“Now let us sing ‘Blest Be the Tie that Binds,’” said Mother Stewart, “and then at least two of my chicks must be in bed,” and she smiled at Eleanor and Mary Lou. Connie struck a few chords, and the grand old words rang out.
After the hymn, Bob, looking a little awkward, approached Eleanor and laid a flat package in her lap, saying as he did so, “I didn’t know that this was to be a birthday celebration tonight, but here is something Marilyn and I have been expecting for a week. It came today and carries our best wishes.”
Wonderingly Eleanor tore the package open, then drew in a breath of astonishment. “Bob! Where did you get it? Oh, how can I thank you? It’s—oh, it’s so good! Mother—girls—look!”
They all gathered around. There in Eleanor’s lap lay a framed picture of herself and Chad.
Hand in hand, they were coming over the brow of a hill, heads back, hair blowing in the breeze, while joy and hope and youth in love glowed from their faces.
“Oh—it’s so wonderful to see his face again,” Eleanor murmured, tears gathering in her eyes. “No, please let me cry. I’m not sad, I’m just happy. I remember when we took that. Chad was trying out a new time control on my camera. It was taken on that last day at the lake, just before we started home. Bob, how and where did you get it?”
“The undeveloped film was in Chad’s suit that was sent home afterward,” replied Bob, looking pleased that his surprise had been such a success. “I just recently found it again and decided to have it developed, although I feared it was too old to be good. But the pictures were fine. Isn’t that great of the dear old chap?” he concluded with a husky voice, trying to be casual.
Mother Stewart and each of the girls had to take a turn at studying the picture. Seeing the longing in their eyes, Bob promised that he would have a print made for each of them to keep. This enlargement, slightly tinted, placed in a simple silver frame, was for Eleanor alone, to remind her of those last beautiful days together.
“Bob,” said Eleanor, when the picture was returned to her, “I can’t tell you how much I thank you. If you only knew how I’ve tried to remember Chad’s face. This brings it back, just the way I want to remember him. Oh, I am so grateful to the Lord for bringing me here!” she concluded, looking from one dear face to the other. “You’re the nicest folks I know!”
April days sped past, and May followed in swift succession. Eleanor was so well and energetic by the time June arrived that it was hard to realize she had ever been ill. Mother Stewart’s nursing had been triumphantly successful.
As soon as she felt able, Eleanor had written Mr. Hastings, informing him of her illness and her present circumstances. The lawyer’s reply arrived by return mail, and together with sincere wishes for her improved health he stated his desire to confer with her about her inheritance.
Oh, dear! thought Eleanor impatiently. That money again!
But it seemed that this was the end of it all. Mr. Hastings had written the trustees of the laboratories, informing them of Eleanor’s desire to give them the full estate. Knowing the circumstances of the will, they were loath to accept the full sum and suggested an early conference in which some compromise solution could be reached.
“Mother, I wish you’d read this letter and tell me what you think,” she said, entering the kitchen where Mother Stewart was cutting out cookies. That busy lady wiped the flour from her hands and took the letter, reading rapidly to herself while Eleanor sat on a stool and munched a cookie with a preoccupied air.
“Tell me first what you want to do about it,” replied Mrs. Stewart, looking from the paper when she had finished.
“It makes me so tired. I want to let the old will stand and be through with the whole matter once for all.”
“Since you asked my opinion,” said Mrs. Stewart, resuming her occupation, “it seems to me that a much better plan would be for you to meet with Mr. Hastings and one of the trustees of the laboratory and listen to what they wish to suggest.”
“I really don’t want that money—any of it,” said Eleanor wearily. “Why should I have to take it?”
“The fact that they want to divide the sum with you may be the Lord’s leading, my dear,” was the gentle reply. “You are trying to follow Him now, are you not? He may have some use for that money.”
“But what could I do with it?” continued Eleanor. “I don’t want to pour it out thoughtlessly on the first worthy cause I can think of, and I can’t bear to think of handling it myself. It caused so much trouble once that I guess I’m afraid of it!”
