A DECISION, AND A STORM
IT WAS a book that laid bare a heart; the heart of one who loved him
with a love such as he had not imagined a man ever gave to any boy
but his very own. “If he had been my father,” Derrick thought, as he
read with bated breath, “he could not say more than that!” And the
very next sentence seemed to voice his thought.
“You think that is extreme for just an uncle? Ah, but you don’t know,
dear boy Dick—I am sure they call you Dick, they did me—that you are
my boy, my very own; I have adopted you with my soul; there can not
be any stronger tie than that. You see, you are all I have; you take
the place to me of father, mother and brother; I have lost them all.
There were reasons why I never had wife and children, so, my soul’s
son, I have adopted you. I could wish that your name were Timothy,
for I know I have the feeling for you that Paul had for his son. You
read the Bible, don’t you, my boy? You will find what I mean if you
study the love of those two. My boy, I want you to live my life for
me, do my work in the world, be myself as I meant to be, and missed.
Oh, I meant to do so much for father! I had such glorious plans
to enrich his life! I failed him utterly; I made a mistake, but you
will not; you will carry out for your father and your mother and your
home all that I meant to do for mine, and didn’t; and you will do
infinitely more; I feel in my very soul that you will be a better
Derrick Forman than I could ever have been; don’t you dare
to disappoint me, Dick; it would kill me.”
Derrick, the boy, drew an amazed, almost a frightened, breath. What a
strange idea as though he could take another boy’s life and live it
for him!
“It’s a lot more than I can do to live my own in the way it ought
to be lived!” he muttered; but he read on, like one fascinated.
Very soon he came to understand that the life of the man he was asked
to represent had been hidden in another life.
“The fact is, Dick,” the record ran, “that I am dead; did you realize
it? I have known it in a vague sort of way for a long time, but I
don’t believe I ever realized it fully until this morning when I read
it in the Book: ‘Ye are dead; and your life is hid with Christ
in God.’ I stopped and laughed. ‘Why, of course!’ I said. ‘What a
dolt I am not to have known that before! It was told me plainly
enough, only I didn’t take it in.’ Ever since I was a youngster
learning to read out of father’s big Bible at home I have known the
verse: ‘If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.’ Well, I am
‘in Christ.’ I am as sure of that as I am that I breathe;
I surrendered to him, body, soul and spirit; all I was, all I am,
all that I ever will be are his. Then, of course, the old Dick Forman
is dead! Good! He wasn’t worth much; I am glad he is gone. I’m ‘a new
creature,’ I live, ‘yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ ‘That sounds
egotistical,’ do I hear you say? Yes, but I didn’t say it—that’s
Bible, a blessed fact guaranteed by Christ himself. Now, you see,
if you are to live my life for me the part that I missed must have
this same experience; you must be a ‘new creature,’ Dick; the old one
isn’t worth shucks! I don’t want to live his life; don’t you be
persuaded into trying it; hide your life, hide it ‘with Christ
in God’; only then will you begin to live. Oh, Dick Forman, my boy,
my very self, given another chance! You will do this for me, won’t
you?”
Derrick closed the book with a bang and laid it as far away from him
as he could; was strangely moved, he was half awed, half indignant.
“The man was insane!” he muttered. Yet he knew better. He had been
a good Bible scholar in Sabbath school; those quoted verses were
familiar to him; intellectually, at least, he understood something
of their meaning but he had never thought of such a thing as applying
them to himself. After a little he opened the book again; he re-read
those same pages; he put the book from him several times, declaring
that he would read no more; the most of it was simply the ravings
of a lunatic. After a while he said he would wait until he was older;
boys like him could not be expected to be interested in such queer
notions; his Uncle Derrick lived so much alone that evidently his
ideas had become misty, unreal, unintelligible. There were days
together when the boy did not open the book, but passed it hurriedly,
with a wish that he could forget it; there were hours when he hid it,
and told himself that he would never touch it again, and always he
went back to it and read again the very portions that had disturbed
him. At times he was genuinely angry over the appeals in that uncanny
book. He said that Uncle Derrick had no right to die and leave such
a book to him; it was like trying to steal a fellow’s individuality.
“A new creature,” quoted his memory, and he sneered; he didn’t want
to be a new creature; he was well enough satisfied as he was.
