Patricia (10 page)

Patricia looked at the picture for a long minute, and then she said, her voice very tender, “I didn't know about the baby. I'm sorry. And you are such a lovely mother! She's missed a lot, not having you!”

“Oh, but she's been with the heavenly Feyther!” said the mother, with a sudden bright smile. “And—I shall go to her someday. Then we'll have each other forever. Abut whiles I like to see a pretty lass like you, and think what my wee Margaret might have been if the Feyther had chose to leave her here awhile. Noo, get yersel' dressed, lassie, and come you out to eat a little supper with us. Then John'll find a way to be taking you home when the storm is over.”

“Oh, but I can walk home by myself,” said Patricia. “John must not take any more trouble for me. That is, I can walk home if you will just point out the way to the main road. I think I'm a little turned around now. This house is not very near the road, is it? When I came I didn't do much looking around.”

“It's quite a walk, dearie,” said Mrs. Worth. “My lad will be glad to see you home, but we'll wait a little till the storm is by. Noo, here's a comb an' brush. And here are towels and water. Just make yourself at home. I'll run out and look after my scones. We'll have a bit supper as soon as you're ready.”

Patricia hurried with her dressing and was soon ready to go out. But before she opened the door she went over to the row of John's pictures and studied them again. Then she sighed.

Such a nice boy he was, with such a sweet mother! Why couldn't Thorny have been like that? Would she have to be bothered with Thorny all her life, or had she angered him and was he done? She sincerely hoped he was angry and would never come again, although she knew that if that was the case she would have to account for it to her mother, and she and her father would have an uncomfortable time of it until Thorny was placated and brought back. Oh, why did Mother like a boy like that?

Then with one more long look at John's pictures and a lingering glance at the dear old house in Scotland, she went out.

She could see through the door of the living room out into the kitchen, where John's mother was stooping down to the open oven door and a delectable aroma of hot gingerbread filled the air. She was very hungry, and suddenly she realized that she had had no lunch. She had gone all day on excitement and now the aroma of the cooking made her ravenous. She stood in the kitchen doorway looking at the big pan of gingerbread that Mrs. Worth was cutting into lovely squares, deftly placing them on a big platter. She looked up and smiled, and Patricia smiled back shyly.

“That looks wonderful!” she said with eyes aglow.

“You want a piece now while it's hot, don't you, lassie? My lad likes it best when it's hot, too.”

She plumped a generous piece on a pretty china plate and handed it over.

“There! Take that in the room there and sit by the fire with feyther. He wants to pass the time of day with ye.”

Patricia took the plate gratefully and went in to the fireplace, looking down at the wonderful velvety, shining brown crust. It looked better than anything she had ever eaten in her life.

“That's right, lass,” said John's father, smiling her a welcome and pointing to a low rocker on the other side of the hearth, “come, let's get acquainted.”

Patricia sat down and then looked doubtfully down at her gingerbread.

The kind eyes of the man smiled at her.

“Eat it up, lassie, while it's hot,” he advised. “It's best that way. Mother will bring me a bit presently. You're not to wait on me. I'm an invalid, I'm sorry to say, and they baby me.”

Patricia smiled and began to eat the delectable cake, and she reflected that here was a man her father would enjoy knowing. Would she dare to tell him about him sometime?

Patricia found it easy to talk with John Worth's father. He had kind, twinkly eyes, and he seemed glad that she was there.

Then John stamped up on the porch, wiping his feet hard on a mat outside, and came in with a brimming pail of milk.

“Had to come in this door, Father,” he explained apologetically. “It's fair a flood at the back door. But it's lightening up a little now. It won't be long before the storm is over. Will your mother be worrying, Pat?” he asked anxiously.

Patricia gave him a quick smile.

“No, not worried,” she said thoughtfully. “She thinks I'm with people—a person—who will take care of me.”

John grinned comprehendingly.

“I see,” he said. “Well, you are, you know. I promise you that!”

“Yes,” said Patricia, “and a great deal better than—any of the others.” Her eyes met John's, and a quick little message passed from eye to eye. “I'll never be able to thank you for the way you did it.”

He gave her the look an old friend gives, as he passed into the kitchen with his pail of milk.

Patricia sat there thinking what a nice time she was having and hoping she wouldn't have to spoil it all when she got home by explaining everything.

Suddenly she looked up and found John's father's eyes upon her kindly.

