The Strange Proposal (10 page)

“Why, saved from punishment from yer sin. That’s eternal separation from God, ya know. I’m saved!”

He said it with an air of quiet conviction that was startling.

“How do you know?” asked Mary Elizabeth.

“Because Christ said so,” said the boy. “He said, ‘He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.’ Mr. Saxon drilled us a lot on that. He said we might havta tell someone someday that was dying and afraid.”

“And aren’t you afraid to die?” There was awe in her voice now as she studied her young cousin’s face.

“Not anymore. Not since I was saved.”

“How do you get ‘saved’ as you call it?”

“You just believe Christ died in place of you. Not just believe it with yer head, ya know, but with yer heart. You just accept Him as yer personal Savior. Then He sends His Holy Spirit to live in ya, and tell ya what’s right and wrong, and help ya ta be pleasing ta Him. That’s all there is to it. He does the rest.”

Mary Elizabeth was quiet a long time, and then she asked, “Did all the boys in the camp get saved?”

“No,” said Sam thoughtfully, “not all. There was Flinty Robison. He just listened. He seemed interested enough, but he wouldn’t ever give in and say he’d take Christ fer his Savior. And he wouldn’t pray. He said it was nobody’s business what he did. And there was Stew Fuller and Corky Mansfield. They really didn’t pay much attention. They snickered a lot. They haven’t got much head, those guys, anyway. But we all are praying for ’em. I somehow think Flinty’ll come sometime.”

“Oh, you pray?”

“Sure thing! We got a prayer club. We write and tell each other who ta pray for. And Mr. Saxon writes ta us about it!”

They drew up just then at a gas station, and no more was said about it. After they started on, Mary Elizabeth seemed very quiet, and Sam was occupied in counting the different makes of cars they passed. He got out a pencil and paper and jotted them down. It seemed quite important to him. Mary Elizabeth was in deep thought, adjusting this new light on her amazing beau.

She was realizing that the impetuous stranger had taken a deep hold on her inner life and that everything she heard about him but filled her with more wonder, but this religious slant frightened her. Here was something in which she could not follow him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to follow him, even if she could. It would be almost like living with God to live with a man who thought about Him that way and was interested in the things of the Spirit. Mary Elizabeth realized that it would be wonderful to be loved by a man like that, but wouldn’t it be more than one like herself could ever live up to?

She thought of her other beaus, in contrast. Rathbone Royce, steeped in art and literature, sophisticated to the last degree, adoring her languidly, critically, half sarcastically, bringing her gifts of rare editions of musty old volumes in which she had no interest, discoursing on modern philosophy. Herbert MacLain, witty, irresponsible, handsome, a bit given to drinking, which he had promised to give up entirely if she would marry him. He was a dear, and she was fond of him, but did she want to devote her life to keeping him straight? She wasn’t fool enough to think that merely marrying the woman he wanted was going to change his habits. There was Raymon Vincente, a musician of real worth, successful, devoted, urging her at intervals to link her life with his. Last year she had almost thought she would. But time had gone on, and the lure of his music, while still enchanting, had ceased to cover the multitude of his sins, till at last she saw the real man, a weak, selfish character. There was Harry Kincaid. They had been going together more or less since their kindergarten days. There was nothing wrong with him. He was part of her everyday life, and often she had thought that fate had set them apart for each other, yet she continued to laugh him off. There was nothing thrilling in the thought of marrying Harry.

And lastly there was Boothby Farwell, he of the great square diamond, which last night she had been fully persuaded she was going to return as soon as she reached home. Was she?

Boothby represented perhaps the cream of all her beaus, not excepting a couple of men in Europe who had been quite attentive. Boothby was handsome, cultured, successful, prominent, popular, so right that one didn’t stop to think of a limit to his wealth, perfect in his manners, interested in science, art, music, and literature, owning several city residences of royal dimensions and charm, and as many country estates, in addition to a castle in Scotland. She might live in a palace if she chose, if she were his wife. Horses and chariots and yachts, even airplanes would be at her command at any hour of the day. He could give her diamonds galore, and pearls; he was wanting even now to buy her a rope of pearls and an emerald bracelet. His flowers were the costliest that came to her. He had intimate friends among royalty, an entrée everywhere. His entertainments were always in good taste. Private views of pictures and plays, paintings and statuary, private hearings of great music performed by greater musicians, these were among the attentions he lavished. If she married him there would be practically nothing that money could buy that she could not have for the wishing. And he was only ten years older than herself, splendidly set up, with just a distinguished gleam of silver on the edges of his hair. He was not tied down by business, for his business had reached the pinnacle where it could take care of itself, and he would be free to take her where she would!

