In the Way (16 page)

             
It was that very evening that Alonzo Brummel, upon pretext of a very rusty acquaintance with Joseph Benedict and some business of questionable importance with David, called at the Benedict farm. He received his introduction to Ruth and before the evening was over endeavored to make her acquaintance more intimately, but found it was not an easy thing to do. Ruth, though she was usually sunny and bright and always on the lookout for winning people for the sake of the good it might do, had a great dislike for a certain class of young men with a bold stare and an ease before strangers which sat upon their youthful shoulders all too easily. Alonzo Brummel was one of these. He made her feel uncomfortable, as if in the presence of something ugly, she did not exactly know why. She was not wise enough in the world to understand that the bold stare he gave at a pretty girl told more than she could read of his knowledge of the world and its evils. She only knew she felt uncomfortable and wished to get away from him. Therefore she declined rather frigidly when he proposed a bicycle ride in her company, saying she had other duties at the time he named, and when he proposed another time she said firmly that he must excuse her.

             
David was exceedingly glad of his sister's discernment. He did not like young Brummel. Though he had been shut up in this small town all his life, with only occasional visits to the neighboring city, still he knew the signs of the hard young face better than some who have been among wickedness always. Besides, the city is not the only place where wickedness lurks in hidden corners, and a young man with eyes and a pure heart cannot go through any corner of the world without seeing the signs of sin.

             
Alonzo Brummel went home trying to make up his mind whether it would be worth his while to pretend to be very religious during the few days left him of his vacation, in order to please this rather extraordinary Benedict girl, and finally decided it would be much easier just to have a good time with merry little Louise Clifton. She was much more to his mind after all.

             
Ruth at that moment on her knees was adding Louise Clifton to her list of those she prayed for more earnestly. As she prayed she remembered the bow between the girl and the young man that afternoon and the few words the gay young girl had said about him, and she added a petition that Louise might be delivered from any danger that might come to her through Alonzo Brummel.

LOUISE Clifton was taking lunch with Ruth Benedict. It had been no part of Ruth's plan to have her brothers come in contact with her new friend any more than necessary, for she did not think that Louise would be a help in influencing them for good. There were girls she could think of who would help wonderfully and whom she felt sure they would like, but Louise was like a dangerous bit of some combustible material. Ruth never knew what she would do next. There was a bright side, and a sweet, lovable side, as well as a gay one, to her character. To Ruth she had shown this principally, though there had been a glimmer now and then of daring; but it remained for David Benedict to bring out a new phase of her disposition.

              David and Joseph were to be away all day, as was often the case when they had some business connected with the sale of cattle in some village not far away. Ruth usually arranged to have some one with her on these days to lunch, for she did not wish to bring her outside missionary work in to spoil their home life unless she felt the guests were such as would be pleasant to her brothers. So Louise had been invited for Tuesday. The young men had both started away from the house early, as they had expected to do, David to West Winterton and Joseph in the opposite direction. Louise arrived at the hour appointed and the two girls took a ride together returning home about lunch time, where to her surprise Ruth found her brother David. He had been disappointed in seeing the man with whom he was to transact his business, he having been called away suddenly by the illness of a relative, and thus David came home earlier. Ruth felt a little troubled. She feared lest her brother might not enjoy having this gay, rather frivolous, and certainly very stylish young woman sitting opposite to him at the table. If David should freeze up and be stiff and Louise should take a turn of trying to shock him, Ruth felt that there would be more harm done than any good her endeavors to help Louise might have done. Indeed she had felt rather discouraged about the minister's sister since their morning spent together. Louise, with her impulsive girl-nature had fallen very much in love with Ruth, and gushed a great deal over her, but still she laughed at anything grave she might try to say, and persisted in making herself out to be shockingly wicked, in a bright interesting kind of way. She would talk of her brother in a mocking strain, laughing at his country church and making merry over the people. Ruth dreaded to have David hear her talk so. What would he think of the minister's religion if it could touch his own sister no further than to provoke fun? She flew to her refuge and sent up a petition for help and then remembered that the Lord was guiding and that no harm could come where he was and tried not to worry any more about it. So David was introduced to Louise Clifton and sat down in the library for a few minutes talk before lunch, and behold!

