The Man of the Desert - Grace Livingston Hill (best story books to read .TXT) 📗

After a moment she sat up wiping away the tears and began to look around. Perhaps this was the home of some friend of her missionary. She felt comforted about staying here now. She lifted her eyes to the wall above the mantel and lo, there smiled the face of her dear friend, the mother, who had just gone home to heaven, and beneath it—as if that were not enough to bring a throb of understanding and joy to her heart—beneath it hung her own little jewelled riding whip which she had left on the desert a year ago and forgotten.

Suddenly, with a cry of joy, she rose and clasped her hands over her heart, relief and happiness in every line of her face.

"It is his home! I have come to his own house!" she cried and looked about her with the joy of discovery. This then was where he lived—there were his books, here his chair where he sat and rested or studied—his hands had left the Bible open at her psalm, his psalm—their psalm! There was his couch over behind the screen, and at the other end the tiny table and the dishes in the closet! Everything was in place, and careful neatness reigned, albeit an air of manlike uncertainty about some things.

She went from one end to the other of the big room and back again, studying every detail, revelling in the thought that now, whatever came to her, she might take back with her a picture of himself in his own quiet room when his work was laid aside for a little, and when, if ever he had time and allowed himself, he perhaps thought of her.

Time flew on winged feet. With the dear face of her old friend smiling down upon her and that psalm open beside her on the table, she never thought of fear. And presently she remembered she was hungry, and went foraging in the cupboard for something to eat. She found plenty of supplies, and after she had satisfied her hunger sat down in the great chair by the fire and looked about her in contentment. With the peace of the room, his room, upon her, and the sweet old face from the picture looking down in benediction as if in welcome, she felt happier than since her father had died.

The quiet of the desert afternoon brooded outside, the fire burned softly lower and lower at her side, the sun bent down to the west, and long rays stole through the window and across at her feet, but the golden head was drooping and the long-lashed eyes were closed. She was asleep in his chair, and the dying firelight played over her face.

Then, quietly, without any warning, the door opened and a man walked into the room!

The missionary had been a far journey to an isolated tribe of Indians outside his own reservation. It was his first visit to them since the journey he had taken with his colleague, and of which he had told Hazel during their companionship in the desert. He had thought to go sooner, but matters in his own extended parish, and his trip East, had united to prevent him.

They had lain upon his heart, these lonely, isolated people of another age, living amid the past in their ancient houses high up on the cliffs; a little handful of lonely, primitive children, existing afar; knowing nothing of God and little of man; with their strange, simple ways, and their weird appearance. They had come to him in visions as he prayed, and always with a weight upon his soul as of a message undelivered.

He had taken his first opportunity after his return from the East to go to them; but it had not been as soon as he had hoped. Matters in connection with the new church had demanded his attention, and then when they were arranged satisfactorily one of his flock was smitten with a lingering illness, and so hung upon his friendship and companionship that he could not with a clear conscience go far away. But at last all hindrances subsided and he went forth on his mission.

The Indians had received him gladly, noting his approach from afar and coming down the steep way to meet him, putting their rude best at his disposal, and opening their hearts to him. No white man had visited them since his last coming with his friend, save a trader who had lost his way, and who knew little about the God of whom the missionary had spoken, or the Book of Heaven; at least he had not seemed to understand. Of these things he was as ignorant, perhaps, as they.

The missionary entered into the strange family life of the tribe who inhabited the vast, many-roomed palace of rock carved high at the top of the cliff. He laughed with them, ate with them, slept with them, and in every way gained their full confidence. He played with their little children, teaching them many new games and amusing tricks, and praising the quick wits of the little ones; while their elders stood about, the stolid look of their dusky faces relaxed into smiles of deep interest and admiration.

And then at night he told them of the God who set the stars above them; who made the earth and them, and loved them; and of Jesus, His only Son, who came to die for them and who would not only be their Saviour, but their loving companion by day and by night; unseen, but always at hand, caring for each one of His children individually, knowing their joys and their sorrows. Gradually he made them understand that he was the servant—the messenger—of this Christ, and had come there for the express purpose of helping them to know their unseen Friend. Around the camp-fire, under the starry dome, or on the sunny plain, whenever he taught them they listened, their faces losing the wild, half-animal look of the uncivilized, and taking on the hidden longing that all mortals have in common. He saw the humanity in them looking wistfully through their great eyes, and gave himself to teach them.

