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Witness

<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> Into the narrow brick house from which he had run forth so joyously but a few short minutes before, they carried him, up two flights of steep stairs to a tiny room at the back of the hall. The gas was burning brightly at one side, and something that sent forth a savory odor was bubbling on a little two-burner gas-stove. Courtland was hungry, and it struck his nostrils pleasantly as the door swung open, revealing a tiny table covered with a white cloth, set for two. There was a window curtained with white, and a red geranium on the sill. The girl entered ahead of him, sweeping back a bright chintz curtain that divided the tiny room, and drew forth a child's cot bed. Courtland gently laid down the little inert figure. The girl was on her knees beside the child at once, a bottle in her hand. She was dropping a few drops in a teaspoon and forcing them between the child's lips. "Will you please get a doctor, quick," she said, in a strained, quiet voice. "No, I don't know who; I've only been here two weeks. We're strangers! Bring somebody! anybody! quick!" Courtland was back in a minute with a weary, seedy-looking doctor who just fitted the street. All the way he was seeing the beautiful agony of the girl's face. It was as if her suffering had been his own. Somehow he could not bear to think what might be coming. The little form had lain so limply in his arms! The girl had undressed the child and put him between the sheets. He was more like a broken lily than ever. The long dark lashes lay still upon the cheeks. Courtland stood back in the doorway, looking at the small table set for two, and pushed to the wall now to make room for the cot. There was just barely room to walk around between the things. He could almost hear the echo of that happy, childish voice calling down in the street: "Bonnie! Bonnie! I've got supper all ready!" He wondered if the girl had heard. And there was the supper! Two blue-and-white bowls set daintily on two blue-and-white plates, obviously for the something-hot that was cooking over the flame, two bits of bread-and-butter plates to match; two glasses of milk; a plate of bread, another of butter; and by way of dessert an apple cut in half, the core dug out and the hollow filled with sugar. He took in the details tenderly, as if they had been a word-picture by Wells or Shaw in his contemporary-prose class at college. They seemed to burn themselves into his memory. "Go over to my house and ask my wife to give you my battery!" commanded the doctor in a low growl. Courtland was off again, glad of something to do. He carried the memory of the doctor's grizzled face lying on the little bared breast of the child, listening for the heart-beats, and the beautiful girl's anguish as she stood above them. He pushed aside the curious throng that had gathered around the door and were looking up the stairs, whispering dolefully and shaking heads: "An' he was so purty, and so cheery, bless his heart!" wailed one woman. "He always had his bit of a word an' a smile!" "Aw! Them ottymobbeels!" he heard another murmur. "Ridin' along in their glory! They'll be a day o' reckonin' fer them rich folks what rides in 'em! They'll hev to walk! They may even have to lie abed an' hev their wages get behind!" The whole weight of the sorrow of the world seemed suddenly pressing upon Courtland's heart. How had he been thus unexpectedly taken out of the pleasant monotony of the university and whirled into this vortex of anguish! Why had it been? Was it just happen that he should have been the one to have gone to the old woman and made her toast, and then been called upon to pray, instead of Tennelly or Bill Ward or any of the other fellows? And after that was it again just coincidence that he should have happened to stand at that corner at that particular moment and been one to participate in this later tragedy? Oh, the beautiful face of the suffering girl! Fear and sorrow and suffering and death everywhere! Wittemore hurrying to his dying mother! The old woman lying on her bed of pain! But there had been glory in that dark old room when he left it, the glory of a Presence! Ah! Where was the Presence now? How could He bear all this? The Christ! And could He not change it if He would—make the world a happy place instead of this dark and dreadful thing that it was? For the first time the horror of war surged over his soul in its blackness. Men dying in the trenches! Women weeping at home for them! Others suffering and bleeding to death out in the open, the cold or the storm! How could God let it all be? His wondering soul cried out, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here!" It was the old question that used to come up in the class-room, yet now, strangely enough, he began to feel there was an answer to it somewhere; an answer wherewith he would be satisfied when he found it. It seemed an eternity of thought through which he passed as he crossed and recrossed the street and was back in the tiny room where life waited on death. It was another eternity while the doctor worked again over the boy. But at last he stood back, shaking his head and blinking the tears from his kind, tired, blue eyes. "It's no use," he said, gruffly, turning his head away. "He's gone!" It was then the girl brushed him aside and sank to her knees beside the little cot. "Aleck! Aleck! Darling brother! Can't you speak to your Bonnie just once more before you go?" she called, clearly, distinctly, as