“Ah, but you don’t have to worry over it,” was the reassuring reply. “Pray over it, then leave it in God’s hands. The laboratory is a most worthy project, but it isn’t definitely the Lord’s work. If the money or any part of it is to be yours, you have an obligation as His steward to spend it as He would have you. There are many places in His work where the need is very great.”
“Well, in that case, I am willing to talk to Mr. Hastings or anyone else,” said Eleanor thoughtfully. “If it seems the right thing to do, I will take a part of the money to use for the Lord’s work, but I’m quite sure that none of it shall ever be kept for my own use. God has provided for me otherwise, and I’m young and strong and can work for my living anyway.”
So matters were arranged, and in a few days Mr. Hastings arrived with two gentlemen from the laboratory.
It was finally agreed by all that the laboratory should keep half the money, and that the other half should be Eleanor’s. Mr. Hastings promised to take care of the legal formalities, and the conference was over.
“Now, what shall I do with it, Mother?” asked Eleanor when the money had been deposited in the bank in her name.
“That is a matter for us to pray over and talk about, dear,” replied Mrs. Stewart. “I have some suggestions, but we will want to see where the Spirit leads.”
It was finally decided that one third of the sum should be given to a leper hospital that an old schoolmate of Mrs. Stewart’s had founded in China. Another third should go to a settlement house, and the remainder should endow a scholarship in Bethel College in the city where Eleanor and Chad had lived and been so happy. So three checks were written and mailed, and Eleanor drew a breath of relief for she was tired of money. The load was gone.
Farm life was new to Eleanor and very interesting. She entered zestfully into every phase of it and quickly learned to help in the kitchen, garden, orchard, and even the field.
The rooms upstairs filled one by one as summer came. Here, too, Eleanor found that she could be useful, for her years of waiting on Aunt Ruth had made her adept at nursing. Mother Stewart soon came to rely much on Eleanor’s help in the little sanitarium, thereby easing the load that she herself carried.
Canning season brought a new venture. Eleanor, Connie, and Marilyn opened a small canning factory in the huge shed in the backyard. There they cleaned and prepared fruits and vegetables, washed the jars, and operated the pressure canner. They made jams and jellies in open kettles and concocted many batches of pickles. This was fascinating work to Eleanor. Her long hours of meticulous labor in the science laboratory stood her in good stead now, and she quickly adapted herself to the careful detail needed for successful canning.
Canning was new and fascinating to Eleanor, but it was an old and somewhat tiresome story to Connie. So more and more the responsibility shifted. As the shelves in the basement storeroom filled, Eleanor grew correspondingly proud of her handiwork.
On Mondays the laundry was a busy place. The washing machine was so large that Eleanor smiled, comparing it mentally with the little one she had used in the city apartment. Mrs. Stewart always supervised the laundry herself and sang as she worked. Perhaps her occupation influenced her thoughts, for as she rinsed the clothes her favorite hymn seemed to be:
Whiter than the snow,
Yes, whiter than the snow,
Wash me in the blood of the Lamb
And I shall be whiter than the snow!
Hang
ing the glistening white sheets out in the sunshine, she was sometimes heard repeating to herself, “His clothes were white as no fuller on earth could white them,” or, “Christ … loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.”
Tuesday was ironing day. One of the girls would do the flatwork on an electric ironer, and another would work with the hand iron on dresses and shirts and aprons.
One day as Eleanor operated the ironer and Marilyn was busy ironing a heap of baby Patty’s dresses, Marilyn told some of the story of how this model farm came to be.
“When Doctor Dad was alive they rented out the farmland, for of course he could not tend it himself. My father farmed it for him, and we lived in the little cottage on the other side of the orchard. It was my mother and father who came here the night that Doctor Dad died. I was a rather small girl then, but I can remember when he went. Afterward my mother came over and helped Mother Stewart quite a lot, for Mary Lou was a tiny baby and Mother Stewart wasn’t well.
