On the way back she pa.s.sed a number of young soldiers home on twenty-four hour leave from the nearby camps. They saluted most eagerly, and she knew that any one of them would have gladly occupied the vacant seat in her car, but she was not in the mood to talk with them. She felt that there was something to be thought out and fixed in her mind, some impression that life had for her that afternoon that she did not want to lose in the mild fritter of gay banter that would be sure to follow if she stopped and took home some of the boys. So she bowed graciously and swept by at a high speed as if in a great hurry. The war! The war! It was beating itself into her brain again in much the same way it had done on that morning when the drafted men went away, only now it had taken on a more personal touch. She kept seeing the lonely vine-clad house where that one soldier had lived, and which he had left so desolate. She kept thinking how many such homes and mothers there must be in the land.
That evening when she was free to go to her room she read John Cameron"s letter again, and then, feeling almost as if she were childish in her haste, she sat down and wrote an answer. Somehow that second reading made her feel his wish for an answer. It seemed a mute appeal that she could not resist.
When John Cameron received that letter and the accompanying package he was lifted into the seventh heaven for a little while. He forgot all his misgivings, he even forgot Lieutenant Wainwright who had but that day become a most formidable foe, having been transferred to Cameron"s company, where he was liable to be commanding officer in absence of the captain, and where frequent salutes would be inevitable. It had been a terrible blow to Cameron. But now it suddenly seemed a small matter. He put on his new sweater and swelled around the way the other boys did, letting them all admire him. He examined the wonderful socks almost reverently, putting a large curious finger gently on the red and blue stripes and thrilling with the thought that her fingers had plied the needles in those many, many st.i.tches to make them. He almost felt it would be sacrilege to wear them, and he laid them away most carefully and locked them into the box under his bed lest some other fellow should admire and desire them to his loss. But with the letter he walked away into the woods as far as the bounds of the camp would allow and read and reread it, rising at last from it as one refreshed from a comforting meal after long fasting. It was on the way back to his barracks that night, walking slowly under the starlight, not desiring to be back until the last minute before night taps because he did not wish to break the wonderful evening he had spent with her, that he resolved to try to get leave the next Sat.u.r.day and go home to thank her.
Back in the barracks with the others he fairly scintillated with wit and kept his comrades in roars of laughter until the officer of the night suppressed them summarily. But long after the others were asleep he lay thinking of her, and listening to the singing of his soul as he watched a star that twinkled with a friendly gleam through a crack in the roof above his cot. Once again there came the thought of G.o.d, and a feeling of grat.i.tude for this lovely friendship in his life. If he knew where G.o.d was he would like to thank Him. Lying so and looking up to the star he breathed from his heart a wordless thanksgiving.
The next night he wrote and told her he was coming, and asked permission to call and thank her face to face. Then he fairly haunted the post office at mail time the rest of the week hoping for an answer. He had not written his mother about his coming, for he meant not to go this week if there came no word from Ruth. Besides, it would be nice to surprise his mother. Then there was some doubt about his getting a pa.s.s anyway, and so between the two anxieties he was kept busy up to the last minute. But Friday evening he got his pa.s.s, and in the last mail came a special delivery from Ruth, just a brief note saying she had been away from home when his letter arrived, but she would be delighted to see him on Sunday afternoon as he had suggested.
He felt like a boy let loose from school as he brushed up his uniform and polished his big army shoes while his less fortunate companions kidded him about the girl he was going to see. He denied their thrusts joyously, in his heart repudiating any such personalities, yet somehow it was pleasant. He had never realized how pleasant it would be to have a girl and be going to see her--such a girl! Of course, she was not for him--not with that possessiveness. But she was a friend, a real friend, and he would not let anything spoil the pleasure of that!
He had not thought anything in his army experience could be so exciting as that first ride back home again. Somehow the deference paid to his uniform got into his blood and made him feel that people all along the line really did care for what the boys were doing for them. It made camp life and hardships seem less dreary.
It was great to get back to his little mother and put his big arms around her again. She seemed so small. Had she shrunken since he left her or was he grown so much huskier with the out of door life? Both, perhaps, and he looked at her sorrowfully. She was so little and quiet and brave to bear life all alone. If he only could get back and get to succeeding in life so that he might make some brightness for her. She had borne so much, and she ought not to have looked so old and worn at her age! For a brief instant again his heart was almost bitter, and he wondered what G.o.d meant by giving his good little mother so much trouble. Was there a G.o.d when such things could be? He resolved to do something about finding out this very day.
It was pleasant to help his mother about the kitchen, saving her as she had not been saved since he left, telling her about the camp, and listening to her tearful admiration of him. She could scarcely take her eyes from him, he seemed so tall and big and handsome in his uniform; he appeared so much older and more manly that her heart yearned for her boy who seemed to be slipping away from her. It was so heavenly blessed to sit down beside him and sew on a b.u.t.ton and mend a torn spot in his flannel shirt and have him pat her shoulder now and then contentedly.
