Hazel and Heather came up the walk just then and she called to them. They were bringing their purchases and talking cheerfully.
“Hazel, get a cup of warm milk for Robin. Quick! I’ve got to get him to bed.”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked the little girl, aghast. “Robin isn’t sick again, is he?”
“I hope not. Karen took him too far up the mountain, and he got very tired. He ought to be in bed at once. And now we don’t know where Karen is. He says she went way up the mountain.”
“I’ll go find her,” said Heather briskly.
“No!” said Jennifer sharply. “It’s too near dark! You might get lost, too.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t get lost. I know my way.”
“No! Don’t go!” said Jennifer again. “As soon as I get Robin in bed I’ll go myself.”
“You carry him up the stairs,” said Hazel, “and I’ll put him to bed. I’ve often done it.”
“All right,” said Jennifer and lifted the dead weight of the already sleeping child and carried him up the short flight to his bed.
“Now, don’t you two girls, either of you, stir a step out of this house till I get back! Do you promise me?” said the older sister. “And if Jerry comes before I get back, tell him I’ve just gone up to the top of the mountain. It isn’t far, and besides, I think maybe Karen was just teasing that she didn’t answer. I’ll be back very soon. Take good care of Robin.”
Then she turned and hurried down the stairs and up the mountainside.
Jennifer had not returned when Jerry came, and when the little girls told him what had happened he dashed into the house and got two flashlights.
“You stay here, Try, and look after the girls and Robin. I’ll go after Jen,” he said and dashed away.
Tryon gave a despairing look after him and then turned to the girls, demanding to hear the story over again. Then he went upstairs and looked at his little brother, saw the deep flush upon his face, and laid his hand on his head.
“He’s got a fever!” he said to the girls, who had followed him up. “An awful fever! I guess maybe we’d better do something about it. Did you give him anything to eat?”
“We tried to feed him some hot milk, but he wouldn’t swallow it,” said Hazel, with a worried look.
“Well, say, isn’t there any witch hazel or anything to bathe his head with? Mother always bathes our heads with witch hazel when we have headaches and fevers.”
“Maybe the lady had some in the medicine closet,” suggested Heather. “I think we could take some of hers, couldn’t we, for a sick little boy?”
They searched the medicine closet and found a bottle with about an inch in it, and Hazel doused it on a handkerchief and bathed Robin’s forehead and cheeks, and he sighed as if it felt good.
“It’s getting dark!” said Heather in a frightened tone. “I wish Jennifer would come. Maybe she’ll get lost, too.” She went to the window and began to cry softly.
“Now, don’t you lose your nerve, kid,” said Tryon. “Things are bad enough without you turning on the tears. Mop up and go and set the table. They’ll be hungry as bears when they do get back.”
“But I’m afraid they can’t find Karen,” she wailed.
“Well, do you think your tears will find her any quicker?”
Heather laughed nervously and went downstairs rubbing the tears away.
“Go down and help her get supper, Hazel,” said Tryon. “Keep her mind busy. Don’t let her cry. I’ll stay with the kid.”
So the girls busied themselves for a long time setting an elaborate supper table, cutting some radishes they found in the garden, in the shape of little rosebuds, the way the cook at home used to do, putting some mountain pinks in a vase in the center of the table. It was very pretty when it was done, and they went and flattened their noses against the windowpane to look out.
It was quite dark before they came back, those two who had gone on that fruitless errand. They had had a hard time themselves getting back in the pitch darkness, even with the flashlights.
“And, oh, what will it be for Karen? Poor little silly Karen!”
“Now, Jennifer, don’t you get excited. She’ll be all right. She’s probably well frightened by this time, and she’ll likely get so tired that she’ll lie down and got to sleep. We shall easily find her, certainly as soon as daylight comes, and probably right away pretty soon. There’s a fellow down at the store who has a powerful flashlight that lights up a long way. I’ll go right down and get him to come with me, and we’ll comb the mountain. It isn’t so very big, and it can’t take so very long to go over it. Don’t get excited now. Take it easy. You know, you’re our main dependence. You’re the head of this family, the head of the house, and you mustn’t give way or we’ll all go to pieces.”
“Yes, I’m head of this house and I got you all into this awful mess, and I ought to have known better! I ought to have let us stay home and stood those awful aunts and waited around till I got older and then got us all back again. But oh, I thought I was doing right.”
“Of course you did, Jen. So did I. And so do I now. It’s going to come out all right. I know. That fellow at the store will go with me, I’m sure. And he knows every stick and stone on this mountain. He’s lived here all his life. Now, you go in and look after Robin and the rest. Tryon will stay here with you. And I hope I’ll be back in a very short time with Karen. Now, cheer up!”
“Wait!” said Jennifer, her voice trembling. “You’ve got to come in just a minute before you go. You must, I tell you!”
“But, Jen, I ought to hurry, you know.”
“Just a minute! It’s important, Jerry!”
She dragged him inside the door, and the others came in from the kitchen, Tryon from upstairs, and looked at them anxiously.
