The Flower Brides

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Chapter 14

  John Saxon was a fine, earnest young man who was taking a year off from his medical studies to earn some much-needed money to complete his course.

  He had been offered the opportunity to take in charge a dozen young boys whose parents or guardians had either no time or inclination to look after them themselves. Two of the boys were not strong enough to stand the northern winters; therefore, Florida had been selected as the scene of his activities, and more especially because Florida was a sort of native land to John Saxon and he knew well all its possibilities.

  It was to this group of unfortunately wealthy youngsters that young Sam Wainwright had attached himself, and he refused to be separated from them. And when, in the well-planned and educative program of John Saxon, this young company were to move down into the Everglades for a hiking-camping-fishing-exploring trip, Sam Wainwright went into the particular kind of gloom that he knew how to create, until his mother consented that he should accompany them, provided John Saxon would take him on and would also allow his elder brother to be one of the company.

  Having thus gained consent, young Sam became forthwith so angelic for the next two days before the expedition was to leave that he almost overdid the matter and got his mother to worrying about him lest he was going to die. So it was with the greatest difficulty that he finally made his departure.

  John Saxon had not cared overmuch for the idea, it is true, of having an elder brother along who would likely be superior and try to interfere, but the extra money that was offered, which would hasten the time he should be able to go back to the work he was eager to do, made him yield.

  The two young men had not seen one another until the morning that they were to start. All the arrangements had been conducted by young Sam, and naturally the two approached one another with a thoroughly developed case of prejudice on either side.

  Looked at from the standpoint of an outsider, they were not unlike. Both were young and strong and good-looking. Perhaps Wainwright had an inch or two of height in his favor, and on the other hand John Saxon had several lines of experience in his fine, strong face that were yet to be developed in Jeffrey Wainwright’s. Yet they seemed well matched as they met on the beach in the pearly dawn of that tropical winter morning and measured swords with their eyes as they shook hands. “Soft!” Saxon was saying to himself, just because he had never seen a face before with such an easygoing, happy smile that at the same time concealed strong character, character that had not been severely tried as yet, but still strong character.

  “Tough?” said Jeffrey to himself with a question mark, and somehow was not convinced of that. This man did not quite fit any of the types of men he knew.

  There was a certain gravity behind the sparkle in Jeffrey’s eyes that John Saxon could not help liking, and Jeffrey on his part was not long in discovering strength and authority, with a certain grave sweetness, in Saxon. So they started on their way, bristling with question marks concerning each other.

  But in the mind of young Sam, there were no question marks. He thought his big brother was the greatest thing that ever happened, and he thought that John Saxon was the next greatest.

  The sun shot a crimson rim above the opal sea and tinged the waves with ruddy gold, and strange colors gleamed and leaped in the sparkle of the waves. The sand grew alight with color, and little eager white birds with pink kid feet went hopping here and there along the rim of the waves to catch the sand crabs without wetting their feet. A big white gull sailed out over the waves looking down for fish and then circled back and settled down on a pile that stood out in the sea a few yards, surveying the strange group with their khaki outfits and paraphernalia. Strange, changing groups this wise bird saw at different times along this coast since it had been fashionable to winter in Florida, but it made no difference to him. The sea was there and did not change, and he wore the same cut of white feather coat from generation to generation, so why bother about mere humans?

  Saxon gave Jeffrey a quick, firm grasp of the hand as he looked into his eyes, said “Wainwright!” just to acknowledge his presence, and showed neither joy nor sorrow over the fact that he was going with them, and Jeffrey was left to the company of the sea and his own thoughts while the small army was forming for the line of march. Then, when they were drawn up in line, there were a few questions.

  “Everybody gone over the list?” All hands were raised.

  “Everybody got every article on the list?” All hands again.

  The young captain let his eyes sweep the row and acknowledged with a faint shadow of a grin the fact that Jeffrey had raised his hand both times, as if he were one of the boys. The stranger was perhaps going to be game after all. Nothing haughty about him so far.

  “About face!”

  Jeffrey obeyed the order. He was standing at the end of the line.

  “Forward march!”

  Jeffrey fell in step with the rest. At least he knew enough for that.

  “By twos, march!”

  This brought Jeffrey marching with the youngest boy in the crowd, one Carlin de Harte by name, and a little devil by inheritance, if he might be judged by his actions.

  Carlin was the son of divorced parents and had been shunted off on others wherever it seemed easiest to bring him up. He was a recent addition and had not yet learned self-discipline. The young chief eyed the combination doubtfully. He had not expected the son of the millionaire bond king to choose to walk as one of the boys.

  But Jeffrey looked down with a friendly wink at Carlin, and Carlin looked up with sudden respect when he saw how tall Jeffrey was, and grinned. Suddenly John Saxon knew that Jeffrey was going to be an asset instead of a pain in the neck.

