A day or two after Link returned home Luther Waite came out to see him, and they had a happy evening together planning the winter’s work in the mission.
The talk lasted far into the night, and then, when they had been silent for a brief space, and it seemed they were about to go to sleep, Luther suddenly said:
“By the way, Link, I’ve often thought I’d like to know about what you did to charm that poor simp of a Minnie Lazarelle? How did you get rid of her so easily? How was it she didn’t stick and insist on coming back with you? I’d like to know the charm, in case I ever get stuck with her again. You certainly erased her from the scene in short order. How did you do it?”
Link was so long answering that Luther thought he had fallen asleep and then he suddenly turned facing his guest and talked, slowly, hesitantly.
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, Lute,” he said and his voice had a deep concern. “I don’t know whether I did the right thing or not. Lute, I gave her a bawling out!”
“Well, I should say you did do the right thing. If ever there was a pest needed bawling out, she was it. My only surprise is that she paid any attention to it. I expected to see her return with you, or five minutes after, with a vicious little plausible excuse that almost might have stopped the wedding. You certainly must have made a hit with her or she wouldn’t have paid any attention to you. What on earth did you say to her?”
“Well, I didn’t say much. I guess I just showed how disgusted I was with her. That’s what I mean whether I did the right thing, Lute. We’ve been told again and again that when we reprove we should do it with grace in our hearts. But I was mad, Lute. I had to be the goat, and I wanted her to know I didn’t like it. I guess I wasn’t doing it as unto the Lord. It hadn’t occurred to me that the Lord cared anything about her.”
“H’m!” said Luther thoughtfully. “I suppose He does, doesn’t He? I hadn’t thought of that!”
“Yes, I suppose He does. Cares just as much for her as He does about any of those drunks down at the mission. Yet I didn’t see it then. I just sailed in and bawled her out. I asked her why she wanted to be that way. Didn’t she know people wouldn’t like her like that? Why didn’t she be different? Oh, I don’t remember just what I said, but it was words to that effect. And she—she just slumped. Quit smirking and putting on an act and went down into nothing for all the world like a balloon that I had stuck a pin into. She went down so quick and fast that I actually felt sorry for her! Oh, I gave her a few words more about what she had to do, like a command you know, so she wouldn’t think she could barge back and run the act all over again! I was half afraid she would follow me out when I came away, but she didn’t. Just sat down as meek as you please at the table and acknowledged the introduction to the other boarders like anybody. I stayed outside in the shade of some evergreens for a minute or two to make sure I had placed her.”
“Well, you sure did a good job,” said Luther. “I don’t see why you are doubtful about it.”
“Why, I was afraid I had been too hard on her, all at once showing her herself that way.”
“Say, Link, if she couldn’t stand the sight of her real self once in a while how would she think others could stand her?”
“But, Lute, that wasn’t all of it. I had to deal with her again the next day. It was then the Lord showed me that she was someone He cared about, and I’ve worried a little about it ever since.”
“You should worry, Link! You couldn’t be too harsh on that woman! If she had the nerve to come after you again, I can’t see why you care if you did hurt her!”
“But she didn’t come after me, Lute! It wasn’t her fault at all that I saw her again. She was toiling along on the street all alone, carrying two big heavy suitcases, and looking a good deal like that deflated balloon yet, so I picked her up and took her to the station.”
“You did, you poor simp! Well, you are a sucker! I’d say it was a good thing if she did a thing as useful as carry her own luggage to the station.”
“No, but wait, Lute! Hear the rest. When I drew up alongside of her and told her to get in, her face shone as if a king had asked her to a palace.”
“I’ll bet it did!” affirmed Luther ardently. “That’s her line. I know that shine! Boy! Am I glad I wasn’t in your shoes!”
“Wait, Lute. You don’t understand. She said she was so glad I had spoken to her because there was something she wanted to ask me and she didn’t know how to find me. She said I had told her that she could be different, and she wanted to know if I really meant it, and would I tell her how she could be different? She said she had been trying all her life to make people like her, and nobody ever had. She gave me the impression that even her family hadn’t much use for her, and she’d never had a good time, and if there was any way she could be different so people would like to have her around, and be pleasant to her, she’d give anything if she could find out how.”
Link paused, realized the girl’s need as he had when he had met her, expressed something of his realization in his voice, so that his friend felt it also.
“Boy! That was some situation for you to be up against!” murmured Luther thoughtfully. “But I never would have guessed she cared about anything. I always thought she felt she was about the be-all and end-all!”
“Yes, that’s what I thought too, and I certainly was surprised. It was then I began to be afraid I’d been too hard on her.”
“What did you say? How could you tell her how to be different?”
