By the Way of the Silverthorns

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “You can learn,” said Link earnestly. “Haven’t you got a Bible?”

  She laughed.

  “No, how would I get a Bible? But I can buy a Bible if you think that’s important.”

  “Yes, it’s important,” said Link quietly. “Suppose you let me send you one, and then I can mark a few verses that will help you to get to know your Lord Jesus who died for you. Will you read them if I mark them for you?”

  “Why, of course,” said Minnie. “But I think that is taking too much trouble for me. You don’t really want to bother this way with me, you know you don’t. I oughtn’t to let you. You’ve done enough for me just making me see what a fool I was making of myself. I’ll just keep out of everybody’s way till I can make something of myself and people won’t hate so to have me around.”

  “But you never can make something of yourself, you know. Not without the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s impossible because you still have that old sinful nature with which you were born, and it keeps popping up and taking control of you, even when your spirit has been born again. But the whole thing is, when you are born again the Holy Spirit living in you has power over you and He makes you want right things where before you always wanted the wrong things.”

  “But I don’t see how all this religious stuff is going to make other people like me,” said the girl with a downcast look. “I’m just made this way and I can’t help it!”

  “Yes, that’s you old nature you are talking about, not your born-again nature. If you are born again and get to know and love your Lord, you will find you want to appear well before Him, rather than before anybody else. More and more if you think about Him and read about Him, and live with Him day by day, you will find yourself growing to look like Him, to act like Him, and He is ‘altogether lovely.’ Haven’t you ever found yourself copying someone you admired? Trying to please them?”

  He looked at her earnestly, his whole thought bent on making her understand this great vital truth, because now he had begun to feel her great need, and that his words would perhaps be the only ones that would reach her sorrowful empty life.

  She looked up with a flash of comprehension in her eyes, and suddenly he saw that in themselves when they were not self-conscious and not trying to attract attention, they were really lovely eyes. He was surprised at that, and the thought came to him that probably in the eyes of the Lord who died for her she was very dear and beautiful. She was meant to be beautiful of course, and it had never occurred to him before. He was used to hearing them all cry out against her. The thought was almost staggering, as if he suddenly realized that his Lord was letting him help to bring back a lost loved one to Himself. It was something he must put away and think about afterward, for he didn’t just know why he was taking all this trouble for poor despised Min Lazarelle. It surely must be the Holy Spirit who was working in his heart suggesting to him what to say.

  Then she spoke.

  “Yes, I know what you mean,” she said thoughtfully. “I feel that way about you. I want to appear right before you, because you made me feel how utterly you despised me, and it made me ashamed. I don’t believe anybody ever made me ashamed before. They only made me mad. But you made me feel what you thought of me. I wanted to be different so I wouldn’t seem that way to you.”

  A great softness came over Link’s face as he answered.

  “That’s it,” he said gently, “that’s exactly it. God looks at people and sees them as sinners, and God will not tolerate sin. And though He sometimes has to seem very harsh to us to make us understand that we are sinners, when we do get to the point that we understand then we begin to want to be right before Him. That is when we cry out to Him to help, and take Him for our Savior. When we do that, we are born again and we begin to want to do what He wants us to do. And constant companionship with Him makes us grow like Him, so that people notice that we have been with Him. It does make a difference to be with the Lord Jesus in every minute of our day.”

  The girl looked steadily at him with wonder and a new kind of awe in her face.

  Then suddenly Link looked down at his watch.

  “But say! It’s getting late. We ought to be getting over to your train. There isn’t much time. Have you your ticket?”

  “Yes,” said the girl sadly. “I came up her to have a good time and I bought a return ticket so I could get back if everything else failed, but now I see it’s no good. I can’t get anywhere this way, and I’m going back to try and begin over again.”

  “Wait!” said Link sharply. “You can’t go that way!” as she made a move to open the door and get out. “We must make sure you go in the strength of the Lord. You can’t expect anything different out of your life if you try to do it alone. Are you willing to take Christ as your personal Savior?”