“She had to discover some way of supporting the family, so Chad and Bob undertook to run the farm. I can remember how small Bob looked as he worked in the fields. Doctor Dad had left some insurance, and Mother Stewart decided to take it and fix up this big house for a convalescent home. Dad’s doctor friends said they would help by sending patients to her. So she had a furnace put in and three bathrooms. The upstairs used to be four big rooms before it was made into six small ones with two bathrooms. Then Mother Stewart had two more rooms built on downstairs so that the whole family could be together and so that she might preserve as much of their home life as possible.
“There already was electricity in the house, so Mother bought all the labor-saving devices she could afford. It has been a paying proposition from the start.”
“She’s the most wonderful person I ever met, Marilyn,” replied Eleanor, looking up from her work. “It’s almost worth having been sick to have had her care for me.”
“She’s brave too,” Marilyn added. “Why, if Bob were taken away, I couldn’t carry on as she has. The only thing she hasn’t done that she and the doctor planned is build a fireplace. They had intended to have one in the end of the living room, but she wouldn’t do it. Said she couldn’t quite stand that.”
“I know how she feels,” replied Eleanor with a catch in her voice. “You can go on living, but there are a few doors of memory you daren’t open any more.”
“You’re another brave one, Eleanor,” Marilyn continued. “You never complain, and yet sometimes I feel almost ashamed of the happiness that Bob and I have when I know you can’t help but feel lonesome.”
“I am lonesome, Marilyn, and I can’t deny it” was the frank reply. “But I am much happier than I was last winter, for I was all alone then. Now this home and family are part mine, and I feel so near to Chad that I can almost see him at times. He is with Christ, and since I am learning to abide in Him, Chad is bound to be near.”
“Well, your coming here has been a blessing to the family too,” said Marilyn. “You have helped to soothe the hurt in Mother’s heart over Chad’s death. She loves to have the one he loved here in the home.”
For a long minute Eleanor did not reply, then said with an effort, “I truly don’t grieve for Chad anymore, Marilyn. He was the best and most beautiful thing that life could ever give. But he is with God now, and, although I am lonely at times, the old heartache and bitterness have gone, and God has given me a real peace about his death. But there’s one pain that never goes. Oh, Marilyn, I want my baby!”
Marilyn turned from the ironing board and put her arms about Eleanor’s shoulders, smoothing the brown head that had drooped in sudden sorrow.
“I know you do, dear. I don’t see how you stand it. But God can help that pain too. Bob and I pray every day for you and him. And do you know what?” Marilyn’s voice dropped to a confiding whisper. “I am praying now that you will get your baby back.”
Eleanor looked up in surprise.
“Yes, I am,” said the young wife confidently. “At first I didn’t have faith to ask that. But one day I decided I would unless God gave me a sign that I shouldn’t. That night when I read my Bible the chapter I read was in James, and one of the verses was ‘Ye have not because ye ask not.’ So it came to me that it was wrong not to ask God for things we long for.”
“But what if it isn’t His will?” argued Eleanor. “How could He want me to have him again when I gave him away? All I can pray is that God will take care of him and make him be kind of man Chad was. I haven’t any right to ask for him back.”
Marilyn’s tender heart was wrung by Eleanor’s dejection. “Why, none of us gets what we deserve,” she continued hopefully. “We deserved death, and yet God gave Jesus to save us. I didn’t deserve anything at all, but God gave me Bob and Patty. I don’t believe that God has any pets!”
“But I was so wicked!” cried Eleanor in anguish. “Mother tries to make me feel better by saying I wasn’t responsible. But I was! It’s all my fault!”
Marilyn tried to think of something else comforting. “Well, remember David,” she said finally. “He was much more wicked than you. But because he repented, he came to be called a man after God’s own heart.’ None of us are what we should be, and who’s to judge which of us is most wicked? Only God can do that, and when He does I don’t believe it will be you. Come on, honey, dry your eyes, and let’s finish this ironing. We’re all praying for little Chad—that’s what Bob and I call him—and if God doesn’t send him back to us, He will give us peace about him. I know that!”
