“There, there, George. We want to get this room so she will like it, don’t we? Well, don’t let’s stop on little things like that. Let’s make it nice for her, the way she wants it, and maybe she will be happy about coming. And say, I’ve been thinking. Suppose you two go to the hospital without me now, and then you can tell her about it and not feel hampered with having me around. Then she can tell you just what she really wants. I think that will be better, don’t you?”
“But we’d rather you went along,” said Corliss.
“Next time, dear,” promised Dale. “Besides, I have to go to that committee meeting about the school and tell them what I had planned and introduce the girl who is to take my place. It really is better this way just for this time. Now come, let’s get this furniture in place and get it done so it looks pretty and you can draw a word-picture of it for your mother.”
The young people worked with a will and soon had the two rooms in lovely order. Dale went to her store of pretty linens and selected two of her nicest bureau doilies and some of her best towels and the rooms looked pretty as pictures.
“We’ll get a rosebud or two for the bureau, and I’ll put my bud vase in here,” said Dale as they stood surveying it all when it was finished. And even Hattie came to stand in the doorway and look.
“I’ll take the curtains down, Miss Dale, and wash ’em,” said Hattie. “It won’t take long to iron ’em and get ’em up, and when you come back you’ll be surprised.”
“Thank you, Hattie,” said George suddenly. “And Dale, I’ll take that engraving up to my room. Do you mind? I seem to feel I’d like to have it where I can look at it for a while. It’s very old, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Dale. “It belonged to great-grandfather, Allan Dale, and that’s one reason why I have always liked it. Yes, take it to your room. I’ll be glad to think you are looking at it sometimes. And now, it’s getting late and you two ought to be going. Remember, you have a very important mission, and I’ll be praying for you while you are gone. Good-bye.”
They separated, and the brother and sister went solemnly on their way, planning together their campaign.
“We’ll have to settle that matter of her old rat of a lawyer first,” said George. “I’ll have to make her understand that he is gone absolutely and we can’t possibly get hold of him, and then you can start in and tell her about the room if you want to, Corrie, and what we’ve been helping Dale to do. Don’t forget to tell her how she offered you Grandma’s room if you wanted it. That’ll make a big hit with Mom.”
“I don’t know if she’ll listen to anything I say about the room. She got pretty mad at me this morning when I tried to ask her when she was coming back home. She said she had no home to come to, and a lot of other things, and then Dale spoke up and told her she never meant to hurry her away and that of course she wanted her to come here now, that this was the proper place for her to be getting well, and she was as nice as could be. But it didn’t do a bit of good. She just told me I needn’t get into hysterics on that subject, and you know, all that old stuff she always shuts me up with.”
“Well, never mind, you go ahead, Corrie. I’ll back you up, and we’ll try to work it out.”
“All right, I’ll try again,” sighed the girl, and they walked with discouragement up the steps of the hospital to their appointed task.
Chapter 18
When the two walked timidly into the hospital and up to their mother’s bed, she was partly sitting up against her pillows and eyeing them as if they were a couple of criminals plotting to keep her from her rights.
“Well,” she said, looking sharply at George, “where is my lawyer? I thought I told you to bring him with you. Where is he?”
The boy braced up bravely and looked at his mother courageously in the eye, a slightly apologetic smile on his lips.
“Sorry, Mother,” he said courteously, “so far as I can find out, he has gone out of the country. The nearest suggestion I could get from his office or his home either, is that he went to Canada to spend a few months in the woods and try to recover from a severe nervous breakdown. And he has ordered his secretary and what there is left of his family not to disclose his address to anybody. I’ve done my best to get some other answer, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to get any further information.”
Mrs. Huntley’s face was stony cold and the look she gave her children was as if she suspected them of making up this story. But after a few minutes of characteristic storming and questioning, she began to cry. Just big stormy tears pelting down her angry cheeks and her lips trembling almost pitifully.
Corliss looked around with a worried expression to see if the nurse was near, for if she was she would undoubtedly send them away for making her patient weep, and this really must be stopped.
Corliss got out a crisp little handkerchief, softly wiping her mother’s tears away, as gently as if she had been a baby, and the mother looked up astonished, the action was so unprecedented. Corliss had never been known to do the like before.
Then Corliss began to talk softly, quietly, as a mother might comfort a little child. “There, Mamma, don’t feel bad. There’ll be some other way. Don’t you worry. Listen. We’ve got some nice things to tell you. We’re getting ready for you to come home to the house. Dale and my brother and I have been working at it ever since lunch, and we’ve fixed it all up so prettily. We’ve moved the bureau you didn’t like, and got the nice big chair in your room and taken the old rocker out, and the picture you didn’t like is gone, too. We had a lot of fun doing it. Dale didn’t mind at all. In fact, she thinks it looks lots better. And she got out her very prettiest bureau doilies. And the curtains are being washed, all crisp and nice, and everything is going to be lovely. And we’ve fixed up the next room for your nurse, and we wondered if you couldn’t be allowed to come home in a day or two. It would be lots nicer for you there, and then we could talk about plans and things without having a lot of people listening the way they do here.”