  “Oh, I guess so,” she said drearily. “I’ll try anything once. I’ve tried everything else and it didn’t do any good.”

  “But it isn’t just try,” urged Link, “it’s take! It’s really take Him, accept Him as your Savior! Will you do it? It doesn’t take but an instant to take Him and change everything for life. Will you do it? Don’t say yes if you don’t mean in!”

  He was still, watching her, seeing the struggle in her face. Then after a long minute she looked up.

  “Yes, I will!” she said steadily. “There isn’t anything else for me.”

  “Then we’ll tell Him so,” said Link in a low voice.

  He bowed his head, and there in the quiet of the big cinder parking lot, with the sound of trains coming and going, the voices of porters and passengers, he prayed:

  “Dear heavenly Father, go with this new child of Thine, and keep her safely on her way. Teach her what a Savior Thou art, and will be to her day by day. Give her a vision of what Thou wilt do in her life. Give her the joy and peace of a born-again believer, and give her some definite work to do for Thee. Don’t let her be lonely or sad as she journeys alone. Thou hast said, ‘I will be with thee, I will hold thy right hand, and will strengthen thee!’ Bless her and make her realize she is Thine own. We ask it in the name of Thy Son the Lord Jesus who died for her. Amen.”

  She lifted her face with a kind of strange mystical glory light in it, wistful, wondering, and there were tears on her cheeks, raining down, but she did not seem to know it.

  They got out of the car hastily. They could hear a distant whistle of the oncoming train. Link got out the suitcases, and hurried her on to the station, his hand under her elbow to help her up the stairs. There was no time nor breath to talk, but they were up on the platform before the train actually pulled in and halted.

  “I’ll be sending you a Bible,” said Link in a businesslike tone, “one that will have footnotes that will help you to understand.”

  She brushed the tears back and flashed a childlike smile at him.

  “Will you read it?” he asked. “Read it every day? You’ll need it. It is the spiritual food to make you grow like Him.”

  “Oh yes, I’ll read it,” promised Minnie with a solemn accent to her voice as if she were registering a vow.

  “And you must pray. Pray about everything, always. Tell your Lord just as you would tell a person, what you are feeling and thinking, how you have failed. Ask Him to show you.”

  “I will!” said the girl gravely.

  The train had halted now, and the people had alighted. It was time for her to get on.

  “You must give me your new address. I don’t believe I’ve heard it,” he said suddenly. “I will send the Bible at once.”

  She repeated the address, and he scribbled it down rapidly, then helped her up the steps and into the train, rushing to find her a place.

  “Good-bye,” he said, “I hope you’ll have a pleasant journey.”

  “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me,” she said, and she smiled through her tears at him, the farewell of a little untaught, newly saved one! Then Link felt the train begin to move, and with another flashed smiled he swung off to the platform, and the train f
lashed by him and went on its way.

  Link went down to his car with a strange breathless feeling as if he had been on heavenly business, and wondered if he had said the right words.

  “And that’s that!” he said aloud to himself as he got into his car. Was it? Would she ever think of this again? Would he be seeing her in heaven some day as a result of this most unexpected encounter?

  Then before he went about his business of the day he stopped at a book store, and bought her a wonderful Bible done in soft dark blue leather, with gilt edges, large print and a concordance in the back. She might not read such a fine Bible, maybe would seldom read it, but at least she should have the chance of knowing the Word in as attractive a form as he knew how to give it. He hadn’t sought this ministry, but since the Lord had given it to him he would do his part in the best way he knew how, and pray that the Holy Spirit would do the real work in Minnie’s heart.

  So, as he went on his way through the rest of the day he was now and then reminded to pray for Minnie Lazarelle, that she might become an obedient loving child of the Lord Jesus Christ.

