LOST FRIENDS.
"I NEVER knew nothing about it," Bud said, earnestly. "I never heard as
anybody cared in particular what became of me, only so that I got out
of folks' way and didn't bother."
"Why, Bud! have you never heard the minister urge you to give yourself
to Jesus?"
But Bud shook his head energetically.
"No minister never spoke to me," he said. "I goes to church every
once in a while, because I gets my work all done, and don't know what
else to do. When the horses are gone, and the dog is gone, I'm awful
lonesome up there," inclining his head toward the hill up which the
Ansted horses were now speeding, "and the dog always goes to town to
church, along with the horses, and so I went down here for company kind
of; but the minister never said nothing to me. I've listened a good
bit, off and on, because I felt lonesome, and did not know what else to
do; but he never said nothing about me, nor told me a body cared. It
was all for them other folks, that has homes and good clothes."
What a pitiful story was this, coming up from the depths of the great,
lonesome heart, surrounded on every hand by nominal Christians! Claire
could not keep the tears from her eyes, and dared not speak for a
moment, her voice was so full of them.
"Did you never read any verses in the Bible?" she asked at last. "You
can read, can't you?"
"Oh, yes'm, I can read. I learned how when I lived with Mr. Stokes,
back there in the country. Little Jack, he showed me my letters, and
my easy readings, and all, and I could read to him quite a bit. Jack
wasn't but eight years old; but he was smart, and he was good, and
he died." The lonely story ended with a sigh. There was evidently a
memory of better times enjoyed in the dim past.
Claire questioned to get at the utmost of his knowledge:
"And didn't Jack tell you anything about Jesus and Heaven?"
"He did that, ma'am. He talked a good deal about being sent for to go
there; and he was, too; I make sure of that, for he went away sudden in
the night, the _life_ did, you know, and he had a smile on his face in
the morning, just as he looked when he was very glad about anything,
and I am about sure that it was just as he said it would be about the
angels coming, and all; and he used to think they would come for me,
too. 'Your turn will come, Bud,' he used to say to me. He was a little
fellow, you see"--this last was in an apologetic tone--"he thought the
world of Bud, and he thought everybody else was like him, and that what
was fixed for him would be fixed for Bud. I used to like to hear him
say it, because he was a little fellow, and he liked me; but I knew
that what was for him wasn't for me."
"Bud, you are mistaken. Little Jack was right about it all. There was
no doubt but that the angels came for him, and they will come for you,
if you want to go where Jack is. Jesus Christ, Jack's Saviour, was the
one who told him to tell you about it."
"Eh!" said Bud, in a sort of stupid amaze. "Did you know Jack, ma'am?"
"No, I didn't know him, but I know his Saviour, the one who sent for
him to go home to heaven; and I know that what he told you is true; for
the same one has told me the same thing: told me to coax you, Bud, to
be ready to go where little Jack is. Will you?"
"I'd go on my hands and knees all night through the woods to see little
Jack again, but I don't know the way."
"Bud, did you know that the Bible was God's book, and told all about
Jack's home, and the way to get to it? Have you a Bible?"
"No," said Bud, slowly, "I haven't got no book at all. I never had no
book."
What desolation of poverty was this! Claire took her instant resolution.
"Bud, I have a Bible which I think little Jack and little Jack's
Saviour want me to give to you for your very own. I'll get it for you
to-night, and then I want you to promise me that every day you will
read one verse in it. It is all marked off into verses--and will you
begin to-night?"
"I will so," said Bud, with a note of satisfaction in his voice. "I've
thought a good many times that it would be nice to have one book; but I
didn't much expect to, ever. I'll read in it this very night, ma'am."
And as he received the treasure wrapped in paper, and, tucking it
carefully under his arm, trudged away, Claire, could she have followed
him, would have found that every once in a while, during that long,
homeward walk, he chuckled, and hugged the book closer.
Claire went to her room, and to her knees, her heart full for Bud,
poor, dreary, homeless Bud! If he _could_ be made to understand that
there were home and friends waiting for him! If she had only had time
to mark a few of the verses, some of those very plain ones, over the
meaning of which Bud could not stumble! She was sorry that she had not
retained the book for a day and done this work. It was too late now.
She could only pray that God would lead him toward the right verse.
To-morrow evening she would ask him for his Bible, and on the Sabbath
she would employ her leisure moments in marking such verses as he ought
to know.
As she arose from her knees, a letter lying on her table caught her
eye. A home letter, from Dora, with perhaps a few lines in it from
mamma herself. She seized it like a hungry child, dropping on a hassock
before the fire to enjoy it. Four closely written pages from Dora,
crossed and re-crossed, after the fashion of schoolgirls, who seem to
be provident only in the line of note-paper.
