Coming Through the Rye

  She had never realized before what it would be to be under the law. To have freedom taken away and to be shut up and ordered what to do, even when to eat and sleep. She had never sensed before the shame that would attend a man and his family through the remainder of life after he had once broken the law.

  Of course, there were those who could commit crime and slip through somehow by that amazing mystery they called “pull” and get free and enjoy themselves. But her father was not one of that sort. He would feel the shame and disgrace to the end of his days. If she needed any proof of that, she had the memory of his look that moment he stood in the door before he fell.

  It was, therefore, the one object of her life now to find something she might say or read that would convey hope of some sort to her father.

  Her mother’s little Bible lay always on her desk, more as an ornament or a testimonial of her faith in her mother’s religion than because she read it much. She carried it to Sunday school and studied her Sunday school lessons with it, of course, but outside of that she seldom read it. Still, it represented to her her faith, vague though it was, and it was to this little old Bible that she turned in her distress, opening it at random, here and there, but never finding anything that quite satisfied her. There was much about sin and the condemnation of sinners, but nothing that seemed exactly to suit the case. It must be something definite and clear and comforting. That was her idea. But though she had not as yet found anything to suit an emergency should it arise suddenly, she nevertheless carried the Bible with her always when she went to sit in her father’s room for a little while and relieve the nurse. It seemed somehow a talisman.

  Oftener, too, she read over the paper containing the questions her brother wanted asked, puzzled and troubled, wondering how she could ever bring herself to ask them if her father should suddenly open his eyes. Would she dare distress him with business? Would it not mean another stroke, and what a terrible strait!

  “No. 1 (to be asked instantly if he is conscious),” the paper read, “Did you sign the papers?” She sighed as she read it over again one day. Why should it matter now whether he had signed papers or not? What could they possibly have to do with Lawrence’s well-being? Or what would a man care when he was dying about papers belonging to earthly affairs?

  “Does Krupper know that Freeman is in on it?” That was the second question. It bothered her a good deal because she remembered seeing that name Krupper on the outside of one of those bundles of whiskey bottles. Surely Judge Freeman could not be connected with any of this business. Surely it must be another Freeman.

  The third question was more puzzling still.

  “Whose car did Halsey have Thursday night?” Now how could that possibly have anything to do with bootlegging? She had heard, of course, that people stole cars, but surely, surely her family would not descend as low as that. It somehow seemed out of the question. This surely was a question with which to catch somebody else.

  There were two more.

  “Where did you put your revolver?”

  “Does Barney know?”

  All so puzzling and all so irrelevant. So utterly impossible to bring to this chamber of death. She folded the paper, put it back in her pocket, and took up the little Bible, opening it at random. She looked down and began to read, and the words she read were these:

  “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”

  Ah! Here was something! No condemnation! That would tell her father all he needed to know. He understood about salvation. It had been an old story always in their home. “In Christ Jesus.” That meant believing. That would be a little sentence that could be quickly spoken and could be said over and over if need be.

  She looked toward the bed speculatively and tried to imagine herself saying it in the event of her father’s sudden awakening.

  Then something in the look of the still form caused her to get up quickly and come nearer and look again. Surely there was something different—something that had not been.

  She came and stood close by the bed and saw with frightened comprehension that the waxen lids were no longer closed but open wide and watching her alertly, as if he knew her, as if he understood all that had happened!

  She clasped the little Bible tightly over her frightened heart and tried to think what she should do, what she should say. The other hand moved involuntarily toward her pocket and grasped the little piece of paper, and in that instant it was as if she halted between two great things. Should she ask the questions and save Lawrence, or should she give the message, the talismanic message?

  “Father!” she spoke softly. “Father, dear!”

  It seemed to her that something in his eyes responded, a light, perhaps, or was it merely her imagination?

  Then the door opened, and the nurse entered and spoke in her even, monotonous voice.

