“Strange, wasn’t it?” said the girls who had been hanging around hoping to have another talk with Barney.
“Well, I’m not surprised,” said Amelia to a group of them. “I wouldn’t think he’d stick around after the way you treated him this morning, Hortense.”
“Treated him?” said Hortense. “How did we treat him? I don’t know what you mean. I certainly don’t think he’s being very courteous tonight, do you?” But nobody answered her.
Barney and Margaret had gone out the back driveway of the church and were sprinting rapidly in the direction of Margaret’s home.
“I wonder what he sees in that little washed-out schoolteacher!” said Hortense angrily as she lingered for a moment at Amelia’s door to say good night and suggest what to do about collecting the sandwiches that had been promised for the reception Monday night.
“Well,” said Amelia thoughtfully, trying to speak the truth and yet avoid angering Hortense any further, “I suppose it all depends on one’s point of view. I don’t think most men admire much makeup, do you?”
“Meaning that you think I wear too much?” snapped Hortense.
“I didn’t say that,” said Amelia. “I suppose it all depends on the type you admire.”
“Well, good night. I think I’ve taken plenty for one evening. I’ll go home and gather up a little strength to try and get through tomorrow night. And after this I’m done with homecoming soldiers, no matter how popular they are. I wonder what this Stormy fellow is like. I’d like to see him. He sounds interesting to me. I’ll bet that religious complex is all a figment of Barney’s imagination. Makes a nice sob-stuff story. Ten to one he’s having the time of his life somewhere among so-called enemies, while Barney goes around posing as his would-be rescuer.”
“Why, Hortense! I thought you liked Barney.”
“Well, I thought I did, too, but I’ve taken as much off him as I’ll take from now on.”
Chapter 19
On the way home Barney and Margaret discussed the reception of the next evening.
“It’s a doggone nuisance,” said Barney disgustedly. “I just knew those fool girls would do something unpleasant. Of course, I can’t refuse to go, because of the rest of my old friends, but I just hate to go through a thing like that. We can come away early, though, can’t we? It wouldn’t be necessary for us to stay till the last cat is hung, would it? I wouldn’t want anybody’s feelings to be hurt, of course. My mother’s old friends! And after all, it is nice of people, to want to say hello to me. But couldn’t we say we had another engagement and get away?”
“We!” said Margaret, with a troubled look. “Why, I don’t think they would expect me to come. I never went with their crowd.”
“Say, look here! You don’t mean to say this isn’t a community affair, do you? Isn’t everybody invited?”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know,” laughed Margaret. “Nobody’s told me anything about it.”
“Well, you better be told! If you don’t go, I’m not going, that’s definite!”
“Well, of course I could go, I suppose. I could get Mother to go with me. But really, I don’t believe they expect everybody. Not the older people. Or maybe they do, but I haven’t seen any notices, and it wasn’t in the paper. Besides, how could they tell people? They didn’t know whether you would be here.”
“Well, we’ll go over, you and your mother and I, and if we find there is only that crowd of highfliers there, we’ll only stay about ten minutes, and then we’ll have another important engagement. I’ll fix that up. I certainly am not going to waste a whole evening on that crowd. Besides, you and I have a lot of time to catch up on, and we can’t afford to waste it.”
Margaret slid her hand into his, and they walked happily along together and soon forgot the reception, and everything else but their love for each other and their joy in being together.
“Oh, Barney,” said Margaret. “You don’t know how wonderful this all is for me. To have you singing in our dear old church, to have you here again, even if there is the dreadful possibility that you may have to go away again. It will be something to remember I have had. To know it is me you love, and I’m not left outside, the way I have so often been. No, I ought not to have said that, for I really never cared that I was left out by those other girls. I never could have enjoyed being with them. They do not love the things that I love. They delight to snub me, and jeer at anything they understand I like. But there! I should not talk that way. Some of those girls could be very nice, if only they wouldn’t listen to Hortense so much. But say, Barney, did you watch her face during the sermon? I do believe she was listening.”