“Come here, all of you,” said Jennifer. “You must all be in on this. We’ve got to pray to God to help us! We’ve gone on our own long enough, and it’s time we asked God to take over for us. I don’t know that we’ve any right to ask for help in a hole like this when we haven’t paid any attention to God before, but my old nurse Kirsty used to say God loved us, and maybe He’ll understand and be sorry for us. But anyway, we’ve tried our own way and it didn’t work, and we’ve got to ask God. Kneel down, all of you. You, too, Tryon, and every one of you have got to pray! If we all talk to Him, perhaps He’ll do something about it, for we can’t do anything about it ourselves. You don’t need to say many words, for we haven’t much time. Jerry has to go. But you’ve all got to pray. He’ll hear because there are so many of us!”
With a wild pleading look around on them all, Jennifer dropped to her knees and began.
“Oh, God, we haven’t been very good children to You, nor thought much about You before, but now we haven’t any mother and father, and we’re in trouble. We tried to get ourselves out, and we’ve done the best we could, but it didn’t do any good. And now, God, we’re handing our troubles over to You to work out for us. Our little Robin is very sick, and we don’t know what to do about it, and our little Karen is all alone out there on the mountain frightened and lost and maybe in terrible danger, or maybe even kidnapped, and we can’t do a thing about it but turn to You. Won’t You please take over and make Robin well, and find Karen for us? And if there is anything we can do, won’t You please show us what it is and how to do it? Amen!”
Jerry followed. “Oh, God! Please lead the way up the mountain. Please send our little sister home, and show us how to take care of them all. Amen.”
Then Tryon, quickly gulping his words. “Dear God. Please do something about our dear Robin and help him to get well. Please send Karen home!”
And Hazel and Heather prayed quite solemnly, praying into the pillows of the couch where they were kneeling, “Please, dear heavenly Father, help us all!”
They got up wiping the tears away, and Jerry dashed out the door, calling back: “Don’t get worried,” and then as a second thought he shouted: “Jen, if Karen gets back, ge
t out that old tin horn Tryon found up in the attic and blow it hard three times. Then do it over again, every little while till I come.”
“All right!” called Jennifer, and Jerry shot out into the night. But Jennifer went into the house to do the hardest thing of all the hard things that had filled the days since they had first left home: to keep the other children cheerful and quiet and make the time go by as quickly as possible for them all, and to look after the little tossing Robin upstairs, hot with fever.
“Now,” she said as she came in trying to hold back the tears that would steal into her eyes, “we’ve taken it to God. We’ve just got to leave it there and trust Him. That is the only thing for us to do. We don’t want to dishonor Him by crying and holding up our fears to ourselves all the time. Just remember that God is great enough to bring this all out right for us, and there is nothing else we can do but trust Him.”
They looked at her in solemn wonder and tried to smile assent.
“And now, suppose you eat something.”
“We’re not hungry,” said Hazel.
“No, but you’ll be twice as fit to stand the waiting if you have something to strengthen you. How about a glass of milk apiece? Each of you take a glass and sit down and quietly talk and drink it, a slow swallow at a time. Then that won’t make your stomachs feel badly. Now, I’m going to look at Robin, and when I come down I want to see you all drinking milk.”
They smiled assent and went to do her bidding.
Upstairs Jennifer knelt beside the hot little Robin and opened her heart to God again.
Oh, God! I’m the head of this house, and I don’t know what to do. Oh, God, please help me to know what You want of me!
And one by one during that long awful evening, each member of that little group sought audience with the King of kings and returned among them cheerful and at peace.
Chapter 17
Karen, as she climbed her mountain, did not hear her little sick brother fall down after his numerous protests, did not turn around and see that he lay still a long time when he had fallen. She was filled with the exquisite desire to get to the top and see the sunset. Remembering the glory of the sunset at the boat, she desired another, and she knew that it was behind this mountain the sun always slipped away. It had never seemed far to her before, as she looked up to the top. She did not realize that Robin was weak from his illness and only a baby, anyway, and she sped on.
Then when she finally got to what she knew must be the top because the ground began to go down again, there wasn’t any sunset there at all. It was all just thick trees everywhere, and she couldn’t see through.
She turned back to look for Robin, but he wasn’t anywhere, and then she thought she hadn’t turned all the way around and she turned again, and yet again, because she was quite bewildered about which way was home.
There were dark clouds where the setting sun ought to be, or was that the opposite direction? She didn’t know.
It came to her suddenly that it was growing dark and she must hurry. Robin must have gone back, and perhaps they would scold her for letting him go alone. So she hurried fast, and the darkness dropped down quickly now. Only when she looked up there was a luminous place where the sky ought to be, and after a while there came a few stars and peopled it sparsely. She grew frightened, for still there were only trees, trees, everywhere! Just trees and darkness!
