By the Way of the Silverthorns

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Inquiry elicited the information that Tim had “gone back home,” meaning their home in the east before they had moved.

  “He said he didn’t like it here,” said Emmy Lou loftily. She said he had gone a couple of days ago, but seemed very hazy about just when that was. The mother didn’t even know that, it appeared. When questioned she only answered “Oh, don’t bother me! Can’t you see I’m reading?”

  It had been several days before she further ventured a question about her father, for her mother seemed very irritable, and seemed to consider everything that happened was Erminie’s fault.

  But after a few days it became apparent that the stepmother was really ill. She waked them all in the night groaning and moaning, and then demanded a doctor.

  The doctor did not get there till morning, and the woman was frantic, screaming and crying out till the children were frightened.

  The doctor told Erminie that Mrs. Lazarelle was a very sick woman, and should have a nurse. He asked after her husband and was told he had gone to China on business. But after the doctor had left and Erminie persisted in questioning, the stepmother admitted that she didn’t know to what port he had sailed, nor when he was coming back.

  “I think he’s sick of us all and wants to get away!” she moaned. “He said so more than once! He told me we all knew where to get our money every month, and he guessed that was all we any of us cared anyway.” And then she burst into soul-shattering tears and demanded that Erminie go to a certain drug store and get a prescription filled.

  “But you’ve got a doctor now,” Erminie urged. “Hadn’t you better ask him about the prescription before you take anything else?”

  “Shut up and do as you’re told!” said the sick woman. “Where’s Timmie? Send Timmie up here. He’ll get what I tell him. Send him here this minute!”

  But Timothy could not be found. And it was then the sick woman began the wailing which seldom let up for long, and was interspersed by demands to have her prescription filled, until Erminie in desperation took the prescription and started. But on the way she read some of the scarcely decipherable words in it, and found morphine and laudanum in it. Knowing just enough to be afraid of such things she stopped off at the doctor’s and showed it to him. From him she received orders not to get any prescriptions filled except the ones he gave her, and he promptly submitted another prescription for the one she had brought.

  But the doctor’s medicine didn’t work the way the other had done, and the sick woman complained, and wept and demanded Timothy until it came to be a regular obsession with her.

  Then at last the doctor told Erminie how serious was the stepmother’s condition, and ordered her to be sent to the hospital.

  It was then that Erminie had written to Link asking him to try to find her brother. The doctor said it was important that the woman’s son should be found and that weeping and hysteria stopped. So Erminie wrote the letter, and then, relieved somewhat since the nurse and invalid were out of the way, she set about trying to make living a little more possible.

  The maids she secured, a succession of them, would not stand the impudent children, and Erminie perceived that to conquer the home she must first conquer those children. And how could that be done?

  It didn’t take long to discover that in herself she was utterly inadequate to the task, till she remembered Link’s last words that she could take all her cares and perplexities to her new Lord. So she began to pray for the children and hand them over to the Lord asking Him to dominate them. Then she would rise from her knees and one by one call them and set them some interesting task.

  “Emmy Lou, how would you like to cook some cereal for breakfast?”

  “I don’t like cereal,” said Emmy Lou. “I’d rather make scrambled eggs.”

  “All right,” said Erminie pleasantly, “then we’ll let Mariana make the cereal, because some of us like cereal, you know. Mariana, you may go down to the closet and choose what cereal we shall eat this morning. Would you like that?”

  “I choose dry cereal. You don’t havta cook that and I like it best anyway.”

  “All right, Mariana, you can do everything about the cereal,” said the big sister, wondering whether the novelty would last long enough for one meal. “You can put out the cereal dishes and spoons, and pour the cream from the tops of two bottles into the cream pitchers, and put the sugar bowl out, and just get everything ready for that part of the breakfast.”

  “And can I wash the bowls and spoons afterwards?” asked the little girl eagerly.

  “Why yes,” said the sister with surprise. “That’s a nice idea.”

