It was out on a lonely road in the car that they had chosen to go
for their conference, where there was no chance of their being
interrupted; and they whirled away through the town and out to the
long stretch of whiteness in glum silence, the tears welling to
overflow in Leslie's eyes.
At last they were past the bounds where they were likely to meet
acquaintances, and Leslie broke forth.
"Do you really think it's true that we've got to give her up? Are you
sure it has come to that, Allison? It seems perfectly preposterous!"
"Well, you know if she cares for him," said Allison gravely, "we've no
right to hold on to her and spoil her life. You know it was different
when it was old Pill Bowman. This is a real man."
"Care for him! How _could_ she possibly care for him?" snapped Leslie.
"Why, he has a wart on his nose, and he snuffs! I never thought of it
before till last night, but he does; he snuffs every little while!
Ugh!"
"Why, I thought you liked him, Leslie!"
"So I did until I thought he wanted Cloudy, but I can't see that! I
hate him. I always thought he was about the nicest man in the faculty
except the dean, and he's married; but since I got onto the idea that
he wants Cloudy I can't bear the sight of him. I went way round the
block to-day to keep from meeting him. He isn't nice enough for
Cloudy, Allison."
"What's the matter with him? Warts and snuffing don't count if you
love a person. I like him. I like him ever so much, and I think he's
lonesome. He'd appreciate a home like ours. You know what a wonderful
wife Cloudy would make."
Leslie fairly screamed.
"O Allison! To think you have come to it that you're _willing_ to give
up our lovely home, and have Cloudy go off, and we go the dear knows
where, and have to board at the college or something."
"Some day we'll be getting married, too, I suppose," said Allison
speculatively.
His sister flashed a wise, curious look up at him, and studied his
face a minute. Then a shade came over her own once more.
"Yes, I s'pose _you_ will, pretty soon. You're almost done college.
But poor me! I'll have to board for two whole years more, and I'm not
sure I'll ever get married. The man I like might not like me. And you
may be very sure I'm not going to live on any sister-in-law, no matter
how much I love her, so there!"
Allison smiled, and put his arm protectingly around his sister.
"There, kid, you needn't get excited yet awhile. It's me and thee
always, no matter how many wives I have; and you won't ever have to
board. But, kid, I'm not willing to give up our house and Cloudy and
all; I'm just thinking that maybe we _ought_ to, you know. I guess
we're not pigs, are we? Cloudy has had a mighty hard life, and missed
a lot of things out of it."
"Well, isn't she having 'em now, I'd like to know? I think Cloudy
likes us, and wants to stay with us. I think she's just loved the
house and everything about it."
"Yes, I think so, too; but this is something bigger than anything else
in the world if she really cares. Don't you think we ought to give her
the chance?"
"I s'pose so, if she really wants it; but how can we find out?"
"That's it; just give her the chance. When Armitage comes in, just
sneak out and stay away, and let her have a little time alone with
him. It isn't right, us kids always sticking around. We ought to go
out or up-stairs or something."
Leslie was still for a long time; and then she heaved a big sigh, and
said, "All right!" in a very small voice. As they sped on their way
toward home, there was hardly a word more between them.
It was after supper that very night that Leslie, having almost
frightened Julia Cloud out of her happy calm by refusing to eat much
supper, went off to bed with a headache as soon as the professor came
in. Allison, too, said he had to go up to the college for a book he
had forgotten; and for the first time since his advent the professor
had a clear evening ahead of him with Julia Cloud, without anybody
else by.
But Julia Cloud was distraught, and gave him little attention at
first, with an attitude of listening directed toward the floor above.
Finally she gently excused herself for a moment, and hurried up to
Leslie's room, where she found a very damp and tearful Leslie
attempting to appear wonderfully calm.
"What is it, dear child? Has something happened?" she begged. "I know
you must be sick, or you wouldn't have gone to bed so early. Please
tell me what is the matter. I shall send for the doctor at once if you
don't."