  “There’s a girl down at the door says her little sister’s dying. Her drunken father struck her, and she wants you. You better go. I’ll sit here now.”

  Chapter 10

  Romayne lifted a protesting hand, flashed an agonizing glance at the nurse, and then brought her gaze back once more to the face upon the pillow, but the eyes that had been open gazing at her were closed again!

  It had only been for the flicker of an instant, but her chance was gone. Was it over forever? Her only chance? Would she never have opportunity to speak to him again?

  And suddenly with this piercing thought she flung herself upon her knees beside the bed and cried out to him in an anguished voice, “Father! Father, dear! Can you hear me? Won’t you open your eyes again and look at me?” It had been like a blow in the eyes to see that face again so blank and still, the eyelids lying without a quiver upon the waxen cheeks, and the memory only of that wistful anguished eagerness in his gaze, that seemed to be piercing through and through her soul.

  The nurse with stolid pity in her experienced face walked over and laid a hand upon her slender shoulders.

  “It ain’t a bit of use carrying on like that, Miss Ransom,” she said kindly. “He can’t hear you. He really can’t. I don’t believe there’s a chance in the world he’ll ever open his eyes again. They hardly ever do when they’re like he is.”

  “But he did!” cried Romayne earnestly. “His eyes were open when you came into the room. He was looking straight at me, and he knew me. I’m sure he did. Oh, if you only hadn’t spoken. I think it startled him! But of course you didn’t see—”

  The nurse looked at her as if she thought she were crazy, and then, realizing that the girl really believed what she was saying, she walked closer to the bed, examining the patient with a practiced eye, pulling down the lower lids, feeling the pulse, and then stepped back, shaking her head.

  “You only thought you saw it,” she said. “It’s because you’ve been under such a strain. It often happens. You haven’t had much sleep, and you’ve scarcely eaten enough to keep a bird alive since it happened. You ought to get out more. It ain’t natural for a young thing like you to stick in the house and just bear pain day in and day out.”

  Romayne swept her a glance of futility and turned back to her father.

  “You didn’t see it, of course,” she said firmly. “I did. Father! Can you hear me? If you hear me, won’t you please open your eyes again? It’s your little girl, Romayne. I’ve got something to tell you, Father!

  Even as she said the words, she wondered which it was she would say, yet she cried on again, “Father!”

  “Say, now, Miss Ransom, I wouldn’t ef I was you,” protested the nurse. “If he could hear, it would only distress him because he couldn’t answer you. He hasn’t got the use of his muscles, you know. He can’t open his eyes even if he does hear you, which he doesn’t. I know. I’ve had case after case. He’s just pure and simple unconscious, and it’s a mercy indeed that he is. You ought to be thankful he is.”

  “Oh!” moaned Romayne with her face in the pillow. “Oh, if I had only told him while he had his eyes o
pen!”

  “Well, now don’t distress yourself. If he opened his eyes once—if he did, I say—why mebbe he’ll open them again. But it won’t be right off soon again. It might be several hours. It might be tomorrow. It might be a week yet. Ef I was you, I’d go out and walk. It’s a lovely day, and it’ll do you good. Why don’t you go and see that child that wants you? It ain’t a very cheerful place to go, I know, but they said the little thing was crying in the worst way for you, and sometimes doing something for somebody else kind of takes your mind off your own troubles, you know.”

  Romayne shuddered as she rose from the bedside just to get away from that perpetual voice of the nurse.

  “Wouldn’t you like to go and walk yourself?” she said the sudden inspiration. “I would rather sit here by Father.”

  “No,” said the nurse shortly with a keen glance at her, “I’m not being paid to take walks. I’m not that kind of a nurse. Besides, it’s time for his medicine in a few minutes, and it’s against order to let you stay here too long. You better go see that girl, the sister. She’s waiting for you. I said I’d call you down.”

  “Oh!” moaned Romayne, turning sadly toward the door. “How can I? Why didn’t you tell her I couldn’t leave my father?”