  The way led at first along the silver-gilt beach of the opening day, and Jeffrey Wainwright drew in deep breaths of the clean sea air and rejoiced in the emptiness of the beach. They had it practically all to themselves except for the kid-footed bird, catching crabs, and an old fisherman out in a dory.

  When they had gotten so far from human habitation that they couldn’t see anything but sand and sea and palms and pines, and everybody was wondering what came next, Saxon called a halt and set his young minions to work, gathering sticks, unpacking a hamper, making a fire, and setting up a contrivance for cooking. Each boy had his job and knew what was expected of him. They went at it like trained ants, hurrying around excitedly.

  Jeffrey dropped down upon the sand and watched for a while, surprised at the efficiency of his young brother. But when Saxon passed, he stood and saluted.

  “Say, Captain, what’s my job?” he asked with a grin.

  Saxon measured his height admiringly but answered with a reserved smile.

  “Guest, I think,” he said, “or maybe critic, whichever would suit you best.” There was still smile enough about Saxon’s lips to keep the remark from being an offense, but Jeffrey watched him sharply.

  “Nothing doing,” he said quietly. “If that’s all the place you’ve got for me, I’m afraid I shall have to walk all the way back alone.”

  Saxon took his measure again and relaxed his lips.

  “All right, if you really want to work. I thought you just came along to protect your brother.”

  Jeffrey looked him in the eye.

  “I came along because my mother insisted Sam shouldn’t come without me, but I’m staying because I like it—and because I like you!” he added with a genuine ring to his voice. “If I go back, I shall leave my brother in your care and tell my mother there’s no cause to worry. But I’m staying on if you let me have a part, because I like you, and I think it’s great!”

  Saxon put out his hand and grasped Jeffrey’s in a hearty clasp.

  “All right, brother,” he said with a new light in his eyes, “there are two of us! Suppose we open the milk bottles and fill the cups. I was going to do that myself, but I’ve plenty besides, and I’ll see to assigning you a regular place when we’re on our way again. I think you’re going to be a big help. You’v
e already subdued our worst particular little devil. If this keeps up, we shall have him a model child before the trip is over.”

  Jeffrey felt a warm glow around his heart as he watched this other young man, with his strong, clear-cut features, his crisp, brown, curly hair, and his very blue eyes that had dancing lights in them and yet could look sternly at a misbehaving charge or scorn a casual multimillionaire’s son. It all intrigued Jeffrey immensely, and he felt the thrill of a new admiration. He was not going to be bored on this expedition. It was going to be interesting.

  Stephanie Varrell would have been amazed to see him pouring milk into tin cups and cutting bread, distributing butter, and heaping up the tin plates with the second helping of baked beans and frankfurters. She did not know how he had served his apprenticeship at washing dishes in a tiny apartment kitchen with her rival. She did not even know yet that he had disappeared from the playground where last night she had tried and failed to inveigle him to walk in the moonlight with her. She was having her breakfast in bed about the time of this midmorning repast that was served so many miles away from her, down the beach.

  The way led inland later in the day, after a dip in the sea and a romp on the beach and then a rest on the sand. Inland, among the palms and the taller pines, which now were draped more thickly with the long gray moss. Other, stranger trees appeared also, and the way grew wild and picturesque. Strange blossoms peered up at them from the ground; strange, lovely, weird ones peered down at them from the branches above their heads. Orchids! Those were orchids! Green orchids with almost human faces!

  Jeffrey thought of white orchids with gold hair and deep brown eyes, and her way of holding aloof in another world.

  The way led through dense tropical undergrowth, where lovely vines trailed across and barred the way with strong yet gentle hands and yellow jasmine filled the air with heavenly perfume. More orchids looking down in stranger color combinations looked more like humans than the first ones. And Jeffrey thought of a girl with dark eyes and wished she were beside him, and wondered if it would be at all possible to pack a box with these wonderful orchids and hope to get them to her before they died?

  Glimpses of wild creatures they had, of deer and little beings of the forest. A bright eye, the whisk of a tail, a stirring leaf, and they were out of sight. Glimpses of serpents, slithering along their native haunts, big copperheads and rattlers. Once they stopped to take a lesson on snakes, on what to do in case of being attacked and how to render first aid. A large copperhead lay coiled below them in a little hollow by a log while they were listening, and Jeffrey marveled at the skill of the young teacher in controlling the harum-scarum boys in order to give them the most out of his teaching. And then, just as if he had been trained for the act, the big creature uncoiled his lengths and slid away beneath the undergrowth, and the boys stepped back with eyes large with a new understanding, more ready to meet possible danger, less cocksure of their own little human might pitted against real deadly peril.

  Their eyes grew wise and sharp, looking for the signs of enemy life about them, learning to know the names of the growing things they passed. How much the young leader knew, and how well he told it without seeming to be trying to impart knowledge! No wonder his price was large and it was difficult to get opportunity to join his groups.