“I thought she’d gone to sleep the one time I saw her.”
“No, I think that was only a pose. I saw her in the little organ mirror. Before she leaned her head on her arm and closed her eyes, they were wide open, and she positively looked frightened! She always tries to pose as being one who isn’t afraid of anything, but somehow I had the feeling that that sermon got under her skin. I think she saw for a minute or two what it would mean to get sent away from the presence of God forever. I don’t think it ever occurred to her before that hell was like that. An absence of all righteousness, all that was good, separation from God forever. I think it really frightened her. And when you sang that last song about the blood, she looked frightened again. I don’t believe that one could hear a sermon like that and not mind the thought of spending all eternity in the company of devils in hell. I suppose maybe nobody has ever tried to make her understand before.”
“Yes,” said Barney thoughtfully. “I suppose she has a soul that needs saving. Somehow I never realized that with regard to her. She has always been so self-sufficient, so sure of herself. Still, of course, Christ died for her, as well as for all other unsaved souls, and probably we ought to pray for such people the more. Make our lives a better witness before them, rather than to be sarcastic and try to shy away from them. But they don’t want our prayers and witnessing, I’m afraid.”
“No, I suppose they don’t,” said Margaret earnestly. “But I guess we can’t go up to God’s throne and expect to meet Him with unburdened souls, if we haven’t at least told them about our so great salvation.”
“That’s right, dear. And I guess I’m glad I said I’d go to their reception. It wouldn’t have been Christian to be selfish about it. But we’ll go, and we’ll do our best to witness, even if Hortense did try to stipulate we shouldn’t have any long-faced hymns. Well, perhaps there is some way of getting a bit of truth across in a bright and cheerful way that will make them want to find our Lord. That’s the business of Christians, of course, to be witnessing everywhere, even when we can’t just really like the people. They certainly need the truth, same as the attractive ones.”
“Oh, Barney dear!” said Margaret softly. “How wonderful that you turned out to be like this! And how happy your mother must be to know about it! I’m sure she knows.”
“Yes, so am I,” said the young soldier, folding his girl’s hand close in his clasp. “But there’s something else that is wonderful to me, and that is the fact that God kept you so sweet and dear and fine, brought you up in His love and strength, taught you to serve Him; and then let you love me. That seems to me the crowning joy, that you love me, and that someday if God lets me live, you can be my wife. I don’t think there is anything else that is so sweet on this earth as for God to have given me the love of a girl like you.”
“Oh, Barney! That’s such a wonderful thing for you to say. And just a few days ago I was almost afraid to have you meet Cornelia Mayberry because I was afraid to have you fall in love with her. Just think of my being jealous and selfish like that!”
“Dear!” said Barney, laying his other hand on hers that rested on his arm. “You dear! That you should care like that! But, my darling, why should you think I would ever turn from you to that other girl? She’s a sweet, attractive girl, I admit, and I think she’d make a very nice friend for—well, somebody else??
?but I could never choose her instead of you, my little Sunny girl! She’s a lovely girl, and she’s asking a lot of interesting questions about the Lord and the Bible, but you needn’t ever think that anybody can possibly be to me what you are, and I hope will always be, my precious!”
So they walked slowly along the moonlit road, talked of things of heaven and things of earth, and rejoiced more and more in their love for each other. It was characteristic of Barney that he thought of that reception only once and that was to be glad that his best uniform was cleaned and pressed and in order. He would have nothing to do to get ready for the affair except to put it on. He went to sleep pondering what he could say in the few words he had promised, that would not only sell war bonds but would also be helpful to some soul in the dark of a war-torn world. Not too much. Just to go on record and show what he stood for.
As Margaret was busy with her teaching the next morning, Barney had arranged to call on Cornelia and answer some of her questions about the Bible over which she seemed deeply troubled. But his going did not escape the young gang who was undertaking to establish an espionage over him.