Then with pride she sent him down to the store for something nice for dinner, and watched him through the window with a smile, the tears running down her cheeks. How tall and straight he walked! How like his father when she first knew him! She hoped the neighbors all were looking out and would see him. Her boy! Her soldier boy! And he must go away from her, perhaps to die!
But--_he was here to-day_! She would not think of the rest. She would rejoice now in his presence.
He walked briskly down the street past the houses that had been familiar all his life, meeting people who had never been wont to notice him before; and they smiled upon him from afar now; greeted him with enthusiasm, and turned to look after him as he pa.s.sed on. It gave him a curious feeling to have so much attention from people who had never known him before. It made him feel strangely small, yet filled with a great pride and patriotism for the country that was his, and the government which he now represented to them all. He was something more to them now than just one of the boys about town who had grown up among them. He was a soldier of the United States. He had given his life for the cause of righteousness. The bitterness he might have felt at their former ignoring of him, was all swallowed up in their genuine and hearty friendliness.
He met the white-haired minister, kindly and dignified, who paused to ask him how he liked camp life and to commend him as a soldier; and looking in his strong gentle face John Cameron remembered his resolve.
He flashed a keen look at the gracious countenance and made up his mind to speak:
"I"d like to ask you a question, Doctor Thurlow. It"s been bothering me quite a little ever since this matter of going away to fight has been in my mind. Is there any way that a man--that _I_ can find G.o.d? That is, if there is a G.o.d. I"ve never thought much about it before, but life down there in camp makes a lot of things seem different, and I"ve been wondering. I"m not sure what I believe. Is there anyway I can find out?"
A pleasant gleam of surprise and delight thrilled into the deep blue eyes of the minister. It was startling. It almost embarra.s.sed him for a moment, it was so unexpected to have a soldier ask a question about G.o.d.
It was almost mortifying that he had never thought it worth while to take the initiative on that question with the young man.
"Why, certainly!" he said heartily. "Of course, of course. I"m very glad to know you are interested in those things. Couldn"t you come in to my study and talk with me. I think I could help you. I"m sure I could."
"I haven"t much time," said Cameron shyly, half ashamed now that he had opened his heart to an almost stranger. He was not even his mother"s minister, and he was a comparative newcomer in the town. How had he come to speak to him so impulsively?
"I understand, exactly, of course," said the minister with growing eagerness. "Could you come in now for five or ten minutes? I"ll turn back with you and you can stop on your way, or we can talk as we go. Were you thinking of uniting with the church? We have our communion the first Sunday of next month. I should be very glad if you could arrange. We have a number of young people coming in now. I"d like to see you come with them. The church is a good safe place to be. It was established by G.o.d.
It is a school in which to learn of Him. It is----"
"But I"m not what you would call a Christian!" protested Cameron. "I don"t even know that I believe in the Bible. I don"t know what your church believes. I don"t have a very definite idea what any church believes. I would be a hypocrite to stand up and join a church when I wasn"t sure there was a G.o.d."
"My dear young fellow!" said the minister affectionately. "Not at all!
Not at all! The church is the place for young people to come when they have doubts. It is a shelter, and a growing place. Just trust yourself to G.o.d and come in among His people and your doubts will vanish. Don"t worry about doubts. Many people have doubts. Just let them alone and put yourself in the right way and you will forget them. I should be glad to talk with you further. I would like to see you come into communion with G.o.d"s people. If you want to find G.o.d you should come where He has promised to be. It is a great thing to have a fine young fellow like you, and a soldier, array himself on the side of G.o.d. I would like to see you stand up on the right side before you go out to meet danger and perhaps death."
John Cameron stood watching him as he talked.
"He"s a good old guy," he thought gravely, "but he doesn"t get my point.
He evidently believes what he says, but I don"t just see going blindfolded into a church. However, there"s something to what he says about going where G.o.d is if I want to find him."
Out loud he merely said:
"I"ll think about it, Doctor, and perhaps come in to see you the next time I"m home." Then he excused himself and went on to the store.
As he walked away he said to himself:
"I wonder what Ruth Macdonald would say if I asked her the same question?
I wonder if she has thought anything about it? I wonder if I"d ever have the nerve to ask her?"
The next morning he suggested to his mother that they go to Doctor Thurlow"s church together. She would have very much preferred going to her own church with him, but she knew that he did not care for the minister and had never been very friendly with the people, so she put aside her secret wish and went with him. To tell the truth she was very proud to go anywhere with her handsome soldier son, and one thing that made her the more willing was that she remembered that the Macdonalds always went to the Presbyterian church, and perhaps they would be there to-day and Ruth would see them. But she said not a word of this to her boy.
John spent most of the time with his mother. He went up to college for an hour or so Sat.u.r.day evening, dropping in on his fraternity for a few minutes and realizing what true friends he had among the fellows who were left, though most of them were gone. He walked about the familiar rooms, looking at the new pictures, photographs of his friends in uniform. This one was a lieutenant in Officers" Training Camp. That one had gone with the Ambulance Corps. Tom was with the Engineers, and Jimmie and Sam had joined the Tank Service. Two of the fellows were in France in the front ranks, another had enlisted in the Marines, it seemed that hardly any were left, and of those three had been turned down for some slight physical defect, and were working in munition factories and the ship-yard. Everything was changed. The old playmates had become men with earnest purposes. He did not stay long. There was a restlessness about it all that pulled the strings of his heart, and made him realize how different everything was.
