The Witness Part 8

Courtland was led to go on talking about the old woman, picturing in a few words the room where she lay, the pitifully few comforts, the inch of candle, the tea without sugar or milk, the b.u.t.terless toast! He told it quite simply, utterly unaware, that he had told how he had made the toast. They listened without comment as to one who had been set apart to a duty undesirable but greatly to be admired. They listened as to one who had pa.s.sed through a great experience like being shut up in a mine for days, or pa.s.sing unharmed through a polar expedition or a lonely desert wandering.

Afterward he spoke again about the child, telling briefly how he was killed. He barely mentioned the sister, and he told nothing whatever of his own part in it all. They looked at him curiously, as if they would read between the lines, for they saw he was deeply stirred, but they asked nothing. Presently they all fell to studying, Courtland with the rest, for the morrow's work was important.

They made him stay on the couch and swung the light around where he could see. They broke into song or jokes now and then as was their wont, but over it all was a hush and a quiet sympathy that each one felt, and none more deeply than Courtland. There had never been a time during his college life when he had felt so keenly and so finely bound to his companions as this night; when he went at last to his own room across the hall, he looked about on its comforts and luxuries with a kind of wonder that he had been selected for all this, while that poor woman down in the tenement had to live with bare walls and not even a whole candle! His pleasant room seemed so satisfying! And there was that girl alone in her tiny room with so little about her to make life easy, and her beautiful dead lying stricken before her eyes! He could not get away from the thought of her when he lay down to rest, and in his dreams her face of sorrow haunted him.

It was not until after the examinations the next afternoon that he realized that he was going to her again; had been going all the time, indeed! Of course he had been but a pa.s.sing stranger, but she had no one, and he could not let her be in need of a friend. Perhaps--Why, he surely _had_ a responsibility for her when he was the only one who had happened by and there was no one else!

She opened the door at his knock and he was startled by the look of her face, so drawn and white, with great dark circles under her eyes. She had not slept nor wept since he saw her, he felt sure. How long could human frame endure like that? The strain was terrible for one so young and frail. He found himself longing to take her away somewhere out of it all. Yet, of course, there was nothing he could do.

She was full of quiet grat.i.tude for what he had done. She said she knew that without his kind intercession she would have had to pay far more.

She had been through it too recently before and understood that such things were expensive. He rejoiced that she judged only by the standards of a small country place, and knew not city prices, and therefore little suspected how very much he had done to smooth her way. He told her of the preacher he had secured that afternoon by telephone--a plain, kindly man who had been recommended by the undertaker. She thanked him again, apathetically, as if she had not the heart to feel anything keenly, but was grateful to him as could be.

"Have you had anything to eat to-day?" he asked, suddenly.

She shook her head. "I could not eat! It would choke me!"

"But you must eat, you know," he said, gently, as if she were a little child. "You cannot bear all this. You will break down."

"Oh, what does that matter now?" she asked, pitifully, with her hand fluttering to her heart again and a wave of anguish pa.s.sing over her white face.

"But we must live, mustn't we, until we are called to come away?"

He asked the question shyly. He did not understand where the thought or words came from. He was not conscious of evolving them from his own mind.

She looked at him in sad acquiescence. "I know," she said, like a submissive child; "and I'll try, pretty soon. But I can't just yet. It would choke me!"

Even while they were talking a door in the front of the hall opened, and an untidy person with unkempt hair appeared, asking the girl to come into her room and have a bite. When she shook her head the woman said:

"Well, then, child, go out a few minutes and get something. You'll not last the night through at this rate! Go, and I'll stay here until you come back."

Courtland persuaded her at last to come with him down to a little restaurant around the corner and have a cup of tea--just a cup of tea--and with a weary look, as if she thought it was the quickest way to get rid of their kindness, she yielded. He thought he never would forget the look she cast behind her at the little, white, sheet-covered cot as she pa.s.sed out the door.

It was an odd experience, taking this stranger to supper. He had met all sorts of girls during his young career and had many different experiences, but none like this. Yet he was so filled with sympathy and sorrow for her that it was not embarra.s.sing. She did not seem like an ordinary girl. She was set apart by her sorrow. He ordered the daintiest and most attractive that the plain menu of the little restaurant afforded, but he only succeeded in getting her to eat a few mouthfuls and drink a cup of tea. Nevertheless it did her good. He could see a faint color coming into her cheeks. He spoke of college and his examinations, as if she knew all about him. He thought it might give her a more secure feeling if she knew he was a student at the university.

But she took it all as a matter that concerned her not in the least, with that air of aloofness of spirit that showed him he was not touching more than the surface of her being. Her real self was just bearing it to get rid of him and get back to her sorrow alone.

Before he left her he was moved to tell her how he had seen the little child coming out to greet her. He thought perhaps she had not heard those last joyous words of greeting and would want to know.

The light leaped up in her face in a vivid flame for the first time, her eyes shone with the tears that sprang mercifully into them, and her lips trembled. She put out a little cold hand and touched his coat-sleeve:

"Oh, I thank you! That is precious," she said, and, turning aside her head, she wept. It was a relief to see the strained look break and the healing tears flow. He left her then, but he could not get away from the thought of her all night with her sorrow alone. It was as if he had to bear it with her because there was no one else to do so.

When he left her he went and looked up the minister with whom he had made brief arrangements over the telephone the night before. He had to confess to himself that his real object in coming had been to make sure the man was "good enough for the job."