Then the son spoke up. “Yes, Moms, I think that would be better. I thought I’d go down now and have a talk with the doctor and see what he says, and then we could get the ambulance and take you very comfortably.”
“No, no, no!” exclaimed the sick woman. “I can’t go till I see my lawyer. He’s taken all my money and he hasn’t done anything about it.”
“Never mind, Moms, we’ll see about that after we get you to the house—”
The mother stared at this boy who had always been bored at any planning for herself and didn’t know what to make of it all. “But I can’t go to Dale’s,” she mourned, more tears coming down.
Corliss got up and dabbed at the tears again. “Don’t worry, Mamma,” she said coaxingly, “we’re looking after you, and yes, you can go to Dale’s house. She wants you. She really does. If you could have seen her going around with her eyes so bright, smiling and planning to put pretty things in your room, you would be sure she wants you. You’ll like it there. And Hattie has been planning to make some spoon bread for you. Come on, cheer up, Muv, and let’s have a happy time. And when we get you home and you’re really well, then we can talk over plans for what we’ll do next.”
So they kept on coaxing, and the mother, amazed to have some real loving comfort offered her, finally settled down and ceased her objections. George, delighted at the outcome, began to think of Dale’s promise when they came away, to be praying for them. Did prayer really ever do any good?
The two young people were greatly comforted themselves that they did not have to go back with ugly refusals ringing in their ears. The nurse had told them she thought the doctor would think their mother might be well enough to be moved in a few days now, and the mother almost put on a watery little smile for them. Was that the effect of Dale’s prayers?
So they went home to Hattie’s nice dinner and then hurriedly to Dale’s meeting with her, wondering whether they really hadn’t made a mistake promising to go with Dale. Would they be bored after all? But t
hey had promised, and they couldn’t go back on Dale after all she had tried to do for them.
They started early, for Dale had duties to perform before the talent arrived, and while she was organizing her girls who were to be ushers, the brother and sister sat together conversing in low tones about what their mother would likely do after she was well enough to travel and what they wanted to do.
“There’s one thing I won’t do,” said Corliss stubbornly. “I won’t go near Aunt Evelyn’s. Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to college somewhere if I can manage it, or else I’ll get a job in some defense plant.”
So they quietly and unhappily plotted, knowing that any plan they could make would likely be swiftly overthrown by their mother when she got back to her normal self.
Then presently the talent arrived, several young men and a girl, and Dale brought them over and introduced them to her cousins.
George was interested at once, and Corliss sat looking them over, filled with interest. They all were bright faced and well dressed, though plainly, and she couldn’t quite place them socially. There were a few in uniform—some soldiers and some sailors. One was introduced as the dean of the college, though he seemed quite young, and he and George fell at once into conversation. Corliss wondered what it could be about. Something about the college she judged, though she caught only a word or two of their conversation.
Then the meeting began with a burst of song from the audience, followed by a chorus from the glee club, and a number by the quartette, who were publicly and informally introduced to the audience. George and Corliss were interested from the start.
There was a brief talk from the young dean about the college, especially stressing its Christian character, which for the moment somewhat dampened George’s ardor. But he soon forgot that aspect and grew interested in the personality of the different speakers and singers. For the young men sang solos and gave testimonies about what the college had done for them, until George grew deeply interested. Religion, of course, wasn’t his specialty, yet these fellows didn’t look like sissies.
Then suddenly a very tall sailor from the navy was introduced as the speaker of the evening, and immediately the audience was breathless, enthralled with the young man’s story.
He had been a student in the college before he enlisted in the navy. Three years he had been out in active duty on the sea and had participated in all but one of the great naval battles.
Simply, unostentatiously, he told his story and made those terrible battles live before his audience.
And the strange thing about this story was that the young man constantly spoke of the Lord as his companion all the way through. And he talked so naturally and easily and enthusiastically that one could not possibly think he was proud of his own achievements, or even that he was dragging in the religious aspect.
He spoke of his first impressions of the college and how surprised he was that every day began with prayer, prayer meetings of groups in their rooms, an atmosphere of prayer and dependence upon God. It opened a new view of life to the brother and sister who sat listening in wonder.
When the service was over they all gathered around the young talent and talked, especially with the young navy man who had spoken. Corliss lingered nearby listening to every word he said. Corliss had never heard a young man talk this way, as if he knew the Lord personally and yet wasn’t afraid of Him.
But George was talking to the dean, asking questions, accepting a bunch of printed material, looking at the papers in his hand and then asking more questions, and when they all finally parted at the church door, the dean and George seemed like old friends, and the dean’s last words were, “Well, Huntley, glad we met, and I’ll be looking for you next week. Good night.”
It was on the way home that George spoke. “I’m all kinds of glad, Dale, that you took us to that meeting tonight. I’m going to that college! What do you think of that?”
“I think it is simply wonderful, George! I couldn’t ask anything better for you. I’ve known a lot about that institution, and it’s great!”
“Oh,” said Corliss aghast, “but—what will Mamma say? Will she let you go? And what will you do for money? She’ll never let you have any if she doesn’t like the college.”
