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Witness

<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> Bonnie's letter reached Mother Marshall Wednesday afternoon while Father was off in the machine arranging for a man to do the spring plowing. She knew it by heart before he got back, and stood at her trysting window with her cheek against the old hat, watching the sunset and thinking it over when the car came chugging contentedly down the road. Father waved his hand boyishly as he turned in at the big gate, and Mother was out on the side door-step waiting as he came to a halt. "Heard anything yet?" he asked, eagerly. "Yes. A nice, dear letter!" Mother held it up, "Hurry up and come in and I'll read it to you." But Father couldn't wait to put away the machine. He bounded out like a four-year-old and came right in then, regardless of the fact that it was getting dark and he might run into the door-jamb putting away the machine later. He settled down, overcoat and all, into the big chair in the kitchen to listen; and Mother put on her spectacles in such a hurry that she got them upside down and had to begin over again. <div class="blockquot"> You Dear Mother Marshall! [the letter began.] And Dear Father Marshall, too! I think it is just the most wonderful thing that I ever heard of that you are willing to invite a stranger like me to visit you! At first I thought it wasn't right to accept such great kindness from people I never saw, and who didn't know whether they could even like me or not. But afterward Mr. Courtland told me about your Stephen and that you had suffered, too! And then I knew that I might take you at your word and come for a little while to get the comfort I need so much! Even then I couldn't have done it if Mr. Courtland and my nurse hadn't told me they were sure I could get something to do and so be able to repay you for all this kindness. If I can really be of any comfort to you in your loneliness I shall be so glad. But I'm afraid I could never even half fill the place of so fine a son as you must have had. Mr. Courtland has told me how grandly he died. He saw him, you know, at the very last minute, and saw all he did to save others. But if you will let me love you both I shall be so grateful. All that I had on earth are gone home to God now, and the world looks so long and hard and sad to me! I do hope you can love me a little while I stay, and that you will not let me make you any trouble. Please don't go to any work to get ready for me. I will gladly do anything that is necessary when I get there. I am quite able to work now; and if I have a place where I can feel that somebody cares whether I live or die it will not be so hard to face the future. A great, strange city is an awful place for a girl that has a heavy heart! I am so glad that you know Jesus Christ. It makes me feel at home before I get there. My dear father was a minister. They wouldn't let me go and pack up, so I had to do the best I could with directing the kind friends who did it for me. I have taken you at your word and had mother's sewing-machine and a box of my little brother's things sent with my trunk. But if they are in the way I can sell them or give them away. And I don't want you to feel that I am going to presume upon your kindness and settle down on you indefinitely. Just as soon as I get a chance to work I must take it, and I shall want to repay you for all you have done for me. You have sent me a great deal more money than I need. I start Wednesday evening on the through express. I have marked a time-table and am sending it because we are unable to find out just what time I can make connections from Grant's Junction, where they say I have to change. Perhaps you will know. But don't worry about me; I'll find my way to you as soon as I can get there. I am praying all the time that I shall not disappoint you. And now till I see you, </div> <div> Sincerely and gratefully, Rose Bonner Brentwood. </div> "It couldn't be improved on," declared Mother, beamingly. "It's just what I'd have wanted her to say if I'd been planning it all out, only more so!" "It's all right!" said Father, excitedly, "but that's one thing we forgot. We'd ought to have sent her word we would meet her at the station, and what time the train left Grant's Junction, and all! Now that's too bad!" "Now don't you worry, Father. She'll find her way. Like as not the conductor will have a time-table and be able to tell her all about the trains. But I certainly do wish we had let her know we would meet her." They were still worrying about it that night at nine o'clock while Father wound the kitchen clock and Mother put a mackerel asoak for breakfast. Suddenly the telephone in the next room gave a whir, and both Father and Mother jumped as if they had been shot, looking at each other in bewildered question as they hastened to the 'phone. It was Father who took down the receiver. "A telegram? For Mr. Seth Marshall! Yes, I'm listening! Write it down, Mother! A telegram!" "Mercy! Perhaps she wasn't well enough to start!" gasped mother, putting her pencil in place. <div class="blockquot">Miss Brentwood left to-night at nine-fifteen on express number ten, car Alicia lower berth number eight. Please let me know if she arrives safely. </div> <div> Paul Courtland. </div> "Now isn't that thoughtful of