  A stream developed later in the day as they climbed over fallen logs. The stream in time led to a lake, clear, sparkling, like a jewel in the forest, and here canoes awaited them, and they saw their first Indian guide.

  Almost in awe they took their places as ordered and sat quiet, full of deep satisfaction, too weary to disobey.

  They touched in a little while upon a shore and saw not far away a huge alligator lying dormant, partly out of the water. Storybook life was becoming real to these boys.

  There were crude accommodations for camping, and a fire was all ready to start near the shore. Two old Indians muttered unintelligible phrases to the young leader, and presently the tired boys were eating a supper of fish from the lake cooked over the fire, bread that they had brought with them, and fruit, oranges that had been sent on ahead.

  It was suddenly dark before they had finished, and they had only the light of the fire to eat by when they got to the oranges. Just as if somebody had touched a button and the light went out, so the sun had dropped down out of sight and left not a vestige of gleam behind. That was Florida.

  John Saxon had been collecting pine knots before this happened, and now he stuck several in the fire until they caught, then set them here and there in buckets of sand.

  They washed their dishes in lake water, looking furtively toward the place where the alligator basked, and then sat round the fire while the moon rose, a mammoth moon, from behind the forest across the lake. John Saxon, reclining near one of the pine knot torches, took a little book from his pocket and read how a man of the Pharisees, one Nicodemus, came to Jesus by night and asked Him the way of salvation, and He answered, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

  Jeffrey Wainwright, wearier than he ever remembered having been before yet greatly charmed with this weird, strange place of stillness and night, had been watching the scene indifferently. He was thinking that for once this wise, magnetic leader had made a great mistake in trying to do any reading with those tired boys after a day’s march and excitement. Studying the strong, fine face of the other young man, he fell to wondering how he’d gotten that way, anyway. He was not listening intently until he heard that phrase, “born again,” and suddenly he sat up sharply and began to listen.

  On through that simple story he listened, through those matchless words that have reached round the world in every language and reached down through the ages from God for everybody: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

  He listed to the condemnation that comes through refusing the light. Only a few verses, but so impressive, there with that moon looking down; the glinting silver of the lake ahead; and the black, still darkness of the forest shutting in, where the firelight flickered solemnly and a far, strange bird let forth a weird night cry. He could see that even the weary boys were impressed and liked it all. Their leader had hold enough upon them for that, after a long day’s march!

  The little book was closed and stuck back in John Saxon’s pocket, and his voice suddenly started a chorus:

  “I know a fount where sins are washed away!

  I know a place where night is turned to day!

  Burdens are lifted, blind eyes made to see,

  There’s a wonder-working power in the blood of

  Calvary!”

  The rich tones died away, and the leader’s head bent reverently. “Lord, we’re glad You love us and understand us all. We’re glad we can come to You for forgiveness of our sins, for cleansing, for strength by the way, and wisdom. And now tonight we come for rest, for blessing, for protection through the night. We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior.”

  It was very still when the prayer was over, and for an instant no boy stirred. Then Saxon said in his ordinary voice, “Now, boys, every man to his cot. Five minutes to get ready and five to get quiet!”

  Jeffrey lay on his hard cot that was too short for his length and felt a great peace settle down upon him. Outside the pine knots sputtered and flared, and the fire flickered and flamed up when the old Indian watchman fed it with more pine knots, and the silver moon shone on, but there was quiet in the camp.

  His brother Sam was in the next tent, but in the cot beside him little Carlin de Harte reached out a timid hand and touched Jeff.

  “You don’t think God would let that alligator get in our tent, do you? Nor the old long snake?” he whispered.

  Then Jeffrey’s hand came out and clasped the lean, young hand of the child and held it warmly.

&n
bsp; “No, kid, I don’t think he would!” said Jeffrey. “You go to sleep now, and I’ll help God watch!”

  The boy sighed contentedly, and soon his regular breathing told Jeffrey that his fears were over for that night. But Jeffrey lay thinking of the words he had been hearing and of Camilla and what she had said about being born again. Was this what she had meant, and was it something that came to you or did you have to go out after it? He would listen and see if he could find out, for this was what he had come questing for. And presently Jeffrey, too, was sleeping.

  Chapter 15

  Back at the fashionable resort that Jeffrey Wainwright had left that morning, Stephanie Varrell patrolled the beach in vain, in vain questioned this one and that one if they had seen him that morning. She searched the golf course, the tennis courts, and even the airport, and put the bellboys and desk clerks through a regular inquisition to discover whether he had left yet, but she found out nothing at all about the disappearance of the heir of the house of Wainwright.

  At last, when everything else had failed, she approached Jeff’s dignified mother, who was sitting with her knitting on the wide veranda talking quietly with two of her friends. She assumed a honeyed smile and said, “Pardon me, Mrs. Wainwright, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’ve an expedition on for this afternoon, and we’re anxious to find Jeff. Of course he’s included, and we can’t seem to place him. Could you give us an idea where to look?”