Carletta and the Skeptic
“If I could only have your faith, gladly would I believe—but I was born a skeptic. I cannot believe in God and the future as you do.”
John Harvey said this as he walked with a friend under a dripping umbrella. John Harvey had been a skeptic for thirty years and seemed quite firm in his unbelief. Everybody had given him up as hopeless. Reasoning ever so calmly made no impression on the rocky soil of his heart. Alas! it was sad, very sad!
But one friend had never given him up. “I will talk with and pray for John Harvey until I die,” Stephen Hawkins had said. “And I will have faith that he may yet come out of darkness into the marvelous light.” And whenever Stephen met John, he always talked with him about the truth.
So on that stormy night, as they walked under the umbrella together, he said, “God can change a skeptic, John. He has more power over your heart than you, and I am still going to pray for you.”
“Oh, I have no objections, none in the world. Pray all your want—seeing is believing, you know. I’m ready for any miracle; but I tell you it would take nothing short of a miracle to convince me. Let’s change the subject. I’m hungry and it’s too far to go up to my house for supper on this stormy night. Here’s a restaurant: let us eat here.”
How warm and pleasant it looked in the long, well-lit restaurant.
Stephen and John had just finished eating, and were getting ready to leave, when a strain of soft music came through the open door—a child’s sweet voice.
“Upon my word, that is pretty,” said John Harvey. “What purity in those tones!”
“Out of here, you little baggage!” cried a hoarse voice, and one of the waiters pointed angrily to the door.
“No, let her stay,” called John Harvey.
“We don’t allow them in this place, sir,” said the waiter, “but she can go into the reading room.”
“Very well. I want to hear her,” said John.
All this time they had seen the shadow of something hovering backwards and forwards on the edge of the door. Now they followed a slight little figure, wrapped in a patched cloak, patched hood, and leaving the mark of wet feet as she walked. Curious to see her face—for she was very small—John Harvey lead her to the farthest part of the large room, where there were but few gentlemen, and then motioned her to sing. The little one looked timidly up. Her cheek was of olive darkness, but a flush rested there, and out of the thinnest face, surrounded by masses of the blackest hair, looked two eyes, whose softness and tender pleading would have touched the hardest heart.
“This little thing is sick, I believe,” said John Harvey, compassionately. “What do you sing, child?” he added.
“I sing Italian or a little English.”
John Harvey looked at her shoes. “Why,” he exclaimed, and his lips quivered, “her feet are wet to her ankles. She will catch her death of cold.”
The child, folding her thin fingers in front of her, and pushing back her hood, began to sing. Her voice was wonderful. And, simple and common as were both the tune and words, the emotion in her voice caught the attention of several of the businessmen in the room. The little song began:
“There is a happy land, far, far away.”*
Never could the voice and manner of that child be forgotten. There almost seemed a halo around her head. And when she had finished, she turned her great, expressive eyes toward John Harvey.
“Tell me, child, where did you learn that song?” he asked.
“At the Sunday School, sir.”
“And you don’t suppose there is a happy land?”
“I know there is. I’m going to sing there,” she said, so quickly, so decidedly that the men looked at each other.
“Going to sing there?”
“Yes, sir. Mother said so. She used to sing to me until she was very sick. Then she said she wasn’t going to sing any more on earth, but up in heaven.”
“Well—and what then?”
“And then she died, sir,” said the child. And tears rolled down the dark cheek, now flushed dangerously scarlet.
John Harvey was silent for a few moments. Presently he said, “Well, though she died, my little girl, you may live, you know.”
“Oh, no, sir! no, sir! I’d rather go there and be with mother. Sometimes I have a dreadful pain in my side, and cough as she did. There won’t be any pain up there, sir—it’s a beautiful world!”
“How do you know?” faltered on the lips of the skeptic.
“My mother told me so, sir.”
Words how impressive, manner how childlike, and yet so wise!
John Harvey’s mother had been a praying mother. He found it hard to breathe for a moment—he could hardly keep back the sobs he felt inside. And yet he could not look away from those large, soft, trusting eyes of the child.
“Child, you must have a pair of shoes.” John Harvey’s voice was husky.
