The Second Chance Part 40

Then he heard Mr. Burrell say, quite distinctly: "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life ... draw near with faith and take this holy sacrament to your comfort ... meekly kneeling upon your knees."

Bud heard a few moving forward--he knew who they were, just the same few--he had gone with them once, more fool he was--what was the use of that man talking about love and charity when the very first chance he got he would turn a fellow down?

"... Who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and brake it, saying: 'Take, eat; this is my body which was broken for you this is my blood of the New Testament, which was shed for you ....'"

This one sentence came out to him clearly, fastening itself on his mind, and though in a vague way he heard the service through, his mind was busy with the thought that the Saviour of men had been betrayed by a friend, betrayed to his death, and had died blessing and forgiving his enemies.

" ... the same night that he was betrayed."

The solemnity of it all fell on the boy's heart. He had knelt there once, and heard those words and taken these tokens of the Lord's death, with his heart swelling with love for Him who had not even refused to die. It had been a glorious day of June suns.h.i.+ne, when through the open windows came the robin's song and the prairie breeze laden with the perfume of wolf-willow blossoms and sweet-gra.s.s. He remembered how the tears had risen unbidden to his eyes--happy tears of love and loyalty--and he had felt that nothing could ever separate him from the Master whom he loved. But now he stood on the outside of the door--he was an outsider--he had no part in this. He made a step backward--he would go away--he would hear no more--he had come back for the pacing colt--he was done with this neighbourhood and home--he was done with religion!

"Drink ye this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for you."

The voice sounded at Bud's elbow, as if calling him to stay. He hesitated--they were not nearly done yet--there was no danger of anyone coming out--everyone stayed for the whole service, he knew, even if they didn't take part.

"Our Father, who art in heaven," he heard them all repeat, and quite unconsciously he began to follow the words with them. It was like an old friend coming out to meet him.

"Forgive us our trespa.s.ses, as we forgive them who trespa.s.s against us."

Bud stopped abruptly, he couldn't say that--he would not forgive--he had been bitterly wronged, and he would never forgive--he had done what was right, and what had he got for it? He tried to summon back to him the anger that had kept alive his resolve to stay away from home. Instead of anger and bitterness he found his, heart swelling with the old love for the One who, the same night that he was betrayed, took bread and broke it, saying: "Take, eat; this is my body, which was broken for you."

Some one was praying--it was Mr. Burrell--every word came to Bud clearly.

"Dear Lord," the minister prayed, "be one with us to-day, and grant that the great appeal which Thou dost make in the broken body and the shed blood may find an answer in every heart that hears. Compel us with it to consecrate our lives to Thee. If there is any root of bitterness in our lives, let us bring it to where the shadow of the Cross may fall upon it. Oh, dear Lord, bless all those who have wandered from Thee. Bless the dear boy of our prayers who may have wandered far, but who, we believe, will never be deaf to the call of the Spirit. We praise Thee for prayers answered--for sick ones healed--for lives redeemed--and we humbly crave Thy mercy for us all.

Amen."

What strange power was in these words to make Bud Perkins suddenly realize that only one thing mattered? He opened the door and walked in. The people heard the door open and some one come quickly toward the front. They saw the minister step down from the platform and into the aisle, where he clasped a black-bearded youth in his arms. For a full minute no one spoke; then Roderick Ray, the Scottish Covenanter, broke into singing:

"O dying Lamb, Thy precious blood Shall never lose its power Till all the ransomed church of G.o.d Be saved to sin no more."

What a scene of rejoicing was in the schoolhouse that dark March day!

Roderick Ray slapped Bud on the back again and again, crying: "Wonderful! Wonderful!" Mr. Perkins hung on to Bud's arm as if he were afraid he might lose him again, and told him over and over again what a time he had been having with hired help. "There's nothing like your own you bet." Even George Steadman shook hands with Bud, and told him he was glad to see him back again.

While Mrs. Cavers, in answer to his eager inquiry, was telling Bud all about Libby Anne's illness, and the great kindness of his father and mother and Martha Pearl Watson whispered to Mr. Perkins: "Now's the time to clear up Bud's name about that wheat plugging. Tell them who did it." In the excitement of the moment there did not seem anything odd in the suggestion. Pearl was shrewd enough to know that the psychological moment had come.

Mr. Burrell was still standing with his hand on Bud's shoulder, as if he could never let go of him. Pearl whispered to the minister to ask the people to sit down for a few minutes, for Mr. Perkins had something to say to them. Mr. Burrell did as Pearl had asked him.

Then Mr. Perkins addressed a few words to the congregation which were probably as strange a closing as any sacramental service has ever had.