  Chapter 6

  Patricia Nicholson was going down to Texas to visit her fiancé’s mother, and the group of bridesmaids at the Hollis home had decided to see her off on the noon train. At Mrs. Hollis’s request they had stayed at her house overnight. Lou McHale was leaving for a new job she had just secured in a library out in Illinois. Her train went at eleven. So the girls were going to make a party of the two farewells. They sat around the Hollis breakfast table and planned it, and they tried to be cheerful and make her forget that her own girl was not there.

  “The rest of you will come back here for lunch, won’t you girls?” asked Mrs. Hollis in her tired pleasant voice.

  “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Hollis,” spoke up Carey. “I appreciate the invitation, but you’ve done enough for us, and besides I’ve promised Rae to go home with her for a few days.”

  “Well, you’ll enjoy that I’m sure. But aren’t there some of you other girls who would like to come back to lunch? You know you would all be welcome.”

  “Frannie is coming ,” said Rae. “She promised last night. And I was hoping Sue and Betty could come too. How about it, girls? You are both foot-loose and fancy free for the weekend aren’t you?”

  “Why that’s grand, Rae!” said Sue Richards delightedly. “Of course we’ll come, won’t we, Betty?”

  “We certainly will,” said Betty happily. “It’s too much of a come-down from this wedding to go back to a boarding house with nothing to take my thoughts away from the desolation, till Monday morning when my school opens, and I have to be a sour young schoolma’am again. Mrs. Hollis, we feel that you’re very kind, and it isn’t that we’re preferring one place above another you know, but really I think, as Carey says, that you’ve had enough of us, and we ought to get out at once and let you rest. So, unless there’s some way we can help about putting the house to rights after all these festivities, I think we had better go with Rae.”

  So in a few minutes they all fluttered upstairs, packed their belongings rapidly, and started off to the station in the Hollis car, kissing their hostess’s cheek tenderly, and begging her to let them know if there was anything they could do for her.

  They turned their attention then to the two who were leaving them in a few minutes.

  “I suppose this will be the beginning of festivities for Pat!” said Fran Ferrin. “Going to visit his relatives is a pretty serious sign, isn’t it, Pat?”

  There was always something comical about almost any remark Fran made. Her eyes seemed to be almost set in upside down with a sort of permanent twinkle.

  “I suppose it is,” said Patricia suddenly sobering. “But I give you my word, girls, if I don’t like them I’m coming right back and stay an old maid all my life.” She said it with a solemn air as if she meant it, but the girls twinkled at her and shouted with laughter.

  “Oh, yeah?” said Fran.

  After the travelers had gone on their way the girls went excitedly off to get a bite of lunch, and while they were waiting for their orders to be brought Rae Silverthorn went to the telephone and called up her aunt’s home.

  “Is mother there, Aunt Fan?”

  “No, Rae, she and your father drove home last night. She said she had some things to do early this morning and had to get home. She said she thought you were going to bring some girls, or a girl, home with you.”

  “Yes,” said Rae looking troubled, “but I didn’t want her to go home and hustle around getting ready. I told her I would do everything when I got there.”

  “Well, you know your mother likes to fuss around getting ready for company,” soothed the aunt. “And by the way, Rae, your brother called up. He said he wanted to get in touch with you before you left town. He says he is bringing a couple of young men out with him. I think one was Paul Redfern, and the other he called Loo or Lute or something like that. He said if you had any messages or wanted him to do anything you were to call him here at four-thirty or five. He’ll stop here on his way.”

  “Oh!” said Rae. “That will be lovely! Lute is great fun, and it’s always nice to have Paul come. We’ll get Steve and Curlin in and have a regular party. Aunt Fan, when Link comes, tell him I’m taking Carey and Fran, and Betty and Sue out with me. We’re going on the bus in about an hour. No, Aunt Fan, sorry, I won’t have time to run up to your house today, but I think I’ll be in some day next week. I’ll phone and let you know.”

  The girls were very enthusiastic about the evening when Rae got back to the table, and they ate their creamed oyster stew with great gusto and hurried to get their errands done. They were eager to get to the Silverthorns’ and plan a good time for the evening.