             
Louise shone forth in a new light. Her face was as full of expression as a kaleidoscope. In spite of her silly talk about helping those Benedict boys she had meant what she said, and was truly interested in doing anything to elevate them. It became doubly interesting also when she found this one so tall and really handsome. He could talk so well too, and when he smiled, that grave face of his and those great deep blue eyes lit up as if a hidden lamp were suddenly lighted behind them and shone through his whole face. He was a new kind of young man to Louise, and she could not help liking him. Arid when Louise Clifton liked any one she could always win a liking for herself. It was not deceit, nor theatricals which caused her to so change her behavior. It was perhaps an instinctive consciousness of what would please the one with whom she was talking, and the natural impulse of kindness. She did not mean to act a part. Perhaps, if the truth might be known, David appealed to the highest and best that there was in her nature and she immediately brought it forth. Certainly no girl could have been sweeter and shyer or more modest than was Louise Clifton. She did not throw herself at the young man and make him take notice of her, neither did she patronize him and try to make talk. She simply and pleasantly asked him questions about Summerton and answered his. She told one or two incidents that had occurred during their ride, and when she looked up and caught his eye her face flushed a pretty shy pink and she looked down again as though she had been making herself too prominent. David thought her truly the brightest, prettiest, sweetest bit of humanity, always barring his sister, he had ever looked upon, and Louise found herself wondering in what way she could possibly help this young man. He seemed to be at case in talking with a stranger, and not to murder the English language when he spoke. He certainly could not be very wicked, for his mouth had too clean a cut and firm a look for that—though it must be confessed Louise was hardly as yet a good judge of morality in a man; if he wore faultless clothes and could dance and wait upon her gracefully, it was all she asked as yet.

             
Her own moral and intellectual judgment had hardly been as well developed as her brother's, nor as much so as it would have been had her father lived. But there was something new to her, an independent dignity, in David, and she was interested. She would certainly do all in her power to help him if there was anything she could do, she told herself; and meantime she apparently could not seem other than simple and sweet and childlike in his presence, perhaps because David himself was so simply natural and frank and in earnest in all he did and said. After lunch he lingered in the house for nearly an hour and let Miss Clifton show him about a laughable little game she had brought over with her, and Ruth watched her brother in surprise mingled with a wonder as to what the outcome was to be of this new acquaintance. Could it be possible that these two, whom she had thought so opposite to one another in everything, were meant to help each other? Truly the ways of God were past finding out, but she would wait and trust him, for he knew the way he took and she was walking with him.

             
Louise liked to provoke that grave face to a smile. It was something new to watch the play of light that came across David's face, and when he at last got up and said he must go to his work, she turned to Ruth with her old, saucy smile again and said: “Your brother is just as nice in his way as you are in yours. Now let's have that music.” And Ruth could never guess from her actions whether her guest regretted her brother's going or not. So much had Louise Clifton's home training been worth. Ruth could but admire her for the frank, pleasant way in which she spoke about her brother, and then dropped the subject. There was nothing of the foolishness in her speech now that there had been concerning Alonzo Brummel. Nevertheless Ruth decided that she would not take the responsibility yet of actually planning to bring these two together again. If the Lord, who was guiding, saw this best he would do it, and he might not want them together again. Ruth could not see the way clear before her, and therefore she did not have to act. It was not long however before her trust was rewarded with being allowed to see something of God's plan and understand a little of the various influences that had been at work.

Louise Clifton leaned back in the car and breathed a sigh of relief. She and her mother were off to the city for their day of shopping, and nothing had been discovered by her brother. She had been almost certain something would turn up to spoil her pleasure. Young Mr. Brummel and his sister were to come on the noon train and meet them at an appointed place. Louise reflected with joy that she was to have one day of doing as she pleased, and she chattered pleasantly to her mother and tried to smooth the anxious look from her face. Mrs. Clifton was not quite sure that she was doing altogether as her dead husband would have liked her to do. She did not rouse easily from her worried little thoughts, and Louise at last began to study the passengers. There was a man sitting two seats up the aisle across from her with his face turned to the window. The back of his head was handsome, and she could not help admiring it as her eyes came back several times to his broad shoulders and heavy head of hair that looked like a sealskin coat, she told herself. By and by he turned his face a little, and then she saw that it was David Benedict. She was pleasantly surprised, and wished he would come and occupy the seat in front of them, and as they left the car at the city station she tried to catch his eye and bow, but David was intent on his own business and apparently did not see them.

