The Street of the City

by Grace Livingston Hill

  A few minutes later a cranny little upstart of a moon peered brightly out from behind a cloud and went on with its journey across the sky, flinging down a flash of silver to the ice-locked river to sail like a bright twin up its length to the west and disappear with it behind the mountains.

  And then two silent figures detached themselves from two of the little new empty houses up across the street, went silently over to the late scene of activities behind the brick house, and carefully examined every inch of the way, bringing small pencils of light to flash a moment or two on the broken snow and branches covering the excavation and the pile of lumber. They nodded at one another, and then together stole away.

  And in the little brick house the family slept secure, and the moon rose higher and smiled down on that street of the city that two young people had been talking about that evening as they looked down the silver way, till in her dreams Frannie almost thought she saw the tower and pinnacles of the holy city, and she smiled in her sleep. Rest and peace and comfort and unawareness of the danger and the sinister plans that were working all around her, danger for the whole beautiful world of peace into which Frannie had been born.

  Chapter 14

  Frannie’s piano arrived by way of the Bluebell Neighborly Truck Express while Frannie was at church with Val, and under Nurse Branner’s direction was duly installed in the living room, giving the place a cozy air of homelikeness. With it had come two fine old oil paintings of a quaint grandmother with a white organdy cap and kerchief, and a grim grandfather in old-time attire.

  “I reckon she wants them pictures hung on the wall, don’t she? I brung the hooks they was hung on, and I told her I’d hang ’em for her,” said the old man who had brought them.

  So the nurse went up to Mrs. Fernley for instructions, and when Frannie came home that evening after church there was her beloved piano in the place that had been left vacant for it, and there hung the old pictures in the same relation to the piano that they had occupied in Bluebell.

  “Oh, this is nice, isn’t it?” she said with a happy smile as she looked around the room. “It begins to look like home now. When do you think Mother will be able to come downstairs, Nurse Branner?”

  “Well, she sat up awhile today, and if her pulse says so, perhaps the doctor will let her come down tomorrow. He’s coming again in the morning, and I’ll ask him. So perhaps we’ll have another surprise for you tomorrow night when you come home. But don’t get your hopes up too high. He may think she ought to stay upstairs another day or two before she attempts to come down.”

  Frannie ran up the stairs lightheartedly to see her mother, and her feet seemed to have the old spring, her voice the old ring as she entered her mother’s room.

  “My dear!” greeted her mother. “You sound more like your old self than you have since we came here. What has happened?”

  “Oh Mother, I’m so glad to have my dear piano back again, and it looks good to see the pictures on the wall. Now it seems as if the family had the right setting.”

  Her mother smiled.

  “Poor, silly child!” she said smiling. “I’m afraid you’ve got a bit of the old family aristocracy in you yet, in spite of adversity. Don’t encourage it. It always brings discontent.”

  Frannie laughed.

  “Don’t worry, Mother dear, I could live just as happily without the old family portraits and even the piano, though I am glad to have it, and it does make it seem more like home here.”

  “Yes, I know, dear. I was only teasing you. But now, sit down and tell me about your day, and about the church you visited. And most of all, I want to know about that young man. Frannie, you’ve got to be awfully careful. Are you quite sure he’s all right?”

  Frannie laughed.

  “Well, you can feel quite comfortable about him, Mother. I am sure you would like him. He seems to have been brought up with very much the same ideals you have tried to instill in me, and he’s interested in real things. Books and music, and even the Bible. He’s interested in knowing what Bible students think of this war in relation to the prophecies. That ought to take with you, Mother. I’m sure he would please you.”

  “Well yes, he is certainly good-looking and pleasing in his manners. I saw that in just the few minutes when he carried me up to my bed the day I was taken sick. But—” Mrs. Fernley still looked worried.

  “Oh yes, I knew you’d say ‘but’ again, Mother. But I’m sure you would like the way he talks about churches, and the way he looks at life. He seems what you call ‘real.’ And he was so interested in the sermon tonight. We talked about it all the way home.”

  “Oh yes, how was that sermon? Is the man a good preacher?”

  “Indeed he is, Mother. He’s your kind. He was most interesting. He knows the Bible so well, and he talks about it so clearly that he makes it most fascinating. Mother, he thinks that the return of Christ to the earth may not be far away! And if that’s true, then what they call ‘the Rapture’ is even nearer. That’s the time when He comes to the air to take up out of the earth the people who really believe in Him.”

  “My dear! That is very interesting. It makes everything seem so very near—as if we were going on a journey in just a few days and might begin to pack and get ready to leave. Of course, we don’t have to pack for that, for somehow God is going to make us ready, but it makes it seems so very much more real. And, of course, it may not be as near as we hope, then again it may.”

  “But Mother! I didn’t know you believed that Christ was coming back again.”