“Ye must be born again,” said a voice to his inner consciousness;
said it plainly, solemnly. He looked about him, startled; there had
been no real voice, he knew that; but it had seemed very real; and
those were not the words of his dead uncle, it was Jesus who said
that!
There came an evening when Derrick Forman, in the privacy of his
locked room, got to his knees, with the written book spread open
before him, and solemnly gave himself, body, soul, and spirit, to his
uncle’s God for time and for eternity. It had been a hard struggle,
unusually hard, for one so young and so well taught. Yet, perhaps,
it was on account of the teaching that he was so slow in reaching
a decision. Already temptations had assailed him which he knew must
be overcome if he was to become the kind of man that his uncle’s
Commander called for.
“But I’m glad of it,” he told himself on the night when he made his
great decision; “I’m glad it means out-and-out, downright,
everlasting business; I hate a half-and-half anything.”
Very soon he made the surprising discovery that he was happy in his
new life. He had not looked for that; at least, not yet, not for
years and years, probably. He had expected to make sacrifices and
meet crosses; he considered himself prepared for those, but the glow
of new and genuine joy was unexpected and took hold of him with
power. He began to understand some of the sentences in his book that
had seemed like the extravagances of a diseased brain; he spent much
time reading that book, studying the Bible quotations in it, hunting
in the public library for other books from which his uncle had quoted
as though they were familiar friends; he locked his manuscript book
with his Bible in his private drawer and took them out together;
he began to see that the life portrayed in the one had been lived as
a commentary on the directions of the other. Still, he was chary of
his new experience; it was not a matter to be talked of; at least,
not yet. He told his mother a little about it one evening when they
two were alone, and was astonished and touched to note that she
cried; she told him they were tears of joy; and that she felt as
though it didn’t matter much now how many troubles they had. He had
not supposed that his mother would care so very much. The next
morning when they walked down town together he managed to make his
father understand what had come to him as a result of a step that he
had taken, and he knew that he would never forget the words his
father spoke in reply; nor the look on his face, a little later, when
he straightened himself and threw back the shoulders that had begun
to droop, as he said:
“My boy, I feel ten years younger than I did when we started.”
Ray did not have to be told; she seemed to know by intuition what
great event had taken place. She lingered in the hall a moment after
the others had passed into the sitting-room—they had all just come
in from Sabbath evening service—and reaching up to her tall young
brother kissed a lingering, tender kiss, as she said: “My soldier
brother enlisted for life; I know I shall always be proud of him.”
Yet nothing had occurred at church, nor during the walk home, to tell
her that he had chosen a new Commander.
But with Jean, his heretofore confidante all occasions, Derrick
played shy. He could not decide how to tell her about this momentous
change which had come to him. A “new creature?” Yes, the phrase
described it singularly well, but to feel it, know it, was one thing,
and to describe it or account for it in terms that Jean would
understand was quite another. He had a feeling that Jean would not
want to understand; he and she had stood on the same plane as regards
these matters; they had exchanged witticisms over the weaknesses of
many professing Christians, especially among young people; they had
agreed that Ray was not like any of the others, but was
“unnecessarily good,” and, in short, had made the entire subject an
embarrassment when one came to talk about it from a standpoint that
the other had not seen. He decided finally not to say anything to her
about it; if his life did not tell her, without words, he assured
himself that it would not be much of a life; anyhow, he must wait and
see.
And so, Jean did not understand; she only felt in her brother
a subtle change difficult to define; she was not even sure that she
approved it; Dick had always suited her well enough just as he was;
she was able to see in it only the influence of the new member of the
family, and this she instinctively resented.
“It is simply ridiculous,” she told herself, half angrily, “for him
to be infatuated with that lame old woman, whom he called the
homeliest person he ever looked at! That’s nothing against her,
of course; I don’t think myself that she is so terribly homely, and
she is kind, and unselfish, and all that, but then—I don’t see what
has made the change in him! Of course, I am glad that he doesn’t want
to stay out nights as he used to, nor go to places that father
doesn’t quite like, but why couldn’t he have stopped all that long
ago for all our sakes instead of waiting until that old woman—” Even
unspoken words failed her, and she stopped abruptly; then, after a
moment, added, aloud: “I believe I shall end by—” But she had to stop
again; she had almost said she would end by hating that old woman;
of course, she was not going to say, or do, any such thing; but as
for falling down to worship her as the others were almost doing she
never should, and they need not expect it; she was sure of one thing;
she did wish Aunt Elsie would let Dick alone.
