Part 25 (1/2)

”Of course. And what shall I say about the wedding? If he can't leave his room----”

Jeannette interrupted him: ”If he can't leave his room, it will make no difference. Church wedding or home wedding I should have chosen, as I have told you; but you and I, John Wesley, are going to be married by Walter Drury, wherever he is, if he's alive on our wedding day.”

”Why, yes,” said J.W., with a little break in his voice, ”it wouldn't seem right any other way. We can have the dinner, or breakfast or whatever it is, just the same, but we'll be married in his room. I'm glad you feel that way about it too; though it's just like you.”

And it was so. J.W. went up to the study as soon as he could rid himself of the dust of the day's travel, more eager to show Walter Drury he loved him than to tell his story or even to arrange for the wedding.

As to that ceremony, the plans had long ago been understood; nothing more was needed than to tell Walter Drury his study afforded a better background and setting for this particular wedding than a cathedral could provide.

J.W. was prepared for a great change in Pastor Drury, but he noticed no such signs of breakdown as he had expected to see. He did not know that the beloved pastor was keyed up for this meeting. He could not guess that the beaming eye, the old radiant smile, the touch of color in a face usually pale, were on special if unconscious display because the pastor's heart was thanking G.o.d that he had been permitted to welcome home his son in the gospel.

Those had been dreary days, in the hospital, despite the ceaseless ministries of nurses and doctors and friends from Delafield. This hospital was a place of n.o.ble service, one of many such places which have arisen in the Methodism of the last forty years. It was a hospital through and through--the last word in equipment and competence, but not at all an ”inst.i.tution.” It was at once a home for the sick and a training school of the Christian graces, where the distressed of body and mind could be given the relief they needed--all of it given gladly, in Christ's name.

Walter Drury was not unmindful of the care and skill which the hospital staff lavished on him, though no more faithfully on him than on many an unknown or unresponsive patient. But he was in a pitifully questioning mood. The doctors had told him he could not expect to preach again. When the district superintendent had come to visit him, he carried away with him Walter Drury's request for retirement at the coming session of the Annual Conference.

In his quiet moments--there were so many of them now--the broken man counted up his years of service, all too few, as it seemed to him, and lacking much of what they might have shown in outcomes for the church and the kingdom. His Conference was one of the few which paid the full annuity claim of its retired preachers, but even so he had not much to look forward to. His twenty-five years in the active ranks meant that he could count on twenty-five times $15 a year, $375, on which to live, when he gave up his work.

Perhaps he could live on this, with what little he had been able to put aside; at any rate he could be glad now that there was none but himself to think about. But was it worth all he had put into his vocation? His brother in Saint Louis, not remarkably successful in his business, had been able at least to make some provision for his old age. He too might have been a moderately successful business or professional man. Truly it was more than the older preachers had, this Conference annuity, which would keep him from actual want; so much, surely, had been gained by the church's growing sense of responsibility for its veterans.

But had it really paid? Was all the gentle efficiency of the hospital, and all the church's money which would come to him from the Conference funds and the Board of Conference Claimants, enough to compensate him for the long years when he had been spendthrift of all his powers for the sake of his work?

He knew, of course, the answer to his questions; no one better. But he was a broken-down preacher, old before his time; and knowing the answer was not at all the same as _having_ the answer. So he had been brought home from Hillcrest, mind-weary and much cast down. Nor did he regain any of his old buoyancy of spirit until the day when they told him J. W, would be home next week.

It was then that he told himself, ”If J.W. has come back with only a story to tell”--and gloom was in his face; ”But if he has come back with _the_ story to tell”--and his heart leaped within him at the thought.

The pastor and J.W. were soon talking away with the old familiarity, but mostly about inconsequentials. Neither was quite prepared for more intimate communion; and, of course, the returning traveler had much to do. The wedding was near at hand, and everybody but himself had been getting ready this long time. So the call was too brief to suit either of them, with the longer visits each hoped for of necessity deferred to a more convenient season.

J.W. must make a hurried journey to Saint Louis to turn in his report to Peter McDougall, which report Peter was much better prepared to receive than J.W. suspected. And a highly satisfactory arrangement was made for J.W.'s continued connection with the c.u.mmings Hardware Corporation.

Doubtless all weddings are much alike in their ceremonial aspects; short or long, solemn-spoken ancient ritual or commonplace legal form, the essence of them all is that this man and this woman say, ”I will.” So it was in Walter Drury's study. And then the little group seated itself about the pastor; Marty with Alma Wetherell, soon to become Mrs. Marty; all the Shenks, the elder Farwells, John Wesley, Jr., and Jeannette. The dinner would not be for an hour yet, and this was the pastor's time.

Pastor Drury could not talk much. He had kept his chair as he read the ritual, and now he sat and smiled quietly on them all. But once and again his eye sought J.W. and the look was a question yet unanswered.

”What sort of a voyage home did you have?” Mrs. Farwell asked her son, motherlike, using even a query about the weather to turn attention to her boy.