Though None Go with Me Read online

  Her lingering grief drove her closer to God. Her friends sympathized, but even Frances never seemed to know what to say. Elisabeth tried to be cordial and appreciated any attempt to comfort her, but mostly she found solace in prayer.

  Few wanted to hear that, she realized. Pastor Hill explained that “praying without ceasing” was actually attainable. He said Paul’s expression meant “keeping the line open all the time. But our connection to God is not a party line. Corporate prayer is one thing, but to pray without ceasing means to keep your private line open to God every waking moment. Keep him at the forefront of your mind. Know he is with you, watching, listening, available for counsel in the secret places of the heart.”

  Those secret places were where Elisabeth felt so needy, so fragile. She told Frances one day, “I sometimes feel apart from God for no reason.” Frances’s face showed sympathy as if she had heard Elisabeth, but she said nothing. “How about you, Fran?” Elisabeth pressed.

  Frances shrugged. “We are apart from God, aren’t we?” she said. “I mean, someday we’ll be with him in heaven, but that’s a long way from here. I don’t think God wants us walking around with our heads in the clouds all the time.”

  Elisabeth was astounded that Frances seemed content to, in essence, leave God out of her life outside of Sundays and Wednesday nights. Elisabeth found comfort in the Psalms and other passages, but still she felt alone. Aunt Agatha badgered her to get out more, to mingle, to start setting her sights on a life’s mate. That last surprised Elisabeth, and she had been unable to hide her reaction.

  “Why, thank you,” Elisabeth said.

  “What?” her aunt said. “You assume I think you too young? The sooner you’re married, the sooner you’re on your way.”

  Elisabeth fought to keep from reacting angrily, though that cut deeply. How had she allowed herself to walk into it? She was hardly at a point where she was interested in finding someone with whom to share her life. In truth she feared becoming a hermit because of that lack of interest.

  “Why don’t you get lawyer Beck to dip into your trust and install a telephone in this house?”

  Elisabeth shook her head. “Too extravagant,” she said. “Snyder’s Pharmacy has a phone if we have an emergency, and we haven’t had one since Daddy died.”

  Drifting farther and farther from her friends at church and school, Elisabeth looked forward to Bible camp each summer forty miles to the north. Something about the place and the atmosphere and the people her age from other churches invigorated her, brought her out of herself.

  From the moment the little Christ Church caravan turned onto the long, dusty, unpaved road that led to the camp, Elisabeth felt rejuvenated. She stood in line in a musty, wood-paneled hall, signing in. Then she walked the grounds alone, finding her cabin, her bunk, meeting her counselor. Briefly greeting friends from previous summers, she remained alone as long as she could, immersing her senses in the unique atmosphere.

  The sandy soil near the lake, the slap of dozens of screen doors from cabins to mess hall to meeting house, the sound of the wind in the trees—all these recalled memories that allowed her to leave her grief in Three Rivers. The oppressive nagging of Aunt Agatha stayed there too. Her friends might have stayed behind as well, because she tended not to spend a lot of time with them during camp week. Elisabeth’s spiritual antennae were tuned to others as devoted to God as she. First conversations with new acquaintances told the story. Did they talk about clothes and the opposite sex, or did they talk about Jesus? Some exuded spiritual superiority, which did not jibe with her view of devotion. But many were humble, serious about their faith, strange and wonderful young people who longed to pray and talk of God. With these new friends, she could steal away late at night, not for mischief but actually to discuss the message they had just heard. Elisabeth felt as if she were getting a glimpse of heaven. Here were serious-minded students, interacting mostly with strangers, yet unafraid to speak of their loyalty to Christ.

  She couldn’t deny that a major draw that summer was the renowned Ben Phillips. Elisabeth loved to hear him preach and sing, but mostly she was still simply impressed that a college student was so overt about his faith.

  Fewer and fewer of the young men in her church went to camp each year, but one who never missed was Will Bishop. His father had died in the spring of 1916, apparently leaving no estate. Elisabeth marveled that Will was able to get a week off from his various jobs to get to camp at all. He spent his afternoons that week working maintenance, which must have been, Elisabeth deduced, how he paid the fee. He was the only other camper from her church who joined Ben Phillips and the others for what they called “prayer and sharing” late each night. Poor Will looked exhausted and never said a word. When they prayed around, he was skipped because he was either dozing or simply silent.

  One night Will was late and someone asked about him. “He’s from my church,” Elisabeth said, and quickly told the story of his father and of Will’s industriousness.

  “Does he ever say anything?” someone asked.

  Elisabeth smiled. “He’s just shy.”

  Ben Phillips, who was not only guest college speaker and musician but also helped supervise the camp for the summer, spoke up. “I can’t get him to say more than a word or two. But the other night, when we were feeling sorry for ourselves because we are oh-so-spiritual that we can’t have fun like everyone else—remember?” Several nodded, smiling. “And instead of going straight back to our cabins we played Capture the Flag? Did you notice that Will didn’t play? He just wandered off to his cabin. I figured he was tired from working all afternoon.”

