THE EDGE OF THE GULLY.

White Ribbon, Volume 16, Issue 185, 15 November 1910, Page 9

THE EDGE OF THE GULLY.

Ada Louse Wilcox. IN TWO PAULS. TART TWO. After u long while Winston said, “ You saved my life, Dorothy. How shall I ever thank you ?’’ 4 You don’t owe me any thanks,” I answered. “ I couldn’t very well save my ov n life without saving yours, too. Seems like you didn’t take much account of either one. I reckon you’ve a right to kill yourself if you want to. I never did gh i you the right to kill me.” “ I .ioserve all the hard things you say,” »,e replied, “but Dorothy, when once you marrv me that thing uever shull happen again.”

“ Hasn’t it happened before, Winston, before I knew it?” “ Yes,” he slid slowly, hating to own U P- , “ How am I to lnote it won t happen again ?” “I’ll haie you to keep me straight, dear,” he said, with that winning smile that always goes to my heart. “ Winston,” I answered, trying to keep my voice steady. “ that tunnd* very well. I reckon I ought to feel Battered to have so much power over you. If you were a horse, now, or a mule, I might enjoy keeping you straight, but I’d rather marry a mau that’s strong enough to keep himself straight. Suppose I don’t marry you, w hat then “ Dorothy 1” he cried, “you never will give me up just because I was”—and lie hesitated. “ Drunk ? Was that the word you wanted ?” I asked. And tiien I knew I was being cruel and bitter, and I dropped my head on my arms and eobed. “ Dorothy, Dorothy, don’t!” he pleaded. “ I’m a great brute, I know . Stop crying, little girl. I’ll promise you I’ll never drink a drop too much again.” “ How much is too much, Winston?” “ A fellow knows how much he can stand.’’ “ No, he doesn't; he talks about having a girl marry him to keep him straight.” “ You might have a little faith in me!” “Faith! faith”’ I choked out. “I had a world of faith in you, and you’ve broken it all to pieces.” “ Give me another chance, Dorothy.” he begged. “ I raised my head and looked at him, and my heait almost failed me when I saw his eyes; hut I knew I’d got to hold steady. “ Winston, giving you another chance doesn’t mean marrying you. I’ve got to trust the man I mairy, and, I can’t trust you now. You’ve got to get strong enough to stand without me. 11l be your friend, but I—l can’t marry you,— yet.” He looked at me for a moment as if ho didn’t believe me, and then be drew a step nearer. I couldn’t help it, but I shrank back.

I reckon that cut him worse than anything else, lie pulled himself up and his face grew hard. “ you will not inarry me, I lorothy ? he said coolly. “ No,” I answered, “ I will not!”

“All right,” he said carelessly. “Then, with your permission, I’ll sav good evening, and, go to the Devil!”

“O you coward ! Vom may go to the Devil if you choose, hut you can’t take me with vou.”

He smiled, a curious set smile, touched his hat and walked away. I watched him go up the road around the curve, out of sight. He never once looked hack. Somewhere out of the black shadows along the rri>r hank ( nine the crv of a whippoorwill, like the cry of a lost soul.

Wednesday evening when father came in from the mill he said, “ Winston McAll’a left town ; gone West."

“Has he y’’ I answered indifferently. “ I hope he’ll have a pleasant trip." And after that the days dragged into weeks, and the weeks into months, and somehow I lived on, with never a word from Winston. I told myself I would forget him. I hid his picture out of sight, hut his face looked at me from a thousand places whore wo had been together. I told myself fiercely that he never loved me; hut deep down in my heart I knew he did. The silence shut over my soul like a thick, black curtain and stilled me. I knew his mother heard from him, hut I was too proud to ask any (juestions. i >ne Sunday she stopped me after preaching and said, “ Dorothy, w hen are you going to send for Winston ?" “ Not yet," 1 answered. “ Dorothy, wouldn’t you send for him if you knew his mother’s heart was breakin’ to see him ?”