It might have been a restless dissatisfaction, born of the feeling
that in some undefined way she had lost her boon companion, which
made the usually sweet-spirited Jean appear at great disadvantage
during this period of her life. She seemed suddenly to have grown
self-assertive and obstinate. What she would and would not do grew
daily more pronounced, and culminated, one afternoon when she must
make a journey across town for her music lesson, in a fixed resolve
to wear neither rubbers nor raincoat; no, nor carry any umbrella;
though Florence assured her earnestly that even the cat could see
that it was going to rain.
“I’m not a cat,” was Jean’s reply. “I don’t know why you should quote
her to me; and I’m not going to bundle up like a rheumatic old maid
when it doesn’t rain a drop.”
“Jean, dear,” came gently from Ray, “do wear your sandals, won’t you?
Because you know those shoes you have on are really very thin, and if
you should get caught in a shower—”
It is possible that but for Aunt Elsie’s eager second to this
suggestion the young girl’s reply might have been different. As it
was, she ignored her aunt entirely, and said in charming mimicry of
her sister’s tone and manner: “Ray, dear, I won’t do any such thing.
I hate rubbers to walk in, and I have nearly a mile to walk. I do
wish we had cross-town cars somewhere near this point.”
There followed for those left at home an uncomfortable afternoon. Ray
watched the swift-moving clouds with poorly concealed anxiety, and
Florence openly worried. Jean was by no means strong; she took cold
easily, and a cold with her always meant a more or less serious
illness. Florence, at the window watching the growing evidences of
storm, lamented that “mother” had not been at home to issue positive
orders to that reckless child. Why hadn’t Ray asserted authority as
the oldest sister and insisted on her taking at least an umbrella?
“She will ruin her hat, and it is the one with a plume, of course; it
will serve her right, too. There! it’s begun! do hear the pour down!
and there’s mother! she ran in at the basement door just in time
to escape dash!”
Mrs. Forman’s first word was about Jean. Had she gone prepared
for the storm? It had been gathering for several hours; why hadn’t
they insisted on at least an umbrella?
It proved to be no passing shower; the rain fell in torrents until
the streets were flooded, and then, after a while, settled into a
steady downpour. The Formans comforted one another as well as they
could; they said that it was a good thing it had rained so terribly
hard; Jean would, of course, wait until the storm was over, or until
some one came for her; she would never think of starting out in so
wild a storm without even an umbrella. As soon as Derrick arrived
he was laden with raincoat, rubbers, and injunctions, and started
forth again. But Jean, her reckless mood continuing, had grown tired
of waiting, and started out during a lull in the storm, making
herself believe that she could get home before it began again, or at
least get across town to a car line that would take her home by a
circuitous route. In this way Derrick missed her. Before she was a
block from the music school the rain was upon her again in full
force. Even then she persisted; it was of no use to turn back, she
assured herself; she was wet to the skin already, she might better
keep on than sit in wet clothes waiting. But she had not gone much
farther when she regretted that decision; the wind seemed to her
to be rising every moment; it was all she could do to keep from being
blown quite into the road. She had now reached a street lined on
either side with wholesale houses, whose closed and gloomy fronts
told her that the day was done, and furnished her with not so much as
an awning under which to hide. She struggled on, feeling the water
soak into her thin-soled, cloth-top boots; yonder, two blocks away,
was the high school; if she could only reach it, Derrick might still
be there and he could do something. She had only a carfare with her,
and this she believed made it impossible for her to call a taxi. All
her hopes centred in Dick, and he, poor fellow, was making all
possible speed homeward in the hope of finding his sister safely
arrived there. Alas for Jean, the high school was as closed and
silent and aloof as though hundreds of eager feet had not but an hour
or two before raced down its many steps and sped away from the storm.
She could not find even the janitor, and it seemed to her that she
could never walk those long, long blocks facing that dreadful wind,
and being pelted by the merciless rain.