Ruth sat looking into space with starry eyes and glowing cheeks after she
had read the letter. It seemed to her a wonderful letter, quite the most
wonderful she had ever received. Perhaps it was because it fitted so
perfectly with her ideal of the writer, who from her little girlhood had
always been a picture of what a hero must be. She used to dream big
things about him when she was a child. He had been the best baseball
player in school when he was ten, and the handsomest little rowdy in
town, as well as the boldest, bravest champion of the little girls.
As she grew older and met him occasionally she had always been glad that
he kept his old hero look though often appearing in rough garb. She had
known they were poor. There had been some story about a loss of money and
a long expensive sickness of the father's following an accident which
made all the circumstances most trying, but she had never heard the
details. She only knew that most of the girls in her set looked on him as
a nobody and would no more have companied with him than with their
father's chauffeur. After he grew older and began to go to college some
of the girls began to think he was good looking, and to say it was quite
commendable in him to try to get an education. Some even unearthed the
fact that his had been a fine old family in former days and that there
had been wealth and servants once. But the story died down as John
Cameron walked his quiet way apart, keeping to his old friends, and not
responding to the feeble advances of the girls. Ruth had been away at
school in these days and had seldom seen him. When she had there had
always been that lingering admiration for him from the old days. She had
told herself that of course he could not be worth much or people would
know him. He was probably ignorant and uncultured, and a closer
acquaintance would show him far from what her young ideas had pictured
her hero. But somehow that day at the station, the look in his face had
revealed fine feeling, and she was glad now to have her intuition
concerning him verified by his letter.
And what a letter it was! Why, no young man of her acquaintance could
have written with such poetic delicacy. That paragraph about the rose was
beautiful, and not a bit too presuming, either, in one who had been a
perfect stranger all these years. She liked his simple frankness and the
easy way he went back twelve years and began just where they left off.
There was none of the bold forwardness that might have been expected in
one who had not moved in cultured society. There was no unpleasant
assumption of familiarity which might have emphasized her fear that she
had overstepped the bounds of convention in writing to him in the first
place. On the contrary, her humiliation at his long delayed answer was
all forgotten now. He had understood her perfectly and accepted her
letter in exactly the way she had meant it without the least bit of
foolishness or unpleasantness. In short, he had written the sort of a
letter that the kind of man she had always thought--hoped--he was would
be likely to write, and it gave her a surprisingly pleasant feeling of
satisfaction. It was as if she had discovered a friend all of her own not
made for her by her family, nor one to whom she fell heir because of her
wealth and position; but just one she had found, out in the great world
of souls.
If he had been going to remain at home there might have been a number of
questions, social and conventional, which would have arisen to bar the
way to this free feeling of a friendship, and which she would have had to
meet and reason with before her mind would have shaken itself unhampered;
but because he was going away and on such an errand, perhaps never to
return, the matter of what her friends might think or what the world
would say, simply did not enter into the question at all. The war had
lifted them both above such ephemeral barriers into the place of vision
where a soul was a soul no matter what he possessed or who he was. So, as
she sat in her big white room with all its dainty accessories to a
luxurious life, fit setting for a girl so lovely, she smiled unhindered
at this bit of beautiful friendship that had suddenly drifted down at her
feet out of a great outside unknown world. She touched the letter
thoughtfully with caressing fingers, and the kind of a high look in her
eyes that a lady of old must have worn when she thought of her knight. It
came to her to wonder that she had not felt so about any other of her men
friends who had gone into the service. Why should this special one
soldier boy represent the whole war, as it were, in this way to her.
However, it was but a passing thought, and with a smile still upon her
lips she went to the drawer and brought out the finely knitted garments
she had made, wrapping them up with care and sending them at once upon
their way. It somehow gave her pleasure to set aside a small engagement
she had for that afternoon until she had posted the package herself.