  There was an appetizing smell in the Silverthorn house when they reached there that almost made them hungry again. Mrs. Silverthorn was icing a great many little round cakes, some with chocolate frosting, and some with white frosting.

  The girls followed their noses and swarmed out into the kitchen.

  “M-m-m-mmmm!” they chanted in chorus, and gathered around the big marble-topped table where the cakes were parked in neat rows.

  “May we have one?”

  “May we have one!” said Mrs. Silverthorn smiling. “How many of you are there? Five? How many bites could you get out of one of my little cakes? Do you think one would go all the way around?” Then she laughed at their dismayed faces. “Help yourselves, girls. Take as many as you want. That’s what I made them for!”

  So in spite of the memory of creamed oysters, and French pastries in which they had indulged afterward, they did well with the cakes. All but Rae. She was off to the telephone.

  “Oh Mrs. Grant,” she was saying, “are the boys there?”

  “Why, Curlin is,” said Mrs. Grant. “I’m not sure about Steve. Has Steve got back yet? It’s Rae Silverthorn. She asked for you both. Come and talk to her.”

  “Hello, Curlin,” said Rae eagerly. “Are you boys busy this evening? We’re having an impromptu party and we want you two of course.”

  “That sounds good,” said Curlin joyfully. “Sure, I’ll come. I can’t answer for Steve. I don’t think he’s got back from the city yet. Some girl got him in tow and I couldn’t wait for him. I had something out here to do. Some work in my garden that was suffering for attention, but I presume Steve’ll be home eventually.”

  “Oh!” said Rae with a light moan in her voice. “Aren’t you sure he’ll be home, Curl? We won’t have the right number of boys unless he does. Who is the girl? Anybody I know? Could I telephone him?”

  There was a sudden pause on the wire, and then Curlin spoke in a tone of withdrawal.

  “I don’t think you could, McRae! I don’t think you would know the girl!”

  “Oh!” said Rae in a little tone of blankness, looking in the face the fact that she felt that Curlin didn’t want to tell her who this questionable person was. And that was something new for a Grant to do. They had all been such intima
tes, the Grants and the Silverthorns.

  “Well, you see, she’s one of these highfliers,” explained Curlin in a tone that told her a great deal, and made her sure that Curlin thought he hadn’t told her anything. “It wouldn’t be so easy for Steve to get loose, you know. Steve is hard to pry loose from any girl who promises a good time.”

  “Oh!” said Rae in a little stricken tone again.

  “I wish I’d made him come home with me!” said Curlin savagely. “I guess I could have. And it’s dead sure he would want to be out here if he knew you were having a party. I’m sure your party would be a lot better for him than the one I’m afraid he’s gone to.”

  There was another silence and then Rae offered a suggestion.

  “Do you suppose he would come for Link, if Link went after him?”

  “He might,” said Curlin thoughtfully. “Is Link still in town?”

  “I think he is,” said Rae. “He’s stopping by at Aunt Fan’s house to see if there is any message. What time is it? Not quite five? Tell me where Steve is, Curlin, and I’ll see if I can catch Link before he leaves.”

  “Suppose you let me try to get Link,” said Curlin. “I can make him understand better where to look for Steve. What’s Aunt Fan’s number? Boulevard, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Boulevard 7535-J. Thank you so much. If Link hasn’t been there yet, ask Aunt Fan to have him call you up at once when he comes.”

  She hung up with a troubled feeling that something might be wrong with Steve. Good old Steve, who was just like another brother. Of course he was full of fun, always up to some monkeyshine, but it had never before occurred to Rae that Steve could be in any danger. Yet Curlin had spoken just that way, as if he were worried about him!

  She turned away thoughtfully, and stood by the telephone a moment trying to think it out, and then went back to the girls. But all through the cheerful afternoon, getting settled in the rooms upstairs, talking over the wedding, all the good times they had been having, and how hard it was going to be to have to count Sydney out from now on, Rae kept thinking about Steve. Oh, nothing must happen to Steve! He was one of themselves and he must not get away into a world where he didn’t belong!