Sunday morning as he walked to church with his mother he wondered why he had never gone more with her when he was at home. It seemed a pleasant thing to do.
The service was beautifully solemn, and Doctor Thurlow had many gracious words to say of the boys in the army, and spent much time reading letters from those at the front who belonged to the church and Sunday school, and spoke of the "supreme sacrifice" in the light of a saving grace; but the sermon was a gentle ponderous thing that got nowhere, spiced toward its close with thrilling scenes from battle news. John Cameron as he listened did not feel that he had found G.o.d. He did not feel a bit enlightened by it. He laid it to his own ignorance and stupidity, though, and determined not to give up the search. The prayer at the close of the sermon somehow clinched this resolve because there was something so genuine and sweet and earnest about it. He could not help thinking that the man might know more of G.o.d than he was able to make plain to his hearers. He had really never noticed either a prayer or a sermon before in his life. He had sat in the room with very few. He wondered if all sermons and prayers were like these and wished he had noticed them. He had never been much of a church goer.
But the climax, the real heart of his whole two days, was after Sunday dinner when he went out to call upon Ruth Macdonald. And it was characteristic of his whole reticent nature, and the way he had been brought up, that he did not tell his mother where he was going. It had never occurred to him to tell her his movements when they did not directly concern her, and she had never brought herself up to ask him. It is the habit of some women, and many mothers.
A great embarra.s.sment fell upon him as he entered the grounds of the Macdonald place, and when he stood before the plate-gla.s.s doors waiting for an answer to his ring he would have turned and fled if he had not promised to come.
It was perhaps not an accident that Ruth let him in herself and took him to a big quiet library with wide-open windows overlooking the lawn, and heavy curtains shutting them in from the rest of the house, where, to his great amazement, he could feel at once at ease with her and talk to her just as he had done in her letters and his own.
Somehow it was like having a lifetime dream suddenly fulfilled to be sitting this way in pleasant converse with her, watching the lights and shadows of expression flit across her sensitive face, and knowing that the light in her eyes was for him. It seemed incredible, but she evidently enjoyed talking to him. Afterwards he thought about it as if their souls had been calling to one another across infinite s.p.a.ce, things that neither of them could quite hear, and now they were within hailing distance.
He had thanked her for the sweater and other things, and they had talked a little about the old school days and how life changed people, when he happened to glance out of the window near him and saw a man in officer"s uniform approaching. He stopped short in the midst of a sentence and rose, his face set, his eyes still on the rapidly approaching soldiers:
"I"m sorry," he said, "I shall have to go. It"s been wonderful to come, but I must go at once. Perhaps you"ll let me go out this way. It is a shorter cut. Thank you for everything, and perhaps if there"s ever another time--I"d like to come again----"
"Oh, please don"t go yet!" she said putting out her hand in protest. But he grasped the hand with a quick impulsive grip and with a hasty: "I"m sorry, but I must!" he opened the gla.s.s door to the side piazza and was gone.
In much bewilderment and distress Ruth watched him stride away toward the hedge and disappear. Then she turned to the front window and caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Wainwright just mounting the front steps. What did it all mean?
IX
Ruth tried to control her perturbation and meet her guest with an unruffled countenance, but there was something about the bland smug countenance of Lieutenant Wainwright that irritated her. To have her first pleasant visit with Cameron suddenly broken up in this mysterious fashion, and Wainwright subst.i.tuted for Cameron was somehow like taking a bite of some pleasant fruit and having it turn out plain potato in one"s mouth. It was so sudden, like that. She could not seem to get her equilibrium. Her mind was in a whirl of question and she could not focus it on her present caller nor think of anything suitable to say to him.
She was not even sure but that he was noticing that she was distraught.
To have John Cameron leave in that precipitate manner at the sight of Harry Wainwright! It was all too evident that he had seen him through the window. But they were fellow townsmen, and had gone to school together!
Surely he knew him! Of course, Harry was a superior officer, but Cameron would not be the kind of man to mind that. She could not understand it.
There had been a look in his face--a set look! There must be something behind it all. Some reason why he did not want to be seen by Wainwright.
Surely Cameron had nothing of which to be ashamed! The thought brought a sudden dismay. What did she know about Cameron after all? A look, a smile, a bit of boyish gallantry. He might be anything but fine in his private life, of course, and Harry might be cognizant of the fact. Yet he did not look like that. Even while the thought forced itself into her mind she resented it and resisted it. Then turning to her guest who was giving an elaborate account of how he had saved a woman"s life in an automobile accident, she interrupted him:
"Harry, what do you know about John Cameron?" she asked impulsively.
Wainwright"s face darkened with an ugly frown.