“I think it is beautiful here,” she said with childlike frankness. “I should think you would be very happy here, all shut in from the rain and the world.”

“Oh, I am,” the invalid said, smiling. “Of course, I would like to be well and strong again and go out and work for my beloved ones, but since I may not, it is good to be here with them.”

“It is very homelike,” she said. “I like this house.”

“But you live in a very beautiful home, they tell me.”

“Yes, I guess so,” sighed Patricia reflectively, “but it isn't a home like this. We never sit down by an open fire and just enjoy it. My father has to be away a great deal on business, and my mother likes the house all kind of cleared up and empty as if you always expected a lot of company and couldn't act like yourself. Of course, it's my home, and I like it all right. But this house is so cozy. I like it here. Is that building in the picture up there in Scotland?” Patricia pointed to a large photograph of a columned structure hanging over the mantel.

“No,” said Mr. Worth, “that's in this country. That's my college where I used to teach.”

“Oh,” said Patricia with a sudden surprise in her eyes. This, then, was the explanation of why John Worth was such a brilliant student in school. But she did not say anything more, for John and his mother came in bearing trays.

John put his down on a small table and pulled out a beautiful old mahogany table, lifted its leaves, spread on the cloth his mother handed him, and quickly the table was set.

“Couldn't I help?” Patricia asked hesitantly. “I'd like to.”

The mother's face lit up.

“Yes,” she said brightly, “bring in the scones. They're in the big blue platter on the kitchen table. There's a holder by them. Better use it. The platter is pretty hot. I like my scones piping hot.”

Patricia came back carefully carrying the big platter of scones. She hadn't known what scones were when she went after them, but there they were, a heaped-up platter full, steaming hot and delicately browned. They were most inviting.

There were thin slices of cold chicken on another smaller platter, and Patricia, as she sat down, thought of the thick slices of chicken breast that had gone into that elegant lunch basket that Thorny had probably finished by himself. It wasn't conceivable that he would share with anybody else if he could help it.

John brought his father's chair up to the table. The mother brought in the teapot, and they all settled into a sweet reverent quiet with bowed heads. Patricia bowed her head, too. This was something quite new to her, but she liked it. And then the voice of the father was raised in a beautiful blessing that included her also, “the young guest in our household.” Her heart thrilled as she heard the petition.

“Grant that the young guest in our household may early learn to know Thee as her Savior, and may have a gracious and a lovely life of service before her, so that everywhere she goes, all who see her shall notice the glory in her face and take knowledge of her that she has been with Jesus.”

When the blessing was over and the heads lifted, Patricia's eyes were all dewy with the wonder of it. She felt as if she had been listening at the door of heaven. She raised her eyes and met the eyes of the boy upon her questioningly, as if he were wondering how she would take that, whether she might have disliked it, as if he were ready to resent it if she did. But she met his glance with one full of appreciation, a look that fully entered into this bit of worship, and his own face lit with gladness. It seemed to the girl that now some special bond had come between them, a kind of recognition of a strange, lovely kinship that she would never forget, no matter if time went on forever without their meeting again.

Patricia thought that she never had tasted such food before. She thought the scones delicious, and the rich creamy milk was cold and delightful. There were stewed apples, too, in thick translucent quarters, golden and clear, big glass dishes of them, and more gingerbread to eat with them. Patricia was ashamed at the way she ate and ate and could not get enough.

When the meal was over, John went to the shelf at one side of the room and brought a big worn Bible to his father. As if it were a daily custom right after the meal, and while they were still seated at the table the father shoved his chair back a little and began to read. His voice was very sweet and strong and gentle, and the words seemed new and real to the girl as she listened in wonder. She had no experience whatever with which to compare this. She had read, of course, of family worship in old times, but it had not meant a thing to her. Was this what it was?

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

The steady voice read the words as if it were telling of a happening the reader had seen. Patricia's attention was caught at once and riveted. It was an old story. She had studied it for Sunday school, of course. But never had she heard it read with such clearness, such understanding, as if it were a matter of much importance, a matter that concerned people today. It had never seemed before to her that the Bible had anything to do with today. It had only been a kind of traditional tale that people used in forms of worship to a dim and distant God. Now it suddenly came alive.

This was a real blind man, whose blindness might be like something in herself. It had never occurred to her that such a thing could be possible. She was not blind. Yet, was she, perhaps?

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

Did that mean that God had let him be blind so that someone should be able to understand what God could do?

