“I wonder!” said Mrs. Summers sadly. She was looking ahead and knowing that this boy, too, she must give up.
Murray came down with the letter, and Mrs. Summers tore it open and read it aloud:
“My dear Mrs. Summers:
“You will have been wondering why I have not written you before, but since the first word that my nurse says she sent you I have been quite seriously ill. There was some kind of a pressure on the brain, and they had to operate.
“But I am getting on finely now, and hope soon to be up and around again. I am writing Mr. Harper tomorrow. They won’t let me write but one letter a day yet. Of course he has probably had to fill my place with someone else, and if so, there will likely be no further chance for me in Marlborough. In which case I shall have to ask you to forward my trunk to me, and to send me the bill for whatever I owe you. I hope you have not had to lose rent on my room all this time, and if you have I shall want to pay for whatever you have lost through my illness.
“If, however, it should prove that there is still an opening for me in Marlborough, the doctor says that I may promise to come around the first of the year, if all goes well, and I certainly shall be glad to get into a real home again, if such be the Lord’s will.
“I shall be glad to hear from you about the room and my trunk, which I am not sure ever reached you. I am a little puzzled that I have heard nothing from any of you, but I suppose you have been busy, and perhaps there has been some mistake about my address, and my mail has been forwarded to you. If so, will you kindly send it to me, as there may be something that needs immediate attention.
“I am taking it for granted that you know all the details of the wreck which changed all my plans, even better than I do, but thank God, I am told that I shall be as good as new again in a few weeks.
“Hoping to hear from you at your earliest convenience, and thanking you for any trouble you may have had with my belongings,
“Very sincerely,
“Allan Murray”
There was silence in the cheery little parlor as she finished reading the letter. Each one was thinking, perhaps the same thoughts. How very strange that this letter should have arrived just at this time!
“But it came several days ago,” said Mrs. Summers, looking at the postmark. “I must have taken that up and put it on the bureau with the rest of the letters the morning you left for the convention. Strange I didn’t notice his name!”
It was as if she had read their minds and was answering their thoughts.
“Hmm!” said the minister thoughtfully. “The Lord never makes a mistake in His dates. He meant this should all come about for His glory. Where was that written from, Mrs. Summers?”
“Why, it’s Wood’s Corners! That’s not far away! To think he has been there so near, all this time!”
“How far is that?” asked Murray gravely.
“Between twenty and twenty-five miles,” said the minister. “He will have thought it strange that none of his father’s old friends came over to see him. Did you never get any word from him before, Mrs. Summers? He says his nurse wrote to you.”
“Nothing at all,” said Mrs. Summers thoughtfully.
“I must go at once!” said Murray, rising hastily. “You will excuse me, I know. There is no time to waste to make this thing right. Something might happen to stop me!”
“You must have your dinner first!” said Mrs. Summers, hurrying toward the kitchen. “Doctor Harrison, you had better stay here and eat dinner with us. Just telephone your wife that I’ve kept you.”
But Murray was at the door already.
“Wait, young brother,” said the minister, placing a detaining hand on his arm. “You’ve a duty here not yet finished, I take it. You’ve a Sunday school class to teach in a few minutes, and it is a very critical time for those boys. They will have heard of your confession this morning, and their hearts will be very impressionable.”
“Doctor Harrison, I can’t teach a Sunday school class. I never did teach! They taught me! You surely would not have me go before them again, now that they know what a fake I am! I have nothing to teach them!”
“You can teach them how to confess their sins, can’t you? You can show them the way to Jesus, I’m sure, now that you have found it yourself? You have not finished your confession here untilyou have met your class and made it right with them, my boy. I’m counting on your testimony to bring those boys to the Lord Jesus.”
Murray’s face softened.
“Could I do that?” he asked thoughtfully, with a luminous look in his eyes. “Would you trust me to do that when I will in all probability be in jail next Sunday?”
“You could do that, my son, and I will trust you to do it. I want you to do it. It will make the jail bright around you to remember that you had this opportunity to testify before the opportunity passed by forever. You have made an impression on those boys, and you must make sure that it is not spoiled. Tell them the truth. Show them how Jesus forgives. Show them that it is better to confess soon than late.”
So Murray taught his Sunday school class, taught it in such a way that every boy in the class felt before it was over that he had been personally brought before the judgment seat of God and tried. Taught it so well that several boys went home and took out personal and private sins that had been hidden deep in their hearts and renounced them in boyish prayers, in dark rooms at night, after the rest of the house was sleeping. Taught it so powerfully that the superintendent nodded toward the class and said in a low tone to the minister, “What are we going to do about that young man? Isn’t there some way to keep him here? The real man can’t possibly take his place now. Those boys will resent his presence, no matter how fine he is.”
A moment later the minister stood behind that class for amoment and noticed the sober, thoughtful faces of the boys. The usual restless merriment was not present. The boys had been in touch for a half hour with the vital things of the soul and had no time for trifling. He watched them a moment as the closing hymn was announced. Then he laid a hand on the shoulder of the teacher.
