Ester Ried Yet Speaking Part 29

"O LORD, TAKE DIRK, TOO!"

She found her standing before the mirror. By reason of the fact that she understood no pretty trick of braid or curl, her long yellow hair hung just as Nature had made it, with no waves or ripples save those which had grown with its growth. It fell about her now like a sunset cloud.

She had taken from the vase near at hand a rose, which she had pushed in among the ma.s.ses of hair, with no knowledge as to how it should be arranged, or, indeed, thought; yet the effect was something which made Mrs. Roberts give an involuntary start of admiration.

Still it was evident that, though apparently gazing at herself, she was thinking away beyond herself. It is doubtful if at that moment she saw the flower, or her own reflection, or knew that she was looking. Her eyes had the faraway expression which one sometimes sees in great power on faces like hers. She turned as Mrs. Roberts, having softly knocked and received no answer, softly entered, and her first words indicated the intensity of her thought, whatever it was:--

"Dirk has _got_ to go there!"

"Go where?" asked Mrs. Roberts, startled out of the words she meant to speak; startled by the hint of power in the voice and manner.

"Of whom are you thinking, my dear girl? and where do you want him to go?"

"I'm thinking about Dirk, ma'am; I thought about him all the evening; the man made me; and I've made up my mind; he's _got_ to go to heaven!"

I suppose I cannot give you an idea of the force in her voice. It was as though a resolution, from which there could be no appeal, had been taken, and the person resolving felt her own power to accomplish. It was altogether an unexpected answer to Mrs. Roberts. She did not know whether to be half-frightened or to laugh.

She sat down in one of the easy-chairs to study the girl, and consider what answer to make. Mart, meantime, turned back to the survey of herself in the mirror, or to the survey of whatever she saw there, and continued talking:--

"I never knew much about heaven. You may guess that, if you have ever been in our alley. Only lately, Sallie Calkins she's been telling me what you told her; and I had a kind of notion that you must know what you was talking about, and that it was for rich folks and grand folks like you; but the man told about that Madge, you know, to-night--an awful drunkard and swearer, and all that--how she reformed and went to heaven. Dirk ain't no drunkard; but he will be. Everybody says he will, because father is such an awful one. Mother, she's never had no hope of him. She says father didn't drink till he was most twenty, and then he begun; and she's looking for Dirk to begin, and I haven't thought he could help it either. What if he doesn't care for it much yet? He will, it's likely. I've never told n.o.body that, not even Sallie, and I've been mad at mother every time she said any such thing; but all the time I've been expecting him to begin; and I know well enough, when once they _begin_, how it goes on. But that man to-night told things that made a difference. He says that G.o.d can keep them from wanting to drink, and help them right straight along; and that they can go to heaven as well as the next one. I've wanted nice things for Dirk all my life; but I never saw no way to get them, and it made me mad. To-night I saw a way, but I never had no kind of a notion how heaven looked till I come into this room, and see the light and the flowers and the shine, and another room spread out there in the gla.s.s: and now I know, and Dirk shall go!"

Mrs. Roberts was in no mood for laughing, the tears were dropping slowly on the flower she held in her hand. Mart saw in the gla.s.s just then a sight which seemed to add to her surprise. She turned wondering eyes on her hostess.

"What are you crying for?" she asked. "Don't spoil the flower; it is like the one Dirk bought me once. He said you sent it to me. I kept it most a week. I took it over to Sallie's, and she got fresh water for it every day, somehow; and it was then she begun to tell me what you said about heaven, and I thought if G.o.d had made such flowers as that for you, it was likely he had made a heaven for you; but I didn't believe it was for Dirk till to-night, and I didn't have no kind of a notion how it looked till just now. Do you _believe_ what that man said--that folks like Dirk can go? Of course, if Madge went, why Dirk would have a _right_. He is bad just because he _has_ to be. He never had no chance to be anything else; and he ain't very bad, anyhow--nothing to compare with some." Her voice was almost fierce in its earnestness; she was beginning to resent the creeping doubt that Mrs. Roberts' silence suggested.

Careful words must be spoken now. What if this awakening soul should be turned aside! No wonder that the unspoken words were prayers.

"Dirk has a _right_ to go to heaven," she said, steadily, sweetly; "there is not the shadow of a doubt as to his right. No one in the world--not Satan himself--can deprive him of it; and it is not only his _right_, but his duty to go."

"Then he shall!"

I wish I could give you an idea of the strength in the girl's voice. It almost carried conviction with it to Mrs. Roberts' heart.

"Come and sit down," she said, and she drew her towards one of the low cushions. If Mart sat on that, her head would be just where a gentle hand could stroke the ma.s.ses of hair.

"Let me talk with you about this. You are mistaken in one thing. Dirk is very bad. He is bad enough to shut him out of heaven forever."

The girl started, and tried to fling off the caressing hand.

"So are you," said the gentle voice.

"Oh, _me_! Don't talk about me! Whoever said I wasn't bad? Let me go; I want to go home. I don't care how hard it rains."

"And so am I," continued the gentle voice.

The girl on the cushion ceased struggling to free herself from the caressing touch, and remained motionless.

"Let me tell you of something that we have each done a great many times.

We have been asked and urged and coaxed day after day, and year after year, to accept an invitation to go to this very heaven, and we have paid no attention at all; and this, after Jesus Christ had given His life to make a way for us to go. Is not that being bad?"

"Dirk he never had no invitation--never heard anything about it."

