Girl to Come Home To (16 page)

“How well did you know him?” asked Diana.

“Not so very well,” said Beryl thoughtfully. “I thought he was wonderful in school, but we never saw each other outside of classrooms. I used to often wish I knew him better, but he was not at any social affairs, and neither was I. I don’t know how it happened. Of course we lived in separate townships. My father picked out that high school over in Riverdale because it had several quite superior teachers. He had to pay to get me in there, and I had to be driven over every day, which was another separating fact. But I never forgot Jeremy, and I was so delighted when I met him a few days ago and had an opportunity to greet him.”

“Well,” said the other girl, “if you would ask me some of the questions I’ve been asking you, I think I could unequivocally answer yes, by all means, let your interest center around that lad. I liked him a lot, too, and what a wonderful message he had. He almost made me believe a lot of things I never was sure about before. Do you know his brother? Is he as nice? I certainly enjoyed him last night, even just sitting by him in a meeting. He made me feel as if I had known him a long time.”

“No, I never met him at all until a couple days ago. He was off at college when Jeremy and I were in high school, and then he went right overseas. He enlisted, you know, and he’s been a long time away. They tell me he has done a lot of marvelous things in the war and won a lot of honors. You saw the ribbons he was wearing.”

“Yes, but you mustn’t interest me too much in him,” sighed Diana, “for it isn’t thinkable that he isn’t already taken. I simply must not complicate my life any more than it is already, with any more
impossibles
.” Diana laughed rather bitterly. “Perhaps I don’t know what love is about. And anyway, I wouldn’t be up to a notable Christian man like that one.” Diana sighed almost enviously.

Then they heard Mrs. Sanderson calling them to come upstairs and see some photographs of Beryl’s baby days she had promised to show them, and they sped up to answer her call.

“We’ll talk again,” whispered Diana, and Beryl, with a sweet smile, caught her fingers in her own and squeezed them lovingly.

A
couple of days later, Jeremy Graeme called up Beryl Sanderson.

“Hello there! Are you busy today, you and Diana? Because Rod and I have to take quite a drive on some business errands for Dad, and we thought you girls might like to go along. It’s business so it’s legitimate to use the gas. My sister can’t go because she has to be at the hospital all day, but Rod thought it would be great if you girls should want to go. We’re packing a lunch, coffee and sandwiches, enough for a regiment, and we thought we’d start right away if it was all right with you two. How about it? Like to go?”

“Oh, wonderful! Wait a minute till I ask Diana.”

She was back in less than a minute with a voice full of eagerness. “Yes, Diana thinks it will be wonderful, too. We’ll be ready by the time you get here.”

The two excited girls hurried up to make ready and to explain to Beryl’s mother, who seemed well pleased when she heard who they were going with.

“Take that box of candy your father brought home last night,” she said, smiling. “That will help out with the lunch.”

And so in a few minutes they were off.

It was a glorious day. One of those perfect days in the opening of spring, and the sunshine had that yellow quality that is so alluring after a long, dreary winter of cold and fog and gloom.

“It almost seems as if the war was over!” said Beryl with a relieved sigh as she settled back in the car. “Here we have real sunshine and flowers and birds and two of the best fighters home from the war.”

“Thanks awfully!” said Jeremy with a grin. “Hear that, Rod? Better salute after that.” So Rodney stood up and gravely lifted his cap. “It’s something fine to have won that title,” he said.

That was the beginning of a wonderful day. Not even an April shower to mar its loveliness.

Occasionally Beryl cast a glance over her shoulder at the backseat of the car where Diana and Rodney were sitting, deep in talk, and she couldn’t forget the last thing Diana had said to her before they left the house. “Oh, I’m just scared to death,” she had breathed as they hurried downstairs.

“Scared?” said Beryl looking surprised. “Why in the world should you be scared?”

“Why, I’m scared to talk to that wonderful man. A man who can pray as he can must be a very holy man indeed, and I’m sure he thinks I’m a little heathen. I won’t know what in the world to say to him.”

