The Glorious Prodigal Read online

  © 2000 by Gilbert Morris

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-7049-8

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  Cover illustration by Dan Thornberg

  Cover design by Josh Madison

  To

  Esther Gardner, my Canadian friend—

  We all need companions on our pilgrim way,

  and your friendship has been a blessing to me.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  1903–1912

  1. After the Ball Is Over

  2. “What We Have Is Forever!”

  3. First Anniversary

  4. Cracks in a Marriage

  5. “The Walls Came Tumbling Down”

  6. The Verdict

  7. Number 6736

  PART TWO

  1916–1917

  8. An Old Debt

  9. A Table in the Wilderness

  10.Valley of Decision

  11. Tom Winslow Gets Some Answers

  12. Ancient History

  PART THREE

  1917

  13. Homecoming

  14. “I’ve Always Loved Him!”

  15. A Surprising Proposal

  16. An Old Song

  17. A New Arrangement

  18. “Will You Have Him Back As Your Husband?”

  PART FOUR

  1917

  19. Seize the Day

  20. “I Need You!”

  21. A Woman Scorned

  22. “You’re a Coward, Winslow!”

  23. A Matter of Fate

  24. Leah’s Song

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  After the Ball Is Over

  Directly overhead the sun sent down blistering waves of heat on the backyard where two young women had exited from a white two-story house. The scorching heat waves had burned all the crops to a crisp and seared the Ozarks, turning everything green-gray and dead. Summer was at its height, and July brought only more dry weather. It had not rained in weeks, and now the small Arkansas town of Lewisville was gasping for relief.

  “It’s hot enough to melt the brass hinges off the door!” said Ellie Mason, a young woman with a florid complexion and expressive blue eyes. Her face was flushed with the heat as she turned to her companion. “I don’t know if it’s worth all this trouble getting ready just for a dance.”

  Leah Freeman smiled at her friend’s remark. “You know you wouldn’t miss a Fourth of July dance for anything, Ellie. Now let’s wash our hair.”

  “I’ll bake out here in this heat. You don’t sunburn like I do.”

  “We can sit in the shade of the tree,” Leah said. “You bring some chairs out while I get the water.” Moving over to a wooden forty-gallon barrel that sat just under the eaves, Leah lifted the lid and peered carefully down into the interior. The water from the well was hard and would not work up a lather at all, so she was grateful for the rainwater that was carefully stored for washing. Dipping the galvanized bucket into the water, she noticed the water was warm, as if it had been heated on the stove. It was that hot a day. Moving back to the table under the towering apple tree, she carefully filled a large basin and then set the bucket down.

  “I’ll do you first,” Ellie said, plopping two cane-bottomed chairs on the ground. Leah sat down and Ellie placed the wealth of hair in the basin supported by a low table. Removing the wrapper from a bar of soap, Ellie chatted as she worked up a lather. “I ordered this new soap from Sears. It’s called Ricco Toilet Soap.” Looking at the wrapper, she read, “ ‘A nicely perfumed soap for complexion and hair.’ It seems they could make a soap just for hair, don’t it, Leah?”

  “You’d think so.”

  “Well, I got it at a bargain. Seven cents a cake,” she said as she lathered Leah’s hair, which was the color of dark honey with reddish glints. “I bought some perfume, too. Rose geranium in a stoppered bottle. It cost twenty-five cents. I hated to pay that much.”

  “You ought to stop spending all your money on mail-order houses.”

  Ellie dug her fingertips into Leah’s scalp, ignoring the young woman’s protests. “You’re a fine one to talk! I hear you spent a week’s pay, or maybe two, on that outfit you’re wearing to the dance tonight.”

  The two young women spoke amiably, laughing at times, as they spoke of the Fourth of July dance to be held at the armory. The two had become friends quickly, for both of them were rather lonely. They roomed at Mrs. Helen Gates’s boardinghouse. Neither had family in the area, so they spent a great deal of time together. Ellie did most of the talking as she rinsed Leah’s hair twice. Then Leah rose and wrapped the towel around her head, saying, “Now let me do you.”

  The process was repeated, and when Ellie’s hair was done, the two sat down on chairs and spread their hair out to dry. As Leah had said, there was no point in sitting out in the direct rays, for the stifling heat was enough to dry their hair even as they sat in the shade.

  They both had grown drowsy when suddenly an explosion practically under their chairs brought them up, screaming.

  “I see you, Billy Funderberg!” Ellie yelled. “I’m going to tell your mother on you!”

  A young boy no more than ten with a freckled face and a broad grin laughed. He lit another firecracker and threw it toward the two women. It fizzled and went off with a resounding bang, and then Ellie ran after him. She returned after he had disappeared and plumped herself down in the chair, muttering, “Kids are incorrigible these days.”

  “I expect they’re about the same as we were,” Leah said.

  “I was never a rotten kid like that Billy Funderberg.”

  The two settled down, and finally Ellie felt her hair. “I’m almost dry. Hey, are you excited about your beau? I would be. He’s some catch.”

