Where Two Ways Met (12 page)

“That’s great! Now, I’ll just see my man gets into bed comfortably, and then we’ll start. He’s had a good lunch, coffee and sandwiches, and won’t need anything more till he wakes up.”

“That’s splendid. I’ll go tell the nurse. I promised I’d be back late this afternoon and get dinner so she could get a nap before night. Dad will bring me out.”

“Okay. And I’ll be out here after you later. There’ll likely be other things to do. I’ll drive right out from the office as early as I can get away.”

“And by the way,” said June, “Mother has an easy-to-eat hot lunch for us ready the minute we get there right now. I told her you had to get back to the office and wouldn’t have any time to eat.”

“Oh, that is kind, but I don’t need a lunch. I’ve often gone without.”

“Of course you have,” laughed June, “but this is one time you don’t have to. Soup and coffee and chicken sandwiches and pumpkin pie and cheese don’t take long to eat.”

“Oh, boy!” said Paige. “Sure I’ll stay. Even if I get fired from my job for being late, I’ll stay.”

“Well, you needn’t get fired this time,” laughed June. “Mother knows you have to go at once, so you needn’t stand on ceremony. And she’ll have something you can eat quickly.”

It was a pleasant drive, and Paige had a delicious, quick lunch and soon was speeding back to the office, thinking what a quiet, pleasant home the new manse had become, and how understandable it was with a background like that, that June should be so different from so many other girls. Was it thinkable that Reva Chalmers might have been like that with a mother and father such as June had?

The thought flitted through his mind that perhaps riches and ambition dominated sweetness and quietness. But he put it away and turned his thoughts to the immediate afternoon and what the office would have in store for his faculties. He had spent too much time on outside matters in the last twenty-four hours, and it behooved him to get right down to business and work fast. Tonight he would run out to Shambley’s and see how things were doing and get the doctor’s slant on the patients, and then perhaps he would be able to bring June home again.

That thought was pleasant.

W
hen Paige drew up at the Shambley house late that afternoon and stopped his car not far from the window that opened into Nannie’s room, he thought he heard the little girl crying again, and he sat still to listen. Was the child worse? Perhaps he ought to go for the doctor or after something that was needed for her.

“I’m glad you’ve come, Miss June,” came the sorrowful little girl’s words between sobs. “I got afraid again.”

“But my dear, what were you afraid of?” asked June’s gentle voice.

“I was just afraid I might get dying again. Every—body—hasta die—sometime, don’t they?”

“Why, yes,” said June, “but if you have the Lord Jesus in your heart, it is nothing to be afraid of. It is only your body that dies then, but your spirit goes straight to be with Jesus, and He loves you, you know. He won’t let any harm come to you.”

“But—I’ve been—awful bad—sometimes—and—and—He would know that mebee, and He wouldn’t like me and would mebbe send me out of heaven.”

“Oh, no, He would never send anybody who belonged to Him out away from Him. He loves you, and He took all your sin on Himself, just as if He Himself had done it, and then He paid the death price when He died on the cross for you, so there is nothing against you anymore. When you accepted Him as your Savior, that meant that you had the right to all His righteousness. So you don’t have to live under your old sins, because Jesus Christ will live in you and cover you with His own righteousness.”

“How do you know that, Miss June?” asked the timid little voice. “What makes you think He would do that for me?”

“Because the Bible says so, my dear. See, I have marked it with a red pencil in your own little Bible that I am leaving for you, dear, and you can read it for yourself as often as you get afraid. It says, ‘Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.’ There are a lot more verses in there that tell you how He loved you and died for you. I have marked a few of them, and when you get better you can read them for yourself.”

“Oh, thank you,” said the small sad voice, “but don’t you think He’ll forget me when you’re gone home?
Just me?
He wouldn’t want to bother with me.”

“No, my dear. He has said, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’ He won’t forget you, because He loves you and died for you. And the Bible says He has a book of remembrance, where the names of all those that fear the Lord and think upon His Name are written, and your name is there. He cannot forget you. You are His own. He never forsakes His own. He says He will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities He will remember no more, and in another place He says, ‘I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.’ Now, can’t you rest your heart on those words and go to sleep? Your head is nice and cool. You haven’t hardly a speck of fever, and when you wake up, the nurse will have a nice little pleasant supper for you.”

“I’ll try,” the young voice said trustingly, and then Paige could hear soft steps, the closing of a door, and June came quietly out to meet him. He saw by her eyes that she was glad he was there.

June reported that the father was still asleep, had been asleep ever since he came home at noon, and the doctor had been in to see him and seemed pleased. She had the dinner nicely started, the table set, things in the oven getting their finishing touches. The nurse had promised to call on the telephone if she needed any help, and to see that Mr. Shambley roused to eat some supper. There would be no need for them to come back that night unless she sent for them.

Then Paige suddenly felt disappointment. He wanted this pleasant association to go on.

“I was very much interested in the way you quieted Nannie’s fears,” he said as they started home. “The car was just outside the window and I couldn’t help hearing. It was wonderful the way you had all those verses on the tip of your tongue.”

“Oh,” said June, with a compassionate look at the young man, “I’ve known all those verses since I was a child. I presume you do, too, if you stopped to think about it.”

“Well, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have had even the most familiar ones right on tap the way you did, and known which to use. I learned verses, of course, when I was a child, but it is so long since I’ve paid any attention to them that I doubt if I could finish more than half a dozen if I were to start.”

“You probably could,” said June. “Verses like those are not so easily forgotten.”