Even then, when she took her belated way to a little gathering in honor
of one of her girl friends who was going to be married the next week to a
young aviator, she kept the smile on her lips and the dreamy look in her
eyes, and now and then brought herself back from the chatter around her
to remember that something pleasant had happened. Not that there was any
foolishness in her thoughts. There was too much dignity and simplicity
about the girl, young as she was, to allow her to deal even with her own
thoughts in any but a maidenly way, and it was not in the ordinary way of
a maid with a man that she thought of this young soldier. He was so far
removed from her life in every way, and all the well-drilled formalities,
that it never occurred to her to think of him in the same way she thought
of her other men friends.
A friend who understood her, and whom she could understand. That was what
she had always wanted and what she had never quite had with any of her
young associates. One or two had approached to that, but always there had
been a point at which they had fallen short. That she should make this
man her friend whose letter crackled in her pocket, in that intimate
sense of the word, did not occur to her even now. He was somehow set
apart for service in her mind; and as such she had chosen him to be her
special knight, she to be the lady to whom he might look for
encouragement--whose honor he was going forth to defend. It was a misty
dreamy ideal of a thought. Somehow she would not have picked out any
other of her boy friends to be a knight for her. They were too flippant,
too careless and light hearted. The very way in which they lighted their
multitudinous cigarettes and flipped the match away gave impression that
they were going to have the time of their lives in this war. They might
have patriotism down at the bottom of all this froth and boasting,
doubtless they had; but there was so little seriousness about them that
one would never think of them as knights, defenders of some great cause
of righteousness. Perhaps she was all wrong. Perhaps it was only her old
baby fancy for the little boy who could always "lick" the other boys and
save the girls from trouble that prejudiced her in his favor, but at
least it was pleasant and a great relief to know that her impulsive
letter had not been misunderstood.
The girls prattled of this one and that who were "going over" soon, told
of engagements and marriages soon to occur; criticized the brides and
grooms to be; declared their undying opinions about what was fitting for
a war bride to wear; and whether they would like to marry a man who had
to go right into war and might return minus an arm or an eye. They
discoursed about the U-boats with a frothy cheerfulness that made Ruth
shudder; and in the same breath told what nice eyes a young captain had
who had recently visited the town, and what perfectly lovely uniforms he
wore. They argued with serious zeal whether a girl should wear an
olive-drab suit this year if she wanted to look really smart.
They were the girls among whom she had been brought up, and Ruth was used
to their froth, but somehow to-day it bored her beyond expression. She
was glad to make an excuse to get away and she drove her little car
around by the way of John Cameron's home hoping perhaps to get a glimpse
of his mother again. But the house had a shut up look behind the vine
that he had trained, as if it were lonely and lying back in a long wait
till he should come--or not come! A pang went through her heart. For the
first time she thought what it meant for a young life like that to be
silenced by cold steel. The home empty! The mother alone! His ambitions
and hopes unfulfilled! It came to her, too, that if he were her knight he
might have to die for her--for his cause! She shuddered and swept the
unpleasant thought away, but it had left its mark and would return again.
On the way back she passed a number of young soldiers home on twenty-four
hour leave from the nearby camps. They saluted most eagerly, and she knew
that any one of them would have gladly occupied the vacant seat in her
car, but she was not in the mood to talk with them. She felt that there
was something to be thought out and fixed in her mind, some impression
that life had for her that afternoon that she did not want to lose in the
mild fritter of gay banter that would be sure to follow if she stopped
and took home some of the boys. So she bowed graciously and swept by at a
high speed as if in a great hurry. The war! The war! It was beating
itself into her brain again in much the same way it had done on that
morning when the drafted men went away, only now it had taken on a more
personal touch. She kept seeing the lonely vine-clad house where that one
soldier had lived, and which he had left so desolate. She kept thinking
how many such homes and mothers there must be in the land.
That evening when she was free to go to her room she read John Cameron's
letter again, and then, feeling almost as if she were childish in her
haste, she sat down and wrote an answer. Somehow that second reading made
her feel his wish for an answer. It seemed a mute appeal that she could
not resist.