“That’s what I questioned in my own heart,” said Link slowly as if he were analyzing the situation over again. “I certainly had to do some quick praying, calling for help. How was I to know how to tell a girl how to change her line? And yet I saw it was important, not only to her, but maybe to God, and I didn’t dare let her go off into the world with a great longing in her eyes and heart like that and no one to tell her what to do. I saw she was in earnest, and maybe I’d be the only one she’d ever ask. So I told her what she needed was to know the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Luther Waite was breathless there in the darkness listening.
“Oh boy! What an opportunity!” he breathed. “How did she take that?”
“She took it all right. She said how could she know Him, and asked a lot of hopeless little questions that a child might ask. Lutie, she didn’t know a thing! She’s never, scarcely, been to church or Sunday school at all. Never read the Bible and wouldn’t know what it meant if she did read it. But when I told her the way of salvation, and how knowing Christ could make her all over, she went for it like a drowning person for a rope! It was rather wonderful. I felt when I got done as if some angel had given me a commission to point the way to a lost soul. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t like her any better than I did, but I know what it is to have the kind of love Christ wants us to have for the souls He died to save. She isn’t lovely nor lovable, and she’s full of self and sin of course, but it’s glory when the Lord helps you to see how someone is going to look after He gets them cleansed and saved.”
“Say! That’s wonderful, Link! I know what you mean, I’ve felt it sometimes when I’ve been talking to old Mike down at the mission. It’s when you look at those old bums through the glory of the Lord that you can feel that, and understand. Well, say, Link. I feel condemned! I’ve run from that girl like poison. I’ve hated the very sight of her, because she took me for a ride one day, all day! I couldn’t get rid of her! And to think she would react that way about knowing the Lord! Of course I haven’t known the Lord so very long myself, you know, and I didn’t know Him at all at the time I met her. Maybe that made the difference. Maybe such contacts would always be bearable if one was traveling with the Lord. I was just traveling by myself in those days. I suppose if one went at a disagreeable thing like meeting somebody you didn’t like, as if it were a commission from the Lord, it wouldn’t be so hard to manage. I can see it’s the way the Lord meant us to do about everyone. It makes life a lot more serious, doesn’t it?”
“It sure does, Lutie,” said Link solemnly.
It was the very next morning, before Luther left, that Link had a letter from Minnie Lazarelle, thanking him for the Bible.
He read it thoughtfully and then handed it over to Luther to read. And afterward, when they were on their way to town together they talked it over.
The letter was frank, but with none of the old gush that used to typify the old Minnie. It was almost dignified, and Luther read it with wonder in his glance. He felt as if he were reading a part of a miracle.
Dear Mr. Silverthorn:
The day after I reached home the wonderful Bible came. Even if it hadn’t been something I needed very much, it would have thrilled me, it is so beautiful. I cannot thank you enough for taking all that trouble for a poor good-for-nothing girl like me. And to think you sent such a gorgeous one! Its beauty along would make me read it, even if I hadn’t promised. I love just to feel the soft leather in my hands. Nobody ever got anything lovely like that for me. I think it must be that God put it into your heart to buy it, and He picked it out Himself. That is if He really cares, the way you said He did.
I haven’t had time to write and thank you any sooner because I came into an awful mess here. My stepmother was sick, the maid had left, and the children were running wild. Formerly I would have run away somewhere myself to get out of it. But something, I guess it was the bawling out you gave me, made me stay and see it through. But it’s not because I wasn’t grateful that I didn’t write sooner. I just haven’t had time.
But here’s thanking you with all my heart for the Bible. I’ve begun it read it already, and if I never get to see you again on this earth, I’ll thank you in heaven.
By the way, if you should happen to run across my young brother Timothy, you might tell him how to be made over. He doesn’t know a think about God. And now he’s run away. The children say he didn’t like it here and said he was going back there where we used to live. I thought perhaps he would turn up in your city. He’ll be trying for a job somewhere. He didn’t have much money along.
I thought perhaps I ought to do something about him, as my father sailed for China or somewhere far off, and he’ll likely be gone a year or two.
If you should fine him, please tell him his mother is very sick and she keeps crying for him. I think she isn’t going to live long. The doctor says it’s very serious.
I’m sorry to trouble you again, but I don’t know who else to ask, and I suppose somebody ought to look after him. If you find a trace of him I’ll telegraph some money for him to come back. We’ve still got plenty of that.
You probably don’t know that Minnie isn’t my real name. I was christened Erminie after my grandmother. So I thought if I was going to live a new life I’d better have a new name, and I’m signing it here,
Your grateful friend,
Ermine Lazarelle
When Luther finished reading the letter he handed it back to Link.
“We gotta find that kid brother,” he said thoughtfully. “Poor kid! I’ll get after some of the detectives and see if we can’t locate him.”
Link’s eyes lighted up.
“Good work, Lutie! Hop to it!” he said.
The eyes of the two young men met with a look of utter joy in the work they were trying to do, and afterward when Luther had gone on his way, Link marveled at how soon Luther’s whole attitude had changed toward the girl he had so despised.