Then Leslie, knowing that her brother would blame her if she spoiled
the test, sat up bravely, and tried to laugh, assuring her aunt that
she was only tired from studying and a little stiff from playing
hockey too long, and she thought it would be better to rest to-night
so she could be all right in the morning.
Julia Cloud, only half reassured by this unprecedented carefulness for
her health on the part of the usually careless Leslie, went down
abstractedly to her professor, and wished he would go home. He was
well into the midst of a most heartfelt and touching proposal of
marriage before she realized what was coming.
His voice was low and pleading; and Leslie, lying breathless above,
not deigning to try to listen, yet painfully aware of the change of
tones, was in tortures. Then Julia Cloud's pained, gentle tones,
firmly replying, and more entreaty, with brief, simple answers. Most
unexpectedly, before an hour passed Leslie heard the front door open
and the professor go out and pass slowly down the walk. Her heart was
in her throat, beating painfully. What had happened? A quick intuition
presented a possible solution. Cloudy would not leave them while they
were in college, and had bid him wait, or perhaps turned him down
altogether! How dear of her! And yet with quick revulsion of spirit
she began to pity the poor, lonely man who could not have Cloudy when
he loved her.
A moment later Julia Cloud came softly up the stairs and tiptoed into
her own room, and, horror of horrors! Leslie could hear her catch her
breath like soft sobbing! Did Cloudy care, then, and had she turned
down a man she loved in order to stick to them and keep her promise to
their guardian?
Quick as a flash she was out of bed and pattering barefoot into Julia
Cloud's room.
"Cloudy! Cloudy! You are crying! What is the matter? Quick! Tell me,
please!"
Julia Cloud drew the girl down beside her on the bed, and nestled her
lovingly and close.
"It's nothing, dear. It's only that I had to hurt a good man. It
always makes me sorry to have to hurt any one."
Leslie nestled closer, smoothed her aunt's hair, and tried to think
what to say; but nothing came. She felt shy about it. Finally she put
her lips up, and touched her aunt's cheek, and whispered, "Don't cry,
Cloudy dear!" and just then she heard Allison's key in the lock. She
sprang up, drew her bath-robe about her, and ran down to whisper to
him on the stairs what had happened.
"Well, it's plain she cares," whispered Allison sadly, gravely,
turning his face away from the light. "I say, Les, we ought to do
something. We ought to tell her it's all right for her to go ahead."
"I can't, Allison; I'd break down and cry, I know I would. I tried up
there just now, but the words wouldn't come."
"Well, then, let's write her a letter! And we'll both sign it."
"All right. You write it," choked Leslie. "I'll sign it."
They slipped over to the desk in the porch room, and Leslie cuddled
into a big willow cushioned chair, and shivered and sniffed while
Allison scratched away at a sheet of paper for a few minutes. Then he
handed it to her to read and sign. This was what he had written:
"DEAR CLOUDY: We see just how it is, and we want you to know that we
are willing. Of course it'll be awfully hard to lose you; but it's
right, and we wouldn't be happy not to have you be happy; and we want
you to go ahead and not think of us. We'll manage all right somehow,
and we love you and want to see you happy."
Leslie dropped a great tear on the page when she signed it; but she
took the soft, embroidered sleeve of her nightgown, and dabbled it
dry, so that it didn't blur the writing; and then together they
slipped up-stairs. Leslie went into her aunt's room in the dark, and
in a queer little voice said, "Cloudy, dear, here's a note for you."
Laying it in her hand, Leslie hurried into her own room, shut her door
softly, and hid in the closet so that Julia Cloud would not hear her
sob.
A moment later Julia Cloud came into the hall with a dear, glad ring
in her voice, and called: "Children! Where are you? Come here quick,
you darlings!" and they flocked into her arms like lost ducklings.
"You blessed darlings!" she said, laughing and crying at the same
time. "Did you think I wanted to get married and go away from you
forever? Well, you're all wrong. I'll never do that. You may get
married and go away from me; but I'll never go away from you till you
send me, and I won't ever get married to any one on this earth at any
time! Do you understand? I don't want to get married, _ever_!"