When John Cameron received that letter and the accompanying package he
was lifted into the seventh heaven for a little while. He forgot all his
misgivings, he even forgot Lieutenant Wainwright who had but that day
become a most formidable foe, having been transferred to Cameron's
company, where he was liable to be commanding officer in absence of the
captain, and where frequent salutes would be inevitable. It had been a
terrible blow to Cameron. But now it suddenly seemed a small matter. He
put on his new sweater and swelled around the way the other boys did,
letting them all admire him. He examined the wonderful socks almost
reverently, putting a large curious finger gently on the red and blue
stripes and thrilling with the thought that her fingers had plied the
needles in those many, many stitches to make them. He almost felt it
would be sacrilege to wear them, and he laid them away most carefully and
locked them into the box under his bed lest some other fellow should
admire and desire them to his loss. But with the letter he walked away
into the woods as far as the bounds of the camp would allow and read and
reread it, rising at last from it as one refreshed from a comforting meal
after long fasting. It was on the way back to his barracks that night,
walking slowly under the starlight, not desiring to be back until the
last minute before night taps because he did not wish to break the
wonderful evening he had spent with her, that he resolved to try to get
leave the next Saturday and go home to thank her.
Back in the barracks with the others he fairly scintillated with wit and
kept his comrades in roars of laughter until the officer of the night
suppressed them summarily. But long after the others were asleep he lay
thinking of her, and listening to the singing of his soul as he watched a
star that twinkled with a friendly gleam through a crack in the roof
above his cot. Once again there came the thought of God, and a feeling of
gratitude for this lovely friendship in his life. If he knew where God
was he would like to thank Him. Lying so and looking up to the star he
breathed from his heart a wordless thanksgiving.
The next night he wrote and told her he was coming, and asked permission
to call and thank her face to face. Then he fairly haunted the post
office at mail time the rest of the week hoping for an answer. He had not
written his mother about his coming, for he meant not to go this week if
there came no word from Ruth. Besides, it would be nice to surprise his
mother. Then there was some doubt about his getting a pass anyway, and so
between the two anxieties he was kept busy up to the last minute. But
Friday evening he got his pass, and in the last mail came a special
delivery from Ruth, just a brief note saying she had been away from home
when his letter arrived, but she would be delighted to see him on Sunday
afternoon as he had suggested.
He felt like a boy let loose from school as he brushed up his uniform and
polished his big army shoes while his less fortunate companions kidded
him about the girl he was going to see. He denied their thrusts joyously,
in his heart repudiating any such personalities, yet somehow it was
pleasant. He had never realized how pleasant it would be to have a girl
and be going to see her--such a girl! Of course, she was not for him--not
with that possessiveness. But she was a friend, a real friend, and he
would not let anything spoil the pleasure of that!
He had not thought anything in his army experience could be so exciting
as that first ride back home again. Somehow the deference paid to his
uniform got into his blood and made him feel that people all along the
line really did care for what the boys were doing for them. It made camp
life and hardships seem less dreary.
It was great to get back to his little mother and put his big arms around
her again. She seemed so small. Had she shrunken since he left her or was
he grown so much huskier with the out of door life? Both, perhaps, and he
looked at her sorrowfully. She was so little and quiet and brave to bear
life all alone. If he only could get back and get to succeeding in life
so that he might make some brightness for her. She had borne so much, and
she ought not to have looked so old and worn at her age! For a brief
instant again his heart was almost bitter, and he wondered what God meant
by giving his good little mother so much trouble. Was there a God when
such things could be? He resolved to do something about finding out this
very day.
It was pleasant to help his mother about the kitchen, saving her as she
had not been saved since he left, telling her about the camp, and
listening to her tearful admiration of him. She could scarcely take her
eyes from him, he seemed so tall and big and handsome in his uniform; he
appeared so much older and more manly that her heart yearned for her boy
who seemed to be slipping away from her. It was so heavenly blessed to
sit down beside him and sew on a button and mend a torn spot in his
flannel shirt and have him pat her shoulder now and then contentedly.
Then with pride she sent him down to the store for something nice for
dinner, and watched him through the window with a smile, the tears
running down her cheeks. How tall and straight he walked! How like his
father when she first knew him! She hoped the neighbors all were looking
out and would see him. Her boy! Her soldier boy! And he must go away from
her, perhaps to die!
But--_he was here to-day_! She would not think of the rest. She would
rejoice now in his presence.
