it was a book that laid bare a heart; the heart of one who loved him with a love such as he had not imagined a man ever gave to any boy but his very own. "if he had been my father," derrick thought, as he read with bated breath, "he could not say more than that!" and the very next sentence seemed to voice his thought.
"you think that is extreme for just an uncle? ah, but you don't know, dear boy dick—i am sure they call you dick, they did me—that you are my boy, my very own; i have adopted you with my soul; there can not be any stronger tie than that. you see, you are all i have; you take the place to me of father, mother and brother; i have lost them all. there were reasons why i never had wife and children, so, my soul's son, i have adopted you. i could wish that your name were timothy, for i know i have the feeling for you that paul had for his son. you read the bible, don't you, my boy? you will find what i mean if you study the love of those two. my boy, i want you to live my life for me, do my work in the world, be myself as i meant to be, and missed. oh, i meant to do so much for father! i had such glorious plans to enrich his life! i failed him utterly; i made a mistake, but you will not; you will carry out for your father and your mother and your home all that i meant to do for mine, and didn't; and you will do infinitely more; i feel in my very soul that you will be a better derrick forman than i could ever have been; don't you dare to disappoint me, dick; it would kill me."
derrick, the boy, drew an amazed, almost a frightened, breath. what a strange idea as though he could take another boy's life and live it for him!
"it's a lot more than i can do to live my own in the way it ought to be lived!" he muttered; but he read on, like one fascinated. very soon he came to understand that the life of the man he was asked to represent had been hidden in another life.
"the fact is, dick," the record ran, "that i am dead; did you realize it? i have known it in a vague sort of way for a long time, but i don't believe i ever realized it fully until this morning when i read it in the book: 'ye are dead; and your life is hid with christ in god.' i stopped and laughed. 'why, of course!' i said. 'what a dolt i am not to have known that before! it was told me plainly enough, only i didn't take it in.' ever since i was a youngster learning to read out of father's big bible at home i have known the verse: 'if any man be in christ he is a new creature.' well, i am 'in christ.' i am as sure of that as i am that i breathe; i surrendered to him, body, soul and spirit; all i was, all i am, all that i ever will be are his. then, of course, the old dick forman is dead! good! he wasn't worth much; i am glad he is gone. i'm 'a new creature,' i live, 'yet not i, but christ liveth in me.' 'that sounds egotistical,' do i hear you say? yes, but i didn't say it—that's bible, a blessed fact guaranteed by christ himself. now, you see, if you are to live my life for me the part that i missed must have this same experience; you must be a 'new creature,' dick; the old one isn't worth shucks! i don't want to live his life; don't you be persuaded into trying it; hide your life, hide it 'with christ in god'; only then will you begin to live. oh, dick forman, my boy, my very self, given another chance! you will do this for me, won't you?"
derrick closed the book with a bang and laid it as far away from him as he could; was strangely moved, he was half awed, half indignant. "the man was insane!" he muttered. yet he knew better. he had been a good bible scholar in sabbath school; those quoted verses were familiar to him; intellectually, at least, he understood something of their meaning but he had never thought of such a thing as applying them to himself. after a little he opened the book again; he re-read those same pages; he put the book from him several times, declaring that he would read no more; the most of it was simply the ravings of a lunatic. after a while he said he would wait until he was older; boys like him could not be expected to be interested in such queer notions; his uncle derrick lived so much alone that evidently his ideas had become misty, unreal, unintelligible. there were days together when the boy did not open the book, but passed it hurriedly, with a wish that he could forget it; there were hours when he hid it, and told himself that he would never touch it again, and always he went back to it and read again the very portions that had disturbed him. at times he was genuinely angry over the appeals in that uncanny book. he said that uncle derrick had no right to die and leave such a book to him; it was like trying to steal a fellow's individuality. "a new creature," quoted his memory, and he sneered; he didn't want to be a new creature; he was well enough satisfied as he was. "ye must be born again," said a voice to his inner consciousness; said it plainly, solemnly. he looked about him, startled; there had been no real voice, he knew that; but it had seemed very real; and those were not the words of his dead uncle, it was jesus who said that!
