Ariel shook her head.
“Why, it’s an organization to take care of travelers, especially women and young girls, who are alone and don’t know where to go or how to find their friends. There is always someone on duty day and night at all big railroad stations to help those who need them. They wear a badge like a policeman’s with ‘Traveler’s Aid’ on it, and they have a desk in the women’s waiting room. There are notices here and there, around, in several languages, telling where to find the agent and bearing a copy of her badge so strangers or foreigners will not be afraid to trust her.”
Ariel’s eyes were dreamy with thought. “That is wonderful,” she said, an almost startled look on her face.
“A pretty good system,” said Granniss. “I don’t know that it’s especially wonderful. It’s the right thing. It ought to have been done years before it was.”
“Yes, but—well, you don’t understand,” said the girl, smiling. “It’s a little private wonder all to myself this time. You see, I was just a little frightened over coming away from home all alone for the first time in my life, and last night I found a verse in my grandmother’s Bible that said, ‘Fear thou not; for I am with thee,’ and somehow all along the way I’ve had that proved to me again and again. First there were some friends at the station this morning who planned for my comfort, and then there was you who picked me up, and now there is this agent. I’m beginning to think God has His agents posted all the way ahead where I have to go, for so far one has met me at every turn of the way.”
Granniss looked at the young girl across from him as if she were a creature from another world. “Do you really believe that, that God is like that? Caring for people in little things?”
“Why, surely,” said Ariel, lifting clear eyes without a shade of doubt to his questioning ones. “Don’t you?”
“If I did, it would make a whole lifetime’s difference with me,” and there was a wistfulness about his tone that struck deep into the girl’s heart.
“I’m sorry you don’t,” said the girl simply. “I don’t know what I’d do without Him. I’ve always known He was that way. It isn’t just that I believe it’s so; I know it’s so. Why, He’s taken care of me!”
The leather doors swung open, and a little woman with hair tinged with gray under a small black hat and wearing a shining silver badge entered, stood an instant taking a keen survey of the room, then came swiftly to their table. Judson Granniss arose with a quick deference and drew back a chair for her.
“Miss Darcy, this is Miss Custer,” he said, and Ariel liked the easy gravity of his speech.
Miss Darcy gave Ariel one swift, searching glance and smiled with a softening of the lines of eyes and mouth. “Judson says you need my help, dear,” she said crisply and sat down.
“Now you’ll take a cup of tea with us,” said Granniss. “Or would you rather have coffee?”
“Just a little tea if you have it there, Jud. I mustn’t stay but a minute. There’s another train coming in shortly now, and I’m due outside. I just wanted to make sure what this girl needed.”
She turned to Ariel and asked a few questions. “Well,” she said when she was satisfied, “I have to meet the eight thirty-five and take a girl to Fifty-Second Street. Suppose you wait and go with me. We’ll take a taxi, and I can leave you at the club and introduce you so you won’t have any more trouble. Jud, you’re going home on the eight five, I suppose? Well, you bring her in to my desk, and she can sit there till I come if I’m away. Sorry I have to keep you waiting, dear. You look as if you needed a good night’s rest, but it won’t be long now. You sure you don’t need to see a doctor? Any bad bruises, do you think? You’ll feel stiff and sore in the morning likely. Better rest late. Meantime, Jud, you say you heard of a position she might be able to get. Suppose you phone me in the morning, and I’ll show her the way before I go out home. Here’s my morning number. Say about eight o’clock if you can find out early in the morning.”
“I may be able to see the man tonight,” said Granniss.
“So much the better. You can reach me here after half past nine.”
Miss Darcy vanished, and the man and girl finished their repast slowly. It did not seem to them that they were new acquaintances, and now that the agent had given a sort of background to their introduction, Ariel felt much better about their irregular meeting.
It was evident that the young man was in no hurry to conclude the little meal. He sat watching Ariel for a minute or two, almost as if he were not hearing the eager thanks she was uttering.