He walked briskly down the street past the houses that had been familiar
all his life, meeting people who had never been wont to notice him
before; and they smiled upon him from afar now; greeted him with
enthusiasm, and turned to look after him as he passed on. It gave him a
curious feeling to have so much attention from people who had never known
him before. It made him feel strangely small, yet filled with a great
pride and patriotism for the country that was his, and the government
which he now represented to them all. He was something more to them now
than just one of the boys about town who had grown up among them. He was
a soldier of the United States. He had given his life for the cause of
righteousness. The bitterness he might have felt at their former ignoring
of him, was all swallowed up in their genuine and hearty friendliness.
He met the white-haired minister, kindly and dignified, who paused to ask
him how he liked camp life and to commend him as a soldier; and looking
in his strong gentle face John Cameron remembered his resolve.
He flashed a keen look at the gracious countenance and made up his mind
to speak:
"I'd like to ask you a question, Doctor Thurlow. It's been bothering me
quite a little ever since this matter of going away to fight has been in
my mind. Is there any way that a man--that _I_ can find God? That is, if
there is a God. I've never thought much about it before, but life down
there in camp makes a lot of things seem different, and I've been
wondering. I'm not sure what I believe. Is there anyway I can find out?"
A pleasant gleam of surprise and delight thrilled into the deep blue eyes
of the minister. It was startling. It almost embarrassed him for a
moment, it was so unexpected to have a soldier ask a question about God.
It was almost mortifying that he had never thought it worth while to take
the initiative on that question with the young man.
"Why, certainly!" he said heartily. "Of course, of course. I'm very glad
to know you are interested in those things. Couldn't you come in to my
study and talk with me. I think I could help you. I'm sure I could."
"I haven't much time," said Cameron shyly, half ashamed now that he had
opened his heart to an almost stranger. He was not even his mother's
minister, and he was a comparative newcomer in the town. How had he come
to speak to him so impulsively?
"I understand, exactly, of course," said the minister with growing
eagerness. "Could you come in now for five or ten minutes? I'll turn back
with you and you can stop on your way, or we can talk as we go. Were you
thinking of uniting with the church? We have our communion the first
Sunday of next month. I should be very glad if you could arrange. We have
a number of young people coming in now. I'd like to see you come with
them. The church is a good safe place to be. It was established by God.
It is a school in which to learn of Him. It is----"
"But I'm not what you would call a Christian!" protested Cameron. "I
don't even know that I believe in the Bible. I don't know what your
church believes. I don't have a very definite idea what any church
believes. I would be a hypocrite to stand up and join a church when I
wasn't sure there was a God."
"My dear young fellow!" said the minister affectionately. "Not at all!
Not at all! The church is the place for young people to come when they
have doubts. It is a shelter, and a growing place. Just trust yourself to
God and come in among His people and your doubts will vanish. Don't worry
about doubts. Many people have doubts. Just let them alone and put
yourself in the right way and you will forget them. I should be glad to
talk with you further. I would like to see you come into communion with
God's people. If you want to find God you should come where He has
promised to be. It is a great thing to have a fine young fellow like you,
and a soldier, array himself on the side of God. I would like to see you
stand up on the right side before you go out to meet danger and perhaps
death."
John Cameron stood watching him as he talked.
"He's a good old guy," he thought gravely, "but he doesn't get my point.
He evidently believes what he says, but I don't just see going
blindfolded into a church. However, there's something to what he says
about going where God is if I want to find him."
Out loud he merely said:
"I'll think about it, Doctor, and perhaps come in to see you the next
time I'm home." Then he excused himself and went on to the store.
As he walked away he said to himself:
"I wonder what Ruth Macdonald would say if I asked her the same question?
I wonder if she has thought anything about it? I wonder if I'd ever have
the nerve to ask her?"
The next morning he suggested to his mother that they go to Doctor
Thurlow's church together. She would have very much preferred going to
her own church with him, but she knew that he did not care for the
minister and had never been very friendly with the people, so she put
aside her secret wish and went with him. To tell the truth she was very
proud to go anywhere with her handsome soldier son, and one thing that
made her the more willing was that she remembered that the Macdonalds
always went to the Presbyterian church, and perhaps they would be there
to-day and Ruth would see them. But she said not a word of this to her
boy.