  “And can I wash my dishes too?” asked Emmy Lou. “I’d like to wash a real frying pan. I never did that. You have to use a steel sponge to wash that, you know.”

  “Of course!” said Erminie. Things were really getting organized.

  “Vat can I do?” asked Billy. “I gotta do somping!”

  “Why, surely. You can put out the napkins!”

  “Don’t vanta put out napkins. I vanta put out glasses and vash ’em atterwuds.”

  “No, you shan’t wash glasses,” cried Blossom. “I’m gonta do that.”

  “Yes, I vill vash glasses,” asserted the young man.

  “Now look here, Blossom and Billy, you stop that fighting immediately or I won’t let either of you in the kitchen. I’m hiring new servants, you see, and if you are good servants and do what I tell you, then you can work and get a penny a day for your work, but I won’t have bad servants that fight. Billy, you put out napkins or go out of the room.”

  Billy considered his sister.

  “Could I clean the napkin rings?” he asked with the air of an important laborer, making a bargain.

  Erminie was beginning to learn. She smiled at the stubborn little boy.

  “Why yes, you could do that while we are getting the dishes washed,” she said. So the whole atmosphere was changed, for the time being at least, and they all went to work with a vim. It might not last long of course, but Erminie at least had learned a valuable lesson in how to manage children.

  She instituted regular hours, and naps, and two good playtimes each day, so planned that she could get away to go to the hospital to see the irritable invalid. Not that her stepmother enjoyed her visits. She fretted at her continually, assailed her with bitter sarcasm, and unpleasant tales from her own past.

  But Erminie was reading her Bible every day, even if only a few verses at a time. And while she was so out of it sometimes, still she brought to it an absolute faith through what Link had told her, and a simple desperate childlikeness that was able to receive a plain truth and make use of it because of her desperate need. For it would seem that Lincoln Silverthorn’s message had reached Erminie at the crucial time of her life, when she had risked all to try to get somewhere out of her loneliness, and having lost was ready to accept any help offered.

  So, as she went along through the stormy difficult days she was becoming more and more Spirit-taught.

  Also, the occasional booklets and truth-filled magazines that Link and sometimes of late Luther, had sent to her were devoured eagerly, for they made her understanding of the Bible so much clearer.

  Often after a hard day of unaccustomed work, when there had been no maid available, or when one she had tried had failed, and she was dog-weary, she would dash cold water in her face to wake her up, and then drink strong coffee to make her keep awake, and would read and study her Bible for a couple of hours, until sometimes she fell asleep in her chair.

  And it was making a difference in her. She couldn’t see it herself, but the children were noticing it.

  “You’re nice, Erminie!” said Blossom one day when Erminie had been washing the child’s face, and combing her pretty gold curls, and finished up by plumping a little pink gum drop in her mouth.

  “Wes,” said Billy, standing awaiting his turn. “You is nice, Erminie! I wike you!”

  It brought a strange tired thrill to have this tribute to he
r care. She hadn’t loved these little mortals when she began. She called them brats. She wasn’t altogether sure she loved them yet, but she had a sense of responsibility toward them that she had never felt before, and there was satisfaction to see them blossoming in response to her care.

  But then, as she grew herself, and began to see from her brief reading of the scripture, how much each soul meant to her new Lord and Master, she began to think about Timothy. She had been fonder of him than of any of the others, because he had been the first baby in her life, while she was still young enough to enjoy watching a little child and seeing him grow. So now as she heard her stepmother’s continual laments about Timothy, she began to have a curious amazed interest in him herself, and to wonder where he was and what he was doing? Had he gone straight? Probably not. Why should he? He had never been taught to go straight. She certainly hadn’t helped him herself. There hadn’t been anything in their home life to give him any ideas. And more and more it was borne in upon her that if she had been sooner born again it would have been expected of her that she should have done something about the salvation of not only Timothy, but the other little souls who had come into the home.