if to a child who was far on his way hence. And then once again pitifully: "Oh, darling brother! You're all I had left! Let me hear you call me Bonnie just once more before you go to mother!" But the childish lips lay still and white, and the lips of the girl looking down upon the little quiet form grew whiter also as she looked. "Oh, my darling! You have gone! You will never call me any more! And you were all I had! Good-by!" And she stooped and kissed the boy's lips with a finality that wrung the hearts of the onlookers. They knew she had forgotten their presence. The doctor stepped into the hall. The tears were rolling down his cheeks. "It's tough luck!" he said in an undertone to Courtland. The young man turned away to hide the sudden convulsion that seemed coming to his own face. Then he heard the girl's voice again, lower, as if she were talking confidentially to one who stood close at hand. "Oh Christ, will You go with little Aleck and see that he is not afraid till he gets safe home? And will You help me somehow to bear his leaving me alone?" The doctor was wiping away the tears with a great, soiled handkerchief. The girl rose calmly, white and controlled, facing them as if she remembered them for the first time. "I want to thank you for all you've done!" she said. "I'm only a stranger and you've been very kind. But now it's over and I will not hinder you any longer." She wanted to be alone. They could see that. Yet it wrung their hearts to leave her so. "You will want to make some arrangements," growled the doctor. "Oh! I had forgotten!" The girl's hand fluttered to her heart and her breath gave a quick catch. "It will have to be very simple," she said, looking from one to another of them anxiously. "I haven't much money left. Perhaps I could sell something!" She looked desperately around on her little possessions. "This little cot! It is new just two weeks ago and he will not need it any more. It cost twenty dollars!" Courtland stepped gravely toward her. "Suppose you leave that to me," he said, gently. "I think I know a place where they would look after the matter for you reasonably and let you pay later or take the cot in exchange, you know, anything you wish. Would you like me to arrange the matter for you?" "Oh, if you would!" said the girl, wearily. "But it is asking a great deal of a stranger." "It's nothing. I can look after it on my way home. Just tell me what you wish." "Oh, the very simplest there is!"—she caught her breath—"white if possible, unless it's more expensive. But it doesn't matter, anyway, now. There'll have to be a place somewhere, too. Some time I will take him back and let him lie by father and mother. I can't now. It's two hundred miles away. But there won't need to be but one carriage. There's only me to go." He looked his compassion, but only asked, "Is there anything else?" "Any special clergyman?" asked the doctor, kindly. She shook her head sadly. "We hadn't been to church yet. I was too tired. If you know of a minister who would come." "It's tough luck," said the doctor again as they went down-stairs together, "to see a nice, likely little chap like that taken away so. And I operated this afternoon on a hardened old reprobate around the corner here, that's played the devil to everybody, and he's going to pull through! It does seem strange. It ain't the way I should run the universe, but I'm thundering glad I 'ain't got the job!" Courtland walked on through the busy streets, thinking that sentence over. He had a dim current of inner perception that suggested there might be another way of looking at the matter; a possibility that the wicked old reprobate had yet something more to learn of life before he went beyond its choices and opportunities; a conviction that if he were called to go he had rather be the little child in his purity than the old man in his deviltry. The sudden cutting down of this lovely child had startled and shocked him. The bereavement of the girl cut him to the heart as if she had belonged to him. It brought the other world so close. It made what had hitherto seemed the big worth-while things of life look so small and petty, so ephemeral! Had he always been giving himself utterly to things that did not count, or was this a perspective all out of proportion, a distorted brain again, through nervous strain and over-exertion? He came presently to a well-known undertaker's, and, stepping in, felt more than ever the borderland-sense. In this silent house of sadness men stepped quietly, gravely, decorously, and served you with courteous sympathy. What was the name of the man who rowed his boat on the River Styx? Yes! Charon! These wise-eyed grave men who continually plied their oars between two worlds! How did they look on life? Were they hardened to their task? Was their gentle gravity all acting? Did earthly things appeal to them? How could they bear it all, this continual settled sadness about the place! The awful hush! The tear-stained faces! The heavy breath of flowers! Not all the lofty marble arches, and beauty of surroundings, not all the soft music of hidden choirs and distant organ up in one of the halls above where a service was even then in progress, could take away the fact of death; the settled, final fact of death! One moment here upon the curbstone, golden hair afloat, eyes alight with joyous greeting, voice of laughter; the next gone, irrevocably gone, "and the place thereof shall know it no more," Where had he heard those words? Strange, sad house of death! Strange, uncertain life to live. Resurrection! Where