“Now, Murray,” he said, using his first name familiarly with a fatherly accent, “I’m ready to take you over to Wood’s Corners. We’ll just slip out this door while they’re singing. We’ll have plenty of time to get back for the evening service. Mrs. Summers has prepared us a lunch we can eat on the way back, and so we needn’t hurry.”
Chapter 25
It was very still in the small gloomy room of the little country hospital where the sick man had been taken when it had been determined to operate on him. The woman down the hall who had been having hysterics every two or three days had been moved to the next floor, and her penetrating voice was not so constantly an annoyance. The baby across the hall was too desperately ill to cry, and the other patients had dropped off to sleep. The hall was almost as quiet as night.
The patient lay with his eyes closed and a discouraged droop to his nicely chiseled mouth. His red curls had been clipped close under the bandages, but one could see they were red. He had long, capable fingers, but they lay pallid and transparent on the cheap coverlet, as if they never would work again. His whole attitude revealed utter defeat and discouragement. As he lay there, still as death and almost as rigid, a tear stole slowly out fromunder the long, dark lashes. A weak, warm tear. He brushed it away impatiently with his long, thin hand and turned over with a quick-drawn sigh. Even the effort of turning over was a difficult and slow performance. He felt so unacquainted with the muscles of his heavy, inert body. He wondered if he ever again would walk around and do things like other people.
As if she had heard him far out in the hall, the nurse opened the door and came in. It annoyed him that he could not even sigh without being watched.
“Did you call, Mr. Murray?”
“No, Nurse.”
“Did you want anything, Mr. Murray?”
“Yes, I want a great many things!” he snapped unexpectedly. “I want to get up and walk around and go to m
y work.” He had almost said, “I want to go home,” only he remembered in time that he had no home to go to. No one to care where he went.
“I want my mail!” he added suddenly. “I think it’s time this monkey business stopped! I suppose the doctor has told you I mustn’t have my mail yet. He’s afraid there’ll be something disturbing in it. But that isn’t possible. I haven’t any near relatives left. They’re all dead. I suppose I’ve lost my job long ago, so it can’t be anything disturbing about business, and I haven’t any girl anywhere that cares a cent about me or I about her, so you see there’s really no danger in letting me have it. In fact, I will have it! I wish you would go and get it right away. Tell the doctor I demand it. There would surely be something to interest me for afew minutes and make me forget this monotonous room and the squeak of your rubber heels on the hall floor!”
He had red hair, but he had not been savage like this before. He had just reached the limit of his nerves, and he was angry at that tear. It had probably left a wide track on his cheek, and that abominable nurse, who knew everything and thought of everything and presumed to manage him, would know he had been crying like a baby. Yes, she was looking hard at him now, as if she saw it. He felt it wet and cold on his cheek where he had not wiped it off thoroughly.
The nurse came a step nearer.
“I’m real sorry about your mail,” she said sympathetically, “but your suspicions are all wrong. The doctor asked me this morning if I couldn’t find out someone to write to about your mail. There truly hasn’t been a bit of mail since you came here. And the head nurse wrote to that address you gave her, I’m sure, for I saw her addressing the letter. Isn’t it likely they have made some mistake about the address? I wouldn’t fret about it if I were you. You’ll forget it all when you get well. Wouldn’t you like me to read to you awhile? There’s a real good story in the Sunday paper. I’ll get it if you want me to.”
“No thanks!” he said curtly. “I don’t read stories in Sunday papers, and besides, you can’t sugarcoat things with a story. And you’re mistaken when you say I’ll forget it. I’ll never forget it, and I’ll never get well, either! I can see that plain enough!”
With that he turned his face to the wall and shut his nice brown eyes again.
The nurse waited a few minutes, fussing around the immaculate room, giving him his medicine, taking his temperature, and writing something on the chart. Then she went away again, and he sighed. All by himself he sighed! And sighed! He tried to pray, but it only turned out in a sigh. But perhaps it reached to heaven, for God heard the sighs and tears of his poor foolish children of Israel, and would He not hear a sigh today, even it if really ought to have been a prayer?
“I’m all alone!” he said, quite like a sobbing child. “I’m all alone! And what’s the use?”
Then the nurse opened the door softly and looked in. It was growing dusky in the room, and the shadows were thick over where he lay. But there was something electric in the way she turned the knob, like well-suppressed excitement.
“There is someone to see you,” she said, in what she meant to make quite a colorless voice. The doctor had said it would not do to excite the patient.
“Someone to see me?” glowered the man on the bed. “There couldn’t be! There isn’t anybody. Who is it?”
“One of them is a minister. He looks very nice.”
“Oh!” groaned the patient disappointedly. “Is that all? Who told him to come?”
“Nobody,” said the nurse cheerfully. “He’s not from the village. They came in a car. There’s a young man with him. You’d better let them come up. They look real jolly.”
“Did they know my name?” He glared, opening his eyes at this.
“Oh yes, and they said there had been a letter from you or about you or something. They came from a place called Marlborough.”
“Well, that’s different!” said the patient with a jerk. “Can’t you straighten this place up a bit? It looks like an awful hole. Is my face clean? It feels all prickly.”