They all went into Julia Cloud's room then, and sat down with her on
her couch, one on either side of her.
"Do you really mean it, Cloudy Jewel?" asked Leslie happily. "You
_don't want_ to get married, not even to that nice Professor
Armitage?"
"Look here! Leslie, you said he had a wart!" put in her brother.
"Now keep still, Allison. He was nice all the time; only I didn't like
him to want our Cloudy. He didn't seem to be quite nice enough for
her. He didn't quite fit her. But if she wanted him----"
"But I don't, Leslie," cried Julia Cloud in distress. "I _never_
did!"
"Are you really true, Cloudy, dear? You're such a dear, unselfish
Cloudy. How shall we ever quite be sure she isn't giving him up just
for us, Allison?"
"Children, listen!" said Julia Cloud, suddenly putting a quieting hand
on each young hand in her lap. "I'll tell you something I never told
to a living soul."
There was that in her voice that thrilled them into silence. It was as
if she suddenly opened the door of her soul and let them look in on
her real self as only God saw her. Their fingers tightened in sympathy
as she went on.
"A long time ago--a great many years ago--perhaps you would laugh and
think me foolish if you knew how many----"
"Oh, no, Cloudy, never!" said Leslie softly; and Allison growled a
dissenting note.
"Well--there was some one whom I loved--who died. That is all; only--I
never could love anybody that way again. Marriage without a love like
that is a desecration."
"O Cloudy! We never knew----" murmured Leslie.
"No one ever knew, dear. He was very young. We were both scarcely more
than children. I was only fourteen----"
"O Cloudy! How beautiful! And you have kept it all these years! Won't
you--tell us just a little about it? I think it is wonderful; don't
you, Allison?"
"Yes, wonderful!" said Allison in that deep, full tone of his that
revealed a man's soul growing in the boy's heart.
"There is very little to tell, dear. He was a neighbor's son. We went
to school together, and sometimes took walks on Saturdays. He rode me
on his sled, and helped me fasten on my skates, and carried my books;
and we played together when we had time to play. Then his people moved
away out West; and he kissed me good-by, and told me he was coming
back for me some day. That was all there was to it except a few little
letters. Then they stopped, and one day his grandmother wrote that he
had been drowned saving the life of a little child. Can you understand
why I want to wait and be ready for him over there where he is gone? I
keep feeling God will let him come for me when my life down here is
over."
There was a long silence during which the young hands gripped hers
closely, and the young thoughts grew strangely wise with insight into
human life and all its joys and sorrows. They were thinking out in
detail just what their aunt had missed, the sweet things that every
woman hopes for, and thinks about alone with God; of love, strong
care, little children, and a home. She had missed it all; and yet she
had its image in her heart, and had been true to her first thought of
it all the years. Now, when it was offered her again, she would not
give up the old love for a new, would not take what was left of life.
She would wait till the morning broke and her boy met her on the other
shore.
Suddenly, as they thought, strong young arms encircled her, and held
her close in a dear embrace.
"Then you're ours, Cloudy, all ours, for the rest of down here, aren't
you?" half whispered Leslie.
"Yes, dear, as long as you need me--_want_ me," she finished.
"We shall want you always, Cloudy!" said Allison in a clear man's
voice of decision. "Put that down forever, Cloudy Jewel. You are our
mother from now on and we want you always."
"That is dear," said Julia Cloud; "but"--a resignation in her
voice--"some day you will marry, and then you will not need me any
more and I shall find something to do somewhere."
Two fierce young things rose up in arms at once.
"Put that right out of your head, Cloudy Jewel!" cried Leslie. "You
shan't say it again! If I thought any man could be mean enough not to
feel as I do about you, I would never marry him; so there! I would
never marry anybody!"
"My wife will love you as much as I do!" said Allison with conviction.
"I shall never love anybody that doesn't. You'll see!"
And so with loving arms about her and tender words of fierce assertion
they convinced her at last, and the bond that held them was only
strengthened by the little tension it had sustained.
