it so important that He was willing to die to accomplish it, and I have just passed it by and tried to get into the procession without filling out my papers. Any day now my work might get more strenuous, even more dangerous, and I don’t feel that I want to go on with it any further until I have this matter settled beyond a doubt, so that whatever comes I’ve a rock foundation under my feet and someone to trust in. How about you, Frannie? Have you settled this question?”

“I think I did when I was a little girl, just before I united with the church, but I haven’t been doing much about it since except going to church regularly when I could. Doing a little church work now and then, like playing for prayer meetings or waiting on tables at a church supper or even teaching a class in the primary room. But I know those things don’t amount to anything. I see now that what God wants is for us to let His Spirit have His way in our hearts, and it’s up to Him then to direct us to do ‘church work’ or ‘home work,’ the way they said tonight. I never really let Him do anything in my life. I think I’ll have a talk with God tonight and tell Him I want things to be different after this.”

Willoughby’s hand slid around Frannie’s little gloved hand that rested on his arm.

“We’ll do it together tonight,” he said quietly. “It seems wonderful that we can really talk such things over with the great God, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Frannie softly. And then just before they left the bridge she pointed down the river to where the lights of the city twinkled and brightened the sky and shone golden in the river.

“Look! Look! See, there’s the heavenly city shining out that way again. It almost seems as if it really were a picture of the city we are to see someday.”

“Yes,” said the young man gravely. “ ‘And the street of the city was pure gold.’ I looked that verse up today. Lady Winthrop told me where to find it. It struck me as something to look forward to.”

A
n hour after the little family in the brick house was asleep with every window dark, there came two stealthy figures stealing over the fields and approaching the back of the cottage where the covered trench was located. They halted and looked around.

“It was right here I fell. Turn on your flashlight, Spike, and give us a glimpse around. It ought to be easy to find. It was a white card, and there were some other papers with it. Give us a flash. What’s the matter? Can’t you find it?”

“No, Kit, I don’t seem to have it. Guess I must have forgot to take it out of the pocket of my overcoat when I changed to this sweater. Here’s some matches. They’ll do.”

“Well, be quick! I don’t want to run any risks, not with guys like those two. I don’t want us to get pinched. Not at this stage of the game.”

A crisp sound and then a flickering light, quavering over the pile of dirty snow and earth, and dying out with a fizzle.

“Heck! Don’t you know how to keep a match going? Give it to me!”

Another light struggled out from the damp matches, floated mistily over the heap of rubble, disclosing little, and died away again.

Match after match illuminated the ground for a brief space and faded away, until they were all gone, but not a card was disclosed.

“Well, I guess it ain’t here!” said Kit in a discouraged whisper. “But I know this is where I fell, right over that big lump of snow. I cut a big slit in the knee of my pants. What’s that you’re picking up? Is that a card?”

“Naw, it’s only a rag. It’s a fancy nose rag. Some dame dropped it here. Got perfume on it. Smell that!” And Spike held out a delicate bit of finery.

Kit sniffed and then reached for the handkerchief and smelled again.

“Say!” he exclaimed. “That’s the same perfume our dame wore when she brought us to this house this evening. It’s hers!”

“You poor fool, you. How would it get here? Look how far this is from the gate where we came in. And there’s no wind.”

They stared at each other in the dim night. Then Kit looked around him, turned his head toward the house, and then toward the gate where they had entered earlier in the evening.

“That dame must have chased after us, and likely fell down the way I did!”

“I told you we oughtta have gone across the road and stayed behind that car till she come out and then told her we found we’d forgot an engagement or something.”

“Not on yer life, I wouldn’t have risked meetin’ that guy again. If he’d slung you across the ice on the river the way he did me you wouldn’t either. But say, we’ve gotta hunt up that dame and get my pass. I’ll lose my job if I don’t have it. What did she say her name was?”

“She’s that old Hollister guy’s kid. They live acrost the river in that house with all them towers and pinnacles.”

“They do? Well, we gotta go over there and ask for her.”

“Not me!” said Spike. “It ain’t my pass that’s lost. Go yerself if yer fool enough to try it, but you’ll go by yerself. I don’t crash into no swell’s house like that!”

“Okay! I’ll go by myself then. I ain’t gonta lose my pass and lose my job. You know I’ll lose my job if I can’t find my pass in the morning. Mebbe if I’d go over to that dance we was planning she’d be there yet.”

“That won’t do any good,” said Spike. “Don’t you remember she said these dances she wanted us for were over by midnight because all the girls were working girls and couldn’t keep their jobs if they stayed out too late? So that’s out. It’s way past midnight now.”

“Then I’m in real trouble. That dame won’t be up early enough in the morning for me to get my pass.”

“What makes you think she’s got it?”

“Oh, she likely picked it up if she fell down. See all these footprints. She fell all righty, and I sure am in real trouble now.”

And then a heavy hand fell on his shoulder.

“Yes, you sure are in real trouble, unless you can explain pretty good and quick what you’re doing at this time of night, lighting matches around the back of this house.”

Spike made a quick movement to leave, but the other shadow that had come quietly up with the first man, put out a strong hand and grasped Spike with a firm hold, and though he struggled his best, he was unable to get away.

“I ain’t in this,” gasped Spike in a scared voice. “I just came along with him because he asked me.”

“I wasn’t doin’ nothin’,” growled Kit shakily. “I was just trying’ to find my pass I thought I might a dropped here awhile ago when I went across the lot in a hurry. I gotta have that pass or I lose my job.”

“Yes? Well, you better look out you don’t lose something else on the way. What were you doing with matches here? Trying to make a fire this time of night?”

“No sir, I wasn’t trying’ to make no fire here. I was just tryin’ to find my pass card. It oughtta be around here somewhere.”

One of the two men swept his flashlight around the place, but no card showed up.

“You see,” he said scathingly. “You just come along with me to the station house and we’ll see if we can’t get to the bottom of this business.”

“No sir, I can’t go to the station house. I haven’t done nothin’. I’ve gotta go see that girl and see if she picked it up and was goin’ to return it to me.”