The Girl of the Woods

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Hopkins, somewhat deflated. “When did you know about it, Mrs. Martin? I supposed it was news to everybody.”

  “Well, I’m not saying when I was told,” said the indomitable Martin. “There! Elva Griggs, there’s that apron all ready for you to hem. If you work fast I should think you’d be done before lunch.”

  Then the minister came back from the kitchen where he had been interviewing his wife about some matters, and drifted around among the members of his church, talking pleasantly, and the voice of criticism and gossip ceased for the time being.

  But the story had started on its way and was not likely to be forgotten. Each one of those women went home to tell all about it at the supper table, with embellishments, and it was not long before it had gone around the neighborhood at least twice, and each time with additions. And yet no one knew just who had given the first information.

  “I think,” said Mrs. Martin on the way home in her old jalopy wherein she had stowed an astonished Mrs. Hopkins who wasn’t used to being asked to ride home because she lived at the top of the hill opposite the woods, “I really think, Mrs. Hopkins, that it is important for you to tell whoever told you that story about the Radcliffes, that it is to be kept strictly quiet until some regular announcement is made. As a friend of the family, I feel justified in asking you to do that. And not to tell another living soul at present! Who was it you said told you?”

  “Why, it was my daughter over in Chenango. Her husband’s cousin who lives out in Reno was visiting there, and he remarked that they had one of Sumter Hill’s best citizens out there getting a divorce, and of course she asked who it was. Then afterward he hunted up the paper he had seen it in and sent it to my daughter, and she sent it to me.”

  “Well, if I were you I’d hide it, and I wouldn’t give out another word of it. I think, too, that you ought to ask your daughter to tell her husband’s cousin not to tell it again around here! And when you get home, I think you should go straight to the telephone and call all those women that you told this afternoon that you aren’t just sure about the story, and you think they better not say anything about it yet. Not till some public announcement is made. Tell them you didn’t understand that it wasn’t something that ought not to be talked about. It might not come off, you know, and then how would you feel? You know, we ought to be awfully careful what we tell. You heard Reverend Castor’s sermon yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “Why, yes, but what’s that got to do with it? Mr. Radcliffe doesn’t even go to our church. Besides, if I heard it, I certainly have a right to tell it.”

  “Look here, Emmeline Hopkins, if you aren’t willing to go around and stop tongues after you’ve cast out a story that wasn’t supposed to be told—or not yet, anyway—then I shall feel it my bound duty to tell Mr. Radcliffe what you’re doing, the story you’re spreading, and what’ll that do to your brother who works for Mr. Radcliffe, do you think?”

  “Oh, my soul!” said Mrs. Hopkins, blanching. “Now how did I know you were a friend of the Radcliffes and would get sore because I told something that was in a paper. I saw the paper myself.”

  “Well, all the same, if you want to keep your brother in with Mr. Radcliffe, I think you better not talk about it. I really mean it. I shouldn’t feel it right not to let him know who was trying to undermine his privacy.”

  Mrs. Hopkins sat sulkily until she reached the corner of her lane, and then she said, “You can let me out here. I like to walk up the lane this time of night. Yes, I mean it. But honestly, Mrs. Martin, I can’t see what the difference is between the way I was telling a few facts about that woman that none of us liked and the way you were lambastin’ her stepson. If you ask me, I think he was the better one of the two, just a young sprig, with his own mother gone and not a soul to care whether he lived or died except a pair of servants. Of course they were devoted as far as that goes, but that ain’t bein’ properly taught by a mother.”

  “You forget,” said Mrs. Martin severely, “that he had a wonderful father. He had the advantage of his upright example and the advice such a father is able to give.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Mrs. Hopkins. “If you had him holding a mortgage over your little home and seen him refuse to wait even one single month for your last payment, when you gave him proof the money would be there for sure the day you said, and if you had lost your home just through his greediness, you wouldn’t think his ‘upright example’ was so keen for any boy to copy. If that Revel don’t turn out to be a better man than his father, then I’ll miss my guess. You may be an intimate friend of the family, for all I know, although I never heard you were before this, but you don’t know all there is to know about that family by a long shot! But I know, for that’s the reason I happen to be living up this ratty old lane in a shanty that isn’t even whitewashed, instead of in my nice little white cottage with green blinds and vines over the porch, down on Robins Road. And that after my man slaved and slaved to get the money to buy it and all, and trusted that old reprobate with all he had! You may feel inclined to go and tell your friend Hiram Radcliffe all I’ve said, I don’t know, and you may think it’ll lose my brother his job, but you’re mistaken this once! It won’t! Because my brother has already lost his job. He gave it up on his own free will yesterday, just because he couldn’t stand it any longer to be doing old Hiram’s dirty work, serving notices on other people like us who were too trustful and were losing all they had! Thanks awfully for the ride, Mrs. Martin, and if I ever get a car, which I don’t expect to, I’ll return the favor. But if you want anybody called up about the news I gave, you better do it yourself. For I wasn’t giving any false alarm, and I’ve got just as much right to talk about one person as you have to talk about twenty. You’re supposed to be a Christian, and I’m not. I’m only a Ladies Aider, but I don’t see that you’re any better than I am, and I guess I’ll stand my chance with you in the long run. Good-bye, Mrs. Martin. I’m pretty plainspoken, but I guess I’ve told the truth, and if they don’t like it, they’ll have to do the other thing.” And Mrs. Hopkins turned loftily and marched up the hill in the setting sunlight, with her chin up and her shoulders held high. She had always ached to tell Mrs. Martin just where to get off, and now she’d done it! She was glad! People posing as such wonderful Christians, always doing a lot of church work and then going around saying the rottenest kind of things about a boy that was a mere child! She didn’t know anything about Revel Radcliffe herself, but she’d defend him if she could, just because Mrs. Martin was scandalized by everything he did, and because he had such a whale of a mean old father.

  And Mrs. Martin, silenced for the moment, sat staring after the determined figure as it marched up the hill sturdily toward the un-whitewashed shanty, and wondered.

  Chapter 16

  But Revel had written another letter to Margaret, telling her how he was making good in college, reporting Grand’s general improvement in health, and saying the doctor was greatly delighted, as of course he was.

  The letter had been hurriedly written, because he had an examination to study for that night, but he had a longing to let her know that as yet he had not been remanded home.

  He had expressed the opinion that the reason for this was probably because his father’s wife did not care to be bothered with him in her vicinity, and he supposed he ought to be very grateful for that. He had asked Margaret to continue to pray for him, because he had come to have great faith in prayer, and he felt that she knew the rules for answered prayer better than he did, and perhaps had more faith.

  Then he enclosed his letter in one of the new college catalogs, with little arrows and scribbled notes to explain some of the pictures, such as “The president of our Fellowship,” “The guy that helped us to put our football team on the map,” “The prof I like the best,” “The field I walk across every day to get to college quickly.” He had also slipped in a little snapshot of Grandfather Revel and the dear old farmhouse where he lived.

  He put his letter into the
envelope that belonged with the catalog and sealed it up, paying full letter postage, and mailed it on his way to college the next morning. Then he waited. And he wondered. Why didn’t Margaret write and tell what she thought of the catalog, and especially the house, and most of all, Grand? He couldn’t understand it. She hadn’t ever waited so long before. Could his mail have miscarried? Not possible, of course. She must be busy, or maybe sick. Still, she hadn’t looked like a girl who was sickly. And it wasn’t a bit like her to wait so long. She had really seemed so interested in his Fellowship.

  The college catalog had long ago found its way from the wastebasket to Aunt Carlotta’s incinerator and disappeared in flames, but of course no one, not even Aunt Carlotta, knew that. She had merely cast aside that which seemed of no value whatever. The snapshots might have been saved if they had come to light, but Revel had slipped them firmly back in the crease of the book, and they did not come out easily.