  A year ago she would have curled her lip at any such idea. She would have shrugged her shoulders and gone her own way without a thought of the others. She would have said that they did nothing for her and why should she think of them? But now it was all different. She was “a new creature in Christ Jesus.” Again and again that phrase from the brief teaching of Lincoln Silverthorn rang its changes over in her soul. She was a new creature, and must live a new life. She must forget the things that were behind her, and live in Christ now, not herself.

  But it was a hard weary way she had to go, and there was so little time for rest, or meditation! There seemed no end to it ahead, no looking forward to anything brighter. Oh, the children would perhaps grow up some day and go off and live their own lives, but she would be left alone then, and her time for happiness would be over. Well it didn’t matter. If she only could get rested.

  Then she left the children with a pleasant elderly kindergarten teacher who was out of a job, and glad to get the few extra dollars for a bit of educational play with them, and hurried off to the hospital in answer to a special call from the nurse.

  The patient was worse. Very much worse, and was in a piteous state. She cried continually for Timothy, but Erminie found out definitely that day that what she wanted of Tim was to get her prescription filled. She was continually harking back to the oblivion it had given her. The strange unnatural deceptive exaltation of death. She wanted the glamour of rosy clouds and joy and music that came to her soul when she took that dope. It hadn’t been her love for her oldest neglected child that had sent her weeping all these days. She wanted dope.

  And suddenly it came sharply to Erminie that her stepmother had been all her life doing just what she had been doing with Lincoln Silverthorn had startled her by telling her the truth. When he asked her why she went on as she was when it could bring her nothing? This poor woman had been chasing pleasure of some form all her life. Erminie could remember back in her childhood when the children had all been neglected, and herself left desolate because the stepmother had wanted to go out to her pleasures: theaters, movies, dances, bridge, it mattered not what. She had given very little time or thought to her children. Even when her husband was at home she was off continually. It had been the cause of a great deal of wrangling. That wrangling had been one of the earliest memories the girl Erminie had.

  She saw the minute she entered the hospital room that there had been a change. The sick woman’s face was ghastly, her eyes were anguished.

  The doctor arrived soon after and gave her something that put her to sleep, and then he took Erminie into the reception room and told her very plainly that Mrs. Lazarelle had come to the end. It might now be only a matter of hours, and it there was any possible way to get in touch with her husband or son it ought to be done at once.

  She sent a telegram to a man in the east who had charge of her father’s affairs telling him Mrs. Lazarelle’s condition, and asking that he try to get in touch with her father immediately. Her soul was tormented. It was not that she felt her father would feel so badly to know that his wife had but a few hours to live, for she could not but know that they had not been very close to one another for years. But it seemed such a dreadful ending for a useless misspent life, and it came to her with her new enlightenment that the poor woman was going out of the world without any knowledge of a Savior, and she had been there for several weeks now and hadn’t done a thing about it. Also the outcry for Timothy had been ringing in her ears daily and she hadn’t been able to do a thing about that either. She had done all she knew. Should she go to the police and set them to hunting for her young brother? How she shrank from that, for back in her mind she knew there was a fear hiding that perhaps Timmie had been doing something wrong and might get arrested if she started a search for him by officers of the law.

  She went back to the house in great distress, marshaled young forces for their supper and to bed, and then sat down and buried her face in her hands and wept. Erminie wasn’t the weeping kind. She had been through enough in her young life to make her weep floods of tears, but that hadn’t been her way. She had always laughed and whistled; she had grown hard and blasé and bitter, forcing her way into places where she was not meant to be, and laughing it off as if she enjoyed disappointment.

  But now she seemed to have reached the limit. If she only could find Timmie, and not have it to remember after her stepmother died that she hadn’t even been able to relieve her by producing her boy.

