Carey slammed upstairs to his room, and she could hear him presently in the bathroom stropping his razor and whistling a merry tune. He had forgotten all about Clytie. Cornelia’s hand trembled as she slipped the hot apple pie out of the oven and dusted it with powdered sugar. Then she suddenly straightened up and said out loud, “He answered!”
For a moment the little white kitchen seemed a holy place, as if a presence unseen were there, and her whole being was thrilled with the wonder of it. God, the great God, had listened to her troubled cry and sent His angel in the form of the minister’s daughter, who had averted the danger. Other people might doubt and sneer at supposed answers to prayer if they knew the circumstances, perhaps call it a coincidence or a “chance” or a “happening,” but she knew! There was something more than just the fact that the trouble had been averted. There was that strange spiritual consciousness of God answering her, God coming near and communicating with her, as if their eyes had met across the universe, and He had made her certain of His existence, certain of His interest in her and care for her and her affairs.
It was a little thing, an intangible thing, but it glorified her whole life, the day, the moment, and her work. It was real and something she could never forget. She went swiftly about the last details of the evening meal, had everything on the table absolutely on time, even found a moment to run up to her room, smooth her hair, and put on a fresh blouse. Yet through it all, and on through the beautiful evening, it kept ringing back sweetly in her heart. She had a refuge when things grew too hard for her, a God who cared and would help in time of need. She had not thought that faith was given like that, but it had come and made a different thing entirely of living.
They had a wonderful drive, Grace sitting in the front seat with Carey and carrying on a merry conversation, his father and the minister in the backseat, with Louise and Cornelia in the two little middle seats. For the minister had insisted on the whole family going. So for the first time since Cornelia’s return from college, the little house was shut up and dark through the whole evening, and now and again Cornelia’s thoughts would turn back and wonder what Clytie thought when she arrived with her gang of pleasure-seekers.
But the evening was so wonderful, the moonlight so perfect, the company so congenial, that Cornelia found it hard to harbor unpleasant thoughts and for one evening was carefree and happy. Now and then she thought of her little brother riding afar with young Maxwell and wondered what they were talking about and whether they would all know him any better when he got back with Harry. It was always so revealing to have a member of one’s family get really close to everyday living with a person. Then her thoughts would come back to the drifting talk from Grace and Carey in front, and she thought how handsome her brother looked and how at ease driving the car and talking to this sweet, cultured girl. She remembered his accents when he called Clytie Dodd a fool so vehemently and compared them with his face as he walked on Chestnut Street, chewing gum and looking down attentively to his overdressed, ill-behaved companion. Which was the real Carey? And do we all have two people shut up inside ourselves? Or is one the real self and the other a mask?
The service, which they attended for an hour, was intensely interesting and quite new to Cornelia. She had never seen anything like it before. It was a “conference.” Nobody said for what, and she did not happen to get hold of a program until they were leaving. Mr. Kendall at the desk seemed like a father among his children, or close friend of them all, and he led their thoughts to the heavenly Father in a most wonderful way, speaking of Him as if He were present always with each one, ready to help in any need, ready to conquer for them. And the thought he left with them at the close of his ten-minute talk was drawn from the verse “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Cornelia listened in wonder, and instantly to her mind sprang once more her own experience of the afternoon and a conviction that she was being watched and guarded and led and loved by an unseen Power. This sense of God had never come to her before. Religion had been a dreamy, mysterious necessity, the wholly respectable and conventional thing to believe in, of course, and a kind of comfortable assurance for the darkness of the beyond. She had never had any particular tendency to the modern doubts. Her mother’s faith and her father’s living had been too real for that. And always, when a teacher had voiced some skeptical flippancy, she had turned away with an inner conviction that the teacher did not know, because there was her mother and a feeling that she preferred to stick to the faith of her forefathers. But as far as concerned any particular reason for doing so, or any particular conviction on her own part, she was absolutely without them.
But now suddenly she saw and felt something that had never come to her realization before. She felt as firmly assured of all the vital truths she had been taught as if some mystic curtain had suddenly been rolled back and revealed to her things hidden from mortal eye. She remembered somewhere in the Bible there was a verse, one of her mother’s favorites, “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.” Was this possibly what it meant? Was “the witness” coming to her because she had put her childhood belief to the test?
She came out of the church with a firm resolve to begin to study her Bible and find out more about this wonderful spirit world that was all about her, and by which perhaps she was guided through her life much more than she had ever dreamed. Her feeling that God was somewhere close and taking personal notice of her and her interests was so strong that she could not ignore it, and yet she regarded it almost shyly, like a bird that has quietly alighted on one’s hand and might be frightened away. She did not dare to touch it and lay hold on its wonder firmly, lest it should prove to be a figment of her imagination, but it gave her a deep, new joy for which she found no name. Could it be that she had found Christ? She had heard her mother speak of “finding Christ” and had never had much idea of what it could be. Now a deep conviction grew in her that she was experiencing it herself.
