III – THE WAY TO HEAVEN

John Travis was like a good many young men in the tide of respectable church-going. His grandmother was an old-fashioned Christian, rather antiquated now; but he still enjoyed the old cottage and the orchard of long ago. His mother was a modern church member. They never confessed their experiences one to another in the fervent spiritual manner, but had clubs and guilds and societies to train the working-people. She was interested in charitable institutions, in homes, and the like; that is, she subscribed liberally and supervised them. Personally she was rather disgusted with the inmates and their woes, whose lives and duties were mapped out by rule, whether they fitted or not.

Then, he had two sisters who were nice, wholesome, attractive girls, who danced all winter in silks and laces, kept Lent rigorously with early services, sewing-classes, and historical lectures, and took their turns in visiting the slums. All summer there was pleasuring. The young women in their “set” were much alike, and he wondered who of them all could show these little waifs the way to heaven.

For himself, he had gone through college honorably. He was a moral young man, because a certain fine, clean instinct and artistic sense forbade any excesses. To be sure, he had read Strauss and Renan after his Darwin and Spencer, he had even dipped into the bitter fountains of Schopenhauer. He had a jaunty idea that the myths and miracles of the Bible were the fables and legends of the nations in the earlier stages of their development, quite outgrown in these later days of exact philosophical reasoning.

But as he sat there, with these children’s eyes fixed upon him with an intent life-and-death expression, uttering a strong, inward soul cry that reached his ears and would not be shut out, a certain assurance came to him. These tender little souls were waiting for the word that was to lead them in the way of life everlasting. “Whoso offendeth one of these little ones” – it was there in letters of fire.

What but heaven could compensate them for their dreary lives here! What but the love of God infold them when father and mother had failed. For surely they had not demanded any part in the struggle of life. Ah, if the dead rose not again – what refinement of cruelty to send human beings into the world to suffer like brutes, having a higher consciousness to intensify it ten-fold, and then be thrust into the terrible darkness of nothingness. Even he was not willing to come to a blank, purposeless end.

He had been sketching rapidly, but he saw the little faces changing with an uncomprehended dread. Dil’s sunshine was going out in sullen despair. Yes, he must bear witness – for to-day, for all time, for all human souls. In that moment he believed. A rejoicing, reverent consciousness was awakened within him; and the new man had been born, the man who desired to learn the way to heaven, even as these little children.

“Yes, there is a heaven.” He could feel the tremulousness in his voice, yet the assurance touched him with inexpressible sweetness, so new and strange was it. “There is a God who cares for us all, loves us all, and who has prepared a beautiful land of rest where there is no pain nor sorrow, where no one is sick or lonely or in any want, where the Lord Jesus gathers the sorrowing into his arms, and wipes away their tears, soothes them with his own great love, which is sweeter and tenderer than the best human love.”

“Oh,” cried Dil, as he paused, “are you jest certain sure? There was a little old lady who came and sang once ’bout a beautiful country, everlastin’ spring, an’ never with’rin’ flowers. I didn’t get the hang of it all, but it left a sort of sweetness in the air that you could almost feel, you know. Don’t you b’lieve she knew ’bout the truly heaven?”

Dil’s brown eyes were illumined again.

“Yes – that was heaven.” His grandmother sang that old hymn. He would go up there and learn it some day, and tell her that in the midst of the great city he had borne witness to the faith. The knowledge was so new and strange that it filled him with great humility, made him a little child like one of these.

“Oh,” cried Dil, with a long, restful sigh of satisfaction, while every line of her face was transfigured, “you must know, ’cause, you see, you’ve had chances. You can read books and all. And now I am quite sure – Bess an’ me,” placing her hand lovingly over the little white one. “An’ mebbe you c’n tell us just how to go. And when you come to the place, there’s a bridge or something that people get over, and go up beyond the sky – jest back of the blue sky,” with a certain confident, happy emphasis in the narrow, but rapt, vision.

“Couldn’t we start right away?” cried Bess with eager hopefulness, her wan little face in a glow of excitement. “What’s the good o’ goin’ back home? Me an’ Dil have talked it over an’ over. An’ there must be crowds an’ crowds goin’, – people who are strong and well, an’ can run. Why, I sh’d think they’d be in an awful hurry to get there. An’ you said no one would be sick. My head aches so when the babies cry, an’ my poor back is so tired an’ sore. Oh, if I had two good legs, so Dil wouldn’t have to push me an’ lift me out an’ in! O Dil, do let’s go!”

She was trembling with excitement, and her eyes were a luminous glow.