“Do you know,” he said, leaning over a bit toward her and speaking in that low, confidential tone again, “I’m awfully interested in what you said awhile ago. You’re somehow different from any girl I ever met before. I wish you’d tell me what makes you so sure you are being taken care of by God. It’s always seemed to me He didn’t care a hang what became of us all, if there is any God.”
“Oh, please don’t speak that way,” said Ariel, as if his words had hurt her. “It’s just because you don’t know Him. I’m sure it is. You couldn’t be uncertain about it if you did. Why, He’s my best Friend, my Savior, my Guide, my Companion. I’m certain because I know Him, that’s all. It’s just like knowing people, only more so. And there isn’t any other way to find out but just to get to know Him.”
Granniss looked puzzled, hopeless, as if her words meant nothing to him, as if she were a mere child babbling. There was a tinge of disappointment in his eagerness, as if he saw from her words that after all it was just as he expected, a matter of tradition, stock phrases that she had been taught, nothing experimentally practical.
“How could one get to know a God, a Supreme Being away off in His heaven? How could one know?”
“Why, of course it’s a spiritual thing,” said Ariel gravely. “‘God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.’ It isn’t a material thing. But then so are our earthly friendships: you can’t take hold of what it is that makes us care for one another. It’s something outside the flesh. We can express some of it with a smile, a glance of the eye, but friendship is beyond that; it is deeper, more intangible—spiritual. It is how we tell our mother loves us even when she is not near to help us. We are sure because we’ve tried her. We have known her love. We’ve tested it. We’ve been one with her in our daily life. My father used to say there was really only one way to get rid of doubts about God and that was the Bible way. ‘If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God’—just take Him at His word and do His will, you know, and try Him. Put Him to the test.”
The young man looked at her as if she spoke a foreign tongue.
“You mean to say that by doing certain things you come to know an invisible Being?”
“Doing His will. Trying to please Him. Isn’t that the way we get to know other people? Study what they like, be much in their company, do what they want us to do? Isn’t that a test of even an earthly friendship, whether we are willing to do what they want us to do?”
“But how could you possibly know what God wanted you to do? I should say that was beating round the bush. That would be as impossible as knowing Him.”
“Why, it’s all written down in His Book. He’s told us there everything He wants. He told us to search it, to know it by heart, to have it on our tongues that we might observe to do it, because it was the way of eternal life.”
“Do you mean to say that you still believe in the Bible?”
“Oh, of course,” said Ariel. “One has to if he wants to know God. There isn’t any other way to find out His will. Of course I know the world is trying to prove that the Bible is just like any other book, but that is so silly to one who knows it, and has found God through it. It wouldn’t make any difference to me how much people tried to prove scientifically that I had never had a mother who loved me. They might bring all the arguments and theories in the world and it wouldn’t make any difference, because I knew her. I have felt her love
. She is mine forever! But I’m talking just like a preacher, and—aren’t you going to miss your train, Mr. Granniss? I’ve kept you too long!”
Granniss gave a quick glance at his watch and exclaimed, “Yes, I must go. I had no idea the time had gone by so swiftly. I mustn’t miss that train, for I want to find out about that place for you tonight if I can. But I hope you’ll let me call on you when you get located. I’d like to talk more with you about this. I never heard anybody talk this way before. It sounds like the real thing, only it’s too good to be true.”
He summoned the waiter, gathered up his coat and hat and Ariel’s bundle, and hurried her out to Miss Darcy’s desk. He had only a moment to take his leave, and he found a strange reluctance to go.
“I really want to talk some more about this,” he said as he left her. “May I come and see you?”
“Why, surely, if I stay here,” she said and flashed him a lovely smile.
“I’ll do my best to have you stay here,” he said and, lifting his hat, was gone.