there came an evening when derrick forman, in the privacy of his locked room, got to his knees, with the written book spread open before him, and solemnly gave himself, body, soul, and spirit, to his uncle's god for time and for eternity. it had been a hard struggle, unusually hard, for one so young and so well taught. yet, perhaps, it was on account of the teaching that he was so slow in reaching a decision. already temptations had assailed him which he knew must be overcome if he was to become the kind of man that his uncle's commander called for.
"but i'm glad of it," he told himself on the night when he made his great decision; "i'm glad it means out-and-out, downright, everlasting business; i hate a half-and-half anything."
very soon he made the surprising discovery that he was happy in his new life. he had not looked for that; at least, not yet, not for years and years, probably. he had expected to make sacrifices and meet crosses; he considered himself prepared for those, but the glow of new and genuine joy was unexpected and took hold of him with power. he began to understand some of the sentences in his book that had seemed like the extravagances of a diseased brain; he spent much time reading that book, studying the bible quotations in it, hunting in the public library for other books from which his uncle had quoted as though they were familiar friends; he locked his manuscript book with his bible in his private drawer and took them out together; he began to see that the life portrayed in the one had been lived as a commentary on the directions of the other. still, he was chary of his new experience; it was not a matter to be talked of; at least, not yet. he told his mother a little about it one evening when they two were alone, and was astonished and touched to note that she cried; she told him they were tears of joy; and that she felt as though it didn't matter much now how many troubles they had. he had not supposed that his mother would care so very much. the next morning when they walked down town together he managed to make his father understand what had come to him as a result of a step that he had taken, and he knew that he would never forget the words his father spoke in reply; nor the look on his face, a little later, when he straightened himself and threw back the shoulders that had begun to droop, as he said:
"my boy, i feel ten years younger than i did when we started."
ray did not have to be told; she seemed to know by intuition what great event had taken place. she lingered in the hall a moment after the others had passed into the sitting-room—they had all just come in from sabbath evening service—and reaching up to her tall young brother kissed a lingering, tender kiss, as she said: "my soldier brother enlisted for life; i know i shall always be proud of him." yet nothing had occurred at church, nor during the walk home, to tell her that he had chosen a new commander.
but with jean, his heretofore confidante all occasions, derrick played shy. he could not decide how to tell her about this momentous change which had come to him. a "new creature?" yes, the phrase described it singularly well, but to feel it, know it, was one thing, and to describe it or account for it in terms that jean would understand was quite another. he had a feeling that jean would not want to understand; he and she had stood on the same plane as regards these matters; they had exchanged witticisms over the weaknesses of many professing christians, especially among young people; they had agreed that ray was not like any of the others, but was "unnecessarily good," and, in short, had made the entire subject an embarrassment when one came to talk about it from a standpoint that the other had not seen. he decided finally not to say anything to her about it; if his life did not tell her, without words, he assured himself that it would not be much of a life; anyhow, he must wait and see.
and so, jean did not understand; she only felt in her brother a subtle change difficult to define; she was not even sure that she approved it; dick had always suited her well enough just as he was; she was able to see in it only the influence of the new member of the family, and this she instinctively resented.