him!" he said, as he hung up the receiver. "He must have sensed we wanted to send her word, and now we can do it!" "Send her word!" said Mother, bewildered. "Why, surely! Haven't you read in the papers how they send messages to trains that are moving? It's great, isn't it, Mother? To think this little dinky telephone puts you and me out here on this farm in touch with all the world." "Do you mean you can send a telegram to her on board the train, Seth?" asked Mother, in astonishment. "Sure!" said Father. "We've got all the numbers of everything. Just send to that express train that left to-night. What was it—Express number ten, and so on, and it'll be sent along and get to her." "Well, I think I'd ask her to answer then, to make sure she got it. I think that's a mighty uncertain way to send messages to people flying along on an express train. If you don't get any word from her you'll never know whether she got it or not, and then you won't know whether to meet her at Sloan's or Maitland," said Mother, with a worried pucker on her forehead. "Sure!" said Father, taking down the receiver. "I can do that." "It's just wonderful, Seth, how much you know about little important things like that!" sighed Mother, when the telegram was sent. "Now, I think we better go right to bed, for I've got to get to baking early in the morning. I want to have bread and pies and doughnuts fresh when she comes." It was while they were eating breakfast that the answer came: <div class="blockquot">Telegram received. Will come to Sloan's Station. Having comfortable journey. R.B.B. </div> "Now isn't that just wonderful!" said Mother, sitting back weakly behind the coffee-pot and wiping away an excited tear with the corner of her apron. "To think that can be done! Now, wouldn't it be just beautiful if we had telephones to heaven! Think, if we could get word from Stephen to-day, how happy we'd be!" "Why, we have!" said Father. "Wait!" and he reached over to the little stand by the window and grasped the worn old Bible. "Here! Listen to this! <div class="blockquot">"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. </div> "There, Mother! Ain't that just as good as any telegram from a moving train? And it's signed with His own seal and signature! It means He's heard our sorrow about Stephen's leaving us, and He heard it ages before we felt it ourselves, and wrote this down for us! Sent us a telegram this morning, just to comfort us! I reckon that meeting with Stephen and the Lord in the air is going to knock the spots clean out of this little old meeting to-morrow morning down at Sloan's Station. We won't need our ottymobeel any more after that. We'll have wings, Mother! How'll you like to fly?" Mother gave a little gasp of joy and smiled at Father like a rainbow through her tears. "That's so, Father! We don't need telephones to heaven, do we? I guess His words cover all our needs if we'd only remember to look for them. Now, Father, I must get at those doughnuts! Was you going to take the machine and run down to town and see if those books have come yet? They surely ought to be here by this time. Then don't forget to fix that fire up in the bedroom so it'll be all ready to light when she gets here. Isn't it funny, Father, we don't know how she looks! Not in the least. And if two girls should get off the train at Sloan's Station we wouldn't know which was the right one!" "Well I should!" declared Father. "I'm dead certain there ain't two girls in the whole universe could have written that letter, and if you'd put any other one down with her, and I saw them side by side, I could tell first off which she was!" So they helped each other through that last exciting day, finding something to do up to the very last minute the next morning before it was time to start to Sloan's Station to meet the train. Mother would go along, of course. She pictured herself standing for hours beside that kitchen window with her cheek against the old hat, waiting, and wondering what had happened that they hadn't come, and she couldn't see it that way. So she left the dinner in such stages of getting ready that it could be soon brought to completion, and wrapped herself in her big gray cloak. Father went faster than he had ever been known to go since he got the car, and Mother never even noticed. He got a panic lest his watch might be out of the way and the train arrive before they got there. So they arrived at the station almost an hour ahead of the train. "Oh, I'm so glad it's a pretty day!" said Mother Marshall, slipping her gloved hands in her sleeves to keep from shivering with excitement. Mother Marshall sat quite decorously in the automobile till the train drew up to the platform and people began to get out. But when Bonnie stepped down from the car she forgot all about her doubts as to how they would know her, and jumped right out on the platform without waiting to be helped. She rushed up to Bonnie, saying, "This is our Bonnie, isn't it?" and folded her arms about the girl, forgetting entirely that she hadn't meant to use the name until the girl gave her permission; that she had no right to know the name even, wasn't supposed to have heard of it, and was sort of giving the young man away as it were. But it didn't matter! Bonnie was so glad to hear her own name called in that endearing tone that she just put her