78
February 1932
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
will allow Uncle Ed to come to the dread word ‘pajamas’ ?” “ [Next day] I was interrupted there in a strange way. After all, Connie, International House holds another who believes, as we do, in that One whom the world so needs in this dark hour, and knows not that it needs! “ There was a knock on my door, and there stood the most interesting ‘ fem,’ as the boys now call us, in Inter national House. She’s a Russian. She’s a personality. She’s a mystery. Have I made you see how attractive she is ? She has that pallor that is somehow luminous, and her eyes have shadows around them. Her accent is bewitching. She always has on a little fur-edged garment—dark—but toned to her chin, and a fur toque. They seem part of her. I never conceived o f her as wearing anything else. Of course I knew she wasn’t born in this garment but, some how, she’s so charming, it doesn’t matter what she wears. And now I’m coming to my climax. My dear, she’s nothing else to wear, and that’s why she always appears in these so characteristic clothes! “ Lingerie! She’s forgotten the very meaning of the word, poor dear! And what shoes! And there was your very own Eleanor with a wardrobe full of gowns! And hats! “ What to do I did not know. I knew she could notappear on the campus in any of my well-known and justly cele brated ensembles. Every one would have recognized them. And yet, there were the clothes; and there, right in the room with them, was the need. All I could think of was the wheat that the world so badly needs being piled up in great stacks, and yet availing nothing. “ And then she began to talk. She said she had seen me carrying a New Testament into Philosophy and had come near to see what I carried it in there for. As it happened, I needed the Word in that class, as the Prof makes a prac tice of slashing at God’s Book, and it does my heart good, and it braces me to open it and read a little of Paul, and note how much more brilliant and clear-headed and logical he is that the aforesaid Prof. So there sat yours affection ately, and at one statement of his, I turned quickly to Romans, and at another to 1 Corinthians 1, where I was re- j oiced to read that theworld by wisdom knew not God. Well, all this my Russian observed, and then she asked who I was and where! And so she came to ask me if it were pos sible that there, in International House, lived another Chris tian besides herself. O f course I very much fell upon her and ate her up quite several times. And then sudden shy ness fell upon us both as it does sometimes when the first surprise o f recognition is past. And it was then that I be gan vainly to babble about my clothes problem, and almost to take into my confidence this strange Russian. Don’t be astonished, Con. Really, she’s a wonder! Her slender lips have a way of quivering when she is listening to some thing that she considers beautiful or wonderful or holy. And she was so exquisite in her utter comprehension o f my embarrassed plunge into my wardrobe that before I real ized it, I was really confiding in her, and telling her all about Uncle Ed’s check and the general problem. “ O Connie! There’s the bell for a class I cannot miss. One more absence and I shall be overcut. All that happened was so unusual—but more of that later on. Yours indefinitely, Eleanor. “ P.S. Her name is Sonia, o f course! All exciting Russians are named Sonia. “ One more P.S. I’ll write the rest of the story in my next letter.—E.”
R E TU RN OF TH E T IDE [Continued from page 72] ceipt demanded, and with his permission, he put the name of Mr. Dolman as the sender. He dropped in often with his friends, the Dolmans, in those days, and at such times he loved to talk o f his father. “ How he does adore his father,” the minister’s wife remarked one day. “ What if his father does not for give him ?” “ Oh, he will forgive him,” her husband answered with a smile. “ That boy knows his father all right.” At last came a boat with mail from the States. There were several letters, and with them the registered letter stamped “ Return to writer.” Penciled across the name was the single word, “ Deceased.” “ Any letters?” Jake asked gaily, as he came into the house, his face aglow with happiness. But his expression grew startled, then sympathetic, as he looked at their faces. The minister stepped close to him and held out his hand, laying the other on his shoulder. “ Bear up, Jake,” he said, “ God will help .you. We have bad news for you. Your father is—gone.” “ What ?” Jake jumped as though he were shot. “ Dead ! My father, dead ! It can’t be.” They handed him the letter. He bent unbelieving eyes on that single word, “ Deceased,” scrawled across the let ter’s front. His face went deathly white, and his stiffened lips barely formed the words, “ Too late.” He put the letter in his pocket and went out. Going to his room, he threw himself on his bed and wept until he was exhausted. The next morning he awoke, still crushed with his sorrow, but a touch o f healing came in the thought that he still had a sister, at least, he thought—he hoped— he had. Where was Marian ? What had she endured since he saw her last ? He hunted for a little snapshot in the flap of his old pocketbook, and looked long at the sweet pic tured face. The next evening, he stopped at the mission for a few minutes and then went on to his room. He took out and gave one long last look at the letter to his father, and with it still in his hand unopened, he walked to the stove and laid it on the coals. He watched it until it was a shimmering bit of ashes. And then he sat down to write to Marian. He did not write so fully as he had written to his father, but he confessed his wrongdoing and told of his deep re pentance for it all. He gave as the best possible news that he was now a saved man. And he begged her for news of herself. The letter was sent registered mail with return receipt demanded, with Mr. Dolman’s name as the.sender. He did not ask so often for letters this time, but one day he heard that mail had còme in on a boat, and he went into the min ister’s home. Mrs. Dolman was standing in the middle of the room with a letter in her hand and a stricken look, on her face. He walked straight to her and took it from her nerveless fingers. Across the face of it was written in a careless scrawl, “ Removed. Address unknown.” He stood a moment with bowed head. When he raised his face, there was only a chastened look of perfect resigna tion. “ It is the Lord,” he said humbly. “ I deserve it all.” And then he repeated the words of David that the minister had used as his text the evening before, “ ‘Behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.’ ” [To be concluded]
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