John spent most of the time with his mother. He went up to college for an
hour or so Saturday evening, dropping in on his fraternity for a few
minutes and realizing what true friends he had among the fellows who were
left, though most of them were gone. He walked about the familiar rooms,
looking at the new pictures, photographs of his friends in uniform. This
one was a lieutenant in Officers' Training Camp. That one had gone with
the Ambulance Corps. Tom was with the Engineers, and Jimmie and Sam had
joined the Tank Service. Two of the fellows were in France in the front
ranks, another had enlisted in the Marines, it seemed that hardly any
were left, and of those three had been turned down for some slight
physical defect, and were working in munition factories and the
ship-yard. Everything was changed. The old playmates had become men with
earnest purposes. He did not stay long. There was a restlessness about it
all that pulled the strings of his heart, and made him realize how
different everything was.
Sunday morning as he walked to church with his mother he wondered why he
had never gone more with her when he was at home. It seemed a pleasant
thing to do.
The service was beautifully solemn, and Doctor Thurlow had many gracious
words to say of the boys in the army, and spent much time reading letters
from those at the front who belonged to the church and Sunday school, and
spoke of the "supreme sacrifice" in the light of a saving grace; but the
sermon was a gentle ponderous thing that got nowhere, spiced toward its
close with thrilling scenes from battle news. John Cameron as he listened
did not feel that he had found God. He did not feel a bit enlightened by
it. He laid it to his own ignorance and stupidity, though, and determined
not to give up the search. The prayer at the close of the sermon somehow
clinched this resolve because there was something so genuine and sweet
and earnest about it. He could not help thinking that the man might know
more of God than he was able to make plain to his hearers. He had really
never noticed either a prayer or a sermon before in his life. He had sat
in the room with very few. He wondered if all sermons and prayers were
like these and wished he had noticed them. He had never been much of a
church goer.
But the climax, the real heart of his whole two days, was after Sunday
dinner when he went out to call upon Ruth Macdonald. And it was
characteristic of his whole reticent nature, and the way he had been
brought up, that he did not tell his mother where he was going. It had
never occurred to him to tell her his movements when they did not
directly concern her, and she had never brought herself up to ask him. It
is the habit of some women, and many mothers.
A great embarrassment fell upon him as he entered the grounds of the
Macdonald place, and when he stood before the plate-glass doors waiting
for an answer to his ring he would have turned and fled if he had not
promised to come.
It was perhaps not an accident that Ruth let him in herself and took him
to a big quiet library with wide-open windows overlooking the lawn, and
heavy curtains shutting them in from the rest of the house, where, to his
great amazement, he could feel at once at ease with her and talk to her
just as he had done in her letters and his own.
Somehow it was like having a lifetime dream suddenly fulfilled to be
sitting this way in pleasant converse with her, watching the lights and
shadows of expression flit across her sensitive face, and knowing that
the light in her eyes was for him. It seemed incredible, but she
evidently enjoyed talking to him. Afterwards he thought about it as if
their souls had been calling to one another across infinite space, things
that neither of them could quite hear, and now they were within hailing
distance.
He had thanked her for the sweater and other things, and they had talked
a little about the old school days and how life changed people, when he
happened to glance out of the window near him and saw a man in officer's
uniform approaching. He stopped short in the midst of a sentence and
rose, his face set, his eyes still on the rapidly approaching soldiers:
"I'm sorry," he said, "I shall have to go. It's been wonderful to come,
but I must go at once. Perhaps you'll let me go out this way. It is a
shorter cut. Thank you for everything, and perhaps if there's ever
another time--I'd like to come again----"
"Oh, please don't go yet!" she said putting out her hand in protest. But
he grasped the hand with a quick impulsive grip and with a hasty: "I'm
sorry, but I must!" he opened the glass door to the side piazza and was
gone.
In much bewilderment and distress Ruth watched him stride away toward the
hedge and disappear. Then she turned to the front window and caught a
glimpse of Lieutenant Wainwright just mounting the front steps. What did
it all mean?