Farm life -- Fiction; Nebraska -- Fiction; Soldiers -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
Mr. Weldon answered her in a tone of relief, as if something
obscure had been made clear. "If that is the case, Miss Enid, I
think we need have no anxiety. If the call recurs to you in
prayer, and it is your Saviour's will, then we can be sure that
the way and the means will be revealed. A passage from one of the
Prophets occurs to me at this moment; 'And behold a way shall be
opened up before thy feet; walk thou in it.' We might say that
this promise was originally meant for Enid Royce! I believe God
likes us to appropriate passages of His word personally." This
last remark was made playfully, as if it were a kind of Christian
Endeavour jest. He rose and handed Enid back the letters.
Clearly, the interview was over.
As Enid drew on her gloves she told him that it had been a great
help to talk to him, and that he always seemed to give her what
she needed. Claude wondered what it was. He hadn't seen Weldon do
anything but retreat before her eager questions. He, an
"atheist," could have given her stronger reinforcement.
Claude's car stood under the maple trees in front of Mrs.
Gleason's house. Before they got into it, he called Enid's
attention to a mass of thunderheads in the west.
"That looks to me like a storm. It might be a wise thing to stay
at the hotel tonight."
"Oh, no! I don't want to do that. I haven't come prepared."
He reminded her that it wouldn't be impossible to buy whatever
she might need for the night.
"I don't like to stay in a strange place without my own things,"
she said decidedly.
"I'm afraid we'll be going straight into it. We may be in for
something pretty rough,--but it's as you say." He still
hesitated, with his hand on the door.
"I think we'd better try it," she said with quiet determination.
Claude had not yet learned that Enid always opposed the
unexpected, and could not bear to have her plans changed by
people or circumstances.
For an hour he drove at his best speed, watching the clouds
anxiously. The table-land, from horizon to horizon, was glowing
in sunlight, and the sky itself seemed only the more brilliant
for the mass of purple vapours rolling in the west, with bright
edges, like new-cut lead. He had made fifty odd miles when the
air suddenly grew cold, and in ten minutes the whole shining sky
was blotted out. He sprang to the ground and began to jack up his
wheels. As soon as a wheel left the earth, Enid adjusted the
chain. Claude told her he had never got the chains on so quickly
before. He covered the packages in the back seat with an oilcloth
and drove forward to meet the storm.
The rain swept over them in waves, seemed to rise from the sod as
well as to fall from the clouds. They made another five miles,
ploughing through puddles and sliding over liquefied roads.
Suddenly the heavy car, chains and all, bounded up a two-foot
bank, shot over the sod a dozen yards before the brake caught it,
then swung a half-circle and stood still. Enid sat calm and
motionless.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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