Claire looked at it lovingly, and laid it aside to be enjoyed
afterward. Here was a scrap from mamma; only a few lines on a
half-sheet of paper; after these she dived. Letters from Dora were
delightful, and could wait; the heart of the girl was homesick for
mamma.
It was over the last page of Dora's sheet that she lingered the longest.
"I have not told you our piece of news, yet. We have moved. We kept
it a secret from you, mamma and I, because we were sure you would
think that we could not do such a thing without you; and as we were
well aware that the church at South Plains could not spare you--to
say nothing of the school--we determined to take the burdens of life
upon our own shoulders, and give you nothing to worry over, until we
were settled. It is done, and we are alive and comfortable; so you may
dismiss those troubled wrinkles that I can distinctly see gathering on
your forehead.
"Now for the reason why: the same law which seems of late to have taken
possession of us--necessity. The house you so deftly settled us in was
sold, and three weeks' notice given to renters. We could have held them
for a longer time, as Mr. Winfield indignantly told us, and as we very
well knew, for you know how papa held that house for the Jones family
when the owner said they must vacate. But what was the use? Mamma said
she would rather move at once, than have any words about it. So I felt,
and one day when we went out hunting the proper shade of curtain for
the church you own, we hunted rooms also. Where do you think we found
them? Within a square of our old home! In the Jenkins Block, you know.
They chanced to be vacant, because the former occupants had bought a
place on the square, and gone to housekeeping on a larger scale. The
rent is the same as that which we were paying. I think Mr. Cleveland
made his conscience somewhat elastic in arranging it so, for, while
the rooms are smaller and less convenient than those we vacated, you
know what the neighborhood is. However, he offered them on the same
terms we were then paying, and of course we could not demur. I urged
the taking of them at once, for mamma's sake; for, though I think with
you that the farther we are away from the old home, the better, and
though I hate every spot within a mile of our house, still I could see
that mamma did not share the feeling. There were old friends for whose
faces she pined. Good old friends, you know, who love her for herself,
and not for the entertainments she used to give. And then there was
the old church. I could see mamma's face brighten over the thought of
being there once more; and though I hate that too, for mamma's sake,
I was glad that we listened to Dr. Ellis again last Sabbath. We are
comfortably situated, though you know, better than I can tell you,
what a sort of mockery it is of our former way of living; but for
mamma I think it will be better in every way, and she is the one to be
considered. But I believe in my heart the dear woman thinks I wanted to
come, and imagines that that is why she consented to the plan. I hope
she does. I never mean to let her know how I grind my teeth over it
all. Not fiercely, Claire; I do try to be submissive, and I know that
God knows what is best, and that papa is happy, and that I must not
wish him back; but the bearing it is very bitter all the time.
"I am less like you even than I used to be, and papa said I was to try
to be more like you.
"I wonder if one thing that I have to tell will surprise you, or vex
you, or whether you will not care anything about it? I have held my pen
for a full minute to try to decide, and I find that I don't know. It is
something that has hurt me cruelly, but then I am easily hurt. I don't
want to make you feel as I do; but if you care, you ought to know, and
if you don't care, no harm can come of my telling you.
"Claire, I used to think in the old days that seem to have been fifty
years ago, that you liked Pierce Douglass rather better than the
other young men who used to be so fond of coming to our home; and I
thought--in fact, I felt almost certain--that he liked you better than
he did anybody else. Well, he has returned; and only yesterday I saw
him on Clark Avenue. I was just coming down Reubens street, and I made
all possible haste, because I thought it would be so pleasant to see
his familiar face once more, and to answer his many questions. Besides,
I presume I was silly, but I thought it more than probable that he was
in correspondence with you, and would have some news of you to give
me. I called to him, breathlessly, as I saw he was about to enter a
car, and I thought more than likely he was looking for our address.
'Pierce,' I said, you know I have called him Pierce ever since I was a
little bit of a girl, and he used to help me down the seminary stairs.
He stopped and looked about him, and looked right at me, and made no
movement toward me, though I was hastening to him. 'I am so glad to see
you,' I said, for even then I did not understand. And then he spoke:
'Miss Benedict, is it? Why, I was not aware that you were in the city.
I thought I had heard of a removal. I trust you are having a pleasant
winter, Miss Benedict. We have a good deal of snow for this region,
have we not? You will pardon my haste; I had signaled my car before you
spoke.'
"And he lifted his hat, with one of his graceful bows, and sprang in
and was gone. Yes, I pardoned his haste! I was glad to see the car
swing around the corner. I was burning and choking. The idea of being
met in that way by Pierce Douglass! Only six months since he called
me 'little Doralinda Honora,' and begged me not to forget to mention
his name ten times a day while he was absent. Claire, I could hardly
get home, my limbs trembled so. Mamma was out executing one of your
commissions, and I was glad, for I was not fit to see her for hours.