"it is simply ridiculous," she told herself, half angrily, "for him to be infatuated with that lame old woman, whom he called the homeliest person he ever looked at! that's nothing against her, of course; i don't think myself that she is so terribly homely, and she is kind, and unselfish, and all that, but then—i don't see what has made the change in him! of course, i am glad that he doesn't want to stay out nights as he used to, nor go to places that father doesn't quite like, but why couldn't he have stopped all that long ago for all our sakes instead of waiting until that old woman—" even unspoken words failed her, and she stopped abruptly; then, after a moment, added, aloud: "i believe i shall end by—" but she had to stop again; she had almost said she would end by hating that old woman; of course, she was not going to say, or do, any such thing; but as for falling down to worship her as the others were almost doing she never should, and they need not expect it; she was sure of one thing; she did wish aunt elsie would let dick alone.
it might have been a restless dissatisfaction, born of the feeling that in some undefined way she had lost her boon companion, which made the usually sweet-spirited jean appear at great disadvantage during this period of her life. she seemed suddenly to have grown self-assertive and obstinate. what she would and would not do grew daily more pronounced, and culminated, one afternoon when she must make a journey across town for her music lesson, in a fixed resolve to wear neither rubbers nor raincoat; no, nor carry any umbrella; though florence assured her earnestly that even the cat could see that it was going to rain.
"i'm not a cat," was jean's reply. "i don't know why you should quote her to me; and i'm not going to bundle up like a rheumatic old maid when it doesn't rain a drop."
"jean, dear," came gently from ray, "do wear your sandals, won't you? because you know those shoes you have on are really very thin, and if you should get caught in a shower—"
it is possible that but for aunt elsie's eager second to this suggestion the young girl's reply might have been different. as it was, she ignored her aunt entirely, and said in charming mimicry of her sister's tone and manner: "ray, dear, i won't do any such thing. i hate rubbers to walk in, and i have nearly a mile to walk. i do wish we had cross-town cars somewhere near this point."
there followed for those left at home an uncomfortable afternoon. ray watched the swift-moving clouds with poorly concealed anxiety, and florence openly worried. jean was by no means strong; she took cold easily, and a cold with her always meant a more or less serious illness. florence, at the window watching the growing evidences of storm, lamented that "mother" had not been at home to issue positive orders to that reckless child. why hadn't ray asserted authority as the oldest sister and insisted on her taking at least an umbrella?
"she will ruin her hat, and it is the one with a plume, of course; it will serve her right, too. there! it's begun! do hear the pour down! and there's mother! she ran in at the basement door just in time to escape dash!"
mrs. forman's first word was about jean. had she gone prepared for the storm? it had been gathering for several hours; why hadn't they insisted on at least an umbrella?
it proved to be no passing shower; the rain fell in torrents until the streets were flooded, and then, after a while, settled into a steady downpour. the formans comforted one another as well as they could; they said that it was a good thing it had rained so terribly hard; jean would, of course, wait until the storm was over, or until some one came for her; she would never think of starting out in so wild a storm without even an umbrella. as soon as derrick arrived he was laden with raincoat, rubbers, and injunctions, and started forth again. but jean, her reckless mood continuing, had grown tired of waiting, and started out during a lull in the storm, making herself believe that she could get home before it began again, or at least get across town to a car line that would take her home by a circuitous route. in this way derrick missed her. before she was a block from the music school the rain was upon her again in full force. even then she persisted; it was of no use to turn back, she assured herself; she was wet to the skin already, she might better keep on than sit in wet clothes waiting. but she had not gone much farther when she regretted that decision; the wind seemed to her to be rising every moment; it was all she could do to keep from being blown quite into the road. she had now reached a street lined on either side with wholesale houses, whose closed and gloomy fronts told her that the day was done, and furnished her with not so much as an awning under which to hide. she struggled on, feeling the water soak into her thin-soled, cloth-top boots; yonder, two blocks away, was the high school; if she could only reach it, derrick might still be there and he could do something. she had only a carfare with her, and this she believed made it impossible for her to call a taxi. all her hopes centred in dick, and he, poor fellow, was making all possible speed homeward in the hope of finding his sister safely arrived there. alas for jean, the high school was as closed and silent and aloof as though hundreds of eager feet had not but an hour or two before raced down its many steps and sped away from the storm. she could not find even the janitor, and it seemed to her that she could never walk those long, long blocks facing that dreadful wind, and being pelted by the merciless rain.