  “Because you can,” snapped the nurse a trifle impatiently. “You’ve been in here too long already, and I was ordered to see that you didn’t stay but a few minutes at a time. Now go!”

  Romayne went slowly out the door, intending to send Frances on her way with a quick excuse and get to her room to think. But Frances arose as Romayne came down the stairs and faced her eagerly.

  “I knew you’d come,” she said with relief. “The nurse said she didn’t know if you would, but I just knew you would. My mother says if you’ll come and talk to Wilanna and quiet her, she’ll do anything in the world for you afterward. The doctor says if Wilanna can get quiet for a while she may pull through; she’s got an awful fever, you know, but he says if she takes on like she’s doing now, she’ll die before morning. You’ll come, won’t you?”

  “Why, I’m sorry,” began Romayne, “but you know my father is lying very low.”

  “Oh, yes,” spoke up Frances quickly, “but the nurse said he wouldn’t be any better nor any worse, and it wouldn’t hurt you a bit to get out awhile. And we won’t keep you long—we really we won’t, if you could only talk to Wilanna a little bit and quiet her. She thinks you’re so pretty and so nice, and she keeps talking all about the Sunday school lesson and how you get to heaven and all, and we can’t answer her questions. You see she heard the doctor say she might die, and she keeps saying she ain’t ready, and if she could only see you and ask you one question, she’d be happy. If you’ll just come home with me, I’ll do anything in the world for you. You see I know your brother—”

  Romayne turned a startled look on the girl. Yes, of course! She had forgotten! This was the girl to whom Lawrence had sent that note! Oh, how could she go through the humiliation of going to that house again now that she remembered?

  “Yes,” went on Frances, “I knew him real well. We went out together a lot. I was to’ve gone with him the night he got arrested—”

  “Oh!” breathed Romayne sharply as if a pain had darted through her heart.

  “Yes, I knew all about it, and I know some things I could tell that would make it all right for him, I guess. I haven’t been saying anything about it ‘cause I didn’t wantta get in bad with the gang, but if you’ll come to my little sister and help her I’ll go to the judge and tell him what I know. I guess Lawrence will get out then.”

  Romayne did some swift thinking. There was no use trying to ignore this humiliation. It was here, and it was hers, and she was beginning now to feel that there were so many more things that mattered than just that Lawrence had been keeping company with a girl far beneath him; perhaps she should put aside her natural feelings and do what was right. It was right, of course, to go to this little Sunday school scholar and help her to die if she could. But how could she help anybody? She had never died herself. She had never been with anybody who was dying. She did not know what needed to be said. Just to soothe her probably. But oh—to leave that silent face upstairs with the closed eyes and go away, when they might open and search the room for her any moment! Still, the nurse would put her out if she went up again so soon. She had been told not to let her stay in the room long at a time. Who told her that? The doctor, probably. But—why should he care? Who told her?

  Frances meanwhile was rattling on, babbling a trifle proudly of her friendship with Lawrence. Romayne had not heard half she said.

  “I will go with you,” she said suddenly. “But I cannot stay long. My father really is very low. He might at any time now become conscious and ask for me. I must be here.”

  “Oh sure! We won’t keep you long,” gushed Frances, obviously relieved that her task was so easy.

  Romayne did not hear the remainder of her sentence. She was on her way upstairs to get her hat. She stopped again at the sickroom door.

  “He hasn’t opened his eyes again, has he?”

  “No,” said the nurse with that half-amused smile.

  “Will you be kind enough to sit right where you can watch him all the while?”

  “I always do,” interrupted the nurse offendedly. “I never desert my duty.”

  “Of course not,” said Romayne, “but I mean will you take particular notice, and if he should happen to open them again, will you say over to him quietly, ‘Romayne will be here in a few minutes. She wants to speak to you,’ just like that, and try to keep his attention till I get here? I won’t be long.”

