Chapter 13

The winter came on with a snap. Sharp winds searched the little house on Meachin Street, and Thurlow was kept busy in his spare hours chopping wood to feed the voracious little stoves that roared away all day and sometimes all night. They had learned how to bank even these small fires and kept the house tolerably warm on the worst nights, except, of course, the bedrooms where the windows were open.

The inhabitants of Meachin Street just could not understand that custom the Reeds had of leaving their windows open at night. Mrs. O’Hennessy came over to see about it one morning when she smelled a particularly appetizing odor from the Reed kitchen.

“You all forgot to shet yer winders las’ night,” she said casually, just as though she hadn’t noticed it now these three weeks and talked it all over with the slatternly Mrs. Butts before she ventured to come and find out what could possibly be the cause of so strange a phenomenon as an open window on a cold night.

Mother Reed looked up, suddenly realizing the diligent espionage that must be kept over them by their neighbors, that such a matter should be noticed.

“Oh, no,” she said with a smile. “We meant to leave them open. We always have our bedroom windows open at night. We think it is healthier to have fresh air while we are sleeping.”

Mrs. O’Hennessy stared.

“Yer takin’ an awful chance!” she warned. “I knowed a woman forgot ta shut her winders one night an’ all her childer got ammonia an’ died twoncet! They had a double fun’ral! Five childer all in one grave. Course it come cheaper. But then ya havta think o’ the childer. Still some don’t set much store by childer. It’s all as yer raised.”

Mrs. Reed tried to smile casually.

“Well, we were raised to have our windows open at night,” she said pleasantly. “We’ve always done it and never suffered any evil effects from it yet. Indeed, I don’t think any of us could get to sleep without fresh air coming in; it makes so much more restful sleep, you know. Just try it sometime, Mrs. O’Hennessy, and see.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dast,” said the old woman, shrinking and shaking her head. “I’d get the rheumatiz. I can’t stand bein’ so awful cold. Don’t youse ‘most freeze?”

“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Reed, “we have plenty of blankets and an eider down quilt apiece.”

“What’s that?” asked the old woman sharply.

“An eider down quilt? Why, it’s a quilt made of down, feathers, you know.”

“Aw! A feather bed. Why’n’tya say so? Yeah, I know what them is. I useta hev one when I was fust married. But it got so alive I hed ta burn it up. Don’t youse hev trouble keepin’ the bugs outta yours?”

Mrs. Reed shuddered slightly but answered serenely, “Oh, no, we never have bugs. We hang our things out often and air them, and we keep them very clean always.”

“Aw, well, I couldn’t be bothered!” said Mrs. O’Hennessy languidly. “I jus’ burned mine up. Anyways the mice hed et a hole in mine an’ the feathers was all comin’ out. Say, what’s that yer bakin’ now?”

“Why, that’s gingerbread. Would you like a piece?”

“That? Gingerbread? I never seen none as purty an’ shiny as that on top. Looks more like cake! You sure hev a lot o’ new notions. Sure, I don’t mind samplin’ it. It smells mighty good. I’ll try anythin’ oncet.”

Mrs. Reed laughed aloud as she cut a generous square of hot gingerbread.

“Well then, try opening your window some night,” she said with a twinkle, “and see how much better you sleep. You know the fresh air destroys germs.”

“Oh, we don’t have none o’ those,” said the old woman with her mouth full of hot cake. “We hev bugs, but we don’t hev no germs. I never see one. Whadda they look like? D’ they bite?”

“No, you can’t see them,” said Mrs. Reed, trying not to break into peals of laughter, “but they are there. They get into the air you breathe and get into your nose and your mouth and make sickness, fevers, all sorts of disease. It’s a good deal like sin you know, everywhere around us. Fresh air drives out germs, and the blood of Christ washes away sin.”

“Say, youse are superstitious, ain’t ya? I never hold with them ideas about catchin’ things. I say ef yer gonta hev um, ye’ll hev um, an’ what’s the use worryin’? I jes’ wear a rabbit’s foot an’ don’t think no more about it.”

She hauled out a dirty string from around her neck with a filthy bit of fur at the end and gave her toothless laugh.

“But the blood of Christ is not superstition,” said Mrs. Reed gently. “It is something that has been done for you and me, once for all. A cleansing from sin. And you can have it just by taking it.

“Aw, well, hev it yer own way. I can’t be bothered! I gotta get home an’ start the stew fer dinner. Thankee fer the cake. It’s good.”

She eyed the remaining loaf hungrily, and the tenderhearted hostess could not refrain from giving her another big piece. Poor old soul! She could not understand about the remedy for sin, but her heart and soul cried out for a little of the good things of this life, and who knew but she could be reached sometime even through a bite of cake?