  “Mott’s all right,” Leah said casually as she ran her hand over her hair. “I’m about dry, too. I guess we can go in now.”

  She thought briefly of Mott Castleton, whom she had known only for two weeks. He was a lawyer with a practice in Fort Smith, which was only a short drive from Lewisville. Leah had met him when he had visited the office of her employer on a legal matter and she had accepted his invitation for a date. The dance tonight would be their third date, and she smiled at Ellie’s obvious envy. “Maybe we ought to trade dates tonight.”

  “In a flat minute!”

  “I thought you liked Ace.”

  “Sure I like Ace. Everybody likes him. Tell you what,” she said, rising and beginning to gather up the towels and soap. “You’d better turn on the old charm, kiddo, if you want to snag yourself a husband.”

  “You know I won’t do that. I hardly know him yet.”

  “You’d better!” Ellie stopped and leaned forward, her eyes intense. “A girl’s got to think about herself these days. All this stuff about a woman having a career—that’s ridiculous. Men run the world, and we’ve got to run them if w
e’re going to get anywhere. Grab him while you can, Leah. What with him being a lawyer, he’s a real catch!”

  “Don’t be silly!”

  Ellie had gathered all the materials up in her right hand and picked up the chair with her left. She was a strong and active young woman, but rather cynical. Her blue eyes reflected this as she said with some vigor, “You know what your trouble is? You’re too romantic. Mott Castleton’s not exciting enough for you. What you want is some white knight to come charging up on a white horse to save you from a dragon. You’ve been reading too many romances.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Ellie!” Leah flushed slightly and, picking up the other chair, said, “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

  As they walked back toward the boardinghouse, Leah asked, “What about you and Ace?”

  “Why, he’s a lot of fun. But he’s not the marrying kind.” Ellie laughed as they mounted the steps. “Better say a prayer for me that he doesn’t get me drunk and ruin me.”

  “That’s easy. Don’t drink.”

  “At a Fourth of July dance! Who are you kidding?” As they entered the boardinghouse, Ellie changed the subject, as she often did. “Say, tomorrow let’s get our fellas to take us to that new motion picture. There’s a new one out called The Great Train Robbery. I hear it’s great. It lasts a whole ten minutes!”

  ****

  The chief reason why Leah had chosen Mrs. Gates’s boardinghouse over two others was the upstairs bathroom. The house was old, and the room had originally been a large bedroom, some twelve feet square, but Mrs. Gates’s husband had converted it into a bathroom and installed all the plumbing himself. Two large windows admitted sunlight and a breeze. The wallpaper was beige with tiny blue violets, and directly over the huge bathtub with the claw feet was a calendar, a gift from Brown’s Funeral Parlor. The picture revealed two small children being prevented from stepping to their death by a radiant angel. As Leah settled herself down into the tepid water, she smiled, thinking of how Mrs. Gates must have garnered an armful of the calendars, for she had put one in every room of the boardinghouse. The date on the calendar was small—1903—and Leah studied the two angelic-looking children. “I don’t think there were ever two children that sweet,” Leah said, smiling.

  The bath was a luxury, and although the water was hard, she had managed to work up a lather. She had been amazed at the size of the tub, for it was over six feet long. During the mountain winters she knew it would be freezing to the touch. From outside she could hear the sounds coming from the ball field only a few blocks away. The local team, the Blue Jays, had taken on a semiprofessional team, and it seemed that everyone in the county had come to watch. She heard a roar and knew a hometown favorite must have done something marvelous to the baseball—perhaps a home run.

  Finally she sat up, rinsed off, and pulled the plug. She watched the water swirl around in a miniature maelstrom, then disappear. As the water drained, she took a sponge and carefully wiped the bathtub, cleaning it thoroughly. Five other young women occupied rooms at Mrs. Gates’s, and by common consensus they all kept the bathroom as clean as possible. Mrs. Gates had said firmly, “There’ll be no men here. I had one man to take care of, and I’d rather take care of six women any day of the week!”

  Stepping out of the bathtub, Leah dried off on a light blue fluffy towel, then put on a brown bathrobe, slipped her feet into a pair of floppy slippers, and left. As she stepped outside into the hall, she saw Ellie leaning against the wall.

  “Well, you ought to be clean enough,” Ellie said.

  “Sorry to be so long, Ellie.”

  “Won’t take me that long. I can hardly wait for tonight. I’m ready to start dancing right now.”

  As Leah stepped into her room, she glanced at the gilt clock that perched on top of the shelf. It had been her grandmother’s and was one of the family heirlooms she had kept when she and her mother had broken up their home in Fort Smith. It chimed six times now with a silvery note, and she quickly moved over toward the bed, thinking of how her life had changed recently.

  As she removed her robe and tossed it across a straight-backed chair, a brief memory of her life up until six months ago came to her. She had lived in the same house all of her life on the outskirts of Fort Smith, Arkansas, a frontierlike town in the northwest corner of Arkansas tucked in among the foothills of the Ozarks. She had led a happy enough childhood, but her father had died three years earlier, which had been a great sadness to Leah, for they had been very close. She and her mother had lived alone. Her brother and sister were much older than she, and both were married and had families of their own in Georgia. Her mother had grieved over the loss of her husband, but two and a half years ago she had met a well-to-do merchant from St. Louis. The two had gotten along well, and Leah had not been surprised when her mother had informed her that she was marrying George Stephens and moving to St. Louis.

