When she reached the gate she stood there looking radiantly up into his face as he was looking down into her eyes with a deep, sweet, searching gaze as if he wanted to make sure it was really the girl he knew. Then he put his hands out and laid them on her slender shoulders, looked down deeper into her eyes, and said: “May I kiss you, Lexie?” He stooped and laid his lips upon hers, and it seemed to her as if all heaven looked down and held its breath in joy as their two souls came together at last.
“You’re just the same,” he said at last, lifting his head and looking down at her. “My little Lexie! I’d have known you anywhere. The same eyes, the same smile. Oh my dear! To think I’m here again at last! And it’s really you!”
Her eyes went up to his, full of delight.
“And you’re the same, too,” she said softly, letting her eyes caress his face. “Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come! I thought I never would see you again. I was afraid something had happened to you!”
He smiled gravely.
“Something did, my Lexie! Our transport was torpedoed, and a couple of us floated for days before we were picked up and carried all around the globe until finally we got to a place where we could contact the right parties. But that’s a long story and I haven’t so much time just now. I’ve got to get back to Washington this afternoon. The army trucks are passing the highway at exactly four o’clock this afternoon, and I’ve got to be waiting for them, for they haven’t time to wait for me. But I’ll be back later, in a week or two, or maybe sooner if I can find out what the plans for me are. And then we can tell the whole story. In the meantime, let’s make the most of this little time. Where were you going this morning before you saw me? I see your hat up there on the porch, and you must have been going somewhere.”
“Oh, I was just going to church, but it isn’t necessary this morning. I want to hear all about you.”
He smiled appreciatively.
“I’d like to go to church with you,” he said tenderly. “Is it time?”
“No, not for an hour yet,” she said.
“Then there’s time to take a walk first,” he said. “Or, was somebody going with you?”
“Oh no,” she said with a laugh. “I usually go everywhere alone.”
He looked down at her tenderly.
“Not anymore,” he said. “Not when I get home to stay! Now come, let’s go. Do you have to tell anyone you’re going?”
“Why, no,” said Lexie. “Only, you’ll have time to come back to dinner, won’t you? I ought to tell Cinda, though she’s liable to have seen you and have something ready.”
“Let’s not bother with dinner today, we haven’t time,” he said. “I’ll come again later. Get your hat and Bible, and we’ll take our walk and find a church before we get back.”
So she got her hat and Bible from the chair, and was back at his side. He drew her hand within his arm and they walked off together, she with her hat in her hand and he with her Bible under his arm.
“There used to be woods up this way. Is it still there, or have they cut it down yet?”
“It’s still there!” said Lexie.
“Then we’ll go there,” he said. And side by side they walked away to the woods, while Elaine stood peering out of her bedroom window watching them eagerly, taking in every item of his uniform, noting a decoration or two, noting his smile, and the way he walked, and everything about him.
And out of her kitchen window that looked toward the woods Cinda was watching.
“That’ll be him,” she said delightedly to herself. “An’ ain’t he the soldier man! He’ll do fer my bairnie. He has it written all over him. Good an’ brave, an’ a looker besides! Wonder what I oughtta do about dinner? Well, there’s fried chicken enough. I don’t needta save any fer meself. It’ll be all right. An’ that cherry pie turned out real good ef I do say so as shouldn’t.”
But the two who were sitting under a great tree in the woods with their feet resting on a bed of velvet moss, and the songs of the thrushes overhead, were not thinking of what they would have for dinner, not even intending to come back for dinner, not today. They were getting acquainted, and looking into the years of eternity ahead of them. Two people who had met God, and trusted Him utterly because He had been with them through the fire and flood and circumstance.
Eventually they went to church. But before they left the woods, they sat hand in hand and read a few of their precious verses from the Bible, and then bowed their heads together and prayed a few words. Shy words, they were. Neither of them was used to formal prayer before others.
“But, you see, I love you,” said Ben Barron as he lifted his head with that grave, sweet smile on his face, “and we had to have some sort of a ceremony or dedication or something to mark it. We belong to each other, now, in God’s eyes, don’t we?” And he searched her face.
“Oh yes,” said Lexie, drawing a deep breath of joy. “I am so glad! Now I won’t ever have to worry again, thinking you don’t care. I was so afraid if anything should happen to you I would never find you if you cared at all.”
“You dear!” he said stooping to kiss her again, and gathering her in his arms, holding her close. “But I don’t see how you cared when you didn’t really know me. When you hadn’t seen me but once.”
“Oh, but I did,” said Lexie. “I grew into loving you before I knew I was doing it, and I was so worried lest I had not right.”
“Precious child!” said Ben. “But you were only a child.”
“Yes, I was only a child!—but—you say you loved me!” She gave him an endearing look.
“Well, yes, of course I wasn’t conscious of it when I first saw you, for I wasn’t grown-up either, you know, but something caught in my heart, and came back to me in the fire that night, and I guess God had this planned for us all the time.”