Then an owl flew up in a tree and hooted at her, and she was more afraid. She had never told anybody that she was afraid of owls; she had always hidden her head in her pillow and tried not to hear them, but now the owl was right up there over her head and had her at a disadvantage. She dared not look up lest perhaps the owl’s eyes might shine like fire, the way a cat’s or a rabbit’s eyes shone in the road ahead of the car at night, green or red and kind of horrid. Did owls’ eyes look like that? She hid her face and tried to think what to do. She was afraid to call out, because there was the owl, and he might think she was talking to him and answer back, and she couldn’t bear that, not all alone there in the dark on the mountain!
But after a while the owl went away, and then when she had waited for him to get out of hearing she called aloud: “Robin! Where are you? Robin?” and then a little later she called for Jennifer. But after a while when no one answered she started walking again. She was going down the mountain all the time, so of course she must be going right. There would be a light in the kitchen of the cottage by this time, for they would be getting supper, and she would walk in softly and then jump at them and say, “Boo!” And they would jump and then they would laugh, and they would say, “Why, Karen, is that you? Where have you been? It’s almost supper time.”
Then when she got to that point she found herself crying, and that wouldn’t do! She was too big to cry. So she walked on and on through the darkness, sometimes bumping against trees, and sometimes falling down over a gnarled root, but getting up and going on again because now she must be almost home.
She plodded on. Sometimes stopping to rest, for she was very tired and hungry now. But every time she would get up again and go on.
The last of the way was down quite a steep place that she hadn’t remembered coming up at all. Had she got out of the way? But it was fearsome and dark up there and she was afraid to go back. At last she reached the road. It seemed a smooth, pleasant road, and there was a stream of lovely silver water on the other side of it and a white bridge in the distance. Perhaps this was the road where the store was, only a little farther on. Perhaps if she went down it she could walk back over that bridge and find the store and then she would know her way home!
So she stepped into the road and started down the way toward the bridge; it seemed the pleasantest.
It was smoother here and easier to walk, though her shoe hurt her foot a good deal, and she felt her back aching. She seemed to have come a long way.
When she reached the bridge, the water was making a great clattering noise underneath, sort of rattling over stones down there. She looked down once and saw white foam leaping up where the water fell, and it frightened her. She was glad when the bridge was crossed, though the road grew pretty dark again for a little space and she had to hurry. And then out of the darkness ahead came a blinding light. Two lights. An automobile was coming at her, and she didn’t know what to do, so she stood perfectly still, and the car presently shot by her. She thought she saw other lights coming, farther on ahead, so she hurried and got past the trees that made it so dark and found a path at the side of the road. Following it she came out into a wide space where there was sky above with stars, and ahead over at one side there was a great building, bigger than the gymnasium at Tryon’s school—oh, bigger than any building she could think of!—and on the top there was a great big cross made all of lights, and there were many big bright lights all around. There were words written on the roof of the big gymnasium, and one word she could read. That was Jesus.
She decided it must be some kind of a nice church with that word and the cross on the top. That must be where the singing came from that she now realized she had heard just after she crossed the bridge. Pretty singing.
If it was a church there would be nice people there, and they would show her the way to get home.
She hurried along and turned into the path that led down to the great building. As she drew near she heard someone talking in a clear nice voice. She was almost running now, and she followed the voice until she reached an open window where she could see in. Then she pressed closer and slipped up onto a step near the doorway. The great building was full of people, and they were all listening to the man that stood on the wide platform in front. Suddenly she looked closely at the man and almost called out to him, for she knew him! It was the man who had helped Jerry fix the automobile the time it got caught on the sharp stones and made holes in the crankcase. And, oh! How glad her little heart was that she had found someone she knew who would guide her back to her family. He was all right, she knew. She needn’t be afraid to speak to him, for he h
ad been so nice to them all.
So boldly she stepped inside the building among the crowd and strained ahead toward the platform.
They thought she was someone’s child who was trying to find her mother, and they gave way for her to let her by, so she reached the broad low steps up to the platform and mounted them and walked right up to the nice young man. He was talking yet, and people were all listening, but he wouldn’t mind stopping a minute to tell her what to do. He had been so nice to Jerry.
So she came and stood close to him and, reaching up her hand, laid it on his arm. He stopped, surprised, and looked smiling down at her.
“Please,” said Karen, with a most engaging smile, “won’t you show me the way home? I’m kind of lost.”
Her voice was clear and sweet, and the audience was thrilled at the strange interruption.
A young woman who had been sitting at the piano came and tried to draw Karen away, but she drew back from the stranger.
“No,” she said decidedly, shaking her pretty head, “I don’t know you. I can’t go with you. I want this man to take me. He knows me and he knows my brother!”
Then the speaker turned and looked at her sharply, for she was speaking in quite a loud clear voice, and the audience held its breath and listened and smiled.
The young man looked down at Karen again, and taking her by the hand, he led her over to a chair.
“If you will sit down in this chair for a few minutes, little friend,” he said, “I’ll be glad to take you home.”
Then he turned back to his audience with a smile.
“How I wish there were some in this audience who would ask me the way Home, and start tonight to seek their Savior!” he said, and a wave of feeling went over the audience. Many bowed their heads and wept as the young preacher went on with burning words, describing how the Lord who had died for them was waiting anxiously for the return of many whom He loved.