Paige was still for a full minute, then he said shamedly, “Well, you see, I was fairly familiar with the main facts in the Bible. I was a pretty good church member, I thought. I was doing church work to a certain extent. I always went to church. But it didn’t really impress itself upon me as something I ought to do, to read the Bible much. I felt that I had been well brought up by Christian parents and that was all I needed. I guess not many of us fellows that went over really thought that we were going to be killed, or got any idea there was likelihood we might. Not till we got over there and were about to start out on our own on some mission. Then I’ll own I was really scared and began to search around in my mind for something I had been taught that would still that awful beating of my heart, and that appalling vacancy in my stomach. It took the nearness of the enemy to start that, I guess, and I would have given the world and all for somebody to tell me what to do, what to think—even what to pray. For somehow I couldn’t really pray out there, only little stilted, formal sentences, like ‘God help me.’ And I was wondering while I heard you talking to Nannie, suppose I had met you for a few minutes out there before I went out to meet the enemy, suppose I had asked you for help. What would you have said?”

June looked at him keenly, studying his face, and saw he was in earnest. Then after a moment she answered: “Why, I would have asked you if you had ever willingly been crucified with Christ. Not just joined the church, but given up your whole self into His keeping; not just accepted Christ as your Savior, but really been willing to die to the things of the flesh, the things of this world. Did you ever come to that place where you could honestly say, ‘I am crucified’?”

“Do you mean that if I never did that I wouldn’t be saved?”

“No,” said June. “There are many Christians who really believe but never get to the place of privilege where they have surrendered everything and trust it all to Christ. If you are crucified with Christ, then you have the right to claim His risen power in your life. That means that we are identified with Christ in His death and have a right to the power that He brought out of the tomb when He rose from the dead. Why should one who has that power be afraid of death? Death was the last foe that He conquered, and death cannot hurt those who have once been crucified with Christ. Do you see?”

“That is a strange new doctrine to me,” said Paige solemnly. “I’ll have to think that over. I can see it is higher ground than I have ever thought was attainable on this earth. I would like to talk this over with you again when I have thought about it more. I wish it might be this evening, but I have an appointment with my boss tonight. He has some new plans to unfold to me. I’m not anticipating it with pleasure. I don’t feel anchored enough myself to meet new phases of life. I wish—”

“I’ll be praying for you,” June said with a smile, as they turned into her driveway, and he knew they must part.

“Thank you,” said Paige. “I have a hunch I shall need it. I don’t know what is coming next. But I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“Well, here’s a bit of poem for you that may help:

“That’s wonderful. Give me a copy of that, please.”

“I will. It’s something I found in a book.”

“Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

And then they parted.

June went into the house, and her mother met her just inside the door with an anxious look on her face.

“Your Aunt Letitia has fallen down the stairs and broken her hip. Your uncle just telephoned. She wants to know if you can come and run the house for her for a few weeks till Ella gets out of service. She’s a nurse, you know, overseas, and there may be some delay about her getting home, but Aunt Letitia feels that everything will be all right till her daughter gets home, if you are there. You know Uncle Barnard is pretty feeble, and she will fret a lot if she has to go off to a hospital and leave him, but she has a good nurse, and a doctor who is devoted to them both, so it won’t be strenuous for you. Do you think you should go, child?”

June’s face was blank for a moment. Somehow this wasn’t the pleasant next event that she was hoping for. It looked like a long, hard task, no matter how many nurses were on duty, but she managed a faint smile.

“Yes, of course, I
should
,” she sighed. “But Mother, you’ll have to take over Nannie. She needs a lot of help just now, spiritually.”

“Yes, of course, child. I’ll look after them all. And Miss Randall will help, too, when I can’t go. She’s a splendid help, and you know she’s home for the summer now, so you needn’t worry about me. But I’m sorry about your summer. I wish there were some other way out, but perhaps it won’t be long before Ella gets home. We’ll be hoping for that. Oh, dear child! I can’t bear to let you go again when you’ve just got home to us.”

“Yes, I know,” said June, with a catch in her breath and tears in her eyes. “But I can’t say no. They’ve always done so much for us.”

“Of course,” said her mother. “And now, I’ve looked up the trains, and your best one leaves at quarter to twelve, midnight. Dad telephoned down and got you a sleeper reservation, so I guess it’s all fixed. I knew you would feel you must go. And now, dear child, come in and have some supper, and then we’ll go up and get your suitcase packed.”

Gravely June ate her supper and went upstairs to get her packing done. This was going to be hard. Aunt Letitia was one who was very particular and hard to please, and never by any chance did things in the way that June had been brought up to do them. It would mean her way must be sweetly put aside, and she must produce as good results as she could, working by strange methods. No, she didn’t want to go, but she knew it was right that she should, and therefore, of course she would go.

It was not until she was comfortably settled in her berth and trying to calm herself to sleep that she discovered in the back of her mind the real reason why she did not want to go. She was having too good a time here at home, doing church work with that nice, pleasant, generous young man who lived across the street.

And therefore, likely that was the reason why the Lord was sending her away. That young man was under the employ of the father of another girl, a girl who had no intention of letting him stray away from her world, and she ought to have seen that at once and been aware that such a friendship was not an abiding one for her.

So, she prayed in her heart and told her Lord it was all right, whatever He wanted her to do, and she would try to put such thoughts away and do her best in this new plan He had apparently marked out for her.

Then she remembered the little poem Paige had asked for, and thought that out. She had promised it, and she could write it out on a slip of paper and send it off from the station in the morning, without any return address. Then there would be no danger of his thinking that she was trying to start a correspondence. How should she word the note? Just the poem on a slip of paper, and a word to explain: