A Grain of Wheat

by Joseph Jacobson

  Poor Steve! It was a good thing she looked back at her music or she would have seen his eyes fill with tears.

  As for Cecilia, these silent visits from Steve towards the end of her practice period became a “minimum daily requirement” for her happiness. On the one occasion on which he was detained (by me!) until a few minutes after nine o’clock, he found her kneeling in fervent prayer next to her organ bench. She couldn’t disguise her relief when he appeared in the doorway, almost flinging herself into his arms.

  But normally their evening rendezvous were examples of exhilarating simplicity. Steve would stealthily step through the door “so as not to bother you” and stand behind her admiringly for several minutes. She would pretend she hadn’t noticed him and continue playing until the end of the piece. Then she would pivot on the bench and look him straight in the eye as if to say, You can’t fool me! He would kiss her on the forehead and either stand back to watch and listen or else head over to the pipe chamber to nose around in there while she was playing. The cubbyhole that housed all the ranks of pipes fascinated him. Each rank from the great sixteen-foot Bourdons to the tiny pencil-size flutes was arranged in the same slightly lopsided symmetry. Steve wondered what the purpose was of hiding such beauty in a dingy closet. At 9:00 they would leave the musty chamber and descend the stairs out into the starlit night.

  That gave them an hour before Cecilia had to report in to the women’s dorm. They thrilled at the prospect of having a whole unencumbered hour of strolling around together with nothing else to do but hold hands and talk. Steve felt no compulsion in these intimate moments to drag her through the world he had been living in before the past summer and her miraculous intervention in his life. Maybe someday, but not now. He was, on the other hand, intensely interested in knowing every detail about how she had become the angel she was. And since speaking about Jesus came to her so naturally, he learned from her bit by bit an entirely different way of experiencing and practicing the faith that he had grown up with. His walks with her in the evening were in some ways much like the walk of the two disciples with Jesus on the road to Emmaus on the day of His resurrection, in which “their hearts burned within them” as He opened the Scriptures to them (Luke 24). Steve, to his own amazement, soon found his heart burning not only for Cecilia but also for her God.

  He was at first taken aback a little by her frequent stops in the middle of nowhere just to tell God how much she loved Him. Any little thing could trigger it—catching sight of the last fires of the sunset in the clouds, or marveling at the shimmering waves of the aurora borealis above their heads, or shivering at the distant hooting of a great-horned owl, or even just feeling Steve tenderly squeeze her hand. She’d close her eyes and ardently whisper, “O my dear dear God! I love You so much!”

  Steve never really got used to this, but he loved it.

  Cecilia was not excessively bothered by how new all this was to Steve. She sensed how receptive he was, how sincere in every way. She noted that his joy in attending chapel with her was growing into more than the joy of simply being with her. He was starting to enjoy God! It was only a matter of time before Jesus would do for him what He had done for her. And then he would grow! Oh, he would grow! There was so much in him, and soon he would give it all to Jesus.

  One afternoon while Steve was in the physics lab, Cecilia and I bumped into each other on the library steps. She looked at me, smiled, and then looked up into the sky, with that distant dreamy gaze in her angel eyes. She spoke slowly, weighing each word.

  “You know, Paul,” she began, looking very lovable to me, “great spiritual truths within people are like trees. They all begin as tiny seeds planted by Jesus in the right place at the right time. They grow slowly but surely. God is so patient with us. It would be cruel to whip a little sapling because it isn’t yet the giant pine it will become. It could even die from the whipping and never become great at all.”

  She turned towards me, still focusing her eyes in the distance. “Crops have to have a chance to grow after being seeded. You can’t harvest them right away. We should be thankful to see the tiny sprouts and then believe in what they can become. If we are patient, we will wake up one morning and see a ripe harvest as far as the eye can see.”

  I got the message. Her only job as she saw it now was to love Steve with all her heart and to enjoy being with him. God would do the rest.

  I hardly knew the Steve I experienced that month. Gone was the Steve of the essay he had submitted to me for “correction,” the melancholic Steve groping for a way out of his incessant frustration with all of life. He did share with Cecilia indirectly something about the great disillusionment that had been his life until she came along, but only by way of helping her to understand why he loved her so much and treasured her and her love more than he could ever tell her.

  It remains only to mention that in the course of this month, Steve’s motorcycle was transformed from a release valve for his frustrations into a release valve for their swelling love. Cecilia, so secure in herself, had always been one to try new things—to test the brink of a cliff, to climb a tree to the very top, to find out what was on the other side of a hill or a closed door. She seemed a bit of a paradox that way. If there was a view to be seen, a bug to be examined, a breeze to be caught, that was all the reason she needed to take a little risk. Once, in the days before she met Steve, I caught her sitting sidewise in the window of her organ chamber five stories above the ground, who knows why? And so it came as no surprise to me the first time I noticed them scoot down the hill together on Steve’s contraption.

  The spice of the brisk wind in her face, the steady assurance with which Steve maneuvered the vehicle, the very notion of riding down a smooth road straight towards an invisible point off on God’s horizon, and of course the delightful obligation of holding onto her Steve very tightly endeared the black machine to her at once. She eagerly awaited each Saturday noon when they would set out with a picnic lunch for parts unknown.

  In short, it is unimaginable that any two young people could have been more thrilled and awed by one another than Steve and Cecilia were. They were a rare combination. Everyone who knew them was deeply happy for them.

  Even Tom Mahler got over his bitterness and reaffirmed his friendship with Steve when he saw the effect Cecilia was having on him. “I’m happy for you, Steve,” he told him one day. “Cecilia must be a miracle worker.”

  “She is,” Steve replied, swallowing hard.

  And of course old Drs. Brockhaus and Larsen were confident that at last their intransigent protégé was beginning to see the light.

  XXXIV

  Cecilia had sent such glowing letters about Steve home to her parents that by Thanksgiving they were very receptive to her suggestion that he come home with her and spend the holiday with them. Their confidence in the judgment of their daughter was almost boundless, and their curiosity to meet the young man who had so thoroughly won her affection led them to write him a friendly invitation.

  When Steve received their letter, he ripped it open voraciously and read its contents with unconcealed surprise and delight. Apparently he had been accepted by the Endsruds sight unseen solely on the weight of Cecilia’s love! Almost at once little flinches of apprehension began to coil and spring around in his stomach. Would the real Steve match the image of him that Cecilia had projected to them, filtered through the rose-colored lenses of young love? Would he have to struggle to wear the thin mask of polite conformity just to keep their image of him from shattering? These fears haunted him on and off until finally just two days before they were due to leave for Meadowville, he confided them to Cecilia.

  She giggled. He looked so serious.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, realizing that he was serious.

  “Take a look at me,” she instructed, staring him in the eye.

  He stared back at her.

  “They’re used to me, aren’t they?”

  That’s all she needed to say. If they could love Cecilia w
ith all her strange ways, maybe they wouldn’t have any trouble with Steve and all his strange ways.

  And so the vacation came. Each holiday a special train for students used to run from St. Mark to the Twin Cities on the old Minneapolis, St. Mark and Southern Railroad. Its timetable was so arranged that leaving St. Mark on Tuesday evening, it arrived in Minneapolis to make a connection with the Great Northern passenger train heading northwest. Steve and Cecilia were thus able to travel the one hundred thirty miles from Minneapolis to Meadowville in three short hours, arriving at 11:00 p.m. As the train pulled into the station, Cecilia snuggled up to Steve in the seat, squiggling with nervous excitement. He squiggled back.

  They were the only two passengers to get off at Meadowville. Uncle Irv and Aunt Ellie threw their arms around their daughter and smothered her in kisses, despite their usual Norwegian reserve. Then they turned to Steve. The pastor firmly grasped his hand and, looking him straight in the face, smiled and said with conviction, “Welcome, Steve! It’s a privilege to have you here with us for Thanksgiving.”

  Steve saw clarity and goodness in the pastor’s eyes, and in his clean oval countenance he perceived an honest man. Heartily he replied, “Thank you for inviting me. I am very happy to be here.”

  Ellie took his hand in hers and also welcomed him warmly. Steve’s nervous fears were already melting away.

  Only then did Steve look around and notice, of all things, that a circle of people had gathered around them in spite of the late hour. Nobody offered any excuse or apology for showing up to welcome Cecilia home. Steve stood back in wonder as people descended on her from all sides, each one receiving a moment of special attention from her. They had many questions for her, but he noted that she had just as many for them! Then, inching back a couple of steps towards him, she reached out and, taking him by the left hand, drew him into the circle. A hush fell over the excited little mob.

  “This is my Steve. You’ll love him.”

  Then looking first at Steve and then at the people, “These are my friends. You’ll love them.”

  In the long silence that followed, waves of love washed over them both. By this time, tears were flowing down Steve’s cheeks. “I know I will,” he beamed at her friends through his tears.

  On the way home as the three Endsruds were cheerfully bringing one another up to date on matters close to their hearts, Steve reflected on Cecilia’s reception. It was easy to see why everyone loved her. She gave herself so genuinely and so generously to each and all. There was nothing effusive about her, nothing that smacked of meddling. Each person simply received a special portion of her caring heart. This made him love her all the more and marvel that she loved him.

  When they arrived at the parsonage, everyone sat around eating cake and drinking coffee. The happy parents had so many questions for Cecilia about college and friends and music that she had a hard time fitting questions about some of her friends edgewise into the conversation. They could have sat there talking until dawn.

  At last Aunt Ellie looked at Steve, who had scarcely said a word, and exclaimed, “Gracious, Steve! I imagine you’re really enjoying all this small-town gossip!”

  Everyone laughed. Steve was, in fact, thoroughly enjoying this “gossip.” Like a rose his Cecilia was continuously opening before him, growing more beautiful in his eyes by the moment. All he needed to be very happy was to watch her in action and listen to her.

  At any rate, it was time for bed. The spacious frame house had more rooms in it than the Endsruds ever needed during their twenty-six-year tenure in Meadowville. Steve was introduced to the genial atmosphere of his bedroom towards the rear of the house upstairs.

  He undressed and fell limply into the ample mattress, tugging the fresh sheets up under his chin. The words came out all by themselves, “O my dear dear God! I love You so much!”

  The old clock on the mantle downstairs struck two.

  As he closed his eyes and sank into slumber land, there was his Cecilia smiling at him, not far away but right there close enough to touch. A shiver of joy shook him from head to toe. And he was asleep.

  XXXV

  From the first twilight moments of wakefulness the next morning to the last flickerings of consciousness the next evening, Steve found himself in the warm embrace of a happy family operating with a gracious simplicity that seemed to be altogether natural and effortless for them. Nothing was a burden, nothing a drudgery.

  From the very first moments, lying there stretching and yawning, Steve had to pinch himself to ensure that he was not dreaming, that he was actually waking up in the guest bedroom of the family of his real-life Spectre Maiden. Descending to an eight-thirty breakfast, his first glance into the kitchen told him that this was no ordinary household. Unseen, he stood back from the doorway and observed the two women of the house busy with the baking. Cecilia was elbow-deep kneading dough, wrestling with the unruly stuff like a pro, slugging it mercilessly and hurling it down into the massive bowl. Already every available square foot of surface area in the kitchen was concealed beneath a dozen varieties of gastronomic delights—fresh bread and sweet rolls, coffee cake and cookies, lefse, sunbuckles, julekaka, and other mysterious delectables. The aroma they gave off was heavenly. This was going to be one amazing Thanksgiving!

  Cecilia was tugging and pulling at the springy dough, oblivious to Steve standing there watching her, with great amusement. After a few moments he chuckled out loud. Her head swung around.

  “I can see I’d really be in for it if you and I ever got into an argument,” he said with mock seriousness.

  Cecilia wheeled around. “What was that?” she exclaimed. Then, catching the impish glint in his eye, she hefted the whole wad of dough to her shoulder and pretended she was going to throw it at him. “Catch this, you stinker!”

  During breakfast Steve’s curiosity about the paradise of pastry by which they were surrounded was partially slaked by the information that it had been their tradition for some years now to share their Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with a large family of friends. Ellie suggested that Cecilia and Steve might like to do a little shopping after breakfast to round up a number of last-minute items on a list. That way they could see some townspeople and Steve could meet more of Cecilia’s friends. The two young folks jumped at the idea.

  For Steve, it proved to be a repeat of the night before at the railway station. As he accompanied his beloved in and out of the lives of almost all of the people they met, he stood back and marveled. Everywhere they went they were accosted in a friendly manner by people connected in some special way to Cecilia. Steve couldn’t get over the fact that the relationship of each person to her seemed to be uniquely their own, and on many different levels. Furthermore, all veils were dropped in her presence. She had a disarming effect on everybody without even trying. It is impossible to overstate how deeply this phenomenon moved Steve.

  (The night after they returned to Christiania, he came down to my room and carried on for over an hour about it, citing one example after another.

  “She can’t help but love people, anyone,” he marveled. “It was so obvious just from watching her. Paul, I love that woman so much, everything about her….” His voice trailed off.

  “So do I, Steve. And for the same reasons.”)

  The shopping was over and they returned home. They found Ellie humming a tune and washing the last bowls from the morning’s work. Steve noticed that this little woman was just rotund enough to give the impression of merriness. He could tell that she loved doing things for others. She was, in fact, ever baking pies and cakes for the pastor to present to the parishioners and townspeople on his pastoral visits. (“Here’s a little something for you that the Mrs. sent over with me.”) Another evidence of her desire to make others happy was the fact that, unlike Steve’s parental home, the parsonage looked very much lived in, not lived on. She kept it clean and reasonably neat, but she was not a fastidious housekeeper, like Julia. She simply could not find the joy in sweeping and dusti
ng her own house that she found in baking or sewing or gathering eggs for someone else.

  She and Steve took to each other from the start. She liked his reserve when he was around people. He was no show-off. That made him a good companion for Cecilia. She took note right away, as only a woman can, of the many little signs of his love and respect for their daughter, but she also appreciated that he didn’t fawn all over her and was cautious not to be too demonstrative in public. Her intuition told her that he was both sensible and self-possessed, traits which in her mind were associated with humility. If he was as brilliant as Cecilia had made him out to be, this would stand him in very good stead. Steve, for his part, saw in Ellie the kind of person he never stopped wishing his mother would become.

  Lunch consisted of warm rolls and freshly churned butter along with plenty of cold milk and two kinds of pickles. In the course of the meal, Steve learned still more about the family they would be sharing Thanksgiving with the next day, just enough to make him scratch his head. They were going to consume two ducks, two fat chickens, and a large pork roast!