“I wish you’d go with us to our chapel meeting sometime,” Mrs. Reed said impulsively as she handed over the gingerbread.

“What! Me? Go ta church! Ha! Ha!” The old woman threw back her head and laughed, showing all her toothless gums. “Why, they’d drive me out the door. Me in these rags? Naw, I can’t go ta no chapel! My time’s past! Goob-bye! I gotta get back! Thankee!” And she clumped down the steps and away to her shack.

The Reeds had been going regularly to the chapel all the fall. Thurlow’s hours were such at present that he had most of his evenings off, and he had been fairly regular at the service, seeming to enjoy the work of leading the singing and occasionally singing solos for them.

Sandra Cameron was usually there and always smiled and chatted with them a few minutes at the close of the service when she was able to linger, but of late she had been hurrying away. She said her cousin was not well and was worried at her being out after dark.

Rilla looked after her wistfully one evening as she hurried away and said with a sigh as they went down the aisle, “I do wish we lived somewhere where we dared ask her to come and see us sometime! She’s lovely!”

“Well, we don’t!” said Thurlow almost sharply. “She wouldn’t want to come, and I wouldn’t want to put her in the position of having to refuse.”

“I believe she would come,” said Mother Reed thoughtfully.

“Well, she’s not going to be asked!” said Thurlow almost savagely. “She knows where we live, and that’s enough. It was night when she was there. Perhaps she didn’t take in the dump, nor the O’Hennessy mansion. I’d rather she didn’t see any more of it than she has. She’s a thoroughbred!”

“She’s no more thoroughbred than you are, my son!” rebuked his mother gravely. “Your grandfathers and grandmothers on both sides were cultured, refined people.”

“Oh yes,” said Thurlow wearily, “the only difference being that I’m not working at it just now.”

“I hope you’re not dropping your refinements and culture just because, for the time being, you are directing traffic.”

“Well, no, I hope not, but I’m in a pretty seamy environment right now, Mother, and the least said about it the better. I’m not complaining, but there’s no need to drag any new acquaintances in on it. Miss Cameron is very nice and pleasant, and we both enjoy the same church services. It’s good, of course, to know there is a girl like that, but let it go at that! Don’t let’s force ourselves on her.”

“Of course not!” said the mother with a sigh.

“Well, we had a wonderful meeting tonight, anyway, didn’t we?” said Rilla. “I thought Thurl sang the best I ever heard him. And wasn’t Miss Cameron’s voice beautiful in that hymn she sang? She let on she couldn’t sing much, but I thought it was great!”

“Yes,” said Thurlow heartily, “it is a wonderful voice. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to know she had studied with some famous teacher abroad. And yet she is so humble about it!”

“Yes, she’s so humble and sweet,” said the mother. “I would certainly like to hear you two sing together!” Her voice was wistful.

“Well, don’t you suggest it!” said Thurlow stormily. “If you do, I won’t go down here to service anymore.”

“Why, certainly not, son. You know better than to think I would.”

“Well, Rilla might!” said the boy half ashamed.

“Oh, certainly, blame it on me!” said Rilla a little bitterly. “I’m not refined, you know. I’m not a thoroughbred and wouldn’t know any better!”

“You’re just as much of a thoroughbred as she is, Rill dear,” her brother said earnestly. “I beg your pardon for being so savage. I just don’t want you, either of you, to do anything silly about getting me to sing.”

“Of course not!” said the mother. “Now, Thurl, put that out of your head. Let’s just be thankful we’ve got a place where we can worship that isn’t too far for me to walk and isn’t too unpleasant for you two to enjoy.”

“That’s right, Mother! We are!” said the young man fervently. “I certainly enjoy that preacher, and I like his Monday night Bible classes, too. I hope my hours don’t change too often so I can attend. I never realized before how much there was to the Bible that I didn’t understand. It’s getting pretty deep under my skin, in spite of all the atheism you were afraid I had picked up in college. I guess having trouble has helped me to know I needed something outside of myself.”

“Thank the Lord for trouble then!” said his mother.

Then the very next day, as he was standing in the middle of the broad avenue in the heart of the shopping district directing traffic, Sandra came riding by in a great, shining limousine, with a chauffeur in livery driving and her pettish, old, spoiled, unhappy cousin sitting by her side.

She was wearing a beautiful squirrel coat and a chic, little hat with a tiny, bright quill stuck aslant, and soft white gloves wrinkled at the wrist. The window was open beside her, and he could have reached out his hand and touched the fur on her shoulder, so near she was.

She didn’t see him, of course, wouldn’t have known him if she had. He had never told her what his business was. She would not expect him to be a policeman.