  “I was afraid he thought we were being unspiritual,” someone said.

  “Here’s what happened,” Ben said. “I broke away from my team and circled far around the west row of cabins, then noticed a light in one of the windows. As I tiptoed by, there was Will on his knees by his bunk. He had fallen asleep.” Ben paused and shook his head. “I’ll tell you something: I’d love just once to fall asleep praying.”

  Elisabeth was proud of Will, glad she knew him, happy to call him a friend, though they often went months hardly speaking.

  She loved those late-night sessions. Besides spiritual matters, they discussed issues of the day. One late night in the summer of 1917, a dozen or so like-minded campers sat before the fireplace in the fellowship hall discussing the war in Europe. “How long before it affects us?” a girl said.

  Elisabeth had read in the newspaper that President Wilson had established a neutral policy toward what had become known as the Great War. Wilson said Americans should be “impartial in thought as well as in action,” but that was becoming more and more difficult. In 1915 Britain’s blockade of Germany and Germany’s retaliatory submarine attacks had actually cost some American civilian lives.

  “I think most of America is on the side of the Allies,” Elisabeth said. “Realistically, how long can the United States remain neutral?”

  Congress had approved a war resolution against Germany, but President Wilson, whose reelection motto was “He kept us out of war,” would not let America officially join the Allies. Yet just a few months before, in May of 1917, a military draft had been initiated.

  “All we can do is pray,” a girl said.

  Several others nodded, but Ben raised a hand. “At the risk of sounding overly dramatic,” he said, “some of us may be called upon to do more than that. General Pershing wants a million men in Europe by this time next year. I just graduated and want to go on to seminary. But if I get drafted—”

  “Surely they won’t take a seminary student,” someone said.

  “Maybe you can be a chaplain.”

  “Or you could—”

  Ben interrupted. “I’m not looking for a way out. I’m just saying some of us will be asked to do more than pray.”

  “Get married!” someone said. “They’re not taking men with families.”

  Ben smiled. “No prospects. Anyway, that would be a pretty bad reason for
getting married.”

  It was close to midnight when the meeting broke up. As the group drifted out into the night, Elisabeth battled her emotions. She wanted to talk to Ben, to let him know that she would be thinking of him, praying for him. But she didn’t want to appear forward. She had been as intrigued with Ben as anyone—even Frances Crawford, who had by now gone through a series of summer romances—but Elisabeth’s concern for him carried no ulterior motive.

  She was in the doorway with only Ben behind her when she hesitated. Ben had turned, apparently to turn out the light, and bumped into her.

  “Oh!” he said, his hand gentle on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Elisabeth. I didn’t see you.”

  She couldn’t get over that he knew her name. He seemed as embarrassed as she. She assured him it was her fault as they stepped into the night and he locked the door.

  “I, uh, just wanted to tell you, Mr. Phillips, that I—”

  “Mr. Phillips!” he said. “I’m not that much older than you. Please call me Ben.”

  “Okay,” Elisabeth said, glad a dim light on a nearby pole did not make plain her red face. She wanted to ask how he knew her name, but she finished her thought. “I will be praying about your war. I mean, your future, whether it means war or not. For you, that is.”

  Elisabeth wanted to start over, to fix it. But she said nothing.

  “Well, thank you,” Ben said.

  They stood there awkwardly, and as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she found herself studying his two-toned shoes. He was dramatically handsome and trim, with a flair for class without flash.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “May I walk you?”

  “I’m over the rise there,” she said, grateful hers was the farthest cabin from the hall.

  They strolled slowly, and he was uncharacteristically quiet. It couldn’t be that he was as nervous as she. It was all she could do to keep from asking how it was that he was twenty-two and still single, let alone apparently not dating. Surely he had a girl at home.

  “I didn’t know you knew my name,” she said. He stopped and looked at her, as if in shock. “Well, I didn’t,” she said.

  “Everyone knows who you are, Elisabeth.”

  “Go on,” she said.

  “Don’t be coy,” he said. “You stand out.”

  Elisabeth was dying to ask in what way, but she would not. She looked down. “Really, how did you know my name?”

  “Truthfully? I asked your friend the first summer I was here.”

  “My friend?”

  “Francine something?”

  “Frances? Frances Crawford?”

  “She wrote me once.”

  “You asked Frances my name? She never told me that.”

  “I asked her not to. You were what, fourteen?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “I was twenty.”

  She wanted to say, “So?” but the whole conversation made her woozy. “So you knew my name but never spoke to me?”

  “Your father had died, wasn’t that it?” She nodded. “And to be frank, high school girls often become enamored with college men. I dared not risk that.”

  “Of course not. You wouldn’t want someone like me to become enamored with someone like you. A college man.”

  “It wasn’t that,” he said in the darkness. “You were so young, and, of course, grieving. I could have been misunderstood.”

  “By whom?”

  “You, of course. And there are rules about speakers fraternizing with campers.”

  “And those have been rescinded?”

  “Ah, no. But this was unplanned. I mean, you approached me. Well, you didn’t approach me, but—”

  “You ran into me,” she said.