The Rev. John Burns was small, sandy, homely, with kind, twinkling red-brown eyes, a wide mouth, an ugly nose, and freckles; but he had a smile that was cordiality itself, and a great big paw that gripped a real welcome.

Courtland explained that he had come about the funeral. He felt embarra.s.sed because there really wasn't anything to say. He had given all necessary details over the 'phone, but the kind, attentive eyes were sympathetic, and he found himself telling the story of the tragedy. He liked the way the minister received it. It was the way a minister should be to people in their need.

"You are a relative?" asked Burns as Courtland got up to go.

"No." Then he hesitated. For some reason he could not bear to say he was an utter stranger to the lonely girl. "No, only a friend," he finished.

"A--a--kind of neighbor!" he added, lamely, trying to explain the situation to himself.

"A sort of a Christ-friend, perhaps?" The kind, red-brown eyes seemed to search into his soul and understand. The homely, freckled face lit with a rare smile.

Courtland gave the man a keen, hungry look. He felt strangely drawn to him and a quick light of brotherhood darted into his eyes. His fingers answered the friendly grasp of the other as they parted, and he went out feeling that somehow _there_ was a man that was different; a man he would like to know better and study carefully. That man must have had some experience! He must know Christ! Had he ever felt the Presence? he wondered. He would like to ask him, but then how would one go about it to talk of a thing like that?

He threw himself into his studies again when he got back to the university, but in spite of himself his mind kept wandering back to strange questions. He wished Wittemore would come back and say his mother was better! It was Wittemore that had started all this queer side-track of philanthropy; that had sent him off to make toast for old women and manage funerals for strange young girls. If Wittemore would get back to his cla.s.ses and plod off to his slums every day, with his long horse-like face and his scared little apologetic smile, why, perhaps his own mind would a.s.sume its normal bent and let him get at his work. And with that he sat down and wrote a letter to Wittemore, brief, sympathetic, inquiring, offering any help that might be required. When it was finished he felt better and studied half the night.

He knew the next morning as soon as he woke up that he would have to go to that funeral. He hated funerals, and this would be a terrible ordeal, he was sure. Such a pitiful little funeral, and he an utter stranger, too! But the necessity presented itself like a command from an unseen force, and he knew that it was required of him--that he would never feel quite satisfied with himself if he shirked it.

Fortunately his examination began at eight o'clock. If he worked fast he could get done in plenty of time, for the hour of the funeral had been set for eleven o'clock.

Tennelly and Pat stood and gazed after him aghast when, on coming out of the cla.s.s-room where he had taken his examination, he declined their suggestion that they all go down to the river skating for an hour and try to get their blood up after the strain so they could study better after lunch.

"I can't! I'm going to that kid's funeral!" he said, and strode up the stairs with his arms full of books.

"Good night!" said Pat, in dismay.

"Morbid!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tennelly. "Say, Pat, I don't guess we better let him go. He'll come home 'all in' again."

But when they found Bill Ward and went up to try and stop Courtland he had departed by the other door and was half-way down the campus.

CHAPTER VIII

It was all very neat and beautiful in the little, third-story back room.

The gas-stove and other things had disappeared behind the calico curtain. Before it stood the small white coffin, with the beautiful boy lying as if he were asleep, the roses strewn about him, and a ma.s.s of valley-lilies at his feet. The girl, white and calm, sat beside him, one hand resting across the casket protectingly.

Three or four women from the house had brought in chairs, and some of the neighbors had slipped in shyly, half in sympathy, half in curiosity.

The minister was already there, talking in a low tone in the hall with the undertaker.

The girl looked up when Courtland entered and thanked him for the flowers with her eyes. The women huddled in the back of the room watched him curiously and let no flicker of an eyelash pa.s.s without notice. They were like hungry birds ready to pounce on any sc.r.a.p of sentiment or suspicion that might be dropped in their sight. The doctor came stolidly in and went and stood beside the coffin, looking down for a minute as if he were burning remedial incense in his soul, and then turned away with the frank tears running down his tired, honest face. He sat down beside Courtland. The stillness and the strangeness in the bare room were awful. It was only bearable to look toward the peace in the small, white, dead face; for the calm on the face of the sister cut one to the heart.

The minister and the undertaker stepped into the room, and then it seemed to Courtland as if One other entered also. He did not look up to see. He merely had that sense of Another. It stayed with him and relieved the tension in the room.

Then the voice of the minister, clear, gentle, ringing, triumphant, stole through the room, and out into the hall, even down through the landings, where were huddled some of the neighbors come to listen:

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me: Write--Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth ... But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will G.o.d bring with Him.... For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of G.o.d: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

Courtland listened attentively. The words were utterly new to him. If he had heard them before on the few occasions when he had perforce attended funerals, they had never entered into his consciousness. They seemed almost uncannily to answer the desolating questions of his heart. He listened with painful attention. Most remarkable statements!

"But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept!"

He glanced instinctively around where it seemed that the Presence had entered. He could not get away from the feeling that He stood just to the left of the minister there, with bowed head, like a great one whose errand and presence there were about to be explained. It was as if He had come to take the little child away with Him. Courtland remembered the girl's prayer the night the child died: "Go with little Aleck and see that he is not afraid till he gets safe home." He glanced up at her calm, tearless face. She was drinking in the words. They seemed to give strength under her pitiless sorrow.

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death!"