And then suddenly a cloud came over the brightness of her face.
“But—that girl, Paige? Will she hang on to you?”
Paige laughed.
“I think not, Mom. Wait till I tell you how we parted.” And he sat down and told his mother the whole story, not at length, only the main facts, but she watched him and drew a deep breath of relief.
“Oh, my dear!” she said. “We’ll have to pray for that girl! How she needs the Lord.”
“Yes,” said Paige, “but she doesn’t want Him, Mom!”
“No, they don’t, not when they want their own way and don’t realize they are sinners. But I’ll pray. Also, I’ll thank my God that you don’t have to be around her anymore.”
Paige grinned at her then.
“Why, Moms! You didn’t have to worry about that girl. I never would have taken up with her, no matter if there wasn’t another girl in the whole wide world. I just couldn’t abide her!”
But his mother only smiled in a wise way. Well she knew from her long life of experience, how easily the wrong girl could wind even a good man around her silly little finger and never let him guess what she was doing until it was too late.
With his heart full of joy, Paige went upstairs to write to June about all the wonders that the Lord had wrought for him.
And that was the night that June was taking the train for home and would be gone when that letter arrived, but of course Paige didn’t know that.
June had sent a telegram to her father telling him what train she was taking, but he had not told her mother about it yet. He was going to wait and let it be a surprise in the morning. So nobody had run across the street to tell the Madisons, or even telephoned, and Paige was writing his letter, carefully, not to tell too much. Not too certain just how much to tell yet. It was all so new he couldn’t get used to it, and so he wrote and then tore his letter to little bits and wrote it over again. He sat up quite late to finish it and had it ready to mail in the morning. He knew he didn’t have to get up early, for Chalmers had freed him from the office, and he could just enjoy his home and be lazy for a little while.
And so when he finally did get into his bed, he was tired with all the excitement of the day and fell right to sleep, but later dreamed of June. Where do dreams come from? Are they real, like radio voices floating around waiting to be picked up, or are they just formed out of the inner consciousness? That was something that Paige thought about long afterward, but he hadn’t time then. He was too busy sleeping, and dreaming.
Chapter 20
June’s dreams were sweet and pleasant. She had been through so much that was unpleasant back at her aunt’s, and now that she was on her way home she seemed to have dropped it all and was just luxuriating in rest.
The train droned on mile after mile, steadily, dependably, getting ready for morning and its destination. Morning was already on its way. The sky was growing lighter at the edges, and the villages and cities were getting closer together. Here and there they passed a station in the darkness with yellow sleepy lights blaring out and tired officials and trainmen standing around in the murky light waiting for the train to pass and one more day to dawn.
Then the train rolled on, taking up its monotonous tune again, faster, and a little faster! They were half a minute behind time. Where was that New York train? It ought to be in sight now behind that far mountain.
On and on and on. Till suddenly the sharp blast of a whistle just outside the tunnel ahead and a quick crash that shook the whole train to its very foundation. There was the sound of splintering glass, groaning machinery, torn wooden structures, and then the shuddering of the other train as it poised itself on the edge of the embankment, and, quivering in every fiber of its being, rolled down to the river! Some of the cars turned over in the water and came to a tortuous stop.
June suddenly sat up and then as suddenly was jarred down again by the impact of the two engines disputing with each other which should occupy the slender track that seemed all so uncertain.
It was deadly still for an instant, as if the trains were deciding what to do, till the New York train decided to turn over and roll. Then began screams and outcries, yelling of frightened children, groaning of the injured, the moaning of the dying. And fire sprang up and raged ahead.
June lay still stunned, scarcely knowing what to think. There had been an accident of course, but she wasn’t hurt. She was thankful for that. She was in one of the last cars and had not been so close to the wreck as some.
Gradually her senses came back to her, and she could look around. She tried to open her window shade but one end seemed jammed shut. She pulled the fabric aside and saw the glow of the starting fire. She caught her breath. Fire! She should get out as quickly as possible!
She felt around for her shoes, which were usually the extent of her undressing in a sleeper. She found her light switch but it did not work. Her little flashlight was in her suitcase under the berth and she hadn’t time to search for it. Better get out, no matter what she lost. Her purse was in her handbag, and with it held close in one hand, her arm slipped under the strap, she swung her trembling limbs out into the aisle, which she found was on a distinct slant, and crept forward to where the door had been.
There were other people ahead of her now, some women sobbing as they hurried, one screaming. A man telling her to shut up.
They reached the door, and the man wrenched it open with a great effort. They crowded out, all eager to be the first, June halting to let a woman with a little frightened baby get ahead, and at last she was outside, with the cool night air blowing in her face. Oh, it was good and reviving to feel it.
It was a gruesome sight outside. They could see the wrecked cars, twisted as if they had been made of tin like children’s toys, the submerged cars down below in the river, with a few frantic people struggling to get out of windows, not far from where the fire was raging. It was weird and terrible. People in all sorts of dress and undress, milling around and crying out, trying to understand what had happened and why. Trying to do something to help, and doing the wrong thing.