had he caught that word in carven letters twined among lilies above the marble staircase? Resurrection! Yes, there would need to be if there was to be any hope ever in this world! It was a strange duty he had to perform, strange indeed for a college boy to whom death had never come very close since he had been old enough to understand. It came to him to wonder what the fellows would say If they could see him here. He felt half a grudge toward Wittemore for having let him in for all this. Poor Wittemore! By this time to-morrow night Wittemore might be doing this same service for his own mother! Death! Death! Death! Everywhere! It seemed as if everybody was dying! He made selections with a memory of the girl's beautiful, refined face. He chose simple things and everything all white. He asked about details and gave directions so that everything would move in an orderly manner, with nothing to annoy. He even thought to order flowers, valley-lilies, and some bright rosebuds, not too many to make her feel under obligation. He took out his check-book and paid for the whole thing, arranging that the girl should not know how much it all really cost, and that a small sum might be paid by her as she was able, to be forwarded by the firm to him; this to make her feel entirely comfortable about it all. As he went out into the street again a great sense of weariness came over him. He had lived—how many years had he lived!—in experience since he left the university at half past five o'clock? How little his past life looked to him as he surveyed it from the height he had just climbed. Life! Life was not all basket-ball, and football, and dances, and fellowships, and frats. and honors! Life was full of sorrow, and bounded on every hand by death! The walk from where he was up to the university looked like an impossibility. There was a store up in the next block where he was known. He could get a check cashed and ride. He found himself studying the faces of the people in the car in a new light. Were they all acquainted with sorrow? Yes, there were more or less lines of hardship, or anxiety, or disappointment on all the older faces. And the younger ones! Did all their bright smiles and eagerness have to be frozen on their lips by grief some day? When you came to think of it life was a terrible thing! Take that girl now, Miss Brentwood—Miss R.B. Brentwood the address had been. The name her brother had called her fitted better, "Bonnie." What would life mean to her now? It occurred to him to wonder if there would be any such sorrow and emptiness of life for any one if he were gone. The fellows would feel badly, of course. There would be speeches and resolutions, a lot of black drapery, and all that sort of thing in college, but what did that amount to? His father? Oh yes, of course he would feel it some, but he had been separated from his father for years, except for brief visits in vacations. His father had married a young wife and there were three young children. No, his father would not miss him much! He swung off the car in front of the university and entered the dormitory at last, too engrossed in his strange new thoughts to remember that he had had no supper. "Hello, Court! Where the deuce have you been? We've looked everywhere for you. You didn't come to the dining-hall! What's wrong with you? Come in here!" It was Tennelly who hauled him into Bill Ward's room and thumped him into a big leather study-chair. "Why, man, you're all in! Give an account of yourself!" he said, tossing his hat over to Bill Ward, and pulling away at his mackinaw. "P'raps he's in love!" suggested Pat from the couch where he was puffing away at his pipe. "P'raps he's flunked his Greek exam.," suggested Bill Ward, with a grin. "He looks as if he'd seen a ghost!" said Tennelly, eying him critically. "Cut it out, boys," said Courtland, with a weary smile. "I've seen enough. Wittemore's called home. His mother's dying. I went an errand for him down in some of his slums and on the way back I just saw a little kid get killed. Pretty little kid, too, with long curls!" "Good night nurse!" said Pat from his couch. "Say, that is going some!" "Ferget it!" ejaculated Bill Ward, coming to his feet. "Had your supper yet, Court?" Courtland shook his head. "Well, just you sit still there while I run down to the pie-shop and see what I can get." Bill seized his cap and mackinaw and went roaring off down the hall. Courtland's eyes were closed. He hadn't felt so tired since he left the hospital. His mind was still grappling with the questions that his last two hours had flung at him to be answered. Pat sat up and put away his pipe. He made silent motions to Tennelly, and the two picked up the unresisting Courtland and laid him on the couch. Pat's face was unusually sober as he gently put a pillow under his friend's head. Courtland opened his eyes and smiled. "Thanks, old man," he said, and gripped his hand understandingly. There was something in Pat's face he had never noticed there before. As he dropped his eyelids shut he had an odd sense that Pat and Tennelly and the Presence were all taking care of him. A sick fancy of worn-out nerves, of course, but pleasant all the same. Down the hall a nasal voice twanged at the telephone, shouting each answer as though to make the whole dormitory hear. Then loud steps, a thump on the door as it was flung open: "Court here? A girl on the 'phone wants you, Court. Says her name is Miss Gila Dare." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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