* * *
With the advancing summer, the work in the fields became very heavy. Bob and Uncle John and Tom Page, the hired man, were kept so busy that the girls had to help with the chores.
Then there came a day in August when Uncle John got overheated in the field and had to lie down with an ice pack on his head. The air was hot and sultry, and off in the west a gray-green cloud betokened a coming storm. But the alfalfa hay was just right for storing in the mow.
So Connie and Eleanor donned overalls and raced out. Connie and Bob and Tom wielded pitchforks while Eleanor drove the team. Quickly, silently they worked while the big cloud drew nearer. It was a race, but the farmers won, and at half past five, when the rain came accompanied by a high wind and lurid flashes of lightning, the last load of hay was safely under cover.
Through all these experiences and days of healthful labor and exercise, Eleanor felt as if she really belonged to the family. After that lonesome year she had spent, the love and gaiety of this home seemed like a foretaste of heaven. Having come at last to a haven of rest after a stormy voyage, she thought she would never want to leave this safe port again.
One of the first Sundays after she was able to be about, Eleanor went to church and Sunday school with the family. She thought the folk at the church exhibited an undue curiosity about her. Underneath it all lay kindliness and good will, but Eleanor had yet to learn the ways of country people. When she realized that she was the subject of gossip and some conjecture, she was embarrassed and preferred to remain at home rather than face their whispers and glances again. Also she disliked to cause pain to the Stewarts. Therefore she hesitated to go with them.
Divining through motherly intuition the reason for Eleanor’s reluctance to appear again in church, Mrs. Stewart asked for the marriage certificate and had it framed. This she hung with her copy of the picture of Chad and Eleanor, side by side in the living room. There it hung when the Ladies’ Aid Society met a week later.
As the weeks passed and the neighbors saw how Eleanor fitted into the family and how they accepted her as one of themselves, talk soon died down. Having lived in the community for a quarter of a century, the Stewarts were loved and respected by all, and when the first burst of curiosity and wonder had subsided, the neighbors were ready to open their hearts to the girl whom Chad had loved.
Mother Stewart told the story of the baby to
several close friends, and their prayers joined hers for the welfare of the little lost one.
Gradually Eleanor attended church more regularly and learned to love it. One Sunday when Mother Stewart was kept at home by an ailing patient, Eleanor taught the primary class with enjoyment. But she drew back from the young people’s social affairs. She was always willing and eager to keep baby Patty while Bob and Marilyn went out, glad for an opportunity to pour out on that little person all her frustrated mother love. But when they urged her to attend young people’s parties, they received only one answer, a firm no.
On one project, however, Eleanor did work with the young people and thereby won their friendship and admiration. At the back of the church the hillside rose abruptly and made a barren setting for the cemetery beyond. Log steps, which had been in place for many years, formed the only break in the rocky hillside. One day Connie and some friends expressed a desire to improve the appearance of the ugly hillside by making at least a presentable stairway along its slope.
Eleanor listened in silence for some moments, then spoke hesitantly. “I have a plan for a rock garden,” she said, “which would be lovely on that hillside. There are plenty of rocks, and, if the boys will help, I think it can be made.”
The idea appealed to all of them. They began work on the project almost immediately, boys and girls both using all the time they could spare from farm work to contribute to beautifying the hillside. Under Eleanor’s direction, the boys placed the rocks and made terraces and steps. The girls searched the woods for the right kinds of ferns and other plants. Flower catalogs were consulted for suggestions, and special rock-garden plants were ordered from a nursery. By mid-August the barren hillside had become a place of real beauty, covered with delicate ferns, velvety moss, and trailing vines. Next year there would be flowers ready to bloom.
Not My Will and The Light in My Window Page 16
