Forever or Never

By True Banheardt Harmsen

Prologue

Chapter 1

The prologue to this story was published last month and should be read first. In it Louise Stone was introduced. After a consultation with her bishop she decided to assist her fiancé, John Alder, in order that he might remain on his mission until given an honorable release. In order to make her small salary stretch sufficiently to enable her to send the missionary ten dollars a month, she decided to cut down on her stocking expense.

Now you may go on with the story.

John Alder, dark complexioned, average height and weight, neither good nor bad looking, watched the train pull away. His deep-set brown eyes were troubled as they swept the station, and saw no familiar faces. One came home from a mission to Holland only once, and it seemed no more than right that one should be met.

Surely Louise had received his telegram, but where was she? Was it possible that her heart had cooled? Now that he thought of it, her letters had gotten farther and farther apart as the months had lengthened into years. Two and a half years is a long time to be away. “Out of sight, out of mind,” some wisecracker had said. But another had said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. “For somebody else,” the inevitable purveyor of witty remarks had added. But shucks, Louise was still wearing his ring. Perhaps she was sick, or working.

He shrugged his shoulders, square and strong, a regular battering-ram on the football field, now slightly sloping from hours spent in study, gathered up his three bags, and went slowly through the station.

He called a taxi, gave his home address, and climbed in. The taxi pulled away, and he searched the sidewalks and approaching cars for the well-remembered face, but saw none that even remotely resembled it.

“A dirty trick!” His heart rose up in sympathy, then leaped into the void, giving him a dizzy sensation, a faintness in the region of his stomach.

A lot his labors were appreciated. He had been District President for a year, and Louise had never failed to mention it in every letter, voicing her pride in his achievements, congratulating him for being chosen to preside over twenty-three missionaries and nearly six thousand saints. “What a responsibility!” she had termed it. Yes, she must be proud of him, as proved by the warm welcome she had given him as he stepped from the train.

Secretly, he had longed to grasp her in his arms, crush her to him, taste her soft, full lips again – after all these years – and unconsciously he had molded his thoughts upon the gratification of this single longing. He had, without realizing it, deliberately neglected to notify his parents of the time of his arrival, and had warned Louise not to give it away, so that he could lavish his entire affection on the girl he had left behind him, and whom he expected to marry.

Now that Louise had failed to meet him, he suddenly named it a lonely world, an unfriendly world, a cold, hard, cruel old world. Not a single familiar face at the station! No one to welcome him! No one wanting him! He wished he had remained in the mission field. Somebody always met him there – the elders, or some of the saints. There it was so friendly, always shaking hands and saying how glad they were to see one another, and meaning it, too!

A great emotion of despair, homesickness for Holland, self pity, swept over him. Disappointment thoroughly convinced him that nobody cared for him. The taxi stopped, interrupting his morbid thoughts.

“Seventy cents,” announced the driver, gathering up the bags.

John stepped out, handed over the money, sighed tragically, and followed his bags toward the house.

His mother was standing in the door. Irene, his ten-year-old sister, was at her side. He chuckled grimly as he realized that they did not recognize him with his derby hat.

He was nearly to the porch, when the screen door was thrown violently open, and mother and sister rushed from the house, and almost bowled him over with their greeting. His mother was sobbing as though her heart were breaking, her arms about the young man, her hands patting his back; little Irene was holding fast to a hand, jumping up and down, screaming. Neighbors came to their doors, recognized him, shouted warm greetings, and soon the front yard of the Alder home was swarming with them, welcoming him home, asking how he liked his mission, how he liked the Dutch; if they really wore wooden shoes; if there were big windmills there or was that sort of stuff only in pictures, and did the dikes ever break, and did they fish in the canals in summer and skate on them in the winter, and what did they give him to eat, and was he glad to be home, and was he a District President like they had heard, and how was the economical situation in Holland, Switzerland, Russia?

For an hour bedlam reigned. What a welcome! People who, before he had gone on his mission, were ice-cold, now were calling him by his first name, asking him if he remembered Nelly, or Jimmy, or Ann, or Iris, or David, inviting him over.

His disappointment gave way to confusion but the bitterness in his heart remained and like gall seasoned the words he heard, making them equally bitter. Funny they should change so suddenly. They had predicted no good end for him before he had gone on his mission, had pointed an accusing finger of scorn at him because he had smoked, and now they were treating him like a conquering hero. Did they mean it? Was it a sham? The bitterness in his heart dubbed them hypocrites, and he doubted them.

The neighbors finally went home, and Mrs. Alder and Irene had him to themselves. His mother kept flinging questions at him from the kitchen where she was preparing supper; Irene was trying to show him her new doll, her new dress, her pretty handkerchief with the flowers on it, the skinned place on her knee from roller skating, the scar on her arm from her vaccination; and he was trying to tell them of the converts he had made, of the pie that could not be found in Holland, of the cheese, the “shoo” in which potatoes are dipped before eating.