  “Yes, I have believed it a long time, but in a very vague way. I’ve read some books about it, in the days when I had time to read. I even joined a Bible class once where they were studying something about that. But then when your father died I felt so downhearted and there was so much to do, and so much to be planned for, and it seemed so impossible to take hold of life again and go on without your father, that I didn’t think much more about it. It almost faded from my mind and began to seem like a dream, just a mirage. Your father was interested in it, too, and after he was gone I couldn’t bear to keep on thinking about what he had talked of so much. It seemed that a door was shut into what had been a bright vision.”

  “Oh Mother, I wish you had told me this before. I didn’t think you knew about this hope that those people tonight seemed to have so clearly.”

  “Darling! I’m sorry I have been so remiss. Well, we’ll have to get hold of things together now. But Frannie, this young man who took you to church tonight, was he really interested in all this, or was it just an excuse to have a good time with a pleasant, sweet girl?”

  “No, Mother, you mustn’t think that about him. He isn’t a bit flirtatious. He was really interested. He said he had heard about this preacher and his sermons on prophecy and he wanted to listen to him and see if he could get any light on the subject. I think he is really interested. We talked about it all the way home.”

  “Well, dear, that sounds pleasant and good. I am glad, of course, for you to have a friend who is interested in religious things. But there is one phase of it that I was thinking about all the evening as I lay here and thought about you. He may be very attractive and have a wonderful Christian character, and yet he may not be especially interested in you. You’ll have to remember that constantly. I hate to spoil your pleasure in the evening right at the start, but I’m sure you ought to be warned. It isn’t just like going with the boys at home whom you have known all your life, all your growing-up days. You’re a stranger here. You’re lonely. And under those circumstances a bit of kindness, an invitation to go to church, means a lot more to you than it would if the boys you have known for years had asked you. What I am afraid of is that you will let your heart get set on this young man, when he really is only being kind and pleasant.”

  “Oh no, Mother!” said Frannie quickly, her cheeks flushing uneasily. “You mustn’t think that. I know he is only being kind. Surely it’s all right to talk about hereafter and that sort of thing with so
meone who believes as I do.”

  “Of course, dear. And I know I can count on my girl to set a guard on her thoughts. Remember, you don’t know anything of his circumstances. He may be engaged to someone else who is not here just now. Or at least interested in someone else. Nurse Branner tells me this young man—Willoughby, isn’t that his name?—she tells me he belongs to a wealthy family. She didn’t know whether he was wealthy in his own right or not, but his aunt is very wealthy, a woman of society. And he is living with her at present.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Frannie, lifting thoughtful eyes to her mother. “We passed his aunt’s house this evening. It is very beautiful and costly looking. But he doesn’t act as if he felt that he was rich. However, Mother, it wouldn’t make any difference. I’m not going to be silly and get a broken heart. I’ve thought all those things out, and I decided God sent him to help me over these new hard days when I was put in a strange, new place, so I could be pleasant and cheerful all the time. But I’ll keep sensible. One doesn’t have to fall in love, Mother, with every attractive man who is kind for a few days. But, listen! He wants me to go with him over to Lady Winthrop’s house tomorrow night to a Bible class along these same lines. He says she wants to get new members for her class, and he had promised to go once anyway. He didn’t know whether he could spare the time to go again or not, but he said he knew she would like me to come, and if it was all right with me he would call for me tomorrow night. He said she told him it would probably be over before ten o’clock. Do you think I shouldn’t have agreed to go?”

  “Oh, I don’t see any harm in that, dear. He is just helping you to get adjusted to your new life. Going to a Bible study class doesn’t mean anything significant. Yes, go, and get better acquainted with that dear lady who did so much for me when I was taken sick. Now, don’t worry. I just wanted you to be warned, and then I can trust you to be my wise, true girl and walk your sweet, natural way, the way you always did at home.”

  “Thank you, Mother dear. I’ll remember what you say. And anyway, I’m not out looking for somebody to fall in love with. I have a job, and whatever else comes my way I’ll enjoy while I can, but I won’t lose my head over it. Good night, Mother dear!”

  And Frannie kissed her mother and slipped away to her own room, thinking pleasantly of the nice time she was to have the next evening. And resolutely, whenever the memory of a friendly smile or a pleasant look came to her mind, she put away the thought of it with a mere recognition that he had been very kind. And then she would go off in memory to the things they had talked over together.

  So it was with a very happy heart that she hurried home that afternoon. Val Willoughby was not with her. He had told her in the morning that he had some extra work that would keep him late at the plant so she did not look for him as she sailed out into the crisp air. She had a recurrence of thanksgiving that the weather was still clear and fine and the skating still perfect.

  On her way she got to thinking of the two fellows who had so annoyed her before and wondered why she had not seen anything more of them. Could it be that they were really injured? Or were they afraid to come back in case the knowledge of what they had done had crept back to the heads of their departments? Well, she was not missing them anyway and was relieved that they no longer crossed her path. Still, she would be sorry if she had seriously hurt either of them. Of course skates were rather dangerous weapons. But they were all she had, and she felt sure that if she hadn’t had them and if Val Willoughby hadn’t come along just in time, she would have had a serious time.

  She ran up the steps from the ice, swinging her skates by their laces, and into the house.

  “Ummmmm-m! How good that dinner smells!” she said. “How am I ever going to get along without you when you go to your next case?”