The ride home was one of wondrous beauty, and there was a serene happiness in each heart that made it seem a most unusual occasion, one to look back upon with a thrill of pleasure for many a day. Even Louise seemed to feel it. She nestled close to her sister and watched with wide, happy eyes the fleeting starry darkness, and drew long breaths of spring and ferny sweetness as they passed through some wooded road, and every little while would whisper, “Aren’t we having just a wonderful time, Nellie, dear? I wonder if it’s as pretty where Harry is now. I wonder if they’ve stopped for the night yet.”
The minister and Mr. Copley were on the two middle seats now, having a deep discussion about whether the world was growing better or worse, and Cornelia was on the backseat with her little sister. The evening seemed like an oasis in the great desert of hard work and worry through which she had been passing for the last few weeks. Just to see Carey there in the front seat talking and smiling to Grace was enough to rest her heart. If she could have heard the earnest little talk about real Christian living they were having, she would have been filled with wonder and awe. Carey talking religion with a young girl! How unbelievable it would have seemed to her! But the purr of the engine sheltered the quiet sentences, and Grace and Carey talked on deep into the heart of life and the simplicity of the Gospel, and Carey expressed shy thoughts that he never would have dreamed before of letting even the angels of heaven guess. His living hadn’t always been in accordance with such thoughts or beliefs, but they were there all the time, and this girl, who was a real Christian herself, had called them forth. Perhaps the spirit of the remarkable meeting that they had just attended had helped to make it a fitting time and prepared their minds so that it came about quite naturally. Grace was no insistent evangelist, flinging her message out and demanding an answer. She breathed the fragrance of Christianity in her smile, and her words came involuntarily from a heart that thought much “on these things.”
The immediate result of the talk became apparent as they were ge
tting out of the car at the minister’s house. Carey was to drive his own people on to their home and then put the car in its garage, two blocks farther up the hill.
As Grace turned to say, “Good night,” Carey leaned out and asked, “What time did you say that Christian Endeavor met?”
“Oh, yes, seven o’clock!” said the girl eagerly, not at all as if it were a doubtful question whether the young man would come or not. “And don’t forget the choir rehearsal. That is Friday evening at our house, you know.”
“I’ll be there!” said Carey graciously.
Cornelia, too astonished for words that Carey was arranging for all these church functions, easily yielded to the request, and they parted for the night, the sister with a singing in her heart that her brother was getting to be friends with a girl like the minister’s daughter. Now surely, surely, he would stop going with the girls like Clytie Dodd. Probably that girl would be offended at the way she had been left without even an apology and would drop Carey now. She sat back with a sigh of relief and dismissed this one burden from her young heart. Could she have known what plots were at that very moment revolving in the vengeful girl’s mind and being suggested to her hilarious and willing group of companions amid shouts of laughter, she would not have rested her soul so easily nor enjoyed the wonderful moonlight that glorified even the mean little street where she lived. The devil is not idle when angels throng most around, and Cornelia had yet to learn that a single victory is not a whole battle won. But perhaps if she had known, she would not have had the courage and faith to go forward, and it is well that the step ahead is always just out of sight.
Chapter 24
For three long, beautiful weeks Cornelia enjoyed her calm, and hope climbed high.
The stone columns of the pretty front porch grew rapidly and began to take on comeliness. Brand endeared himself to them all by his cheerful, steady, patient aid, coming every afternoon attired in overalls and working hard till dark, getting his white hands callous and dirty, cut with the stones, and hard as nails. Once Cornelia had to tie an ugly cut he got when a stone fell on his hand, and he looked at her lovingly and thanked her just like a child. From that time forth she gathered him into her heart with her brothers and sister and began genuinely to like him and be anxious for his welfare. It seemed that his mother and sister were society people and made little over him at home. He had his own companions and went his own way without consulting them, and although he must have had a wonderful mansion of a home, he seemed much to prefer the little cozy house of the Copley’s and spent many evenings there as well as days. He seemed to be as much interested in getting the stone porch done as Carey himself, and he often worked away alone when Carey felt he must stay at the garage awhile to get money enough for more stone or more cement and sand. Once or twice Cornelia suspected, from a few words she gathered as the boys were arguing outside the window, that Brand had offered to supply the needed funds rather than have Carey leave to earn them, but she recognized proudly that Carey always declined emphatically such financial assistance.
Now and then Brand would order Carey to “doll up” and would whirl him away in his car to see a man somewhere with the hope of a position, but as yet nothing had come of these various expeditions, although Carey was always hopeful and kept telling about a new “lead,” as he called it, with the same joyous assurance of youth.
Brand, too, had been drawn into the young people’s choir and took a sudden interest in Sunday-night church. Once he went with Cornelia and found the place in the hymnbook for her and sang lustily at her side. The next Sunday he was sitting up in the choir loft beside Carey and acting as if he were one of the chief pillars in that church. It was wonderful how eagerly he grasped a thing that caught his interest. He had a wild, carefree, loving nature and bubbled over with life and recklessness, but he was easily led if anybody chose to give him a little fellowship. It seemed that he led a starved life so far as loving care was concerned, and he accepted eagerly any little favor done for him. Cornelia soon found that he grew pleasantly into the little family group, and even the children accepted and loved him and often depended upon him.