It gave him a strange feeling to have her going by so close, a thrill of something he had never felt before. She was talking to the older woman, and just as they passed in front of him and paused for the light to change, she looked up and smiled! Of course she didn’t recognize him and had no idea the traffic cop was anyone she knew. But the thrill of that smile lingered with him all the afternoon and lit up his heart even as it lit up her lovely eyes. Blue eyes with a true look and a smile in them, young tender lips, their natural color untouched by art, cheeks with a soft hint of rose. Hair with sunlight in its very essence, straying out from under the aristocratic little hat, waving with the lovely curves of nature, not flat and hard like some girls’ waves.

He thought of the testimony she had given in the meeting the night before, how true it rang, what inner depths of communion with her God it bespoke, how yielded to the Lord she seemed. He was glad there was such a girl in the world. She seemed all that his ideal would have in a woman, if he were a young man who had a right to have an ideal woman and dwell upon her in his thoughts, if he were not a man set apart from the ordinary life that most men expected, with a family and a job to look after.

Then without any reason at all, there came a thought of Barbara Sherwood, bitterly, as if in unpleasant contrast. Barbara who had always been his ideal! Barbara who had held his heart in the hollow of her small, dictatorial hand! Barbara who had gone out from his world without a regret or a tear, with a cheerful smile on her lips and a trill of a laugh and a kiss that meant nothing at all. Barbara who had sent him a trail of postcards and snapshots from her progress around the world and not a single real letter! Postcards with hasty, bright descriptions: “I swam in the pool this morning. The water was perfectly spiffy. Yours, aff. Barb.” Or “We did this gallery this morning. Just the type of art I love. Barbara.” Or “Climbed this tower today. The view is darling! Met a man on the top who was on the ship. He is taking us on his yacht tomorrow. B.”

More and more impersonal they had grown, and all of them sent to his college address. Barbara didn’t know yet, and he didn’t intend to enlighten her. He hadn’t written her at all, and she hadn’t even seemed to notice the lack yet!

He sighed as he realized how far his life had gone from hers, how utterly apart they were now. Even if it were not for his change of social station and his lack of money and his lowly position in life, even if he did not live on Meachin Street, what would she have in common with him anymore? Could he tell her about the progress he was making in patching up the picket fence nights, or in hanging paper on the bedroom ceilings? Could he describe to her the pleasant little white chapel called Grace to which his heart turned wearily when his work was done, and how he had begun to enjoy his work there of singing messages of life to sorrowful sinners? Would she be interested if he should tell her how he hoped that poor old tramp with whom he had talked the night before had really been saved before he went out into the wind and cold and loneliness of a ruined life? Would Barbara understand when he spoke of being saved? He had always known about it himself but not as he knew now, since he had been attending the Bible classes and mingling with these simple people at the mission who talked in plain terms of salvation as if it were the most important thing of life. Would Barbara Sherwood be at all in sympathy with these things? Would she let him talk to her about it? He doubted it. Barbara was a member of the same church as himself. They had both joined at the age of about fourteen when a lot of their friends were joining. Had it meant any more to her than it had to him then? He wondered. He was just beginning to learn that it meant something new to him now, to suspect a sweetness in the Christian life that he had never dreamed of before. But would Barbara even understand him if he were to try to tell her about this new experience that had come to him since he in his dismay and desolation had accepted what the Lord offered him and made a new surrender of his life to his Savior?

It was just then he sighed, and perhaps some of the passing crowd wondered at the stern young face above the blue uniform, the face that was red with the biting winter blast and stern with an air of authority as he raised his hand or blew his whistle and directed the throng of winter shoppers into the early twilight of the cold December day.

And just then Sandra came by again.

He would have thought that she had two presences, or that his eyes had deceived him the first time and it had not been her at all, except that she was still wearing the sumptuous squirrel coat and the chic little hat.

She had changed her white gloves for gray driving gloves, and she was in her own little car, coming steadily on toward him. Suddenly his heart gave a great thump and turned right over. She was driving slowly in the line of traffic, obviously halting so the light would stop her, and she was looking straight at him and smiling. She recognized him! She was going to speak to him! Perhaps even her other smile had been for him! His heart turned over once more at the thought, and then he took himself sternly in hand and was the perfect cop again.

“I was hoping you’d be here yet,” she said, leaning out of her open window and smiling into his face, speaking with a low, confidential voice that yet was clear enough to understand.

“Take this paper quick!” she said, holding out a small song sheet to him. “Take it before I have to drive on. It’s a new song Mr. Wheeler wants us to sing next Sunday. It fits his sermon. Will you and Rilla try it over at home, and then could you stop at my house sometime when you’re off duty and let us try it over together? I’ve put my address and phone number on the back, and you can let me know what hour will be convenient.”