All this, and yet she had let a poor young doctor flirt with her going down a church aisle in the presence of an assembled multitude. All these other desirable beaus, and yet she was still thrilling to the clasp of his arms at the station, the touch of his reverent lips at parting, the vibrant voice that told her he loved her!

And he was poor, and a stranger, a man who had to work for his living, and religious! Could any more incongruous set of descriptions be imagined for a possible aspirant to the hand of a Wainwright heiress?

It was late in the afternoon when they stopped again to let Sam forage in a great open space toward which he had turned wistful eyes. He came back this time with a big bunch of swamp lilies, like lovely flames, and Mary Elizabeth helped him to bank them up back of the seat where they would get the air and be out of the way. She noticed as she turned back to smile at Sam that his whole face was aglow with joy, and a certain interesting beauty had begun to dawn in it. For the first time she saw a slight likeness to her cousin Jeff in its happy lines.

“This is a great day!” he said reminiscently. “Gosh! I wish it could last! When I get home, there’s no one cares a rap if I have what I want or not. They don’t pay the slightest attention to me except to tell me to stop whatever I wantta do!”

“Well, why don’t we do this again?” asked Mary Elizabeth. “I’m thinking of going down to look over our shore cottage and see if I want to open it awhile this season. How would you like to go with me?”

“Gosh, I’d like it!” he said earnestly. “I’d like it a lot. When ya going?”

“Why, I’m not sure,” said the girl thoughtfully. “Soon, perhaps.”

“Gee! I wish I could go!” he said plaintively. “But I suppose they’ll begin ta talk camp again as soon as I get in the house.”

“And don’t you like camp?”

“I’ll say I don’t!” said the boy with bitter emphasis. “Not the camp I’m supposed ta go to summers. I don’t like the man that runs it, but his mother belongs to my mother’s bridge club, so she thinks I havta go. He’s the biggest fake I ever saw. He isn’t fair to anybody. And he’s a coward, too. He was afraid of a snake last summer. I hadta kill it myself!”

“Really?”

“Yep! And then he had the nerve to say ‘we’ killed it when we got back ta camp and he was telling about it. Just because there wasn’t any other fella along who saw what happened, and he knew I wouldn’t dare tell, ‘cause he could mark me down for insolence if I did!”

“Well,” said Mary Elizabeth, “he can’t be much like your Mr. Saxon, then?”

“I’ll say he isn’t!”

“But don’t you have a lot of fun at camp?”

“Naw! They’re a lotta fancy boys! They aren’t my crowd! They all live up on Bleeker Hill and go the prep school. I suppose I’d be there, too, if it weren’t fer Dad and Jeff. They don’t like that school the least little bit. Mother’s tried to work it several times, but they just told her I gotta have a real boys’ school.”

“Of course!” said his cousin. “You go to the same one where Jeff went?”

“Yep! And Mother thinks it’s old-fashioned, but Dad says it has the best English department in the whole city. So at least my school’s safe. I got on the right side of Dad about that. And Jeff was with me. I’m gonta miss Jeff at lot!”

He sighed a deep boy-sigh.

“But he’s not going so far away!”

“No, but it won’t ever be the same, of course!”

“Don’t you like Camilla?”

“I sure do! She’s a peach! I’ve always wanted a sister. Course, I’d rather have you, if you just lived at our house.”

“Thank you!” Mary Elizabeth said, smiling. “I’ll be a sister to you, Buddie, and I’ll see what can be done about that camp, too. It’s a shame when you know what a good camp is, to have to stand a poor one.”

“Oh, gee! I wish you would!” said the boy. “I just wish Mr. Saxon would start a camp up north!”

Then he suddenly put his head back on the cushion and began to sing:

Again and again he sang it, till Mary Elizabeth joined in. Then they went back over some of the songs of the morning but came again to the “Calvary” one.