“I’ll wash it,” said the nurse brightly. She was quite gleeful over these interesting-looking visitors.
“You can show the minister up,” said the patient. “I don’t know the other one.”
“But he’s the one that asked after you. He seems real pleasant. He was quite anxious to see you. The minister called him Murray. Perhaps he’s some relative.”
“I haven’t any!” growled the man, “but you can bring him, too, if he’s so anxious to come.”
He glared out from under his bandages at his visitors with anything but a welcoming smile. It was too late for smiling. They should have come weeks ago.
They stood beside his bed and introduced themselves, the nurse hovering nearby till she should be sure that all was well with her patient.
“My name is Harrison. I’m the preacher from Marlborough you wrote to several months ago. I’ve just found out today where you were, and I’m mighty sorry I couldn’t have been around to help you sooner. I’ll just let this young brother explain, and then we’ll all talk about it some more.”
The minister put a big, kind, brotherly hand on the weak white hand of Allan Murray and then dropped back to the other end of the little room and sat down on the stiff white chair. Murray stepped closer to the bed.
“And I’m a man that stole something from you, and I’m come to bring it back again, and to ask your forgiveness.”
“Well, I’m sure I didn’t know it, and you’re welcome to it, whatever it was. It wouldn’t have been much good to me, you see. Keep it if you like, and say no more about it.” There was not much welcome nor forgiveness in his glance.
“But you see, I’m to blame for the whole thing,” explained Murray gently, “and I want to tell you about it. Are you strong enough to listen today, or ought I to wait?”
“Go on!” growled the patient impatiently.
The nurse was still hovering, openmouthed. This was too unusual a morsel of news to miss. She could not tear herself away.
“You see, I was a renegade anyway—” began Murray.
“What did you steal?” the patient interrupted, raising his voice nervously.
“I stole your name, and I stole your job, and I’ve been living at your boarding place and using your things!”
“Well, you certainly did a smashing business! As I say, it didn’t matter much to me, you see, if you could get away with it.”
“But I didn’t get away with it—that’s it. I was held up.”
“Who held you up?”
“God.”
The patient eyed his visitor a moment, and a strange softened expression began to melt into his face.
“Sit down,” he said. “Now, begin and tell.”
“Well, you see, my name’s Murray, too, my first name. Murray Van Rensselaer. Son of Charles Van Rensselaer. You’ve probably heard of him. Well, I broke a law, and then I didn’t like the idea of facing the consequences, so I ran away. I don’t know why I ran away. I hadn’t been used to running away from things. I always faced them outright. But anyhow, that doesn’t matter to you. I ran away, and after I got away I couldn’t quite see coming back, ever. I had some money, and for a few days I kept out of sight and got as far as I could away from home. The day of your wreck I’d been traveling under a freight car because I hadn’t any money, and we landed in Marlborough just at dark. Ever try traveling that way? Well, don’t. It isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. When the train stopped at a crossing, I rolled off more dead than alive. I was all in. I hadn’t had anything to eat all day, and I kept seeing cops everywhere I turned. So I hid till the train went on, and then I crawled off in the dark up a hill.
“By and by I spotted a light, and came to it through the dark, because I was so sick of going on I couldn’t go a step further.
“There was an open window, and down just below me on a table in a basement I saw a row of cakes and bread. There didn’t seem to be anybody around, so I put my hand in and took some and began
to eat. I didn’t call it stealing. I was starved.”
The patient’s eyes were watching Murray intently, and in the back of the room the minister was watching the patient.
“It turned out to be a church, and they were getting ready a big dinner to welcome you!”
A light shot into the eyes of the man on the pillow that seemed to suddenly illuminate his whole face. A surprised, glad light.
“A girl rushed out and called me Mr. Murray, and I tried to beat it, but it was all dark behind me, and my eyes were blinded looking at the lighted room, so I only got deeper in behind the bushes and ran against more church wall, and the girl followed me, laughing, and said she would show me the way, and that they were waiting for me. She said they had been so afraid I was caught in the wreck. She tried to pull me into the church, but I held back and said I was too dirty to go in, that my clothes were all torn and soiled. I said I had lost my baggage in the wreck. It seemed to be providential, that wreck, and I used it for all it was worth, for you see at first I thought I must have met that girl at a dance somewhere, and she recognized me and hadn’t heard yet what trouble I was in. So I wanted to get away before she found out.
“But she said my trunk had come, and somebody named Summers was expecting me, and I could go right over to my room and get dressed, but I must hurry, because it was late. I tried to get directions, but she insisted on walking over there with me. I couldn’t shake her. She seemed to think she had some special connection with me because her mother, she said, had known my mother.
“When we got to Mrs. Summers’ house, she opened the doorherself and pulled me right in before I could slide away in the darkness. Of course I could have broken away, but that would have roused suspicion, and anything I didn’t want was an outcry and the police on me; so I went in, and she took me up to the room she had gotten ready for you, and she actually smashed the lock on the trunk and went so far as pressing a pair of your trousers for me to put on, while I was taking a bath!”
By this time Allan Murray’s eyes were dancing, and there was actually a little pucker of a smile in one corner of his mouth.