He took the paper wonderingly and looked at her.

“You mean you want me to sing with you? You mean you think I could do it?”

“None better!” She smiled. “I knew you’d do it for me.” And then it was time for him to give the signal for her to move on. The drivers behind her were screeching their horns impatiently for attention. He flashed her a smile and put his whistle to his lips. Their two smiles darted across through traffic and disappeared in each other’s eyes, and something seemed to have delayed the setting of the sun for a while, for the very twilight grew luminous around him. Something was singing inside him that had not sung for a long time.

Yet it did not make him less alert in the business of the hour. He swung his signals skillfully, blew his whistle keenly whenever a trespasser sought to steal through the signals, and lifted a commanding hand to stay the throngs of hurrying shoppers. His every sense seemed quickened by that bright vision in the little car that had lingered a moment to speak to him. His heart was warmed, strengthened by that girl’s friendliness. He was only a policeman, and yet she had wanted him to sing with her. Her! A girl who wore costly fur coats and rode in limousines! Things like that loomed so large just now on his horizon. He hadn’t thought they meant so much before he lost them, but now he was always thinking that they meant abnormally much to other people.

Suddenly he sensed a tragedy approaching. A reckless driver, determined to run past the light with no intention of obeying signals, and a lady approaching timidly across his way. The man would never stop in time; his brakes too late were screaming but would not hold, and the lady was bewildered!

There was no time to consider. It was like a crucial moment on the football field. Thurlow dashed into the situation without an instant’s hesitation, putting a powerful arm around the woman and swinging her off her feet and back into safety just in time, himself barely escaping with a bruised thigh. The lady, frightened, trembling, was set safely upon the sidewalk, and the throng surged on again while Thurlow dealt with the driver, who by this time was badly scared and only wanted to escape.

There was no time to notice the lady. If he had ever seen her before, he was not aware of it, and when he turned in a moment’s interval to see if she was all right, he could not tell which one she was. But the singing was in his heart, and the sheet of the song was in his pocket right over his heart. It was after five o’clock, and the throng was going home. His hours would soon be over now, and he could go home, too, and try out the song. The incident of saving a lady’s life was all in the day’s work, and he had forgotten it. Only the comfortable sense that he had averted a catastrophe remained with him, as a background.

That evening—about the time that Thurlow, having changed from his uniform into comfortable working garb, stood by the piano while Rilla played over the song that Sandra had given him—the George Steeles were just answering the call to dinner. It was a quiet home dinner with no guests, and the preliminaries of the meal being over, Mrs. Steele looked up at her husband and said in a calm tone, “Well, George, I nearly got killed this afternoon.”

Her husband dropped his knife and fork and looked at her with blanching face. He knew it had really been an escape if she would own that much.

“Mamma!” he ejaculated tremulously, like a frightened child.

“You needn’t think it was my fault.” Her voice was trembling just the least little bit. “I waited till the signal was my way. Just as you said I should. I wasn’t looking around at traffic at all, and I was walking quietly across the street, right in front of the library where the traffic is the worst from Forty-Second Street, and the first thing I knew, the grandest, big, young policeman with nice eyes that looked like somebody I knew had his arm around my waist and swung me up right off the street as if I were a bundle of rags, and a great big sports car slid by us with the brakes screeching terribly! I didn’t really know what was happening until it was all over, and then I realized that something big and fearful had been over me, its breath almost brushing my cheek, and that nothing could have saved me from being crushed to death if that wonderful young man hadn’t risked his life and swept me out of it. I know he risked his life, because there was one second when I felt that we were both in the very jaws of death and nothing could save us, and the next minute he had me out and was setting me down on the sidewalk on my feet and limping back to his place in the middle of the street.”

“Yes?” said Papa Steele sharply.

“That’s all, George, only he did limp, and rubbed his hip a little as he went back, and I completely forgot to thank him till he was back in the middle of that awful traffic again, and I didn’t dare go back to thank him! I was all out of breath and trembling all over. So I just took a taxi and came home. But I did remember to get his number. It was seventy-seven, George, and I wish you’d do something nice for him. He was just wonderful! And you ought to have seen him talking to the man in the sports car. I think he arrested him, but I didn’t stay to see. But he did have nice eyes. I’m sure I’ve seen those eyes before somewhere. You’ll do something nice for him, won’t you, George?”

“I certainly will!” said the great business magnate fervently.

And then he shoved his chair back, came around to his wife’s side of the table, and, stooping down, lifted her right out of her chair and folded her in his arms, putting his big face down in her neck and kissing her.

“Mamma!” he said. “Mamma!”