face down in Mother Marshall's comfortable neck and cried. She couldn't help it, right there while the train was still at the station and the other travelers were peering curiously out of the sleeper at the beautiful pale girl in black who was being met by that nice old couple with the automobile. Somehow it made them all feel glad, she had looked so sad and alone all the journey. What a ride that was home again to the farm, with Mother Marshall cuddling and crooning to her: "Oh, my dear pretty child! To think you've really come all this long way to comfort us!" and Father running the old machine at an unheard of rate of speed, slamming along over the road as if he had been sent for in great haste, and reaching his big fur glove back now and then to pat the old buffalo robe that was tucked snugly over Bonnie's lap. Bonnie herself was fairly overcome and couldn't get her equilibrium at all. She had thought these must be wonderful people to be inviting a stranger and doing all they were doing, but such a reception as this she had never dreamed of. "Oh, you are so good to me!" sobbed Bonnie, with a smile through her tears. "I know I'm acting like a baby, but I can't seem to help it. I've had nobody so long, and now to be treated like this, I just can't stand it! It seems as if I'd got home!" "Why, sure! That's what you have!" said Father, in his big, hearty voice. "Put your head right down on my shoulder and cry if you want to, my pretty!" said Mother Marshall, pulling her softly over toward her. "You can't think how good it is to have you here! Father and I were so afraid you wouldn't come! We thought you mightn't be willing to come so far to utter strangers!" So it went on all the way, all of them so happy they didn't quite know what they were saying. Then, when they got to the house even Father was so far gone that he couldn't let them go up-stairs alone. He just had to leave the machine standing by the kitchen door and carry that little hand-bag up as an excuse to see how she would like the room. Bonnie, pulling off her gloves, entered the room when Mother opened the door. She looked around bewildered a moment, as if she had stepped from the middle of winter into a summer orchard. Then she cried out with delight: "Oh! How perfectly beautiful! You don't mean me to have this lovely room? It isn't right! A stranger and a pauper!" "Nothing of the kind!" growled Father, patting her on the shoulder. "Just a daughter come home!" Then he beat a hasty retreat to the fireplace and touched a match to the fire already laid, while Mother, purring like a contented old pussy, pushed the bewildered girl into the big flowered chair in front of the fire and began unfastening her coat and taking off her hat, reverently, half in awe, for she was not used to girl's fixings, and they held almost as much mystery for her as if she had been a man. In the midst of it all Mother remembered that dinner ought to be eaten at once, and that Bonnie must have a chance to wash her face and straighten her hair before dinner. So Father and Mother, with many a reluctant lingering and last word, as if they were not going to see her for a month, finally bustled off together. In just no time at all Bonnie was down there, too, begging to be allowed to help, and declaring herself perfectly able, although her white face and the dark rings under her tired eyes belied her. Mother Marshall was not sure, after all, but she ought to have put Bonnie to bed and fed her with chicken broth and toast instead of letting her come down-stairs to eat stewed chicken, little fat biscuits with gravy, and the most succulent apple pie in the world, with a creamy glass of milk to make it go down. Father had just finished trying to make Bonnie take a second helping of everything, when he suddenly dropped the carving-knife and fork with a clatter and sprang up from his chair: "I declare to goodness, Mother, if I didn't forget!" he said, and rushed over to the telephone. "Why, that's so!" cried Mother. "Don't forget to tell him how much we love her!" Bonnie looked from one to the other of them in astonishment. "It's that young man!" explained Mother. "He wanted we should telegraph if you got here all safe. You know he sent us a message after he put you on the train." "How very thoughtful of him!" said Bonnie, earnestly. "He is the most wonderful young man! I can't begin to tell you all he did for me, a mere stranger! And so that explains how you knew where to send your message. I puzzled a good deal over that." Four hours later Courtland, coming up to his room after basket-ball practice, a hot shower, and a swim in the pool, found the telegram: <div class="blockquot">Traveler arrived safely. Bore the journey well. Many thanks for the introduction. Everybody happy; if you don't believe it come and see for yourself. </div> Father and Mother Marshall. Courtland read it and looked dreamily out of the window, trying to fancy Bonnie in her new home. Then he said aloud, with conviction, "Some time I shall go out there and see!" Just then some one knocked at his door and handed in a note from Gila. <div class="blockquot">Dear Paul,—Come over this evening, I want to see you about something very special. </div> <div> Hastily, GGila. </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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