So they talked, and they very nearly didn’t get to church on time. If Ben hadn’t been a soldier used to timing himself, they wouldn’t have.
But they walked into church just as the first hymn was being sung, and were given a hymnbook and stood and sang together:
“Mine eyes and my desire
Are ever to the Lord;
I love to plead His promises,
And rest upon His Word.”
And their eyes as they met told a story of love and trust that the watching, eager churchgoers read and interpreted.
“My, don’t they make a swell couple!” said one envious girl as she watched them go down the aisle together at the close of church.
“Yes, and did you get on to the way they sang, as if they really meant it!” said another.
“Oh, that!” said a third girl. “Their looks were for each other, not for the words they were singing.”
“No,” said another girl, “they meant it, I know they did. You cannot fake real things. Not like that!”
“Oh, piffle! There aren’t any real things anymore!” said the first girl, whose lad had gone off to war without saying the word that counted.
But the two who were walking in heavenly ways went happily on with their brief, short day, treasuring every second of it for sweet memory.
They took a brief lunch at a little place along the way they walked, for they could not take time out for formalities. Lexie then went with her soldier over to the highway, where they sat under a tree together to wait for the army truck to come. And quietly, just before he had to get on, Lexie started up the lane that led home to the little white gate, and when she got to the turn of the lane, where a tall tree arched over her, she stood, a slender figure in a soft blue dress and a big white hat, waving a small handkerchief toward the great dark army truck that was moving down the highway toward Washington. He was gone, but he was hers! Her heart thrilled with the thought. And she was wearing his ring! A sweet, dear ring, its bright clear diamond sparkling on her finger, filling her with continual joy. To think that she should be wearing his ring! And she had a tender thought for the first owner of that ring, Ben’s mother. She must have been a wo
nderful woman. And Ben had worn that ring on a slender chain around his neck ever since she died. He had worn it all through that awful experience in the fire. It was almost like having something that was a part of him.
She walked slowly home in the quiet of the late Sunday afternoon, and thought what wonderful things God had been preparing for her all these years when she had thought things were so very hard and never would be any different. And now heaven seemed to have opened before her and all around her.
And then she got home, and there was Elaine out on the porch looking fretful and impatient!
Chapter 19
Well, so you’ve got home at last! Where on earth have you been all day Sunday? This is something new for you!”
Lexie looked up and smiled with that dreamy smile that shows one has been far away in a heaven of one’s own, and for some reason, it made her sister angry and jealous.
“Oh, have you needed me?” said Lexie. “I’m sorry. But I’ve been having a wonderful time. We went to church, and then we took a walk.”
“Oh, you took a walk, did you? All this time? You couldn’t have come home and told us what you were going to do, could you?”
“Why, no, I couldn’t very well,” said Lexie, with a winsome look in her eyes.
“Well, who was the man? Someone you picked up on the road? I didn’t think you were that kind. Your mother certainly wouldn’t have approved of that.”
Lexie laughed.
“No, I didn’t pick him up. I’ve known him a long time.”
“Oh, you have? And why did he never turn up before?”
“Why, he’s been overseas,” said Lexie. “We’ve been corresponding for a long time. He’s just home on leave, and he doesn’t know if he may soon be ordered off again. He thinks, though, that he can come back at least for a few hours before he as to go anywhere.”
“Oh!” said Elaine. “So he’s coming back!”
“Yes, he’ll be back,” said Lexie joyously.
Elaine gave a sharp look, and then she said: “Whose ring is that you’re wearing? I never saw you have that on before. Is it a real diamond, or just paste?”
“Why, it’s my ring,” said Lexie, lifting her hand proudly. “It was his mother’s, and he’s worn it next to his heart all through his war experience. And, oh yes, the diamond is real. His father bought it at Tiffany’s in New York when he and Ben’s mother were engaged.”
“It’s not very large,” said Elaine sharply. “They can’t be very rich.”
“I don’t know,” said Lexie. “I never asked anything about that. I really didn’t care.”
“No, you wouldn’t!” said Elaine contemptuously. “Well, I hope you’re happy. I thought I was once, but it didn’t last.”
“But this will,” said Lexie with a grave, sweet smile, “because we both love the Lord Jesus, and whatever comes, we are both His.”
“Oh, religious, is he? Well, that would be the kind you’d pick. Well, I’m sure I wish you well.”
“Thank you, Elaine,” said Lexie brightly, and she went over and kissed her sister on the forehead, which was the only part of Elaine’s anatomy that she presented for the salute.
Then Lexie went in the house and out to the kitchen to find Cinda and show her her ring.
But Elaine sat still on the porch into the deep gloaming of the evening, and let the slow tears course down her cheeks unchecked.
The days that followed brought great joy to Lexie. Ben came back within the week to tell her that he had been put in charge of an important training camp for a while because they felt he must not go back to fighting until he was in better shape physically. And besides, they felt his experience would be more worthwhile in training others just how to fight as he had done than in going back again to fight. Incidentally he was wearing a decoration of honor for his valorous deeds under fire, and several times he was called to speak on the radio, giving a little sketch of the experiences of soldiers fighting fire. It was all very wonderful to Lexie, and she took great pride in him in her shy, sweet soul. Especially when she saw the honor Judge Foster and Mr. Gordon gave him and heard their words of commendation.