  “Oh God,” she said at last, still sitting with bowed head. “Isn’t there some way You could help me? You helped people in the Bible when they cried to You. Couldn’t You help me just a little? Couldn’t You somehow find Timmie and send him home? I’ll try to teach him about You if You’ll send him.”

  It was just the next morning that the telephone rang.

  Erminie sprang to answer it. It would likely be from the hospital, perhaps summoning her again. Perhaps the end had come, and she would have a lot of sad details to settle, and she didn’t know how! And what was to come after? How could she go through the rest of life! She was so mortally tired!

  And then there was Timmie’s own voice, calling her! Timmie himself saying he was coming, he was on the way! Something in her heart leaped to greet that voice, glad, glad! And all at once she realized that she loved Timmie! Her little brother! She hadn’t ever realized that before. Not, at least, since he had been a mere baby!

  If Timmie himself had walked into that room right that minute she knew she would have sprung to meet him, would have clasped him in her arms, and pressed warm loving kisses upon his hard young face. Timmie! Why, he was hers to love and be glad about! Oh, what a relief! And he was coming home! He would be there as soon as he could make arrangements.

  Afterward she wondered why she hadn’t learned more from him. Where he was, how long it would take to get there. Was there any place she could get in touch with him on the way, in case she needed to? There were many things she should have found out, and she had been just too dumb with relief to remember to ask them!

  But the ringing glad fact was there that she had heard his voice and he was coming. Oh, if it only wouldn’t be too late! Oh, if she’d only thought to tell him to take an airplane, and she would telegraph him money for his passage. Then she remembered that there was no airport anywhere near them, and that wouldn’t have helped her anyway, for she wouldn’t know when to expect him.

  But after a few minutes her good sense returned and she telephoned the nurse in the hospital.

  “She’s sleeping quietly,” said the nurse. “No worse, no better for all I can see. The doctor will be in again in a little while.”

  “Well, you can tell him I have heard from my brother at last. He is on his way. He is in the east and will get here as soon as possible!”

  “That’s
good,” said the nurse. “That’ll be something to tell her if she goes to crying again!”

  There was something kind in the nurse’s tone. That nurse had been kind. Perhaps she too was born again. How else could she bear all the unpleasantness with which a nurse had to put up? Oh, if she knew the Lord perhaps she would be able to tell that poor dying mother about Him. Maybe tomorrow she would summon courage to ask her.

  Erminie crept to her bed that night with a prayer on her lips and more peace in her heart than she had had since she came back to her home. She awoke with a rested look on her face, and smiled at Blossom who woke early and had formed the habit of creeping over into her sister’s bed and cuddling in her arms for a few minutes before they got up.

  “Timmie is coming home!” she announced happily to the children.

  “Timmie?” They studied her tentatively. They hadn’t such pleasant memories of Timmie themselves, but maybe somehow it would be all right.

  “He won’t stop us washing the dishes and getting the breakfast, will he, Erminie?” asked Emmy Lou anxiously. It was the first evidence Erminie had had that the children really like the program she had established with them.

  “Oh, no, Timmie won’t stop you. I think maybe Timmie may want to do some grown-up help himself after a while when he gets used to being here.”

  “Oh, I don’t know!” said wise Emmy Lou. “I don’t think he’ll wanta be bothered.”

  “We’ll see!” said Erminie with a hope in her heart that Timmie might not be another problem for her already overfull hands to deal with. And then she began to plan about getting Timmie’s room fixed up to surprise him, so he would want to stay and help them all. That interested the children immensely. They eagerly went to work, washing paint, hunting attractive old pieces of furniture stuck away in the attic. Nothing had ever been done, apparently, to make Timothy’s room pleasant. But Erminie was determined that it should be done now.

  It was wonderful how much three delighted determined children could do toward getting a room ready for a prodigal to return to. Billy puffed and snorted and scrubbed away at a base board and fairly polished all the paint off of it in some places, and was so determined to make his work the best that was done that he was quite worn out by lunch time.