“I don’t understand, Sam,” said his cousin, looking at her young companion through the dusky shadows that were beginning to settle down over the world as evening drew on. “A lot of your songs talk about how bad you feel that you’re a sinner. That doesn’t seem real. You haven’t got any ‘past with its sin and shame,’ have you? You never felt you were much of a sinner, did you?”

“Sure!” said the boy in a diffident tone. “Sure thing, I’m a sinner! You see, it’s this way, you don’t feel it so much till you’re saved. You think you’re pretty good till you know Christ and get ta talking about Him. Then ya begin ta see yerself. That’s how it is. I can’t tell you how it is, but it’s so!”

“Oh!” said Mary Elizabeth in a small voice, as if she was once more filled with awe over the knowledge of this scarcely more than a child.

Very soon after that the lights of the home city began to appear through the evening, and the boy watched them grow nearer, with gloom deepening in his face and voice, gloom that settled into silence.

“Oh, gosh!” he breathed as they turned into his own street.

“Don’t despair, Buddie,” smiled Mary Elizabeth. “This isn’t the end, I promise you. You and I have found each other, and I, at least, don’t intend to lose you again.”

“You’re some peach!” murmured young Sam shyly and then sprang out of the car and gathered up his things. “Cantcha come in?” he asked wistfully. “Just a minute?”

“Sure!” said Mary Elizabeth. “I’m coming in!”

The family had arrived only a few minutes before, and there was a bustle of getting settled at home, but they pressed Mary Elizabeth to stay. Answering the wistful gaze of the boy, she assented.

“I’ll just telephone Dad that I’m back safe,” she said, “and unless he’s waited dinner for me, I’ll stay.”

Sam waited anxiously outside the telephone booth and was radiant when she told him that her father had a directors’ meeting and hadn’t been able to wait for her.

“You must be all worn out, Betty dear!” said Aunt Clarice as they sat down to the table. “I declare you certainly were a godsend today, taking Sam. I just couldn’t have stood his restlessness.”

“Why, we had a beautiful time!” said the girl, with a quick look of sympathy for Sam. Poor kid! Was this the thing he had to stand continually?

“Well, you certainly are a wonder, Betty!” said Sam’s mother. “He’s the most restless creature! Now Jeff was different. Jeff never wriggled.”

“You weren’t quite so old then, Mama,” said Robert Wainwright bluntly. “Your nerves can’t stand as much as they could when you were young. As I remember Jeff, he had a lot of spirit in him, too.”

“Now, Robert, I’m not talking about spirit, I’m talking about wriggling and sighing and wanting to get out and run, and things like that!”

“Mary Beth doesn’t mind that, Muth!” growled Sam protestingly.

“Your cousin Betty is very kind, Samuel!” said his mother firmly. “She probably minds it as much as I do, but she doesn’t let you know it!”

Sam cast a quick suspicious look at Mary Elizabeth and met the disarming steady look in her eyes, and the wide, understanding smile.

“No, Aunt Clarice, I don’t mind restlessness. I get restless myself. I like to stop and do things, too, and Sam and I had a wonderful time. Butterflies and lilies—by the way, Buddie, did you put the lilies in water?”

“I sure did!”

“Yes,” said his mother ruefully. “He took one of my priceless vases and filled it full of weeds!”

“Oh, but they were wonderful in the swamp, Aunt Clarice,” said Mary Elizabeth enthusiastically. “But say, Aunt Clarice, why can’t you lend Sam to me this summer? I’m thinking of opening the shore cottage, and if I do, I’d love to have him there. We could practice tennis together and go swimming and sailing. Of course, if we open the cottage at all, Dad would come down every night, or weekends anyway, and I’d take Roger and his wife, and some other servants. It wouldn’t be lonely for Sam even if I were away a day now and then. You know Roger just adores boys, and he would look after him.”

“That’s awfully kind of you, Betty dear, and I must say you are brave after having him all day long, but we couldn’t think of taxing you that way, especially this summer. You’ll be having a lot of guests, and you couldn’t depend on Sam. He’d come down to meals with his face dirty and his hair sticking out every which way. And that nice particular Boothby Farwell there so much! Sam would disgrace you.”