Her eyes grew larger and more thoughtful as she listened to the old story of the blind made to see; and the mother, glimpsing her now in shy admiration, caught her glance and wondered.
Bless her, dear Feyther, bless her and teach her,
she prayed.

And Patricia as she listened, wondered, where would be the pool of Siloam if she needed it?

The prayer that followed the reading was tender and intimate. Sitting there with bent heads around the table, Patricia almost felt she could see the loving smile of the Father as He listened. She never dreamed anyone could be so intimate with the great God. Afterward she looked at John's father with wonder and awe in her glance. And then when he met her gaze with a pleasant understanding smile, her lips trembled into an answering one, and there was a light in her eyes.

He had prayed for their “young guest whom Thou hast sent by the hand of Thy rainstorm to be among us for a few hours, and may it be given her to know Thee aright and truly, and to live her life as in Thy sight.”

The words had thrilled her. They seemed to be graven upon her memory. Somehow they became a great wish of her heart, and afterward when she was alone in her room she said them over softly, then wrote them down on a card, which she laid carefully among her treasures. So when they had lifted their heads and that smile had passed between them, the girl by her smile was thanking the servant of the Lord for introducing her so to God. She hoped he understood how it had pleased her and seemed to lift her beyond the mere common things of life and make her a friend of God's.

And then suddenly a ray of a sunbeam shot into the room, and looking out they saw a vast rainbow brightly thrown across the clouds.

“Ah! The rain is over!” said the man almost regretfully. “It has been pleasant while it lasted.”

The clouds were indeed breaking and the rain had ceased. The sunbeam glanced away again, for more clouds were hurrying by, but they knew their time was short and they scurried in haste. A low distant rumble of the vanquished thunder seemed to call farewell, and Patricia remembered she lived in another kind of world and must go back to it again. Could she keep the fragrance of this one to take with her? Or would it fade like the little bunch of anemones that she had clutched as she came away from the woods and that now were lying in a wilted heap in her pocket?

She jumped up and began to pick up the plates.

“May I wash the dishes?” she asked, her eyes shining, as a child would ask to play a game.

“You may help me,” said the mother. “John usually helps, but he'll awa' ta bed doon the cow and settle the chicks for the night before he tak's you hoom. And I'm sair loath ta let ye go. I wish ye cud bide wi' us awhile.”

“Oh, I'd love to!” said Patricia. “May I come again sometime?”

“Indeed ye may, lassie. We'll all be right glad ta see ye.”

“I'll come,” said the girl with a sweet, dreamy, faraway look in her eyes, trying even then to plan how she could do it without interference from home, for she knew instinctively that her mother would not permit visits to people of this quiet plain sort, whose only link with her was through that hated school. But there would be a way. She would ask God to make a way for her. So she only smiled when she said, “I'll come!” so confidently.

Patricia wiped the delicate sprigged china carefully and put it away where she was told in the quaint corner cupboard, as if it were part of a storybook tale to be handled most tenderly. She let her touch linger on the last cup as though she were wishing it good-bye until she saw it again.

They started home in the summer twilight, with a sunset so quiet and brilliant in the west that one would never dream the storm that had been raging a few hours earlier. There was clear green like translucent jade, shot through with tatters of scarlet and fragments of coral fringed with bright gold; over against it a formation of purple with gold dashed along its rim; and behind it a delicate rose that peered through crevices in the soft and cloudy wall of gray that loomed, and then crept laughing out and reflected rosy lights into the clouds above.

“Oh, isn't it glorious!” exclaimed Patricia with clasped hands, gazing off, and taking deep breaths of the clean air, washed pure by the tempest.

It was a new world, like stepping into a fairyland, or heaven. The girl thought of both, and her eyes went to John's eyes as he stood there with his hands filled with lilies of the valley he had picked along the walk to the little white gate that closed the white fence hemming in their garden.

He held them out, and Patricia put out both hands and gathered them joyously in.

“All those! For me?” she breathed happily. “I never saw so many together, not even in a bride's bouquet. Aren't they wonderful, just as if they had come from—another world!” she finished, and she looked up with the sunset glow upon her face and great contentment in her eyes.

“They seem like you, lassie,” said John's mother softly, as she stood in the doorway, and knew she was voicing what her boy was thinking.

“I've always loved lilies of the valley,” Patricia said. “I didn't know they grew in gardens. I thought they came from hot houses.”

“Would you like to take a plant home?” asked the boy.

“Oh yes!”