Suddenly, June saw a little neglected child crying at the edge of the embankment, her mother unconscious lying beside her. June hurried to them and knelt to see what help she could give, and so began her labors.
A little later someone sent a radio message that presently the broadcasting center took up and started to tell the world what had happened.
The minister, coming in from an all-night visit to a dying parishioner, turned on the radio to see if his watch was right, and heard the news.
“Terrible railroad accident! Head-on collision between New York train and midnight express from the West. List of casualties not known yet. One train submerged in the river, the other on fire—” He shut it off quickly and dashed out the door. He didn’t want his wife to hear this yet, though of course she did not know that June was on that train.
The minister hurried across the road to the Madison house. They would help. Was Paige there yet? He knocked at the door, rang the bell, and called. Paige, in his bathrobe, came running down the stairs.
“What’s the matter?” he said when he saw the wild look on the minister’s face.
“There’s been a terrible accident, over in Ohio, I guess it is. And June was on one of the trains! Can you go with me to get her? I don’t know if she has been injured or is even living.”
“June?” Oh, his heart cried out to God for help. “Yes, of course I’ll go. I’ll be with you in a minute. My car has gas. We’ll go in that. I’ll send Mother over to your wife. Does she know?”
“No, she doesn’t even know June is coming. I got the telegram late last night and didn’t want to excite her.”
“Well, Mother will be with her. Do you know the exact location of where we’re going? I’ll get Dad to phone the station and find out about the accident.”
It was extraordinary how quickly they got started. How quietly the two households of frightened people kept their heads
and did the things that ought to be done. And then the two men were off, leaving the others at home to pray and to listen to the radio messages that from time to time kept coming in.
The two grave-faced men said little to each other, save now and again to ask a question about the route, but each knew that the other was praying and trusting, and Paige learned a lesson of trust that day from the frantic father who thought he had been the cause of his child’s being on that train. Once he voiced that thought, in his desperation, and Paige looked up and shook his head.
“No, you weren’t the cause,” he said. “Nothing can happen like that without God’s knowledge and consent. You said that yourself last Sunday in your sermon. If God orders this, all will be well, because He can protect His own.”
A look of sudden light came in the distracted father’s face, and he actually smiled.
“You’re right, dear fellow,” he said. “We’ll just trust in that. Thank you for reminding me.”
When they stopped at a filling station, Mr. Culbertson did some telephoning and found out that the rescue was still going on. Most of the casualties were on the New York train, though there were several from the western train. Still, they could take heart of hope and press on. They were halfway there now.
Mile after mile of trustfulness, hour after hour of looking to God, and during that time the two men’s hearts were knit in a deep, strong love for one another, because they were out together to work for the one they both loved. Nothing was said about that, but each recognized the truth of it.
The last few miles were the hardest, for both men were very weary, the father almost to the breaking point, and they rode on, their faces gray and worn.
And then they came within sight of the wreck!
There was no room for their car to drive down there. It was the railroad track and the river, with only a narrow road a little above.
Paige drove as far as he could go, parked his car, and then they got out and began to walk down, finding it very hard to get anywhere because there were so many others searching for dear ones, just as they were.
They marveled as they went on that anybody was saved alive out of that wreckage.
There were great crews of wreckers, trying to clear the tracks for the other trains to pass. There was another crew laying a temporary track. And how were they going to find June? They traveled from one end of the wreckage to the other. They asked questions of people who didn’t know how to answer them. They found a couple of conductors and a few brakemen who couldn’t tell them about the girl they were looking for. At last they decided to separate, one going to one end of the wreckage, the other to the other, and then meet again in a few minutes to decide what to do next.
A moment’s questioning of a passing conductor informed them that no passengers had left for other locations yet, except as some were gone to hospitals, a few to the nearest morgue. But at last they found the man who had taken all the names of those who could give them. Oh, it was anxious work, of course. If they failed to find her here, they must go to distant hospitals and search. They must find her. If they only were near a telephone and could discover if possibly someone had taken her home, yet they would not dare telephone and let her Mother know that they had not found her yet.
So the thoughts went beating through the brains and hearts of the two, and now and again it would come to them that this wasn’t trusting the Lord. They had handed their burden over to Him and then taken it away with them and were carrying it themselves.
There was no time to kneel down and get quiet with the Lord, and no place to kneel. It was all confusion and clamor about them, souls in a panic crying out, yet so many of them not knowing to whom to cry.
Paige’s heart ached for the father. Poor man. He was almost dead on his feet. He had been up all night with that desperately sick man, had helped him die, and then come home to this. He could scarcely keep going, yet he tumbled on. She was his little girl who was missing. What must it mean to him not to be able to find her?