“Nonsense!” Beryl said, laughing. “He’s not like that at all. Don’t worry. You’ll get by all right.”

And there sat Diana in the backseat laughing and talking vivaciously. She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. What’s more, the navy man looked very pleased himself. So Beryl cast off her anxieties and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the day and the company of Jeremy, whom she admired greatly.

It was a long, delightful drive to the three towns that were their destination, and every minute of the time was filled with joy for all concerned. Even the three stops were interesting. The first was at an office, where they could see Jerry through the window, spreading out papers on the desk, pointing out certain items to be noticed, waiting courteously for the signature, and then talking genially with the man they had come to see. He was evidently being asked questions concerning his war service overseas, for the stranger pointed to his decorations, and Jerry was laughingly explaining then perhaps telling a few words of what he had been through.

The next stop was a small grocery where the proprietor came out to meet them, arguing about some matters in the papers before he glumly took Jerry in and signed.

The third was a large old farmhouse where a very old man sat on the porch with a big old-fashioned gray shawl over his knees and a gray felt hat pulled down to shade his eyes. They could hear the conversation at this stop, a learned discussion of roads and why this protest was necessary.

Jerry got away at last with only a brief sketch of his experiences in service and climbed back to his seat in the car with a sigh of relief.

“There, that’s that!” he said. “Now we can start to have fun.”

“But it’s all been fun,” said Beryl.

“It certainly has,” said Diana with shining eyes, and Beryl settled back, content that her guest was enjoying herself.

“Now,” said Jeremy, “how about lunch? I’m hungry as three bears. What about the rest of you?”

“There couldn’t be a better suggestion,” said Rodney. “I’m always hungry now.”

“That sounds wonderful!” said the girls in chorus.

So Jeremy turned down a dirt road leading into the woods, and presently they were winding among hemlocks and pines and maples, with bird songs overhead and chattering squirrels skittering from limb to limb on the trees.

The lunch was ample with many surprises in the shape of delightful sandwiches and little frosted cakes, and berries, olives, and pickles, and cheese and jellies. There just seemed nothing that could have been thought of that had been forgotten, including plenty of hot coffee in the Thermos bottles. They ate it in a leisurely way, with many a joke and a laugh. Beryl twinkled her eyes at Diana as if to remind her of her fear that these young men would be too grave for her light-minded self.

It was after they had finished, washed the dishes in a convenient little brook, and packed away all that was left in the basket that Rodney suggested a walk.

They locked the car, left it in a nest of trees, and started off for a stroll.

“There are some pretty spots around these woods,” said Rodney as he and Diana went along. “Some of my old haunts of bygone years, if they haven’t been destroyed during my absence. If you’d like to see them, this way,” and he parted the branches and showed her a hidden path that a stranger would scarcely discern.

Diana stepped into the opening he made for her, and Rodney turned his head before he followed her, and called back to the others, “So long! Be back in an hour or two!” and grinned as the answer came back, “Okay! See you subsea.”

It seemed to Diana as they penetrated into the green depths of that lovely woods that she had never seen such beautiful, quiet remoteness.

Rodney made a delightful escort. He found pleasant walking for her feet, and when they came to rest for a while, he arranged a seat from hemlock branches. When they were seated in the beautiful stillness he finally said, looking into the greenness above him, where little glimpses of sunlit blue sky were visible, “Isn’t this great? It seems as if this must be one of the places in which God delights, doesn’t it? It seems as if He were here with us. Or don’t you feel that way?”

Diana looked up fearsomely and half shuddered. “Oh,” she said in a little frightened tone, “I don’t know much about God. But you”—she paused and gave a shy look toward the young man—“you seem to know Him so intimately.” Her tone was almost envious.

Rodney looked down and smiled. “Yes, I do,” he said pleasantly, as if he were owning to an earthly friendship, “but no better than you may know Him, too, if you want to. I was brought up to know all
about
God when I was a child, but I didn’t get to
know
God until I met Him out in the air over enemy fire.”

“Oh!” said Diana. “Tell me about it, please, if you don’t mind.”

Rodney smiled.