What could John Travis say to these eager pilgrims? He did not remember that he had ever known any one in a hurry to get to heaven. How strange it was! And how could he explain this great mystery of which he knew so little, – the walk that was by faith, not sight?

“You said you had been to the Mission School,” catching at that straw eagerly. “Did they not tell you – teach you” – and he paused in confusion.

“I ain’t been much. Mammy don’t b’lieve in thim. An’ I think they don’t know. One tells you one thing, an’ the nex’ one another. One woman said the sky was all stars through an’ through, an’ heaven was jest round you, an’ where you lived. Well, if it’s Barker’s Court,” and she made a strange, impressive pause, “’tain’t much like the place the woman set out for.”

“She left the City of Destruction. Her name was Christiana.”

“Oh, yes!” kindling anew with awakened memory. “Well, that’s Barker’s Court. There’s fightin’, an’ swearin’, an’ gettin’ drunk, an’ bein’ ’rested. Poor Bess hears ’em in the night when she can’t sleep. An’ the woman went away, an’ took her children. But mammy wouldn’t go, an’ we’ll have to start by our two selves. O mister! do you know anything ’bout prayin’? The teacher told me how, an’ I prayed ’bout Bess’s poor legs, an’ that mother’d let rum alone, an’ not go off into tantrums the way pop uster. An’ it didn’t do a bit o’ good.”

She looked up so perplexed. This was not scientific or philosophical ignorance, – he could find arguments to combat that; it was not unwillingness to try, but the utter innocent ignorance, with the boundary of certain literal experiences. But how could he explain? From the depths of his heart he cried for wisdom.

“It is a long journey, and the summer is almost gone,” he said, after some consideration. “The cold weather will be here presently, and you are both so little; suppose you wait until next spring? I will find you that book about Christiana, and you can learn a good many things – and be getting ready – ”

He knew he was paltering with a miserable subterfuge; but, oh! what could he say? Surely, ere violets bloomed again and buttercups were golden, Bess would have solved the great mystery. Ah, to think of her as well and rejoicing in heaven! It moved all one’s heart in gratitude.

Both children looked pitifully disappointed. Bess was first to recover. The tears shone in her eyes as she said, —

“Well, le’s wait. My clo’es is most worn out, an’ the cold pinches me up so, Dil, you know. An’ it’ll be nice to find how Christiana went. How’ll we get the book?”

“I will bring it to you,” he promised.

“An’ will there be wild roses in heaven?” Bess fingered the poor faded buds as if her conscience suddenly smote her.

“All beautiful things; and they will not wither in that divine air.”

She pressed them against her cheek with a touch so tender he could have blessed her for it. And there came the other vision of the soft white fingers that had torn them so ruthlessly in her anger; of the hot, passionate words! Would she forgive if he went to her, or would she tread his olive branch in the dust?

“Tell me something about yourselves;” and he roused from his dream abruptly. “Where is your father?”

“’Twas him that hurted Bess’s legs, an’ he got jugged for it. He beat mammy dreadful – he uster when he had the drink in him. An’ now mammy’s goin’ the same way. That’s why I’d like to take Bess somewhere – ”

“Are there just you two?”

“There’s Owen an’ Dan. They’re little chaps, but they’d get along. Boys soon get big enough to strike back. An’ some one else ’ud have to look out for the babies.”

“Babies! How many?” in amaze.

“I keep thim when their mothers go to work. Sometimes they’re cross, and it’s dreadful for poor Bess.”

“And your mother allows you to do that?”

“She’s got ter!” cried Bess, her smouldering indignation breaking out. “An’ keep the house. An’ when there’s only two or three mother swears she’ll send Dil to the shop to work. So we’d rather have thim, for it would be dreadful for me to be without Dil, don’t you see?”

Yes, he saw, and his heart ached. He had a vague idea of some of the comfortable homes, but to be without Dil! “Did his mother and sisters ever meet with any such lives, and such tender devotion?” he wondered. It was enough to break one’s heart. It almost broke his to think he could not rescue them. The picturesque aspects of poverty had appealed to him in the street-gamins and ragged old men who besieged him for “tin cints fer a night’s lodgin’,” that he knew would be spent for whiskey in the nearest saloon; but of the actual lives of the very poor he had but the vaguest idea.

“And your mother?” he ventured, dreading the reply.

“She goes out washin’. ’Tisn’t so very bad, you see,” returned Dil, with a certain something akin to pride. “Beggin’s worse.”

He had finished the sketches, – there were several of them, – and he began to gather up his pencils.