Sometimes as he talked he would lift his face to the sky, and close his eyes; and they would listen with awe as he spoke to his Father in heaven. They watched him at first and looked up as if they half expected to see the Unseen World open before their wondering gaze; but gradually the spirit of devotion claimed them, and they closed their eyes with him, and who shall say if the savage prayers within their breasts were not more acceptable to the Father than many a wordy petition put up in the temples of civilization?

Seven days and nights he abode with them, and they fain would have claimed him for their own, and begged him to give up all other places and live there always. They would give him of their best. He would not need to work, for they would give him his portion, and make him a home as he should direct them. In short, they would enshrine him in their hearts as a kind of under-god, representing to their childish minds the true and Only One, the knowledge of whom he had brought to them.

But he told them of his work, of why he must go back to it, and sadly they prepared to bid him good-bye with many an invitation for return. In going down the cliff, where he had gone with them many a time before, he turned to wave another farewell to a little child who had been his special pet, and turning, slipped, and wrenched his ankle so badly that he could not move on.

They carried him up to their home again, half sorrowful, but wholly triumphant. He was theirs for a little longer; and there were more stories he could tell. The Book of Heaven was a large one, and they wanted to hear it all. They spread his couch of their best, and wearied themselves to supply his necessity with all that their ignorance imagined he needed, and then they sat at his feet and listened. The sprain was a troublesome one and painful, and it yielded to treatment but slowly; meanwhile the messenger arrived with the telegram from the East.

They gathered about it, that sheet of yellow paper with its mysterious scratches upon it, which told such volumes to their friend, but gave no semblance to sign language of anything in heaven above or earth beneath. They looked with awe upon their friend as they saw the anguish in his countenance. His mother was dead! This man who had loved her, and had left her to bring them news of salvation, was suffering. It was one more bond between them, one more tie of common humanity. And yet he could look up and smile, and still speak to the invisible Father! They saw his face as it were the face of an angel with the light of the comfort of Christ upon it; and when he read to them and tried to make them understand the majestic words: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" they sat and looked afar off, and thought of the ones that they had lost. This man said they would all live again. His mother would live; the chief they had lost last year, the bravest and youngest chief of all their tribe, he would live too; their little children would live; all they had lost would live again.

So, when he would most have wished to be alone with his God and his sorrow, he must needs lay aside his own bitter grief, and bring these childish people consolation for their griefs, and in doing so the comfort came to him also. For somehow, looking into their longing faces, and seeing their utter need, and how eagerly they hung upon his words, he came to feel the presence of the Comforter standing by his side in the dark cave shadows, whispering to his heart sweet words that he long had known but had not fully comprehended because his need for them had never come before. Somehow time and things of earth receded, and only heaven and immortal souls mattered. He was lifted above his own loss and into the joy of the inheritance of the servant of the Lord.

But the time had come, all too soon for his hosts, when he was able to go on his way; and most anxious he was to be started, longing for further news of the dear one who was gone from him. They followed him in sorrowful procession far into the plain to see him on his way, and then returned to their mesa and their cliff home to talk of it all and wonder.

Alone upon the desert at last, the three great mesas like fingers of a giant hand stretching cloudily behind him; the purpling mountains in the distance; the sunlight shining vividly down over all the bright sands; the full sense of his loss came at last upon him, and his spirit was bowed with the weight of it. The vision of the Mount was passed, and the valley of the shadow of life was upon him. It came to him what it would be to have no more of his mother's letters to cheer his loneliness; no thought of her at home thinking of him; no looking forward to another home-coming.

As he rode he saw none of the changing landscape by the way, but only the Granville orchard with its showering pink and white, and his mother lying happily beside him on the strawberry bank picking the sweet vivid berries, and smiling