  Revel waited, week after week, being sure that Margaret would write him soon, now and again tormenting himself lest she was sick or suffering, not able to write. Till at last he concluded that she didn’t want to write him anymore, or was bored with his hurried letter, and then his natural pride asserted itself. Still he kept on waiting.

  But when the autumn was past and Christmastime was approaching, he began to think about sending her some gift.

  The last time he had been in the city, he had stopped in front of a jewelry store and looked at the lovely things displayed. The article that interested him most was a slender bangle bracelet of platinum with little drops of rose quartz the color of a rose petal dropping from it at intervals. They looked like dew, or raindrops with the light of sunrise in their depths. And because the wild-rose color reminded him of the soft color in Margaret’s cheeks after she had been running with him across the meadow, and also of the two tiny bows that held her lovely brown hair away from her face, he had bought it. He wasn’t at all sure when he bought it that he intended to give it to her. It seemed presumptuous. Though there had been no one to tell him that well-brought-up young girls did not accept jewelry, at least expensive jewelry, from young men, it seemed the most fitting thing he could give her. It seemed as if it was like her. And just in case she should write again before Christmas, it would be nice to have it on hand to send.

  He carried it home with him and hid it in his treasure box, and now and again he would take it out and look at it. And once he prayed, “Dear God, do You think I ought to send it to her when she hasn’t written to me for so long? Please help me to know what to do about it.”

  He was half ashamed to pray about a thing like that. It seemed almost too trivial. And yet in a way, it affected his whole relationship to this new friend whom God had seemed to send to him in his need, and therefore it was really important.

  So, after waiting many days, and Christmas not far away, he put it carefully in its pretty box and wrote a card.

  Dear Margaret: This seemed like you, so I am sending it to you and wishing you a happy Christmas and a glad New Year.

  Yours,

  Revel

  And he sent it on its way. And so it found its way into the top drawer of the green guest room where Margaret had roomed when she was staying with Aunt Carlotta, and was utterly forgotten.

  Then more days went by for the two who were distressed about this state of things but thought they must not do anything more about it.

  The boy grew serious these days, and his grandfather watched him with troubled eyes, asked leading questions that might give him an inkling of the trouble, but Revel was silent, answering only in monosyllables. At last one day his grandfather asked him point-blank.

  “Boy, have you had some word from your father that is troubling you?”

  Revel looked up, clear-eyed.

  “Oh, no,” he said, surprised. “No word since the ultimatum. He is waiting for me to fail and get to the end of my rope and come crawling. I know him well enough to know he won’t make any move until that happens. He can hold hate a long time, and strike with venom when he is ready.”

  The grandfather puffed out his lips sorrowfully.

  “Boy! That’s a hard thing to say against one’s own father!” There was no reproof in his tone, only sadness that such a thing had to be.

  “Yes, isn’t it?” said the boy, his voice, too, sorrowful. “But it’s true, Grand. I don’t think he ever has really cared much for me, if he cared at all.”

  “Did you ever try loving him?”

  Revel was silent a minute, then he said gravely, “Yes, I did. When I was a little kid. I used to run to him when he came home and ask to be lifted up. I can remember it distinctly. I used to be really glad when I saw him coming. But he would greet me with a gruff hello and brush me aside, and either go into the house and shut himself in his den, or else come and scold my mother for something he thought she ought to have done. I’ve seen so much of that, Grand! Can you blame me for not having much love for a father like that?”

  “No,” said the old man, with a sorrowful sigh. “And yet, we are told to love our enemies, and to pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us. Have you ever tried praying for him, Revel?”

  “No,” said the boy, thoughtfully. “I don’t think I have. I’ve prayed sometimes a protective prayer for mother against him, but I don’t think I ever prayed for him. I don’t believe I wanted him to be helped.”

