DEAR BONNIE ROSE [she read, and smiled tenderly. He
was always getting her a new name]:
"I've been to see Tennelly at last, and he's great! What do
you think? He's not only coming to the wedding, but he's
asked if I will let him be best man, unless I'd rather have
Pat! I told Pat, and you ought to have heard him roar. "Fat
chance! Me best man, with you two fellows around!" he said.
Father and my stepmother will come; but please tell Mother
Marshall she needn't worry because they will only stay for
the ceremony. I know she was a little troubled about my
stepmother, lest things would seem plain to her; bless her
dear heart! But she needn't at all, for she's a kindly soul,
according to her lights. She's not to blame that they're
only candle-lights instead of sunlight. They will come in
their private car, which will be dropped off from the
morning train and picked up by the night express at the
Junction, so you see they'll have to leave for Sloan's
Station early in the afternoon.
But the greatest news of all I heard to-night! Pat brought
it, as usual. It beats all how he finds out pleasant things.
You remember how we wished that Burns hadn't gone to China
yet, so he could marry us? Well, he's coming back. He's been
sent on some errand or other for the government, in company
with a Chinaman or two, and he's due in San Francisco a week
before the wedding. I've sent a wireless to ask him to stop
over and take part in the ceremony. I was sure this would
meet with your approval. Of course, we'll ask your minister
out there to assist. You don't know how this pleases me.
There's only one of the professors I'd have cared to ask,
and he's with his wife, who is very ill at a sanitarium. It
seems somehow as if Burns belonged to us, doesn't it, dear?
I stood to-night on the steps of the church and looked at a
ray of the setting sun that was slanting between buildings
and laying a finger of gold on the old dirty windows across
the street till they blazed into sudden glory. As I looked
the houses faded away, as they do in a moving picture, and
gradually melted into a great open space that stretched a
whole big block, all clear and green with thick velvety
grass. There were trees in the space--a lot of them--and
hammocks under some of them, with little children playing
about. At the farthest end there were tennis-courts and a
baseball diamond; and who do you think I saw teaching some
boys to pitch, but Pat! On the other side of the street a
big, old warehouse had been converted into a gymnasium with
a swimming-pool.
All around that block there were model tenements, with
thousands of windows; and light and air and cheerfulness.
There were flowers in little beds between the curbing and
the pavement, that the children could water and cultivate
and pick. There was a fountain of filtered water in the
center of the green, and a drinking-fountain at each corner
of the block, but there wasn't a saloon in sight!
I looked around to my right, and the old stone house with
its grimy face that belonged there had changed into a
beautiful home with vines and flowers. There were windows
everywhere jutting out with delightful unexpectedness, and
just lovely green grass and more trees all the way to the
corner! On the left, the old foundry had been cleansed and
transformed, and had become a hospital belonging to the
church. I couldn't help thinking right then and there what a
grand doctor Tennelly would have made if he only hadn't been
an aristocrat. The hospital was all white, and there was an
ambulance belonging to it, and nurses who worked not only
for money, but for the love of Christ. There wasn't a doctor
in it who didn't know what the Presence of God meant, or
couldn't point the way to be saved to a dying sinner.
Back of the church block, in place of the old shackly
factories, there was one great model factory with the best
modern equipment, and the eight-hour system in full swing.
No little children working for a scanty living! No tired
girls and women standing all day long! No foreman that did
not have a love for humanity in his soul and some kind of an
idea what it was to have the Presence of the living God in a
factory!
I went back to the big stone house and discovered there was
a great big living-room with a grand piano at one end, and a
stone fireplace large enough for logs. A wide staircase led
up to a gallery where many rooms opened off, rooms enough
for every one we wanted, and a big special one for Father
and Mother Marshall, winters, opening off in a suite, so
that they could be to themselves when they got tired of us
all. Of course, in summers they might want to go home
sometimes and take us all with them; or maybe run down to
the shore with us in an off year now and then. Break the
news to them gently, darling, for I've set my heart on that
house just as I saw it, and I hope they won't object.
There were other rooms, but they were vague, because I saw
that you must have the key to them all yet, and I must wait
till you come, to look into them.
Then I heard sweet sounds from the church, and, turning, I
went in. Some one was playing the organ, high up in the
dusky shadows of the gallery, and I knew it was you, Bonnie
Rose, my darling! So I knelt in a pew and listened, with the
Presence standing there between us. And as I knelt another
vision came to me, a vision of the past! I remembered the
days when I did not know God; when I sneered and argued and
did all I could in my young and conceited way against Him. I
remembered, too, the time He came to me in my illness and I
began to believe; and the day I read that verse marked in
Stephen's Bible, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath
the witness in himself." I suddenly realized that that had
been made true to me. I have the witness in my own heart
that Christ is the Son of God, my Saviour! That His Presence
is on earth and manifest to me at many times. No seeming
variance of science, no quibble of the intellect, can ever
disturb this faith on which my soul rests. It is more than a
conviction; it is a perfect satisfaction! I KNOW! I
may not be able to explain all mysteries, but I can never
doubt again, because I know. The more I meet with modern
skepticism, the more I am convinced that that is the only
answer to it all: "He that doeth His will shall know of the
doctrine," and that promise is fulfilled to all who have the
will to believe.
All this came to me quite clearly as I knelt in the church
in the sunset, while you were playing--was it "Rock of
Ages"?--and a ray of the setting sun stole through the old
yellow glass of the window in the organ-loft and lay on your
hair like a crown, my Bonnie darling! My heart overflowed
with gratitude at the great way life has opened up to me.
That I, the least of His servants, should be honored by the
love of this pearl of women!--
There was more of that letter, and Bonnie sat long on the stump reading
and re-reading, with her face a glow of wonder and joy. But at last she
got up and went to the house, bounding into the dining-room where Mother
and Father Marshall were pretending to be busy about a lamp that didn't
work right.
Down she sat with her letter and read it--at least as much as we have
read--to the two sad old dears who were trying so hard to get ready for
loneliness. But after that there was no more sadness in that house! No
more tears nor wistful looks. Father whistled everywhere he went, till
Mother told him he was like a boy again. Mother sang about her work
whenever she was alone. For why should they be sad any more? There were
good times still going in the world, and _they were in them_!
"Father!" whispered Mother, softly, that night, when she was supposed to
be well on her way toward slumber. "Do you suppose the Lord heard us
grumbling this afternoon, and sent that letter to make us ashamed of
ourselves?"
"No," said Father, tenderly, "I think He just smiled to think what a big
surprise He had ready for us. It doesn't pay to doubt God; it really
doesn't!"