“No, I don’t mind. I love to talk about my Lord. Since I’ve met Him and know Him so well, it gives me great delight to talk about my Lord.”

And so he began to tell the thrilling story of how he started out in his own strength to fight the enemy and began to realize that death was waiting just ahead for him, and perhaps the end of things down here. And then as he drew nearer and nearer to his doom, he heard the Lord calling to him through all the thunder of shells and planes. And the words He called were the same words he could remember his father reading at family worship, those mornings away back home when he was wishing the morning prayers would be over and he might be free to go to his work or his play. They were words that God spoke: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”

“It reminded me,” went on Rodney, “of the time when I was a little kid and my dad sent me out in the dark to get something I had left out there, and I was afraid. I was just a little kid, you know, and Dad came and took my hand, and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Roddie. I’ll go with you. I’ll help you.’ It was just like that. It was as if I heard Him call me. ‘Rod! I’m here. I’m here to go with you!’

“And over and over again when I grew fearful, there was my Lord beside me. Sometimes going before me, right into battle, and the fire whistling all around me, but none of it touched me. I was safe because He was there!

“It happened again and again and always when I had to go on some fearful mission, He was there with me. It was almost as if I could look up to the clouds above me, and say, ‘Come, Lord, are You going with me this time? I’m not afraid if You’ll stay by!’ And that’s how I came through. Do you wonder that I feel I know Him, that I can talk with Him as if a man were talking with his friend? He’s my friend!”

There were tears on Diana’s cheeks as he was telling this. “Oh, that is wonderful!” she said. “But does one have to go through death to know Him?”

“No, oh no! Not if you will take Him without having to be shown
that
way.”

“But you were taught when you were little. You sort of grew up knowing Him, didn’t you?” There was almost a hunger in Diana’s tone.

“Yes, I knew
about
Him. I knew His history, the story of His life and death, and that it was for me, but I never took it to my heart until death drew near, and I had to fly for refuge. Many times at home when I was young I might have got to know Him and didn’t. I just couldn’t take time. I knew it was all true, but I’d never looked into His face before. Not until He took me up there in the sky alone with Himself, and menacing death was just below and all around. Then I looked up, and I saw Him. But that is something that cannot be described. You have to see Him yourself to understand. You have to know Him.”

“Oh!” said the girl disappointedly. “Then I’m afraid there is little likelihood that I could ever understand. I can’t go overseas and get into combat.”

Rodney looked at her quickly. “No, you’re wrong,” he said. “You don’t have to go overseas to see Him. I had every chance to know Him before I went into death, but I was just too much interested in my own affairs and in the world and worldly people to look up. I just wouldn’t look at Him. But you, you would like to see Him? If you long to find Him, He will come to you. The only condition is that you believe. That is, believe that He took your sin and took your place and suffered your death penalty. Take Him for your personal Savior, that is. Are you willing to do that?”

“Why, yes. I could believe because I have seen the faith in your face. I have heard it in your words and in your wonderful prayer. Is that the right kind of belief? Because I don’t really know much about Him, only the set stories that churches talk about, and I never paid much attention to them before. But I’d like to know Him now.”

“That’s great!” said Rodney with a joyful ring in his voice. “Shall we tell Him so?”

They were sitting on a smooth bank of lovely moss, under a great tree. The young man bowed his head, and Diana, awed at what might be coming, almost frightened again, bowed hers.

“Lord Jesus,” said Rodney in his quiet conversational tone, “I’m bringing this little girl to You because she wants to know You and says she will take You for her Savior. Please show her how You love her, how she needs You, and help her to understand what You have done for her. May she now be born again, and will You let her see You as You are and get to really know You and love to serve You in her daily life?

“And now will You listen to her while she tells You what is in her heart? Thank You, my Father.”

There was a long pause in the still greenness of the woods, while a thrush trilled out some high sweet notes of praise, and then Diana’s little frightened voice trembled on the air. “Dear God, I want to be saved. I want to know You, as Rodney does. Won’t You please show me how? I do believe, as far as I understand.”