His brother and father arrived home at last, coming in the back way. Mrs. Alder told them nothing, and they were not aware that John was home. They were talking excitedly of a deer hunting expedition for the following day. John gathered that all arrangements had been made to leave about four-thirty the next morning and return again late that night.

“I’ve been wanting to go deer hunting for so long I can’t remember!” joyously sang out his seventeen-year-old brother. “I sure wish John was here to go with us!”

John went to the kitchen. his father was just hanging the towel up behind the stove. He dropped the towel, and gripped Harry tightly. They both stared, then bumped into each other as they rushed to John, and took him roughly in their arms.

“Son! Oh, John! It sure is good to have you home!”

“Sure is!” echoed Harry.

“Well, why don’t you say something?” Mr. Alder released his son and stepped back, a puzzled look on his face. Then a frightened glean entered his dark eyes, and his face grew stern. “You were released with honor?”

“Oh, of course,” John grinned. “I was District president. What could make you think otherwise? But I am disappointed. Did I hear you two talking about going deer hunting tomorrow?”

“Why, yes,” Mr. Alder smiled.

“Hurrah!” Harry shouted. “Now John can go with us!”

“Not tomorrow!”

“Why not?” both chorused.

“It’s Sunday!”

“Well?” There was a challenge in Mr. Alder’s voice.

“Ah, gee whiz!” Harry shivered as though cold water had drenched him. “What’s wrong with that? We’re both working every day in the week, and Sunday is the only chance we got to go deer hunting. Sunday school and church come every week, but deer hunting only once a year. Don’t be like that.”

“Sunday is the Lord’s day,” announced John in a hollow voice, as though pronouncing sentence upon a criminal, “and must be hallowed. Was your sacrificing to keep me on a mission, teaching mankind to keep the Lord’s day, in vain? Were your actions hypocritical? Don’t you love the Gospel, the Church? Then keep the commandments!”

Mr. Alder’s face turned red, then white. Harry stared open-mouthed. They looked at each other, then back at John. John started to say more, but his father gestured. “Harry, put the guns away,” he said. Harry went to obey, but if looks could have killed, John would have dropped dead.

John was secretly amused. He’d make them live their religion, or know the reason why.

Later in the evening, Louise Stone came. As she stood in the door, John felt as though his lungs could not get enough air into them. She was slightly taller now, five foot three, he judged, but she was too slender, not more than a hundred fifteen. Should be a hundred twenty-five or over – or was that Dutch women? He grinned. Her hair was neither blond or brunette, but a soft brown, and her blue-green eyes were shining. Her cheeks were red, and her face looked smooth and soft, lovely. He wanted to touch it. Then he saw how low her sport dress was cut in front, that she had no stockings on.

She advanced, one hand on a hip, the other held in front of her. She sort of bounced as she moved toward him.

John stood as though turned to stone, or too frightened to move. He felt weak, and sick at the stomach. She stopped in front of him, glanced into his eyes, then looked down, the very picture of a bashful young maiden. John looked at her closely. Her eyebrows were too narrow – plucked. Black gobs of something were sticking to her long lashes – what was the name of that stuff, oh, yes, mascara – and her eyelids were darkened. Her face was like wax, the red in her cheeks too bright, and her lips were too red, and sticky looking.

“Oh! Are you home!” her soft voice swept up the scale, and she gave him one of those come-hither looks. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“I’d like to see you,” John retorted. “Why didn’t you leave that mask home? How can you stand that rotten stuff on your face? The women of Holland don’t use that stuff, decent women don’t: they’re proud of their own complexion. Where are your stockings?”

“Oh!” Louise laughed, but her eyes looked hurt. “So Johnny is turned reformer. Naughty, naughty! Mustn’t use paint or powder! Johnny would rather see a shiny nose!”

“Why didn’t you meet me?” John failed to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“Oh, so that’s what’s eating you?” Louise countered. “Well, I just came from the station. You should learn to read a time table correctly.”

“Don’t look at me like that!” John was working himself up. “You can’t hypnotize me with your gummy eyes, nor your thinned eyebrows. From the paint on your face, it’s funny you don’t paint your teeth, or your fingernails.”

“Oh, I do!” Louise sang, wriggled her shoulders, and raised her hands, palms down, for inspection. The fingernails were red. “But the paint won’t stay on my teeth,” she finished.

“Oh, yes! How do you know it won’t?”

“I tried it.”

“Oh,” groaned John, “is there nothing these women won’t try? Why do they do it?”