Professor Armitage came no more to the little pink-and-white house;
but Julia Cloud was happy with her children, and they were content
together. The happy days moved on.
"I don't see how you get time for that Christian Endeavor Society of
yours, Cloud," said one of the professors to Allison. "I hear you're
the moving spirit in it; yet you never fall down on your class work.
How do you manage it? I'd like to put some of my other students onto
your ways of planning."
"Well, there's all of Sunday, you know, professor," answered Allison
promptly. "I don't give so very much more time, except a half-hour
here and there to a committee meeting, or now and then a social on
Friday night, when I'd otherwise be fooling, anyway. My sister and I
cut out the dances, and put these social parties in their place."
"But don't you have to study on Sundays?"
_"Never_ do!" was the quick reply. "Made it a rule when I started in
here at this college, and haven't broken it once, not even for
examinations. I find I'm fresher for my work Monday morning when I
make the Sabbath _real._"
The professor eyed him curiously.
"Well, that certainly is interesting," he said. "I'll have to try it.
Though I don't see how I'd quite manage it. I usually have to spend
the whole Sunday correcting papers."
"Save 'em up till early Monday morning, and come over to our Christian
Endeavor meeting. See if it isn't worth while, and then see how much
more you can do Monday morning at five o'clock, when you're really
rested, than you could all day Sunday hacking at the same old job
you've had all the week. I'll look for you next Sunday night.
So-long!" And with a courteous wave he was off with a lacrosse stick,
gliding down the campus like a wild thing. The professor stood and
watched him a moment, and then turned thoughtfully up the asphalt
path, pondering.
"They are a power in the college and in the community, that sister and
brother," he said. "I wonder why."
Down at the church they wondered also as they came in crowds to the
live Christian Endeavor meetings, and listened to the clear, ringing
words of the young man who had been president before him; as they
praises sounded by his admiring friends, especially the young man who
had been president before him; as they saw the earnest spirit that
went out to save, and had no social distinctions or classes to hinder
the fraternal interest. The pastor wondered most of all, and thanked
God, and told his wife that that Endeavor Society was making his
church all over. He didn't know but it had converted him again, too.
The session wondered as it listened to the earnest, simple gospel
sermons that the pastor now preached, and saw his zeal for bringing
men to the service of Christ.
Oh, they pointed out the four young people, the Clouds, Jane Bristol,
and Howard Letchworth, as the moving spirits in the work; and they
admitted, some of them, that prayer had made the transformation, for
there were not many of the original bunch of young people who by this
time had not been fully trained to understand that if you wanted
anything in the spiritual world you must take time and give energy to
getting acquainted with God. But, if they could have gone with some
spirit guide to find out the true secret of all the wonderful
spiritual growth and power of that young people's society, they must
have looked in about Julia Cloud's fireplace on Sabbath afternoon, and
seen the four earnest young people with their Bibles, and Julia Cloud
in the midst, spending the long, beautiful hours in actual spiritual
study of God's word, and then kneeling and communing with God for a
little while, all of them on intimate terms with God. They were
actually learning to delight themselves in the Lord. It was no wonder
that other people, even outside the church and the Christian Endeavor
Society, were beginning to notice the difference in the four, just as
they noticed the shining of Moses's face when he came down from the
mountain after communing with God.
Julia Cloud stood at the window of her rose-and-gray room one Sabbath
evening after such an afternoon, watching the four children walk out
into the sunset to their Christian Endeavor meeting, and smiled with a
tender light in her eyes. She had come to call them her _four_
children in her heart now, for they all seemed to love and need her
alike; and for many a month, though they seemed not yet openly aware
of it, they had been growing more and more all in all to one another;
and she was glad.
She watched them as they walked. Allison ahead with Jane, earnestly
discussing something. Jane's sweet, serious eyes looking up so
trustfully to Allison, and he so tall and fine beside her; Leslie
tripping along like a bird behind with Howard, and pointing out the
colors in the sunset, which he watched only as they were reflected in
her eyes.