  “Yes, I can see that, boy, but perhaps you could pray that he might be made different. You wouldn’t dislike that, would you?”

  ‘No,” said Revel. “I wouldn’t dislike it. I’d like it, of course. I’m afraid my trouble would be that I wouldn’t have faith to believe that could ever happen.”

  “I see, of course. But, boy, that would be doubting God. God is able. He can do all things!”

  “You said once He wouldn’t overstep a man’s own free will and force him to yield. I don’t think my father would ever yield to God. I think he would want to do everything himself. He wouldn’t want God to be God. He would want to be God himself.”

  “Yes, that was Satan’s sin, of course. He wanted to be God and wouldn’t yield. Read about that. But son, God has ways of His own, and He knows if this thing should be done. I guess you’ll have to let Him show you what He will do. Of course, His object for us all, His purpose in making us, is that we should be conformed to the image of His Son. And if a man deliberately won’t let himself be made to conform, God will not insist. You’ll just have to work that one out with God and see.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Revel.

  But the days passed, and the cloud over Revel’s brow did not lift. It was more a puzzled, hurt look than a troubled one, but he did not confide in his grandfather. It somehow seemed to be too sacred to confide to anybody, even Grand, not anybody but God. And maybe God thought he ought not to worry about a girl. He had never thought about girls before, nor worried whether they even noticed him or not, why should he worry about this one?

  But somehow she hadn’t been just a girl; she had been a real friend. She had been something more than he had ever had before till he got Grand, and it depressed him. Perhaps he ought not to care. To heck with her, and let him get his education! Nothing else mattered. He was a college student, and they didn’t need girls.

  Yet what had he done to lose the friendship of this wonderful girl? For she had been wonderful. Why, even those girls in that girls’ Fellowship in the college were kind of silly creatures. They were always giggling and making eyes. They were Christians, yes, and they could even pray very well when they had a joint meeting of the two groups now and then, but they hadn’t been like Margaret. Had he been silly to feel that way about her?

  Well, Grand had said the other day that if you wanted something that God felt was not good for you, you shouldn’t insist. That if God wanted you to have it and felt it was best for you, He would eventually give it but not till His own best time.

  So that night when Revel prayed he said: “God, if Yo
u please, I’d like to put this thing that troubles me into Your hands entirely to straighten out. Make it Your best for me.”

  He got up from his knees and went and stood staring out the window into the starry darkness for a moment, and then he went back and knelt again and prayed.

  “Dear God, make it, please, the best for Margaret, too.”

  The next morning his grandfather looked him over quietly, seriously, and nodded as if he was satisfied.

  “Well, boy, you’ve put whatever was troubling you over into God’s hands fully, haven’t you? Am I right?”

  Revel gave him a quick look and then dropped his gaze, a faint flush coming over his cheeks. Then he said in a low, husky voice, “Yes, sir, I guess I have.”

  “I thought so. And now you’re happier. Am I right?”

  “Yes, sir, I think I am,” said Revel, lifting his clear gaze now with a smile.

  The grandfather smiled tenderly.

  “You looked like your little mother Emily then, boy. That’s the way she used to do. That’s the way she used to answer.”

  The light in the boy’s eyes blazed out now with joy.

  “I’m glad!” he said.

  “And so am I,” said the old man. “You know, there is nothing like that in the whole world for giving joy and peace. Just trusting things to Him. For, after all, He who made the world and us, knows far better than we do what is best. And there is nobody can bring to pass like God. Just take Him into your confidence, and then let Him do the rest. It’ll all come right. And don’t get impatient!”

  “Okay, Grand,” said Revel, with a smile. “I guess it will. When it comes right, I’ll maybe tell you all about it. Or anyway sometime I think I’ll tell you.”

  “Okay,” smiled the grandfather. “Take your time, boy, I can wait. And I’ll pray about it, too.”

  “Even if you don’t know what it is?”