George was still for a moment, and then he said, “I’m not going to ask Mother, not till I get everything arranged. I’m going to work my way through. The dean said they had an arrangement for that, and that speaker said he did, you know. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Oh, but George, you can’t go away and leave me,” said Corliss pitifully. “I just can’t stand it! You know Mamma won’t let me do a thing if you’re not with me, or else she’ll send me away to some stuffy girls’ school, and I’d die. I’d just die without you.”
“Maybe you could go to this same college, kid? Girls go there, you know. There were all those girls there in the glee club. Don’t girls go there, Dale?”
“Oh yes, but would your mother let you go there? Perhaps she does not believe in coeducational schools.”
“No, I don’t believe she does,” said Corliss. “And besides, I never finished the last year of high school. You can’t go into college without credits. You know that.”
“Oh, we can fix that up somehow. You can get a tutor and catch up. There are always things you can do. We’ll see. But don’t you say anything about this, not to Mom or anybody else, till we find out more. I’m going down to that college and see that dean again, and I’m going to telephone to my old principal at high school and get him to send by credentials. And then, you know, Grandmother left me that thousand dollars. I suppose I could use that in a pinch, couldn’t I? Dale, don’t you think Grandmother would like me to use it that way?”
“Why yes, I think she would. But George, I don’t just know how that was left. Haven’t you a guardian or something? Perhaps you could get his permission. We might ask Mr. Granniss. He drew up the will. Probably he could tell us all about it.”
“Yes, would you mind doing that?”
“Not at all. Mr. Granniss is very nice. If there is any way you can use it, he will know. When are you of age, George?”
“Oh bother. Not for two years yet. But when that comes, then I’d have to go into service if the war’s still on. Of course I wouldn’t mind that, but that’s the reason Mom wouldn’t want me out of her sight. She wants to keep me young so they can’t get me. But I’ve been figuring to get into the marines somehow and then be with that crowd who are in college at first, until they are called. I tried to get Mom to let me go into a college that way. But she had nine fits. She doesn’t want me to go to war, and she says anyway it will soon be over,” the boy said glumly.
“Well, don’t worry. We’ll find out just what rights you have, and then when your mother comes here perhaps there will be a way to get her consent.”
“Consent nothing!” said the boy. “She’ll never do that. But she can’t tie me to her apron strings all the rest of my life. I’ve got to be a man!”
“There’ll be a way, George,” said Dale comfortingly. “Don’t let’s worry about it tonight. But I can’t tell you how glad I am that you feel this way about this grand college. You don’t know what it will do for you if you go there. I’ve known a lot of boys and girls, too, who have gone there and they have all been rather wonderful.”
Corliss looked up sadly. “Yes, Dale, I can see it is a wonderful place, but just for that reason Mamma wouldn’t like it. She would never consent, not for anything.”
“Well, Corliss dear, suppose we hand this over to the Lord and see if He will do anything about it for you. Meantime, George, when are you going down to the college?”
“Next Tuesday. I hope that’s not the day the doctor picks out to send Mom home. I’d like to get this settled before she gets here, for something tells me there won’t be much chance after she comes. She’d find some other college right away. She wouldn’t think this was swell enough, I’m afraid,” said George dejectedly.
“Well, don’t worry about it. Things may work out your way yet,” said Dale cheerily.
“Fat chance!” said Corliss dejectedly.
But George set his lips firmly. “They are going to work out the way I want them for me, anyway,” he said. “I think I’m old enough to say where I’ll go to college, and I mean to do it. If I have to work my way through, why then all right, but I’ll choose the college, see? This is the first college I ever heard of that appealed to me, and I don’t mean to let it go for any other, no matter how noted the other is.”
Dale smiled quietly to herself. This was better than she had hoped. If George did get to go to such a college, he would surely learn what the Lord could do for him in his life. But then, on the other hand, it might make a lot of trouble for him in his home life, and would she be blamed for it? Probably. But what of that if it worked out for George’s good? Well, this was one more thing to be prayed about and put in God’s keeping.
Dale sat up a little while that night after the others had gone to bed. Somehow she felt as if she must write and tell David about what had happened that day. He might not get the letter for weeks or even months, and of course he might not ever get it on this earth, but still it helped her to bear the long absence and the terrible possibilities if she kept in touch with him by writing, even if he could not answer her. That she was prepared for. He had told her it might probably be a very long time before he could send a letter out to her. But it comforted her to talk to him on paper.
So she wrote a long letter, telling of all the problems about her aunt and how she hoped some of them were working out. Thanking him for the prayers she knew he was putting up in their behalf. And then she wrote of the wonderful Christian college and the interest her young cousins were taking in it. Another item for his prayers. Perhaps the Holy Spirit would guide his prayers for her problems.
It was quite late when the letter was finished, and she slipped quietly into her room and got into bed, so quickly and silently that she hoped she had not woken Corliss. But after she had cautiously settled herself in her bed, Corliss’s hand came stealing over and clasped hers, squeezing her fingers, and then Corliss whispered, “Oh Dale, this has been a perfectly wonderful evening. I’m so glad you took us. And oh, I do so want to go to that college!”