"Well, friends," he said, "I believe I have a few words to say. I should have said them before, I guess. In fact, I should have said them when the thing happened, but I'm a terrible man to put off things that I don't like to do. But I'm so glad to get Buddie home that I don't mind tellin' ye that he didn't have nothin' to do with that wheat pluggin'--that was my idea entirely--in fact, Bud raised Cain about us ever pluggin' grain, and said he'd not stand for it any more. I ain't much used to speakin' in church, as you know. I've always kept my religion in my wife's name, and I may not be talking in a suitable way at all. I'm a good deal like old Jimmie Miller was at a funeral one time. Jimmie had took a gla.s.s or two too much, and just when the minister asked them to walk around and view the remains, old Jimmie jumped up and proposed the health of the bride and groom. Well, of course, someone grabbed him and pulled him down, and says: 'Sit down, man, this is a funeral!' 'Well,' says Jimmie, speakin' pretty thick, 'I don't care what it is, but it's a very successful event any way.' That's the way I feel--it's the happiest day I've known for quite a while." Thomas Perkins suddenly stopped speaking and blew his nose noisily on a red handkerchief. The neighbours, looking at him in surprise, realized that there was strong emotion behind his lightly spoken words.

It seemed to be quite a natural thing for them to sing "Praise G.o.d, from whom all blessings flow," and for the hand-shaking to begin all over again. They were only a handful of very ordinary people in a desolate-looking, unpainted schoolhouse that dark Sunday afternoon, but a new spirit seemed suddenly to have come over them, a new spirit that made them forget their worries and cares, their sordid jealousies and little meannesses, the spirit of love and neighbourly kindness, and there were some there who remembered that old promise about the other One who will come wherever "two or three are gathered together," and thought they felt the Unseen Presence.

A few hours later Bud was sitting in the cus.h.i.+oned rocking-chair of the tent before a cheerful fire that blazed in the Klondike heater.

On the lounge sat his father, mother and Mrs. Cavers.

Libby Anne, in a pale blue kimono, and wrapped in a warm shawl, was on Bud's knee, holding in her hands a gold locket and a chain, and saying over and over to herself in an ecstasy: "Bud did come back and I'm Bud's girl."

Mr. Perkins was in radiant good-humour. "By George, it's great to have Buddie home!" he said, "and our kid here gettin' better. Let me tell you, Buddie, we've had a pretty dull, damp time around here; things have been pretty blue, and with no one to help me with the stock since Ted left. I was tellin' ye about Ted, wasn't I? Well, sir, we've been up against it all right, but now I'm feelin' so good I could whoop and yell, and still, I kinda feel I shouldn't. I'm a good deal like old Bill Mills, down at the Portage, the time the boys 's.h.i.+varied' him. You see, just the day after the first woman was buried old Bill started in to paint up his buckboard, and as soon as the paint was dry he was off huntin' up another woman; and he got her, too, a strappin' fine big Crofter girl--by George! you should see her milkin' a cow--I pa.s.sed there one day when she was milkin', and I can tell you she had a big black-and-white Holstein cow shakin'

to the horns! Well, anyway, when Bill and the girl got married, the boys came to 's.h.i.+varee' them. The old woman was just dead two months, and when the noise started Bill came out, mad as hops, and told them they should be ashamed of themselves making such a racket at a house where there had so lately been a funeral! That's how it is with us, eh, what? By George, it's great altogether to have Buddie home."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

THE CONTRITE HEART

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake.

And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, And the heart forgets its sorrow and ache.

_----James Russell Lowell._

DURING Libby Anne's illness Mrs. Cavers had been so anxious about her that she had hardly given a thought to anything else; but when the little girl's perfect recovery seemed a.s.sured, she was confronted again by the problem of their future. Libby Anne's illness, in spite of the neighbours' and the doctor's kindness, had made a hole in the two hundred dollars the Watsons had given her. She still had some money left from her share of the crop, but she would need that for new clothes for herself and Libby Anne; there would be the price of their tickets, and the other expenses of the journey, and she must save enough to buy her ticket back to Manitoba.

Of course, there were still the two cows and the hens, which the neighbours had kindly taken care of for her, and there was some old machinery, but she did not expect that she would get much from the sale of it.

The first day that Libby Anne was able to walk, Dr. Clay came out to see her, and brought to Mrs. Cavers a letter from the new tenant who had rented the Steadman farm. The letter stated that the writer was anxious to buy all her furniture, machinery and stock, and wanted to make her an offer of three hundred dollars cash for them.

Mrs. Cavers read the letter with astonishment. She had never hoped for such a price. "Now, doctor," she said, "you've been to me one of the best friends any one ever had. Tell me one thing--is Sandy Braden paying part of this?"

