Mr. Gaylord had generally spoken of Frederick, during his life here, as “the Boy.” I had never heard him use any other name.
“Can you give your father the proof of your presence that you give me?” his mother asked. “Not only by writing, but by the feeling in his heart?”
“I will in time. Remember, he hasn’t yet grown used to this communion. It hits everybody hard, at first, and this fluency is inconceivable to any one who has not seen and felt it at first hand. Give us time to get used to it, and Dad will be as fully in touch with me and my life as he ever was when I lived there. The shock and grief of my supposed departure are taking force from him still, but he’ll see, just as you have, that I am the better and bigger for this one great experience, and that I never was so deeply and truly a part of his life.... Come on, now everybody talk! I sure do preach, but you called the turn the other day, Mother dearest. It’s my job to get this across, first to you who are my own, and through you to every one you can reach. It’s all our jobs.”
Both Mrs. Gaylord and Lois had had some success in establishing communication with the next plane, through the pencil—obtaining detached words, and some names. And the former now asked: “Where were you Sunday? I tried to get you.”
“I had a big job, attacking a pro-German newspaper editor in South Africa. He didn’t give in, either, but we’ll get him yet. He doesn’t fight openly. He poses as a Pharisee, but he’s really pro-German, and thanks God he is like other Germans.”
Lois asked whether there are any pro-Germans where he is, and he replied that disintegrating force is “pro-anything that destroys.”
During his last illness, one of his diversions had been to plan with his father a long journey they were to take together when he should be convalescent. Now, after a pause, he wrote slowly and distinctly, as if to emphasize the deliberation of his intention:
“Dad, do you remember that trip we were going to take? You take it with Mother some day, and I’ll go with you, and we’ll do all the things we planned. And I can tell you, if you will just let me in and listen, all the things you want to hear. We don’t need a messenger, you and I, but as long as I can’t get to you any other way, I’ll use one. I can help you actually—physically, mentally, spiritually, materially—as for so many years you helped me. It was due to you and Mother that I got such a good start here. Now I am here, it is for all of us still, as it always was. But it’s my turn to lift a little. You carried me for years. Let me come in again now, as a real, existing, active, growing force—your son, sir, wanting to be nearer and more intimately yours than ever. You go on and take our trip, and I promise I’ll go with you. Frederick.”
A little later, he said: “I wish there could be any way of showing you visibly the radiant force I am, now that we are all united. You have to be translated to this plane before you can understand what it means to be brought back into the family circle. Not all families, but ours. We are all of kindred purposes, and there’s no separating us.”