So Paige quickened his own steps and stumbled on. Down closer to a bend in the river and just beyond the clamor of the crowd, he caught a glimpse of a light dress, some mother likely, sitting or lying beside a child. It wasn’t in the least likely it was June, but he had resolved to pass no group, or single person, without looking into their faces and making sure. That was the only way, after all. The person or persons he saw were a little off the main road where everybody was stirring around, and almost he thought it wasn’t worthwhile to take the time to go, and then as he neared the trees that half hid the group, he could see that two were lying on the ground together.
Heartsick, he took another step, till he could plainly see the two lying beneath a tree, fast asleep. A tiny little child, with a quivering sob shaking her small shoulders now and then, trembling her pretty lips, and a young girl with a lovely protecting arm across the child, drawing her into a sheltering embrace. The attitude and the gentleness were so like a thing that June would do that he stepped closer to look at her face that was turned away; and, too, there was something familiar about a blue wool coat that was spread over her shoulders. So he bent over and looked intently at the girl’s face half hidden beside the little child.
Then suddenly he was down on his knees beside her, his own hand on the sweet little ministering hand, rejoicing that her hand was not cold, but warm. She was alive at least!
“June!” he whispered softly. “Oh, my darling June! Have I really found you?”
June stirred and opened her eyes, looked at him with bewilderment, and then a queer little tired smile dawned in her eyes.
“Paige!” she murmured softly. “Are you real—or—only—just a dream?”
Paige’s heart leaped.
“I’m real, darling,” he said joyously, and tenderly he stooped and put a reverent kiss on her forehead.
Afterward he wondered how he had dared, but at the time it seemed the right and beautiful thing to do. Her face bloomed into radiant joy, but still there was that little pucker of bewilderment on her forehead and in her dear eyes.
“But—how did you—come to be—here?” she asked, as if still thinking it might be but a dream.
Paige smiled down tenderly at her. “Your father and I came to find you,” he said.
“But—how did you know?”
“Your father heard the accident announced on the radio. He came over for me, and we’ve been searching some time for you. By the way, I must go and find him and tell him the good news. Will you let me carry you?”
“Oh, I can walk!” said June. “But I don’t know that I should leave this poor, frightened baby. Her mother has been taken to the hospital, and somehow they missed taking her. There were so many desperate cases. I promised her mother I would look after her till the ambulance comes back.”
Paige smiled to himself to think that when he had seen her first she was being called to serve a little needy one, and here it was again. He had found her in service for a needy one.
He wondered what he ought to do. He couldn’t bear to leave her now he had found her. There was so much confusion around, she might get lost. Still, he must tell her father.
Then all at once a tall person in a Red Cross uniform came toward them and looked down at the two on the ground.
“Is this the child whose mother was taken to Mercy Hospital? The little one called Mary Lou Fenner? Her mother is frantic lest she’ll be lost.”
“Yes, she told me her name was Mary Lou,” said June.
“Don’t stir, please,” said the Red Cross. “I’ll lift her away from you. Perhaps she won’t wake up.”
The nurse stooped and lifted the little girl with accustomed ease, cradling her gently in her arms as the child stirred. She hushed her, and turning, strode over to the ambulance with her. As she left, Paige, with a great sigh of relief, lifted June in his arms, a precious burden, and carried her across the poor people huddled on the ground awaiting help.
“Oh,” said June in a protesting little
voice, “you mustn’t try to carry me. I can walk.”
“Yes, I know, but you are tired. I can see that, and besides I like to carry you!”
“But I’m too heavy to be carried over this rough ground.”
“No, no, you’re not heavy. You are—precious! Excuse me, but you don’t know how we feel about you after hunting for you so long. And besides, this is the quickest way to get back to your father and relieve his anxiety. Just lie still and relax till we get there. It isn’t far.”
So June relaxed, smiling, and lay thinking how strong and restful his arms were and how glad she was to be taken care of.
The minister was already at the place appointed, waiting, for it was some minutes past the time they had arranged for meeting. His face was ashen with anxiety, and he certainly needed to be reminded again that there was a state called “trusting” for such as he.
Then he saw them, June in Paige’s arms, and his fears leaped up again. Was June dead, that Madison had picked her up and was carrying her; or was she hurt, disabled? Nevertheless, he drew a breath of relief that the long search was over, even if there was more trouble to come.
But almost at once he saw that June was smiling, turning toward where he stood, and waving her pretty hand. That gave relief, and then suddenly she was beside him and Paige was setting her down.
“Are you all right?” asked the anxious father.
“Oh, yes,” said June. “I’m all right, but you look tired to death you dear, dear daddy.”
“I thought when I saw you being carried,” said the father, “that you were hurt.”
“No,” explained Paige, “I just thought this was the quickest way to get here, and I was afraid, too, that she might be tempted to stop at every troubled person she saw and consider herself a rescue squad. That’s what she’s been doing, I gather, ever since the accident. So I carried her. Besides, I found her asleep under a tree, and I figured she was pretty tired.”