“There! Look out there! There goes Barney into the Kimberly house,” announced Janet Harper, who had just arrived at Amelia’s with a basket of sandwiches she had been collecting for the evening festivity. “You see you were wrong, Hortense! He’s caught on to the new girl now. I guess he’s not so keen on Sunny after all.”
“Oh, that’s nothing!” sniffed Hortense, who was there to borrow more teaspoons and cups. “He’s got to go somewhere, hasn’t he, just to pass the time? And Sunny is a schoolteacher, so he can’t go around with her weekdays. Evenings maybe, but not daytimes.”
“Did you invite Sunny and her mother?” asked Amelia’s mother.
“No, I didn’t,” said Hortense. “I thought it wasn’t any business of theirs, and anyway, it’s been announced now. There’s a notice on the post office bulletin board. I simply don’t care for that silly Sunny, and I resent Barney’s trotting her around everywhere, so why should I invite them? And I didn’t ask the Kimberlys, either. If anybody else wants to they can, but I’m not going to.”
“Well, I think that was very rude,” said Amelia’s mother. “They are lovely people and dear friends of Barney’s.”
“Not any dearer than we are,” sneered Hortense, “and not half so interesting. They are awfully dull to have around, I think, and always trying to run everything their way, if you ask me. We don’t hit it off well together at all.” And Hortense got up and went to the front door. She had known she would meet with opposition if this subject came up, but she wasn’t afraid of Mrs. Haskell, anyway. She was just like Amelia, hadn’t the backbone even to make a fuss. So the subject died down and was forgotten.
Mrs. Kimberly invited Barney to stay for lunch, but he excused himself, saying he had telephone calls to make and letters to write and must go home. The truth was he wanted a little time to himself to rest and think over the coming affair that evening, and he had promised Margaret to meet her at the schoolhouse and take a long walk, and he did not intend to allow anything to break up that plan.
So Cornelia and Barney sat down with the Bible and went over a few verses that Cornelia had been puzzling over, and then she began to ask questions about Stormy. She listened intently as Barney told of Stormy’s religious experience, meeting God out on his way to die as he supposed, and how he had been serving Him ever since.
When Barney went back at noon, Cornelia sat with the Bible in her lap and her eyes far away. Then she took out a little snapshot of Stormy that her brother had sent her and she had treasured ever since. She studied the tiny picture, trying to read into that handsome, laughing face all the beautiful experience about which Barney had been telling her.
And that afternoon, out on their long, lovely walk, Barney said to Margaret, “Do you know, dear, I wouldn’t be surprised if your friend Cornelia is more than half in love with our Stormy. She says she’s only seen him that one time that she visited the camp. But, of course, he is very stunning-looking and has a great way with him. But she seemed to want to know more than anything else if Stormy was really saved, and did I think one could always be sure that a dead Christian always went to be with the Lord when he died. I wonder if she thinks Stormy is dead.”
“Well, I’m afraid she does, Barney. You see, everybody has been telling her that he must have been killed or he would have sent some word. That he never let his regiment go uninformed if there was any possible way to let them get a message. Her brother wrote her that just yesterday.”
“And yet she is praying for him to come back.”
“Yes, but she thinks it is only wishful thinking that makes us say we are sure he is alive. And perhaps she wants to be sure that she can meet him in heaven, since it seems so unlikely she will ever see him again on earth.”
“Poor child!” said Barney. “And poor Stormy! What a girl she would be for him! He deserves somebody like that who would love him a great deal. But he would never presume to ask her to marry him, I’m afraid. He knows she belongs to a rich family, and while he hasn’t an inferiority complex, he would feel it was presuming when he has no fortune to offer her.”
“Oh, but that would be foolish! She is not at all like that. She doesn’t think of money.”
“Well, no, I don’t believe she does, but he might.”
“He’d better not meet her, then,” said Margaret, with a troubled look. “That would be an awful thing, to love a man and not have him ask her to marry him just because she has a little money even though he loves her. How utterly silly. A nice girl couldn’t ask him, and will she have to go alone all her life because he has such an idea?”