"Yes, he has," speaking with quiet firmness. "The Lord Jesus Christ told me to invite him, and I have done so a great many times, and he has made no answer; and Sallie Calkins has invited you, and you have treated it in just the same way."

"I didn't believe it."

"Isn't that being bad? What has He ever done that you should refuse to believe His word, when He died an awful death to prove to you that He was in earnest?"

"You said Dirk had a _right_ to go."

"So he has. Jesus Christ has given him a right, if he will. I have invited you to my house, and asked you to spend the night in this room, and sleep in this bed. Has any person a right to keep you from doing so?"

"No." An emphatic nod of the head, and a lingering, almost loving look at the white bed behind her.

"Then cannot you truthfully say that you have a _right_ to be here? My dear girl, it is so faint an ill.u.s.tration of what Jesus Christ has done to give you a right to heaven, that I almost wonder at your understanding it. But can you imagine something of how I should have felt had I urged you to come to me night after night, for weeks and years, and you had turned from me with no answer, or else with scorn?"

"You wouldn't have kept on asking me." Mart spoke with the a.s.surance of one who had firm faith in her statement.

"No, I presume I should not. I would have said after the third or fourth invitation, 'If she really will not have anything to do with me I cannot help it,' and I should have tried to forget you. This is one of the many differences between Christ and me. He waits, and asks, and _asks_. How long will you keep Him waiting?"

I have given you only the beginning of the conversation. It was long ere it was concluded.

Down stairs Mr. Ried waited as long as he could, curious to know the result of Mart's first impressions. Then he went away, and Gracie went to her room, and the house settled into quiet, and Mr. Roberts, in the library, waited for his wife, while she told over again, with tender words and simple ill.u.s.trations, the "old, old story," so fitted to the wants of the world.

How many times has there been a like result.

It was midnight when they knelt together, the fair child of luxury and the child of poverty; but the Saviour, who intercedes for both, bent His ear, and heard again the cry of a groping soul, seeking Him out of darkness, and held out His loving, never-failing arms, able to reach down to her depth, and received her to himself. Who can tell that story?

Who can describe how heaven seemed to the girl just then?

It was not what Mrs. Roberts had expected. I cannot even say that it was what she had hoped for. Her faith had not reached to such a height at all. She could hardly have put into words what she hoped. When she ventured to try to tell it to the friends in the parlor, and to you, I doubt whether you understood. She thought to get a hold on the girl; to show her something of G.o.d's beauty and love, as it shone through herself; to make her long after something her life did not give, and to gradually lead her to seek after satisfaction in Christ. A long process--something that should unfold gradually, with many discouraging drawbacks, and some days that would look like utter failures. She had schooled herself to be prepared for this, but she had not looked for Him to exert His mighty power to save in a moment. How it had touched her to find a soul, hungry, not for itself, but for a brother, I shall not attempt to tell. The first words she said, after she went back to her waiting husband, a little after midnight, were these:--

"He could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. I think that is what is the matter with the world to-day. I wonder if He would not be pleased with one who could throw herself at His feet with a childlike abandon of faith, and expect wonders, yes, and impossibilities, just as a child feels that _anything_ can be done by father? G.o.d has shamed my faith to-night. It is as though I had asked for a crumb of bread, and he gave me the entire loaf. That girl up-stairs has not heard of Him before as a Saviour for _her_; has never thought of such a thing, or, at least, dreamed of its possibility, and yet she has given herself to Him. And Evan, what do you think were the first words she said? 'O Lord, take Dirk, too!' She is on her knees at this moment praying for him. If you could have seen her face when it first dawned upon her that she could tell G.o.d about him, and ask for His mighty power to be exerted in his behalf, it would have been a picture for your lifetime. Oh, Evan, Evan, why can we not expect great things of G.o.d?"

CHAPTER XXVII.

"AN AWFUL PROBLEM"

Isn't it strange, the ways the Lord takes to answer prayers?

Much prayer had been made for Dirk Colson, but few had thought of his sister. Sallie Calkins, it is true, had come with trembling steps into the light of Christ's love, and had immediately desired to have Mart enjoy it with her, but was very trembling and doubting as to her ability to reach Mart, or to influence her in the right direction. She sent the bonnet and cape to the lecture with a prayer, but she did not look for the prayer to be answered. Verily, He has to be content with faith "less than a grain of mustard-seed."

Was the rest of the story an answer to prayer? We are to remember that He has strange ways. Events startling enough in their import followed each other in rapid succession. In the first place, Dirk's father, poor, wrecked man, returned no more. Whether he had wandered among the network of railroads which lined the southern portion of the city, and lost his life there, or whether he had fallen into the river, or just how he had disappeared, could not be discovered. There were three men killed by an accident on the road one night, but their disfigured bodies were buried before Dirk heard of it. There was a man seen struggling in the water off the lower wharf one evening, but he sank before help could reach him, and his body was not recovered. There were half a dozen men killed by a boiler explosion, but that was not heard of in time to look into it. There were so many ways in which the wreck might have gone out of life and left no sign. They were safe in supposing that he was intoxicated, and that was about all they could be perfectly sure of, concerning him; that, and the fact that he came no more. Of course, there was no such search for him as is made for the man of respectability and position. To one who had some idea of the worth of a soul, it was pitiful to see what a tiny ripple this disappearance made on the surface of life.

A moment of startled questioning by those who lived in the immediate neighborhood; a few women with ap.r.o.ns thrown over their heads congregating in groups around the pump, or before the door of the bakery; a crowd of dirty children, stopping their play for a moment, and speaking lower;--then the tide of noisy, fighting, swearing life went on.