Hands were thrust in pockets, purses pulled out, and the astonished child held in her little hand more money than she had ever seen before.
“Her father is a poor, feeble street musician,” whispered one of the men. “I suppose he’s too sick to be out tonight.”
Along the soggy street went the child, now under the protection of John Harvey, but not with shoes that filled with water at every step. Warm and comfortable ones were hers now. Down in the deep, den-like streets of the city walked the man, the little, cold hand of the child in his. At an open door they stopped. Up broken, creaking stairs they climbed. Another doorway was opened, and a wheezing voice called out from the darkness, “Carletta!”
“Oh, Father! Father! See what I have brought you! Look at me! Look at me!” The poor girl, dropping the money, fell, crying and laughing together, into the old man’s arms.
Was he a man? A face, dark and hollow, all overgrown with uncombed hair as black as night, a pair of wild eyes, a body bent nearly double, hands like claws.
“Did he give you all this, my child?
“They all did, Father. Now you shall have soup and oranges.”
“Thank you, sir—I’m sick, you see—all gone, sir!—had to send the poor child out, or we’d starve. God bless you, sir! I wish I was well enough to play you a tune,” and he looked wistfully towards the corner where the old organ stood, battered and worn.
One month later Stephen and John met again as if by agreement, and walked slowly downtown. Treading innumerable passages they came to the gloomy building where Carletta’s father lived.
No—he did not live there any longer, for as they paused a moment, out came two or three men bearing a pine coffin. In the coffin slept the old street musician.
“It was very sudden, sir,” said a woman, who recognized John Harvey. “Yesterday the little girl took sick and it seemed as if he drooped right away. He died at six last night.”
The two men went silently upstairs. The room was empty of everything save a bed, a chair, and a nurse, whom John Harvey had hired to take care of them. The child lay there, not white, but pale as marble, with a strange shine on her brow.
“Well, my little one, are you better?”
“Oh, no, sir. Father is gone up there and I am going.”
Up there! John Harvey turned unconsciously towards Stephen.
“Did you ever hear of Jesus?” Stephen asked the girl.
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you know who He was?”
“Good Jesus,” murmured the child.
“Stephen, this breaks me down,” said John Harvey, and he placed his handkerchief to his eyes.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry. I can’t cry, I’m so glad,” said the child exultingly.
“What are you glad for, my dear?” asked Stephen.
“To get away from here,” she said promptly. “I used to be so cold in the winter, for we didn’t have fire sometimes. But mother used to hug me close and sing about heaven. Mother told me to never mind, and kissed me, and said if I was His, the Savior would love me and one of these days would give me a better home. And so I gave myself to Him, for I wanted a better home. And, oh, I shall sing there and be so happy!”
With a little sigh she closed her eyes.
“John, are faith and hope nothing?” asked Stephen Hawkins.
“Don’t speak to me, Stephen. To be as that little child I would give all I have.”
“And to be like her you need give nothing but your stubborn will, your skeptical doubts, and the heart that will never know rest till at the feet of Christ.”
There was no answer.
Presently the child’s hands moved, the arms were raised, the eyes opened. Yet, glazed though they were, they turned still upward. “See!” she cried. “Oh, there is mother! And angels! And they are all singing.” Her voice faltered, but the celestial brightness lingered yet on her face.
“There is no doubting the soul-triumph there,” whispered Stephen Hawkins.
“It is wonderful,” replied John Harvey, looking on both with awe and tenderness. “Is she gone?” He sprang from his chair as if he would detain her.
But the chest and forehead were marble now, the eyes had lost the fire of life. She must have died as she lay looking at them.
“She was always a sweet little thing,” said the nurse softly.
John Harvey stood as if spellbound. There was a touch on his arm. He started.
“John,” said Stephen, with an affectionate look, “shall we pray?”
For a minute there was no answer. Then tears came to John Harvey’s eyes. The whole body of the softened skeptic shook as he cried out, “Yes, pray, pray!”
And from the side of the dead child went up agonizing pleadings to the throne of God. And that prayer was answered—the miracle was wrought—the lion became a lamb—the doubter a believer—the skeptic a Christian!