“Well, I don’t know if Stormy would feel that way. Perhaps he’s got more sense now. I think he has come so close to bigger things than any on this earth that he might not think of such things anymore. He might only ask her if she was saved. And now I think of it, and remember how he talked when I last saw him, I believe if he loved her, that would be the only thing that might hinder him from asking her to be his wife. He would ask first, ‘Does she love my Lord? Is she saved?’ ”
“Oh,” said Margaret earnestly. “I’m so glad he is like that! I do wish he might come back. It would be so great to have those two come together. I believe Cornelia’s brother wishes it, too, from some things she read to me from her brother’s letter yesterday. Was he a Christian, too, when you knew him?”
“Well, kind of a shy one, I guess. I never was just sure where he stood. But it must be talking with Stormy has made a difference in him. Or else meeting death out on the battlefield so familiarly. She read that letter to me, too, this morning, and I wondered. He wasn’t like that with me, the last time I talked with him. But then I had been very low myself, and they wouldn’t let us talk long.”
Margaret reached over and slipped her hand in Barney’s, pressing her fingers close.
“Dear,” she said softly, looking up into his face, “I’m so continually thankful to God for saving your life and bringing you back to me. I keep thinking how dreadful it would have been if you had never come back and I had never known you loved me.”
The look that passed between them then was one to be remembered.
They came back when the sun was going down and the long, sweet spring twilight was beginning, hurrying at the last, because they remembered that they must really be dressed up tonight.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. I asked Mrs. Kimberly and Cornelia to go with us tonight,” said Barney. “I knew your mother wouldn’t mind, and I found they hadn’t had an invitation. So as I am the one who is being recepted I thought I had the right. You don’t mind, do you, dear?”
“Mind! Why, of course not. I was going to suggest it myself, only I forgot. We can stop for them as we go down. Mother will be delighted. She loves Mrs. Kimberly. And you must remember neither Mother nor I were invited, either. There will be strength in numbers. And especially as we are in the company of the guest of ho
nor.”
“Why, yes, of course,” laughed Barney. “It would be a pity if I didn’t have any rights at my own party. Come, I think we had better hurry.”
“For the love of Mike! Will you look at what’s coming!” exclaimed Hortense to Amelia, as the guest of honor entered with the four ladies. “He would do something like that, wouldn’t he? Bring a lot of snobs and chaperons. But, my word! Look at their clothes! Even that little mouse of a Sunny has a new dress I never saw her wear before. It isn’t half bad, is it? One of those new shades of blue I’ve read about. You don’t suppose she borrowed it from the New York girl, do you?”
“Of course not,” said Amelia sharply. “That Mayberry girl is a foot taller and several inches wider in her shoulders than Sunny. And why should Sunny have to borrow clothes? She’s making plenty teaching school, isn’t she? Besides, I heard Mr. Werner say the other day in the bank that Mrs. Roselle is wealthy herself. She gives a lot to the church, they say.”
“How foolish!” said Hortense. “I wonder what she gets out of doing a thing like that.”
Then she roused herself to gather her reception committee together, stand in line, herself at the head, and introduce the incoming guests, though most of them had known one another all their lives.
But the pleasant friendship of the evening didn’t depend upon Hortense, although she had hoped it would seem that way. The people were all glad to be there, for they loved Barney and they had also loved his precious mother. So they just took over the evening themselves and didn’t bother in the least about Hortense and her gang. So Hortense found that she and her henchwomen were becoming nothing but young waitresses to pass around the delectable sandwiches and cake that had come pouring in all day, much of it from people who hadn’t been solicited at all. Hortense discovered that she had finally hit on something in the town that was really popular, yet nobody seemed to think that she had been the instigator. One elderly woman, who had a wide smile and a pleasant sort of purr, came up to Hortense and said, “Wasn’t this a lovely idea, getting up this reception for Barney? Was it the woman’s club did it, or the church? I suppose it must have been the church, because they all loved his mother so much. Though probably they all worked together.”