  Leah had visited her stepfather’s home for two months but was unhappy there. She did not like St. Louis—or any big city for that matter—and had taken a course on operating the new typing machines. She seemed to have a natural talent for it and became certified as a “typewriter” before moving back to Arkansas. She took a job in Lewisville because it paid more, and she liked the small town very much. At times she felt sad at how alone she was in the world, but she was a sturdy woman with an inner strength and was determined to make the best of it.

  Leah’s eyes brightened as she looked at the clothing laid out on the bed and began to dress. She had, indeed, ordered a complete new outfit for the dance tonight, and now she slipped into a pair of crinkled crepe drawers, then donned a corset made especially for a slender figure. She had paid seventy-nine cents for it from Perry Dame and Company, a New York mail-order house where she had gotten her new clothes. She fastened the corset, which tucked tightly around her waist, then slipped on a pair of fine-gauge silk stockings with silk embroidered clocks at both sides. Fastening them to the garters, she stepped into the high black patent-leather boots and, using a buttonhook, quickly snapped the buttons into the openings.

  Finally she slipped into a corset cover and then picked up the dress she had spent much time in choosing. Carefully she slipped it over her head.

  When it was in place, she moved across to stand at the mirror and study the full effect. What she saw was a rather tall young woman, five feet eight inches, full-figured, and strongly formed. Gray eyes looked back at her from the mirror, which at times, she knew, would become green. They were large, almond-shaped, and shaded by thick dark brown lashes. A round face, a firm chin, and a long, composed mouth with lips glinting and curving in an attractive line stared back from the mirror. Her complexion was fair and rosy, but now a summer tan shaded her features slightly.

  The dress was rose colored with a close-fitting bodice. It was cut rather low and off the shoulders, which troubled her somewhat, and had balloon sleeves. The skirt was full and decorated with lace-trim side panels.

  Reaching up, she touched her hair, which was brushed back high on the forehead in the popular Greek style, exposing her delicate ears. Still studying her reflection, she suddenly made an impatient gesture with her hand, then turned and walked over to the window. Several young boys were setting off squibs, which people were beginning to call firecrackers now, and she watched them curiously. Mrs. Gates had put a large American flag up in the front yard, and it stirred in the slight breeze that swept across the street.

  I wonder if Mott is serious about me. The thought had come before, and now Leah paused to consider it. Mott Castleton, as Ellie had said, was considered a catch among the young women of Lewisville and Fort Smith. She wondered why she did not feel more pleased over his attentions to her. Mott Castleton was not handsome, but that shouldn’t matter, as Leah often told herself. He was pleasant enough and could converse on many things, but still there was something lacking in him, and the thought disturbed Leah. Am I too fussy? she thought as she turned from the window and paced the floor, wondering about her own feelin
gs. He had kissed her once, and she had not been stirred deeply by it. He was not a man who was demanding in that way, for which she was grateful. Still, as she moved across the carpet, causing tiny dust motes to rise in the yellow sunlight that lay in bars streaming from the window, she remembered Ellie’s question. “Would you want to spend the next fifty years of your life waking up beside him? That’s the test of a husband.”

  The thought troubled Leah, and she put it out of her mind. There’s no need to think about that now! she told herself firmly, then moved out of the room to see how Ellie was doing with her new outfit.

  ****

  Leah had just finished brushing her hair and had sprayed on some perfume from the new atomizer she had bought when a knock sounded at her door. She knew it was Mrs. Gates and said, “Come in.”

  The door opened. “Your young man is here,” Mrs. Gates announced.

  “I know. I heard him drive up.”

  “My, don’t you look pretty!” Mrs. Gates declared. Out of all the girls that boarded with her, Leah was her favorite, and she came over now and reached up to adjust a curl that had slipped over Leah’s forehead. “You go now and have a good time, but I wish Mr. Castleton drove a buggy. I hate those nasty new automobiles. They’re good for nothing but scaring horses, and they’ll be killing people one day. You’ll see.”

  Leah laughed and patted Mrs. Gates’s shoulder. “I’m a bit nervous about them myself. As a matter of fact, I’ve never ridden in one.”

  “Well, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll have him park that thing outside and you two walk to the dance.”

  “Oh no. I wouldn’t miss it,” Leah said.

  “You come in early now.” Mrs. Gates was a motherly woman and spent considerable time worrying about her young ladies. “And you watch out. You know how these dances are.”

  “I’ll be very careful, Mrs. Gates. Don’t worry.”

  Leah went downstairs, opened the door, and found Mott waiting for her. He turned to face her. A tall man, six feet two with blond hair and hazel eyes, he was wearing a linen double-breasted suit with a matching cap. His face was puffy with the heat, and as he nodded, he said, “I’ll sure be glad when it cools off. You ready?”