  “Guilty,” he said. “But you said you wanted to speak to me.”

  “And now I have. And so I should go. My cabin is just over there.”

  He looked at his watch. “We have ten minutes till lights out.”

  “But you wouldn’t want to be seen fraternizing with a camper,” she said. “A high school girl.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “I’m teasing, Ben. I’m not very good at this.”

  “At what?”

  “Social graces.”

  “People love you here,” he said. “It’s obvious.”

  “I’m barely sociable at home.”

  “Maybe you’re in your element here.”

  She cocked her head. “I do love it.”

  “But you’ve got a fella back home.”

  She shook her head.

  “But Francine, Frances, told me—”

  “Told you what?” Elisabeth said.

  “A young man from your church …”

  “Who?”

  “A couple of years older. He was with you the last two summers.”

  “Art?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Art Childs?” She laughed aloud. “Actually, Art and Frances have begun seeing each other.”

  They stood by a big tree in front of Elisabeth’s cabin. Ben looked at his watch again and seemed to study the ground. “I wish I’d known that,” he said.

  She held her breath. “Why?”

  “I might have broken the rule.”

  “Ben!”

  “I mean this year, not then.”

  “And what made you think I would be interested?” she said, amazed at her own nonchalance.

  He smiled. “I would have taken my chances.”

  “We really should call it an evening,” she said.

  “May I finish my thought?”

  “I think not.”

  “Tomorrow night?” he said.

  “That would be willfully breaking the rule.”

  “I’ll clear it first,” he said.

  “With whom?”

  “My boss.”

  “Reverend Shaw?” she said. “I’d be mortified.”

  “But I’ll be within the rules, which is only right.” He was walking away.

  “Ben, please don’t.”

  He stopped and turned. “Elisabeth, the choice is yours. It’s your right to decline.”

  Decline? Elisabeth could not imagine.

  She quietly slipped into the cabin, but as soon as the door was closed, the giggling began. “We must know everything,” her cabin mates demanded. “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Catch Ben’s eye.”

  “We were the last ones out and he walked me back, that’s all.”

  They weren’t buying, but neither was she talking.

  Elisabeth was good for nothing the next day. She forced herself to keep from watching for Ben. That night in the fellowship hall she wanted to acknowledge him but not appear eager. He never glanced her way, though he gave the devotional and seemed to make eye contact with everyone else. Elisabeth feared she had scared him off. She had amazed herself at the things she’d said. Other than Will Bishop, she had never talked to a boy alone.

  Elisabeth was so disheartened that she believed everyone could see it on her face. She waited again, careful not to be the only one left when Ben closed the door. When the others moved on, it seemed he noticed her for the first time.

  “Oh, Elisabeth,” he said, “I’m sorry, but I asked Reverend Shaw, and he denied me permission to interact with you.”

  Elisabeth fought for composure, the embarrassing ramifications sweeping over her.

  “I assumed that would make you happy,” he said.

  “Happy?”

  “You didn’t even want me to broach it with him, so—”

  This was her fault. She had ruined it by feigning lack of interest. “Yes, but—”

  “I’m just kidding,” he whispered. “Actually, Reverend Shaw said he wondered how long it would take me to notice someone as beautiful and spiritual as you.”

  Elisabeth blinked. She didn’t know whether to be thrilled or insulted. Apparently that showed.

  “I’m sorry, Elisabeth,�
� Ben said. “I had to clear it anyway, just in case. How else could I justify walking with you tonight?”

  He touched her elbow and guided her to the door, slowing to let everyone else out first. Some stared and smiled, others whispered. Elisabeth wanted to tell them to mind their own business, but there was no such thing at camp.

  She felt awkward as a newborn calf, stumbling into the night, unable to form words. She was thrilled Ben had taken the initiative, but could she ever be the person he thought she was? If not, how would she keep his interest? Elisabeth would be herself, as her father had encouraged her. “You are irresistible when you are you,” he would say. If only she might one day hear that from Ben Phillips.

  Ben stopped outside the door and stood before her, palms up, brows raised. “I’ve cleared it, so now it’s up to you. May I walk you?”

  Elisabeth exhaled, but before she could respond, a voice startled her.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Will!” Ben said, shaking his hand.

  “Good devotional tonight, Ben,” Will said, and he nodded to Elisabeth.

  “Will,” she said.

  “I was just wondering if you needed someone to walk you to your cabin.”

  “Oh, I—”

  “I mean, the others are already gone, and I—”

  “Oh, yes. I appreciate that. But no. I, ah, Ben here has just offered, so I’m all set.”

  Will looked down. “Okay, then.”

  “But thank you, Will. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.”

  “Thanks, Will,” Ben added.

  “Sure thing,” Will said, his face crimson as he backed away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Elisabeth had no idea what to expect from Ben Phillips. Could his mind and heart be filled with her every second, as hers were with him? It couldn’t be. Otherwise, how could he think or say or do anything not revolving around her? Yet he did. He still taught and sang and led the late-night gathering of the devout.