She watched him stride away into the throng of train goers and suddenly felt very much alone. How well acquainted they had become in a few short hours. How strange that he should have stepped out of the crowds to care for her, when it might have been any one of the others who were passing, who would never have taken a thought but to set her on her feet and hurry away. But he, how kind he had been! She had a conviction that he had been on his way home by an earlier train and had delayed on her account. And now she remembered that she had forgotten to offer to pay her share of the meal. She couldn’t quite remember when he had paid the check, they had been talking so earnestly. Her cheeks grew hot over the omission. When she thought of it, it was rather awful of her to accept a dinner from an utter stranger. What must he think of her when he got away and thought over the evening! Yet he had said he would come again, and she must wait until then—or no, she had his address. She might send it to him, only how did she know how much to send? Well, she could find that out very likely by going to that room for another meal and examining the menu card.
She sat in Miss Darcy’s big armchair and watched the crowds come and go; watched the ladies climbing into the high chairs nearby to have their shoes cleaned; watched the tired women with babies in their arms, the giddy ones with too much powder on their noses, the cross men who were waiting for their womenfolks. It was like a great panorama to her country-trained eyes. She had traveled a little with her father and mother while she was quite young, but the last five years had been spent very quietly with her grandmother in the old home, and it almost dazed her to be thus suddenly dropped down into the noise and bustle of city life.
When she remembered that she was a stranger in a strange city without a job or a friend, and only a little over fifty dollars in cash between herself and starvation, she was appalled. Yet she was not alone, for her Lord was with her, and hadn’t He proved already that His messengers were all along the way? Sometimes they didn’t even seem to know they were His messengers. Who knew but she was sent to tell that young man about knowing God? He had seemed interested. Then, as was her custom to pray about everything at all times, she closed her eyes for a moment and prayed: “Dear Savior, help him to see and understand.”
Miss Darcy stood beside her for an instant and watched the sweet, tired face with the closed eyes, the loveliness of outline, the purity of expression, and her heart went out to the lonely girl. Then she touched her gently on the shoulder, and Ariel opened her eyes and realized that here was another of God’s messengers on duty close at hand.
Chapter 5
Out in the darkness the suburban train sped through the night, stopping at every little station to let off a few late stragglers who did not get home to the evening meal. In the last seat of the last car, with his cap pulled unsociably far over his eyes, sat Judson Granniss, going over the occurrences of the evening.
Strange that he should have been the one to pick up that girl! He remembered feeling annoyed when she fell just in front of him, for he had been running for his train. He had wanted especially to get that train that he might get at a bit of work he had promised to do for one of the businessmen in Glenside, going over his accounts for him. It would mean several extra dollars in his pocket, and he wanted the money. But he had missed the train and thought nothing about it until now. The accounts and the dollars seemed a small matter beside the evening he had spent.
Now that he thought it over, it all seemed such a foreign experience for him to have—a girl, alone, and he taking her to dinner, and anxious to do it! A stranger, and he going out of his way to find her perplexities when he already had enough of his own! Why hadn’t he handed her over to the police or an ambulance and run for his train? Why hadn’t he hunted up Miss Darcy at the start and at least got the seven ten home? Why had he lingered, and even been reluctant to come away now?
Well, she was a wonderful girl. There was no question about that. Now here was a girl one could like. Why didn’t his mother get hold of a girl like that instead of Helena Boggs? He would like to have his mother meet this girl from Virginia and see what a real girl was like. How he would have liked to be able to say to the girl in her perplexity: “Come home to my mother. She’ll make it all right and show you what to do. She’ll welcome you and help you.” But he couldn’t imagine doing such a thing. He let his thoughts fancy for a minute what would have happened if he had attempted to bring home a girl he had picked up in the street for his mother to tend. And she would have known the circumstances almost before they got into the house. Trust his mother for that. She would have extracted it from them by a torturous method all her own, swift and cruel as death. He could remember the time he brought home a little lost puppy in a storm when he was a small child. Harriet Granniss had held her skirts away and waited only to decide on the social status of the little shivering beast, then she took the tongs and, holding him at arm’s length, thrust him out again into the night and the storm while her pleading son stood helpless before her wrath. He could remember the look of disgust upon her face as she slammed the door. And it would have been the same with Ariel; delicate Ariel with her cameo-face and her star-eyes. She would have been swiftly thrust into the blackness of a dark, strange world. Yet his mother was a good church member, a professed follower of that God that Ariel knew; a believer, so she declared, in the holy scriptures by which Ariel lived! How could the two things be possible? Both followers of the same Christ, yet with such varying results?