“Don’t!” I whispered, the hot tears in my eyes. “ Your heart isn’t the only one that’s breaking to see him.” Just a year from ihat All Day Singing, Bruce Gordon asked to carry me to another at that same place, aud I said no. Father grumbled. “ What’s the matter with Bruce, Dorothy ? You know lie’s been plum cra/y over you for three years. And ho’a got land and money and learning " “ He hasn’t got the ore tiling he'd have to have before he could marry me.” “ What’s that ?” asked father. “ M v heart,” I said shortly. And then, that Sunday after I'd watched everyone driving away over the bridge, I crossed the river and went up on to the bluff. There wasn’t an inch of that bluff Wiuston and I hadn't scrambled over together. It seemed like every hush and tree and rock spoke to me about him, and I loved what they said, for it brought him nearer. At the top of the bluff I sat down. The green black pines stretched miles away on the hills, and the hills reached out aud on into the sky,

That made me so hurt and so angry that before 1 thought I cried out:

and somewhere, off there in the West, was Winston.

What hurt me most was the feeling that my love never had done much for him. It was so powerless to do anything for him now, and yet it was the only thing I could give. Mv heart was so miserable and rebellious that I lay back in the gra w s and looked up at the sky and cried out, “D God, if You lov**d him as much as I do, vou’d mule him do right:” But w hile I lay there with everything else shut out except the blue above me, I began to feel what a litth tiling my love was in comparison with God's love. Why, my love was just a hit of a w hite cloud sailing over the intinite sky. If I, with my little weak human heart, loved Winston and would save him if I could, how much more the great heart of God loved him, and yearned to help him.

Then I began to see that even love couldn’t do for Winston what he must do for himself. It was his own tight. And God’s love was holding on to him as mv love w as. And that was all love could do sometimes—just hold on. Suddenly in the silence of my own thoughts, I heard Winston’s voice calling, *• I 0 Dorothy!” It was so loud and ( lea*: th*t I sat upright and listened. It seemed like Winston was in some great danger, and almost before I was conscious of what 1 was doing 1 cri( d aloud :

“O Winston, God and I are holding cn ! God and 1 are holding on !” After that day I never did feel uito the same, for I just knew Winston was coming out all right. That winter I got the school in our district and then life was a heap easier, for I had the little children to love and work for. It seemed like all the love I couldn’t give Winston 1 was giving them, and I began to see how, after all, it’s the giving love to *ome one or something that makes life sweet.

It was the next June that his mother came over to see me. The moment I looked at her I saw she had been crying, and my heart heat so thick aud fast 1 could scarcely breathe. “1)1 k>rothy,” she began and, then she hurst out crying again. “ He, he, isn’t’ —I whispered.

“No. O no’ hut here’s his letter; here’s my hoy’s letter," and she thrust it inN> mv hand. ike paper sluwk so that for a minute the lines all ran together, and then I began to see,

1 never can tell anyone all that letter said. It wouldn't he fair to Winston. But he told her all about what a terrible tight he'd had, and how many times that tirst year he’d gono down, hut how every time he’d pick himself up and struggle on.

“And, (I Mother,” he wrote, “I’ve fought my tight and I know I’ve gained the victory, hut I’ve paid the price, too.” And then, on the last page, he wrote: “If Dorothy had married me when I wanted her to, I sure would have wrecked her life and mv own, too. I reckon she never will forgive me for disgracing her at that All Day Singing, hut Mother, I w ant you to tell her that one Sunday last August, a year from that very time, was the turning point in my life. God knows what I’d been through the night before, and the next morning, sick and disgusted, I was ready to shoot myself. I got to thinking about you and Dorothy and how you’d both loved me, and I seemed to see i forothy as she stood that last Sunday singing, so sweet and pure in her w hite dress and the white ribbon in her hair, and such a great fear came over me that she’d let go her hold and slip away from me for ever that I cried out, “ Dorothy, G Dorothy!” W hen 1 got to that I couldn't read am ther word. And I put my head down in his mother's lap and just cried and cried. And after a long time she said, “ Dorothy, w hen are you going to send for Winston to come home? ’

“ If you tell him I’m waiting, I reckon I won’t have to for him, I answered.

But it was August before he came—just two years after that evening he walked away. School was dismissed, and I was sitting at the table with head down thinking of Winston. I never did know what made me look up, hut there in the door was \Y f inston. For a moment he never moved, and I didn’t know hut I was dreaming. Then he walked slowly up and stood »t the other side of the table, and the clean white soul of the victor looked out of his eyes into mine.

“ Presently he spoke, “ Dorothy, w hat have you been doing ?” “ Holding on, W inston, and—waiting —for you.” He reached over aud took my hands. “Dorothy,” he asked, “will you go to All Day Singing with me next Sunday?” “ I reckon so," 1 said, *, and anywhere else with you, Winston.”

The self-satisfied are seldom of any service.