“Now, Johnny,” the voice was soft, low, magnetic, “you were no angel when I last saw you. You were …”

“Stop!” he fairly shouted the word. “I know I used to swear and smoke, but you are not going to rub it in. I have repented, and you should do the same. You look like a window trimmer’s painted wax dummy. I wish that I had my dream Louise back again. The good, sweet, pure girl of my dreams. I wish I had all of my old dreams back. My girl is a flapper; my own folks want to go hunting on Sunday; my friends are so changed, and the neighbors are hypocrites.”

“So!” Louise’s eyes looked black. “So I’m not a good girl any more? Well, you know where you can go. That for you!” She snapped her fingers under his nose, whirled about and ran to the door. She turned again, and said: “I had arranged a welcome home party for you tonight, but I suppose you won’t come now.”

She slammed the door. John appealed to his mother with his eyes, but she avoided him. His father went into the kitchen, Harry gave him a resentful look and stuck his nose in a book. He sat down on the couch. Irene sat down beside him, leaning her head against him. he put an arm around her. How out of place he was. How changed everybody was. Irene was tugging at his arm. He looked at her.

“And Louise went without silk stockings to save money so she could give mama ten dollars every month to help keep you on your mission, and she said mama should never tell you.” Irene looked at him with shining eyes. “Papa had his wages cut, and if it hadn’t been for that you would have had to come home a year ago. I sure like her,” Irene announced. “You should ought to hear her sing ‘Did You Think to Pray.’”

Did you think to pray! His heart hurt him. Again his lungs felt too small. He needed more air. He went outside. Three blocks down Louise lived. She had arranged a party for him, and he wouldn’t be there. Paint and powder would wash off, but character stuck. No one had said anything about that ten dollars. It had made it possible for him to stay and be a District President. Most people would have let him know about it, she had kept still. She was ultra-modern, might be called a flapper, yet his heart refused to name her that – not after learning of that monthly ten dollars.

He walked the three blocks, went up the walk, and stood on the porch. He heard laughter and low voices from a porch swing in a corner. Inside was music, loud talking, laughter. He went in. Many of his old friends were there. They gathered about him, shouting. Nick Trumball, his high school football sidekick, pushed him into a chair, and braced a pair of wide shoulders in front of him.

“Louise said you were sick and wouldn’t be coming,” he said. “Leave it to that girl to pull the unexpected. She is one hundred percent.”

“Where is she?”

“Around somewhere,” Nick replied. “Look for the crowd, and you’ll find her in the middle. She is okay, what I mean.”

Some girls pulled him out of the chair. He was whirled from one pair of feminine arms to another as they danced to the radio. He stuffed himself with punch and sandwiches and cake. It was good to have these things. In Holland one could not get them – not like this. After a few more dances, he went outside on the dark porch. Apparently no one missed him. The girl at his side cuddled against him. They leaned against the wall. She held her lips up expectantly. He shuddered. Why not – now? A sigh from that porch swing, then Louise’s low voice laughing.

John thrust the girl away from him, and strode to the corner. Louise was in the swing with Biff Randolph. He remembered Biff. His baby face, dark wavy hair, soulful blue eyes, magnificent shoulders, and tall muscular body had made him the school lady-killer. Louise laughed up at him, then stiffened.

He reached down, grasped Louise by the arm and pulled her out of the porch swing. Biff got slowly to his feet.

“What does this mean?” he demanded of John. “Oh, ‘scuse me Reverend, didn’t know there were preachers about.” He turned to go.

John glared at Louise. Light from a window streamed full in her face. He saw that her lipstick was smeared. A smile twitched the corners of her mouth.

“You still wearing my ring?” John felt the rush of hot resentment, saw specks floating before his eyes.

No answer, but her hand came up. A small diamond was on the ring finger of the left hand.

“Is this the way you are true to me?” he growled throatily.

“You don’t understand,” Louise replied softly, “It …”

“I guess I understand all right, John rasped. “I saw and heard enough. You surely were doing your stuff. You – you —”

“I’m kinda out of practice since you been gone,” she put a hand on his arm. “You taught me how to pet. I think it’s nice. You could do it so much better than anyone else.” She grew serious. “I’ve often dreamed of you, but you were never like this – so cold, so distant, so darned goody-goody. Why can’t you be human? Why can’t you be affectionate, understanding like you used to be. I’d rather have a man that was kind, and understanding, even if he used tobacco and tea and coffee and got drunk every weekend, than a long faced hypocrite who was always trying to impress others with his reform, his goodness, his saintliness! And I am just repeating what Joseph Smith said. You say we have changed; you are wrong – it is you who has changed. You have an exaggerated opinion of right and wrong, and you are trying to force it on the whole world. I wish I had never see you. Never!”

(To Be Continued)