Arthur Maxwell, too, had become an intimate friend of the family circle, and since Harry had come back from his trip to the mountains he could talk of nothing else but “Mr. Maxwell says this and Mr. Maxwell does that,” till the family began gently to poke fun at him about it. Nevertheless, they were well pleased that they had such a friend. He came down one day and took Cornelia off for the whole afternoon on a wonderful drive in the country. They brought back a great basket of fruit and armfuls of wildflowers and vines. Another day he took her to a nursery where they selected some vines for the front porch, some climbing roses and young hedge plants, which he proceeded to set out for her on their return. Then next day a big box of chocolates was delivered at the door with his card.
But his mother had not been out for her promised visit yet, for she had been called away on a business trip to California the day after she reached home and had decided to remain with her relatives there for a month or six weeks. Cornelia, as she daily beautified her pretty home, kept wondering what Mrs. Maxwell would say to it when she did come. But most of all she wondered about her own mother and what she would say to the glorified old house when she got back to it again.
Great news had been coming from the hospital where the mother was getting well. The nurse said that she grew decidedly better from the day the letter arrived telling how Carey was singing in the church choir and going to Christian Endeavor and building a front porch. The nurse’s letter did not show that she laid any greater stress on any one of these occupations than on the others, but Cornelia knew that her mother’s heart was rejoicing that the boy had found a place in the church of God where he was interested enough to go to work. In her very next letter she told about the minister’s people and described Grace Kendall, telling of Carey’s friendship with her. Again the nurse wrote how much good that letter had done the mother, so that she sat up for quite a little while that day without feeling any ill effects from it. Cornelia began to wonder whether Clytie had been at the bottom of some of her mother’s trouble and to congratulate herself on the fact that Clytie had been overcome at last.
About this time Maxwell arrived one evening while Carey was putting the finishing touches to the front porch, and instead of coming in as was his custom, he sat down on a pile of floorboards and talked with Carey.
Cornelia, hearing low, earnest voices, stepped quietly to the window and looked out, wondering to see Maxwell talking so earnestly with her brother. She felt proud that the older young man was interested enough in him to linger and talk and wondered whether it might be politics or the last baseball score that was absorbing them. Then she heard Maxwell say, “You’ll be there at eight tomorrow morning, will you? He wants to talk with you in his private office before the rush of the day begins.”
In a moment more, Maxwell came into the house, bringing with him a great box of gorgeous roses, and in her joy over the roses, arranging them in vases, she forgot to wonder what Maxwell and her brother had been talking about. He might have told her, perhaps, but they were interrupted almost immediately, much to her disappointment, by callers. First, the carpenter next door ran in to say he was building a bungalow in a new suburb for a bride and groom, and the man wanted to furnish the house throughout before he brought his wife home, to surprise her. The bride didn’t know he was building but thought they would have to board for a while, and he wanted everything pretty and shipshape for her before she came, so they could go right in and begin to live. He didn’t have a lot of money for furnishing, and the carpenter had found out about it and told him about Cornelia. Would she undertake the job on a percentage basis, taking for selecting the things ten percent, say, on what they cost, and charging her usual prices for any work she had to do?
Cornelia at the door facing out into the starlight, flushed with pleasure over the new business opportunity and made arrangements in a happy
tone to meet the new householder the next morning, talk plans over with him, and find out what he wanted. The young man in the living room, waiting for her, pretending to turn over the pages of a magazine that lay on the table, was furtively watching her all the while and thinking how fine she was, how enterprising and successful, and yet how sweet! How right his mother had been! He smiled to himself to think how nearly always right his mother was, anyhow, and wondered again, as he had done before, whether his mother had a hidden reason for sending him out with those ferns that first night.
Cornelia returned in a flutter of pleasure and was scarcely seated when there came another summons to the door, and there stood the minister’s wife. She came in and met Maxwell, and they had a pleasant little chat. Then Mrs. Kendall revealed her errand. She wanted Cornelia to give a series of talks on what she called “The House Beautiful and Convenient” to the Ladies’ Aid Society in the church. She had the course all outlined suggestively, with a place for all the questions that come up in making a house comfortable and attractive, and she wanted Cornelia to keep in mind that many in her audience would be people in very limited circumstances with very little money or time or material at hand to use in making their homes lovely. She said there were many people in their church neighborhood who would be attracted by such a course to come to the church gatherings, and she wanted Cornelia to help. The Ladies’ Aid had voted to pay five dollars a lesson for such a course of talks as this and had instructed her to secure someone for it at once, and she knew of no one so well fitted as Cornelia. Would Cornelia consider it for the trifle they could afford to pay? They were going to charge the women twenty-five cents a lesson and hoped to make a little money on the enterprise for the Ladies’ Aid. Of course, the pay was small, but with her experience the work ought not to take much time, and she could have the added reward of knowing she was doing a lot of good and probably brightening a lot of homes. Also it would bring her opportunities for other openings of the sort.