"I have heard to-day that Pierce has been in town for six weeks, and is
to be married in the spring to Emmeline Van Antwerp. Is that any reason
why he should have insulted me? I am certainly willing that he shall
marry whom he pleases, if he can secure her. Claire, do you remember
how Emmeline's taste in dress used to amuse him? But she is very rich,
you know; at least, she is an only daughter, and her father has not
failed. How does Pierce know but that in six months it will be Mr. Van
Antwerp's turn?
"Well, I only hope, dear Claire, that I was utterly and entirely
mistaken in your friendship for that man. It seems to me now that
I must have been; for, with so base a nature, he could not have
interested you.
"Oh, Claire, do you suppose papa knows of all these little stings that
we have to bear? I can hardly see how he can be happy in heaven if he
does, for he guarded us all so tenderly. Does that old worn-out church
really fill your heart as it seems to, so that you can be happy without
papa? That is wicked, I know, and if you are happy, I am glad you are.
I do try to shield mamma, and she is like you, meek and patient.
"Good-night, dear! I am very weary of this day. I am going to try to
lose the memory of it in sleep."
Claire rose up from reading this sheet, with a pale face out of which
the brightness was strangely gone. It seemed a curious thing to her
afterward, that she had thought to herself while reading it: "I am glad
I spoke those words to Bud; I am glad I told him about a home where
there is nothing but brightness. We need such homes."
She went about with a slow step, setting the little room to rights,
arranging the fire for the night; then she sat down and worked over her
class-book, arranging her averages for the week. She had not meant to
do that work on that evening, but she seized upon it as something that
would keep her thoughts employed. She did not want to think.
Suddenly, in the midst of the figures, she pushed the book from her,
and burying her face in her hands, said to her heart in a determined
way: "Now, what is the matter? Why do I not want to look this thing in
the face? What is wounded, my pride?" After a little she drew a long,
relieved breath, and sat erect. There was no need in covering this
thing away; it would bear looking at.
Dora had been both right and wrong. She had liked him better, yes,
quite a little better than the other young men of her acquaintance.
She had believed in him. When financial ruin came upon them, and
friends gathered around with well-meant, but often blundering words of
sympathy, she had comforted herself with thinking how gracefully Pierce
Douglass would have said and done these things had he been at home.
When the burden of life strained heavily upon her, she had found
herself imagining how heartily he would have shouldered some of the
weights that another could carry, and helped her through. She had not
been in correspondence with him. He had asked to write to her, and she
had, following her father's gently-offered suggestion, assured him that
it would be better not; he was not to be absent many months.
Yet during these weeks at South Plains, she had often told herself
that perhaps Pierce would write a line for friendship's sake. He
would know that a letter of sympathy offered at such a time would be
very different from ordinary correspondence. Yet when no letter came,
she had told herself that of course he would not write; he was too
thoroughly a gentleman to do so after she had, though never so gently,
refused to receive his letters. Sometimes it was this story, and
sometimes she reminded herself that of course he had not her address;
he would not like to inquire for it; there had been nothing in their
friendship to warrant it; when he reached home, and met Dora and her
mother again, as he would assuredly, she would be quite likely to get
a little message from him. Not a thought had crossed her mind but that
he would hasten to the old friends to offer his earnest sympathy and
express his sorrow, for her father had been a friend to him. Now here
was the end of it. Six weeks in town, and nothing to say to Dora but a
comment about the snow! If he had said ice, it would have been more in
keeping. Here was a shattered friendship; and no true heart but bleeds
over such wounds.
Yet, and this was the decision which made her lift her head again.
There was wounded pride, certainly, and wounded feeling; but there was
a sense in which it did not matter how Pierce Douglass met her sister
on the street, or whom he married. She had not known it before; there
had been a time when she had imagined it otherwise; but something
seemed to have come into her life since her brief residence in this
little village, which made her clear-eyed. She knew that she did not
want to marry a man like Pierce Douglass. She knew that had he come
to her, before the revelations of this letter, and asked her to share
his name and home, she would have been grateful and sorrowful, but
she would certainly have said, "I can not." She smiled a little as
she recurred to Dora's letter. Had the old church won her heart?
Surely it could not be anything else in South Plains! Yes, oh, yes,
it was something that she had found at South Plains; she had been
lifted up into daily fellowship with the Lord. She was learning to
live as "seeing him who is invisible," and in the light of his daily
companionship she could not come into close relationship with such an
one as Pierce Douglass, a man who did not profess allegiance to him.
And yet, you who understand the intricacies of the human heart will be
able to see how the letter had stung. She did not want to marry him,
but she wanted to respect him, to look upon him as a friend; to feel
that he cared for her, and not for her father's millions. It was bitter
to feel that here was yet another to whom friendship had been only an
empty name, and to wonder how many more there were, and because of him
to have less faith in the world.
On the whole, I think it was well that at last she cried. They were
healthy tears; and helped to wash away some of the bitterness.