And all this had a great deal of influence with Elaine. She treated Ben with the utmost deference, and actually changed in her habitual manner toward her sister when he was present, until Lexie almost cried with joy at the sweet way she spoke to her.
It happened a few days after all this that a letter came to Elaine from the war department stating that her husband was still alive. It was found that he had been taken prisoner, placed in an internment camp by the enemy, and had been there so long that his health was greatly undermined. But he had at last managed to make an escape, and after various thrilling experiences in which he almost lost his life and, more than once, his freedom, he had managed to reach this country and get into contact with the proper authorities. They had placed him in a hospital in Washington, for he had not been fit to travel farther, and now he wanted his wife. Could she come to Washington at once to see him? He was in a very weak condition and his life was hanging by a thread. But the doctor thought that his wife’s presence might materially aid in a possible recovery. Could she come at once? Cinda sniffed when she heard this.
But it was a new Elaine that came in excitement to Lexie with her letter, and asked most humbly if there was any way she would lend her a little money to go. She was no longer weak and helpless. She was alert and eager, and ready to start at once without going to a beauty parlor or purchasing any new clothes.
“But, are you able to go?” asked Lexie, looking at her in surprise.
“Able!” she said sharply. “Of course I’m able. Don’t you understand it is my husband who needs me, and he may be dying! It is my husband whom I love! The only man I ever really loved. I must go, and I must take the first train. Will you find out how I can quickest get there?”
“Of course!” said Lexie, and she went to work.
It was Lexie who arranged it all, who took her sister in a taxi to the station, asked her if she didn’t want her to go with her, gave her all the money she would need, told her to let her know if she needed more, and then promised to look after the children while she was gone. As they waited for the train to be open, Elaine suddenly spoke:
“Lexie, I’ve been a fool. I may as well tell you before I go because something might happen and then I never could. I knew better than to torment you the way I did. I practically knew I was chasing a fool’s hope when I tried to get money out of you. But I met that Thomas lawyer and he was telling how he found a fortune for one woman, and I began to tell him about my father and how he once said he wanted to leave a small fortune to each one of his girls. Then he got me all worked up to think that perhaps this was really so. He’s an old robber himself, for he got an awful lot of money out of me at one time or another while that was going on, and he promised me that it would be no trouble to make you and me both rich. But I was a fool to believe him. And I owe you a great apology. I hope you’ll forgive me!”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Lexie with a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you know at last that I was telling the truth.”
“Oh, of course I knew you were telling the truth all the time, but he kept telling me if I worked it that way you would fall and I could get a part of some of my father’s old holdings out of people who owed him. But I was a fool.”
There were sounds about now that the train was ready to go, and Elaine picked up her suitcase, and then lingered an instant.
“And Lexie,” she said in a low, hurried tone, “I want you to know that I think you’re wonderful. If there ever was a Christian, you’re that! The way you’ve stood all I’ve put upon you was something great. If they gave decorations for things like that, I’d vote for one for you, and someday, maybe I can be your kind of a Christian, too. I never wanted to be one before until I watched you under fire.”
Then she gave Lexie a quick kiss and hurried onto the train, and Lexie went back home with happy tears in her eyes. br />
She went and told Cinda about what Elaine had said, and Cinda listened, and sniffed unbelievingly.
“Humph! Pretty Christian she’d make! Wull, I s’pose God ken do anythin’ He loikes, but I shouldn’t advoise His wasting His toime on such poor material. Well, it may be so, but I’ll believe it when I see it!”
But a few days later when Ben Barron came down to talk over plans for their wedding in the near future, she told him of Elaine’s words, and he listened gravely.
“The Lord knows how to work, doesn’t He, and bring glory out of shame. My dear, there are going to be many surprises in heaven when the decorations of honor are handed out to the quiet saints who have been under fire for years without complaint. I was reading in Timothy this morning: ‘Therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.’ I guess, my dear, we’re going to find that all the fires we have to go through are worthwhile when we come to stand before His Presence.”
All Through the Night
Chapter 1
Dale Huntley finished labeling and tying the last of the packages. The expressman had promised to call for them before ten o’clock. Dale gave a quick glance at the clock, and finding it was only half past nine, she sat back with a sigh of relief and closed her eyes for just a second.
It had been a hard time, and she had not stopped for a moment to think of herself or her own feelings. But now, were all the little nagging duties accomplished that Grandmother had left for her to do before the relatives should arrive? With her eyes still closed, she went swiftly down the list that was sharp in her mind.
Put all personal gifts, jewelry, heirlooms, private letters in the safe-deposit box in the bank. That had been done last week while Grandmother was still alive and alert to all that was going on around her, intent on leaving her world all in order for her going, interested in each item as if it were a game she was playing.