Blue Ruin (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill
road, the two who had been the cause of all this disturbance were walking joyously along. The first day home, the first day together after long separation, all their childhood waiting to greet them out of doors, and a summer day that was perfect. One of those “what-is-so-rare” days described by the poet.
The sky was that warm, clear blue that makes you wonder if you have ever really noticed a sky before. The sunlight fairly seemed a part of the sky, blue all through with the fine lacings of gold. One or two lazy fluffs of cloud were drifting almost imperceptibly across the highest blue like tufts of down urged by an unseen draft.
The road they took skirted a hill and wound gently up with pleasant homes on the right at intervals growing fewer and farther between as they went on.
Off to the left the mountains were clear and sharp with touches of gold shimmering over the new green of the young trees that mingled with the darker pines. And one spot they knew, where the blue grew deeper with a purple depth, marked the beginning of the Mohawk trail. They could pick out the landmarks without any trouble in the clear, bright atmosphere.
And now they came to fields on the left drifting down to a valley where, like a thread of hurrying silver strung with jewels all aquiver, a river went. And all the fields were embroidered with flowers, copper and silver and gold like a princess’s garment spread to dry, heavy with gorgeous needlework of buttercups, daisies, and devil’s paintbrush. Amazing sight to come upon! Embroidery of heaven loaned for display.
Beyond the river, a dull hill rose, rocky and barren, almost a mountain, dreary except for a drift of blue flowers that rose in waves and seemed to spread and quiver like blue flame, or lovely, curling, smoke-like incense rising against the gray mass of the barren rock behind.
“Oh look!” cried Lynette, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks aglow. “I never remember it to have been so beautiful! How large the daisies are this year! How yellow the buttercups! And see how deep a red the tassels of the devil’s paintbrush are! This must be a wonderful year for flowers!”
Dana lifted indifferent eyes.
“Oh, you’ve just forgotten, Lynn. I don’t see but it looks about as usual.”
“No, Dana! It’s bigger, brighter, much more wonderful. I never got that effect of copper and silver threads before, with the gold of the buttercups making a background. It’s perfectly gorgeous needlework, Dana, woven with pearls.”
“Oh, you’re fanciful as usual, Lynn!”
“And look at that blue ruin off on the mountain! Why you can fairly see the smoke rise and the flames pulsate.”
“It’s not half as good to look at as you are, Lynn,” said the young man turning his glance upon her glowing cheeks, the light in her lovely eyes, and the tendrils of hair blowing around her face. “I say, where are we going today? Have you thought of a plan? It’s a shame that car had to go to the garage. You’ll be tired before the day is half over.”
“No indeed; I’ll not be tired,” said Lynette. “I haven’t been cooped up in the house all these four years, laddie. I’ve played hockey and skated and hiked over the hills, and worked in the gym. I’m fit as ever I was, and I can walk as far as ever I did and farther.”
“Well, I can’t,” said Dana lazily, stifling a yawn. “Theological seminaries are no places for physical training. Oh, of course they had some athletics, but I couldn’t see going out for anything with all I had to do. Besides, it was time to stop that child’s play if I ever meant to amount to anything. One can’t play football all one’s life.”
“Still one must have health,” said Lynette. “I hope you haven’t allowed yourself to get inactive. It’s awfully hard on you to study hard if you don’t keep up some sort of exercise. They made us do it out at college.”
“Oh, girls, yes, I suppose it’s a good thing for them. But a man has got to begin to think of more serious things. Besides, it’s an awful chore to get cleaned up and get to work again when you’re all messed up after sports. I’ve really done awfully well, Lynn. Even better than I told you in my last letter. Let’s see, when did I write? I got so busy in those last weeks. But you got the papers I sent, and the commencement stuff? You really ought to have been there Lynn to hear me preach my first sermon. I can’t see why it mattered whether you stayed for your own commencement exercises or not, that little stuffy college! It’s ridiculous to dignify it by the name of college! But there, don’t get excited!” he laughed indulgently. “It’s all right of course, and you were a star student naturally. I only wish it had been Vassar or Wellesley or some big college. You could have made your mark there, and it would have been worthwhile”
A shade came over the girl’s face and a flash into her eyes.
“Dana! Stop!” she cried. “You shan’t say such things about my college! It isn’t like you, and you don’t know, and I won’t have my beautiful day spoiled! Tell me about your commencement. Someday I’ll tell you all about my college, and you will see that it was great! Someday I’ll take you there and introduce you to my wonderful professors, every one of them masters and scholars, and every one of them men who are putting their whole soul into their work. But nevermind now. You just don’t know! You will understand when you know, and you will be glad there is such a place. But now forget it and go on. I want to hear everything you have done from the time you left here last year. No little thing is too small to be told. Don’t leave anything out. Did they tell you they thought it would be hard to get a church? Or have you decided to go as a missionary? You used to talk that way, you know.”
“Oh, I gave up that idea long ago,” he laughed. “I think this country needs preachers more than the foreign field. Times are changed, you know. A lot has been done for heathen lands in the last ten years. The world isn’t nearly as large as it used to be. Travel has become so easy, and civilization has made great strides. Culture and education are everywhere. Why, look what a difference movies and radios have made! The natives in the jungles of the forest can get the latest Paris fashion overnight now. There really isn’t the need of missionaries there used to be when I began to study for the ministry.”
Lynette giggled appreciatively.
“You talk as if the main object of missionaries was to dress up the natives in fashionable garments.”
“Well, that had a great deal to do with civilizing them, didn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” said Lynette with serious eyes far off on the mountain where the blue incense seemed to rise and fall with the light breeze. “Did it? I don’t know. What’s that verse about ‘where no law is, there is no transgression’?”
“Oh, now, Lynn, don’t, I pray you, get preachy. I’m sick to death of arguments and criticisms and obscure passages. Besides, my dear, you are not fitted to cope with a subject like that. The standpoint from which we used to take our conclusions when we were children is very different when you come to get the student’s point of view. Let’s drop discussions from now on. We’ve got a long way to go to catch up in our knowledge of each other. Let’s talk about each other. Lynn, are you glad to be at home, or does the old town look dull to you?”
“Look dull? Well, I should rather guess not. Why, Dana, I turned down a whole perfectly good, free trip to Europe with side trips and a possible winter stay over there with a trip to the Holy Land and a return by way of the Mediterranean thrown in. Now, will you believe that I’m glad to be here?”
“Lynn Brooke! D’ you mean it? Turn down a trip like that? What for?”
“Just because there was no place in the whole world that looked so good to me as my hometown and you in it all summer long!” Lynette added the last words half shyly, half jocosely, and glanced up through her lashes at her companion with a heightened color in her lovely cheeks. But Dana frowned.
“Lynn, I can’t believe you were quite so foolish as that. Tell me about it. Who invited you?”
“Uncle Roth Reamer. He and Aunt Hilda and my three cousins are going, and they wanted me.”
“Expenses