He thought over the assured words of the girl, and into his heart there came a yearning to know a God like the one she owned.
He thought of Emily Dillon. She was another one who believed and read the Bible. He had come upon her reading it at different times through the years, a little timid about being caught at it, yet very true to it and reverent about it. Suddenly he wondered if maybe it was that which made the difference in her life. He tried to think if there were more he knew who were guided by that Book, but could not be sure of any whom he knew well enough to judge.
He did not go directly home but tried to find the man who wanted to employ someone in his office. He found him at last but only to hear that the position had been filled that morning, and he went home quite disappointed and trying to think how he might help to find Ariel a position. Somehow he could not bear to think of her having to return to Virginia. He wanted to get acquainted with her, to know if she was really as wonderful as she seemed.
Harriet was terribly upset at his late homecoming. She had had Helena Boggs to supper, and there was steak and mushrooms she told him; and her purring voice berated him as she aired her grievances. She was like a hen scolding a chicken. It got on Jud’s nerves terribly. He finally went up to his room without telling his mother where he had been, which was an offense he knew he would have to answer for sooner or later. Harriet usually managed to get out of people just what they had done so that she might deal out adequate punishment.
But tonight for some reason her son was not nearly so
vulnerable as usual. His mind was wholly absorbed in trying to think up a job for Ariel Custer, and all too well he knew his mother’s ability to pierce his strongest reticence, so he took himself away to his own room and locked his door.
Poor Harriet. She lay awake and wept her bitter tears about that boy. She never had understood what a wonderful boy he was, nor what a nagging, mistaken, bitter, domineering woman she was—and she probably never would till the great day of Judgment and Understanding revealed it to her—but she suffered intensely in her bitter way in every fiber of her big intolerant soul and body.
So she lay awake and planned for her son’s good. Planned how Helena Boggs and she could make him over into the very amiable and pliant Judson Granniss that she had always wanted him to be, and confidently expected him to turn out to be someday, somehow, just because he was her son and she loved him.
In his small iron bed in a tiny hall bedroom in a house not two blocks away, Dick Smalley wakened after a restless sleep and began to plan for Harriet Granniss’s good. He figured that she needed a lesson. She had thrown a stone at his dog, Stubby, and driven him from a perfectly good bone that he had got for him at the market with five cents of his newspaper money. She had taken the bone, which the dog had dropped when the stone hit him, and thrown it into her garbage pail! It wasn’t her bone! She had no right! He had paid for that bone! Stubby wasn’t doing her any harm, just quietly eating it in her backyard to get away from that pest of a terrier that lived next door. He would have gone away if she had told him. He was only a dog. He didn’t know she minded. But she didn’t tell him to go. He knew, for he was delivering a paper at the side door of Harriet Granniss’s next-door neighbor when it happened. He had hurled himself over the fence, leaving his papers behind him on the step, and had told her in youthful though forcible language what he thought of her, “where to get off,” as he expressed it, and she had turned on him and told him she would report him to the police and tell his mother and that he was not fit to be delivering papers to decent citizens. Tell his mother! He, a kid who got up every morning and went out on his route like a man; a kid whom the men at the firehouse spoke of as a “tough egg.” Tell his mother! He called a taunt to her that was not fit for orthodox Congregational ears to hear, and Harriet slammed her door and retired with a vanquishing air while Stubby yelped down the street with a broken foot, mourning a lost bone.