  “Oh sure!” said the nurse obligingly and settled herself for a nap as Romayne closed the door.

  The two girls walked down the street in the pleasant spring sunshine, and no one, to watch them, would have known that they carried under their bright dresses two of the heaviest hearts that girls ever carried.

  Frances really looked very nice. Her dress was perhaps a trifle too bright of stripe for good taste, but out of deference to Romayne she had left off all rouge and only applied the powder most sparingly, so that Romayne did not feel any embarrassment at the appearance of her companion. Indeed Romayne was not thinking of appearances just then. Her problems were too many and too varied to leave room in her mind for trifles.

  “How long have you known my brother?” she asked at last, feeling suddenly that this was a question she must know before she went further.

  “Oh, about a month,” said Frances guilelessly. “We went on a joy ride, a party of us, and had a real swell time. The fella that was taking me seen a man he was keeping outta sight of, and he just turned me over to Larry, and we had the swellest kind of a time. He’s a Jim Dandy, Larry is. He certainly can show a girl a nice time when he tries to.”

  Romayne succeeded in controlling a shiver that threatened to seize her very soul and tried to think of something to say in a conversation like this, but she had no need, for Frances rattled on, proud to show how intimate she was with Larry.

  “He’s a peach, he is. The girls in our gang are all crazy about him, and when the word came that he was arrested, we all felt awful sorry. But I don’t guess he’ll be in long. In fact, if I tell what I know, I’m sure he won’t. And I’ll tell. There ain’t anybody I know I’d sooner help than Larry. He’s always so free with his money and showing a girl a good time and all.”

  “Then you went out with him again?” asked Romayne, trying to steady her voice so that Frances would not suspect that this revelation was horrible to her.

  “Yep!” Frances responded happily. “A lotta times. We went to the roof garden, oh, a lotta times, and had dinner and danced. Larry can dance! I’ll say he can dance! I feel zif I was just floating on a cloud into heaven when I dance with Larry.”

  She glanced admiringly at Romayne’s trim little feet as they walked along.

  “Say, I guess you can dance, too. With a foot like that! My, but you’ve got pretty feet
. You’re an awful pretty girl, you know,” she said. “Say! Don’t you never use no rouge? You look awful pale today! I sh’d think you’d put on just a darling little bit; it would make you look sweet. Say, whyn’t you get Larry to bring you along sometime with us? I’d be proud to have ya. Say, ain’t it funny you should a ben Wilanna’s Sunday school teacher all this time and I going with your brother and I never knew it? See, ‘twas this way. The fella that interduced us didn’t say his name right plain, and I never knew till the day Larry was arrested what was his right last name. I mighta knowned he was a relation to you, though—you look so much alike. I’m awful glad it turned out this way. It’s real romantic, ain’t it? I was telling Ma it would be funny if we was to be—”

  But Romayne interrupted her flow of terrible words hastily.

  “What did you say was the matter with Wilanna? Did she have a turn for the worse? Are you sure she is not going to live?”

  “Oh, I didn’t explain that? Why, you see Papa got out. Krupper did it. He went hisself and gave bail. You see he didn’t want Papa to give evidence against him, you know. He’s got too much at stake. He’s the one that owns the place at the corner where they’ve kept open right along, law or no law. That’s the place that always gets Papa—it’s so handy to home, you see, and somebody’s always just coming out when he goes by and inviting him in and treating him. Krupper, he don’t exactly run it hisself. He has a big place up at the Earnheim building lots sweller than this and only for real classy people. E. A. Krupper, you know, it’s a king of a tea room, but there’s rooms behind. I’ve been there myself,” she preened. “Larry took me.”

  Romayne caught her breath, and her white teeth came sharply down on her crimson lower lip. How was she going to stand any more of this?

  “Have you ever been there?” asked the bright-eyed Frances eagerly, keen to have some experience in common with this beautiful girl by her side.