  The nurse grinned. She was pressing something soft and blue, and as Frannie closed the door behind her she put down her iron, slipped the garment off the ironing board, and handed it over.

  “There!” she said triumphantly. “I guess that’s all right for you to wear tonight. Your mother said this was what you would be likely to choose.”

  “Oh, but this isn’t a party!” said Frannie with wide, pleased eyes. “It’s only a Bible class. I don’t suppose they’ll take off their coats and hats.”

  “Oh yes they will,” said the nurse decidedly. “I went to one of those classes myself once, and some people just ran in wearing their bright dinner dresses, coats just thrown around them. A few came from a distance and wore coats and hats, but most of them were quite dressed up. You want a pretty dress on, especially since you are going with a young man. You don’t want him to be ashamed of you, you know.”

  “Oh!” said Frannie with a bit of newly acquired dignity. “This isn’t a date, you know. Mr. Willoughby merely thought I would enjoy the study because of something in the sermon we heard last night. I don’t think he would need to worry about how I was dressed. He is merely escorting me over there. Nobody will know, probably, that I came with him.”

  The nurse gave the girl a quick look with a strange little pucker to her lips.

  “Oh! You don’t say so!” said Nurse Branner. “Well, even so, you might as well look your best. I think Lady Winthrop would like that. Besides, she took the trouble to send word this morning and make sure you were coming with Valiant Willoughby. She said she was counting on your presence.”

  “Oh, how lovely!” said Frannie. “And you are sure that blue won’t be too dressy for just a Bible class?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. And what’s more your mother was sure, too. She told me where to find it in the big chest of drawers.”

  “Oh, all right. If mother thinks it is the right thing then I’ll wear it, but I wouldn’t like to feel overdressed.”

  “You won’t!” said the nurse contentedly. “Take it from me. I’ve lived in this town long enough to know the customs.”

  So Frannie took the blue dress, thanked Nurse Branner with a warm hug and kiss, and ran upstairs to kiss her mother.

  “Mother dear, I feel very selfish going out two nights in a row,” she said after the usual greetings had been exchanged. “Wouldn’t you rather I would just explain when Mr. Willoughby comes that I feel tired and think I had better stay home tonight?”

  “No!” said Mrs. Fernley. “No! Not on any account. I certainly am glad to have you attend a Bible class, and especially when it is at that dear woman’s house. And don’t be a fool, Frannie! Just take this thing as you would have taken going to a prayer meeting at home, or going to a church social with your cousin Harry.”

  Frannie gave her mother a relieved smile.

  “All right, Mother. I’ll do my best.”

  “And don’t you think another thing about what we talked of last night. I didn’t want to make you self-conscious. Just take it for granted that this young man is a friendly neighbor and let it go at that. Don’t go to analyzing your feelings and his. I’m sorry I said a thing.”

  “There, Mother, you needn’t be. I’ll do as you say. But do you really think I should dress up so much?”

  “Yes. You can trust that nurse. She knows. Now run down and get your supper and then come up and get dressed so I can look you over before you go. Besides, I’d like to hear you play a minute or two on your piano if there is time. A touch of the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ would give me a melody for the evening.”

  So Frannie ran down to her supper. They had a cheerful, happy time laughing and talking, and Bonnie looked at her sister enviously.

  “I wish I could go with you tonight, Frannie,” she said wistfully. “I like meetings. I haven’t been to a church in a long time.”

  “I know, dear,” said the sister. “But you shall pretty soon. When Mother gets well and we can all go together we will have nice times going to church and Sunday school every Sunday. And I’m sorry to have to leave you behind so much, little dear, but you see I’m getting acquainted with places for us to go to. And tonight Lady Winthrop has invited me to a Bible class at
her pretty house where you were, and so I shall see it. You know you wanted me to see it.”

  “Yes, I wanted you to see it, Frannie dear,” sighed the little girl. “Yes, I’m glad to stay with Mother and Nurse Branner so you can see my nice, pretty lady. And sometime we’ll go there together, won’t we, Frannie? And go across the bridge?”

  “Yes, sometime. Perhaps pretty soon. I’m sure there’ll be a way.”

  So the little girl gave her sister a sunny smile.

  “You have a nice time, Frannie,” she said politely, like an older person.

  Then Nurse Branner sent Frannie to get ready for the evening and got the dishes out of the way herself.

  “You go on. You can’t be sure just what time Mr. Willoughby will come for you, and your mother will want to see if you look all right before you go,” she said.

  So it was still early when Frannie went into her mother’s room to be looked over. Presently the nurse and Bonnie came up to help with the inspection and they all pronounced that she looked all right.

  “Just pretty perfect, Frannie,” said little Bonnie quaintly.

  “And now,” said the mother, “I want to hear the old piano. Go down and play the ‘Moonlight Sonata,’ and the Spinning song, and then if you have time before you go give me one of the dear old hymns I love. But don’t hold up your going if your escort comes before you are done. I’ll carry the tune over in my heart till tomorrow night when you can finish for me.”