             
Louise was disappointed that Mr. Benedict had not seen her. He had somehow given her a feeling that he looked up to her as a being far superior to himself, for whom he felt a sort of reverence. This feeling was pleasant to Louise. Other men had admired her and told her so; but none had ever given her the impression that they thought of her as spiritually above them. She had been more a merry companion to others, and was as willing to join in any wild prank as they had been. Mr. Benedict had taken it for granted that a woman who was beautiful, was good and above anything wrong or untruthful or impure. Louise thought she would always like to have him keep this feeling for her. It gave her a respect for herself which she had never felt before, and she felt she would try a little, just a little, to live up to this ideal that she seemed to understand David Benedict had for women. His sister had been so, and of course he saw no reason why she should not prove so also. Louise was pleased.

             
There was another Summerton traveler that morning in the car. He sat directly behind Mrs. Clifton and her daughter, and he had a set, protruding chin and heavy, uncomfortable eyebrows of grizzled gray. He looked the minister's mother and sister over carefully and severely, shaking his head once and gazing gloomily out of the window. Deacon Chatterton did not feel particularly pleasant this morning. Some investments out West were in doubtful condition, and he was going to town to get a lawyer to look them up. He did not approve of a minister having a mother and sister who looked so gay and fashionable. It showed a spiritual lack in the minister somewhere.

             
Meantime at home various things were going on.

             
When Ellen Amelia Haskins had entered church the first Sunday after her new blue serge was completed, she created more of a sensation than any stranger that had yet visited Summerton. To have strangers come to church dressed finely and looking pretty was of course an interesting thing and one to be looked at and remarked upon; but to have one of their own number, who had grown up from babyhood in their midst, and who had not even been away for a visit of a few weeks,—nor what was more astounding, even been to the dressmaker, in the knowledge of any one present,—suddenly appear before their astonished eyes in gown and bonnet of faultless style and becomingness undreamed of, and with her hair arranged in a way unknown to Summerton maidens save as they had occasionally observed it in their shopping visits to the city, was a thing not to be gotten over easily. She seemed to move in a more graceful way, and her whole face took on a really pretty look.

             
“My land!” whispered Eliza Barnes to Mrs. Deacon Chatterton, with whom she happened to be sitting; “who ever dreamed she could be so pretty!”

             
“Humph!” said Mrs. Chatterton, as she observed the advent of Ellen Amelia with disapproval; “beauty that can be put on and took off ain't much beauty to my mind,” and she severely studied the hymn book the remainder of the morning, and rigidly refrained from encouraging Ellen Amelia in her pride by looking once more in the direction of the Haskins pew.

             
The two young men with lowering brows and thick protruding lips back by the door, who came to church now because there was nothing better to do, looked up with interest. Ellen Amelia had not been an admiration of theirs heretofore, but dressed in this way she seemed to have suddenly grown up and to be worth while. The Brower boys were always looking out for a new girl, and when they found her she usually regretted it if she allowed their coarse charms to attract her attention. Heretofore Ellen Amelia had never been in danger through them. They preferred pretty girls, and there were plenty of them throughout the country who were glad of their acquaintance, for were they not heirs of a great farm and an estate of dimensions that varied according to the imagination of the speaker? Ed nudged Bill, and Bill glowered back at Ed, and nodded and whispered, “She's great! How'd she do it?” and after church, when they lingered as was their wont, by the door and watched the outcomers, they sauntered along toward her home by her side, and the poor, silly girl's heart beat high with wild excitement. She had never had the like happen to her before. She knew they were rather wild, to be sure, but they also had the name of being worldly wise, and they were young men and well-built, and when they tried to please, not altogether bad-looking. Remember, Ellen Amelia's head was full of stories and her mind was used to idealizing everybody except perhaps her own immediate home circle, with whom she was forced by circumstances to come in constant contact. Ellen Amelia minced along between Bill and Ed Brower and cast sidelong glances to see if the other girls saw her, and wondered trembling what her mother would think if she knew, and whether father would disapprove. And then they almost took her breath by a proposition. She was feeling herself a Cinderella enough already with her new gown and two princes, but with a ball added her head was completely turned, and so at her father's gate she giggled out a sort of promise, as much of a promise as she dared make, and went in blindly to sit down and think what kind of wild delightful whirl the world had gotten into. And she forgot completely that she had promised but three days before to try to love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ with all her heart and soul and strength and to make him the first consideration of her life.