Dr. Clay was prepared for the question and answered evasively. "I'll bring the man here to see you--he's an old Indiana farmer with lots of money, and you know your implements are in very good shape. I went out with him to the farm, and together we figured out what the stuff was worth. Here is the list; he is perfectly satisfied if you are."

Mrs. Cavers shook her head doubtfully. "I know that the stuff is not worth more than half that amount, and I know very well that either you or Mr. Braden has fixed this up for me to let me still feel independent and have my trip back home. I know that, but I'm going to take it, doctor, without a word. I am not even going to try to thank you. I haven't seen my mother or any of my own people for twelve years. It has been my sweetest dream that some day I would go back home, and now it looks as if the dream were coming true. I am like a little hungry boy who has been looking at a peach in a shop window for days and days and days, desiring without hope, when suddenly someone comes out and puts it in his hand--he will quite likely run away with it without so much as thanking his kind friend, but he's grateful just the same. That's the way it is with me, doctor; I am grateful, too, so grateful that I can't talk about it."

A month later Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne arrived safely home, and Libby Anne's enraptured eyes beheld the tall maple trees, the bed of red and yellow tulips, and the budding horse-chestnuts of her dreams.

The grandmother, a gentle, white-haired old lady, looked anxiously and often at her widowed daughter's face, so worn and tired, so cruelly marked by the twelve hard years; and although Mrs. Cavers told them but little of her past life that was gloomy and sad, yet the mother's keen eyes of love read the story in her daughter's work-worn hands, her gray hair, and the furrows that care and sorrow had left in her face. She followed her about with tenderest solicitude, always planning for her comfort and pleasure. She often sat beside Mrs. Cavers when, in the quiet afternoon, she lay in the hammock on the veranda. Always as they talked the mother was thinking of the evil days that the world had held for her poor girl, and planning in every way her loving heart could devise to make it up to her, after the fas.h.i.+on of mothers the wide world over.

To Mrs. Cavers, the spring and summer days were full of peace and happiness. The quiet restfulness of her mother's home--the well-appointed rooms, the old-fas.h.i.+oned piano, with its yellow keys, in the back parlour, the dear familiar pictures on the walls--all these seemed to soothe her tired heart. The garden, with its patch of ribbongra.s.s, its sumach trees and scarlet runners, was full of pleasant a.s.sociations, and when she sat in the little vine-covered summer-house and listened to the birds nesting in the trees above, the long twelve years she had lived seemed like a bad dream, hazy and unreal--the real things were the birds and the vines, and her mother's love.

July came in warm and sultry, but behind the morning-glory vines that closed in the small veranda it was always cool and pleasant. One day Mrs. Cavers, lying in the hammock, was looking at the sweet face of her mother, who sat knitting beside her. All afternoon, as she lay there, she had been thinking of the hot, busy days on the farm which she must soon face--the busy, busy farm, where the work has to be done, for the men must be fed. Each day she seemed to dread it more--the early rising, the long, long hours, the constant hurry and rush, the interminable was.h.i.+ng of heavy, white dishes in a hot little kitchen, reeking with tobacco smoke. She had gone through it many times, cheerfully, bravely, for there had always been in her heart the hope of something better--good days would surely come, when her husband would do better, and they would be happy yet. This thought had sustained her many times, but the good, days had never come, and now--how could she go back to it with no hope. There was nothing ahead of her but endless toil, just working every day to earn a living. Oh, was life really such a priceless boon that people should crave it so!

"Must you really go back to the West, Ellie dear?" her mother asked, as if she read her daughter's bitter thoughts.

Mrs. Cavers sat up and smiled bravely. "Oh, yes, mother, it's the West for me; but some day we'll come back again for another one of these dear, lovely visits. I always felt I would never really be rested until I got back here and had you to sit beside me. But, of course, I must go back for the harvest--it is really a beautiful country, and especially so in the fall of the year, and I have some business there which I must go and attend to." She did not tell the nature of the business.

"Ellie, I would like to have you always with me, and your dear little girl--there's only the four of us, and we are so happy here. Why can't you stay with us?"

Mrs. Cavers knew why, but she could not tell her mother that she had very little in the world beyond the price of a ticket back to Manitoba.

"I've been praying every day since you came, Ellie, that we would never need to part again," her mother said wistfully. "I can't let you go, it seems."

Just then the gate clicked and a heavy step came rapidly up the walk.

Mrs. Cavers, starting to her feet, found herself face to face with Sandy Braden as he came up the steps.

For a few seconds neither of them spoke. Then Mrs. Cavers held out her hand. "Mr. Braden," she said. Words failed her.