Not My Will and The Light in My Window (49 page)

“Well, I shall be interested to see how such faith, so called, works out. Next spring we can have the old plant overhauled, but in the meantime I’m going to send home for my red flannels! That’s how I’m going to help answer that prayer.”

The answer to Eleanor’s prayer came in a more direct and definite way. One morning, shortly before Christmas, a letter from the farm brought excitement.

Chad rushed from one to another of the staff and the children, spreading the news. “Mary Lou is coming, and Unka Bob! Mary Lou is going to stay with us!”

Through the intervening days he chattered of the coming joy. It was evident that Mary Lou was a most important star in his universe, and Hope waited expectantly to meet her.

“I know the twuck. It’s red and black,” said Chad on Wednesday morning. “I’ll see it when it turns the corner.”

He stationed himself on the broad sill in the tower room window as soon as lunch was over. As the afternoon wore on, even that did not satisfy him and he donned snowsuit and boots and climbed onto the railing of the porch to stand, a faithful little sentinel, watching every truck that turned the corner. At five o’clock Eleanor came out to find Hope and Stan having a snowball fight on the lawn, while Chad watched from his vantage point.

“Aren’t they funny, Mother? Stan washed Hope’s face with the snow. But it didn’t make her clean at all!”

“It certainly didn’t,” said Eleanor, laughing at the pair as they came up the steps. “Hope, you’re disreputable looking! City snow was never meant for that. You’d better hurry in before company comes. Stan, Phil wants you to fix the chairs for the men’s meeting tonight. Sam is too busy cleaning sidewalks. Hope, Billy wants to know if you’d have time to go and see how the Gomez baby is and take the formula that Ben fixed up. She is worrying because she can’t go out, and the baby needs it.”

“Of course I will,” replied Hope, shaking the snow from her hair and wiping her cheeks with her handkerchief. “This snow is rather messy, not like country snow. Guess I’ll have to wash before I can go.”

“You certainly would think so if you could see yourself as I see you,” laughed Eleanor. “Come on, sonny boy. It’s time to go in. You’re getting chilled out here.”

“Oh no! Please Mommy! I’ve got to watch for Mary Lou!”

“Well, you’ll have to watch inside.”

“No! Please! I don’t want to go in.”

“I’m sorry, dear. But you can see from the window. Come on quickly. It’s getting dark.”

She started in, but Chad hung back, watching, anxiously down the street. Eleanor did not realize that he was not following her until she reached the door. Then she spoke once more.

“Chad!”

At that tone, Chad straightened up, drew a long breath, then said, “Yes, Miss Honor, I
will
come.”

She gave him a reassuring hug. As they turned toward the door again, Chad cried, “Oh, here they are, and it’s two twucks, Mommy!” Then he was down the walk like a small whirlwind, greeting Mary Lou and Uncle Bob.

A half hour later, when Hope came back from her errand, the entire Institute family was busy. In the hall were boxes and packages of all shapes and sizes. Phil and Stan were carrying cartons and cases to the basement, while two strange men were tossing logs through the coal bin window.

“Isn’t that a breathtaking answer to prayer?” asked Eleanor as Hope came into the hall. “I never once told the folks we were cold, but someone must have, for the members of Mother’s church sent a whole truckload of logs! They say they will send more if we need them. We’ll have fire in these old fireplaces on cold days and be snug as bugs!”

“What’s all the rest of the stuff?” asked Hope curiously.

“Two barrels of potatoes and three of apples. I’m going to have fun with those apples. You’d better be looking up some apple recipes for your classes. I wish you had seen the canned fruit. You must go down in the basement and see it all. Every woman
in the church sent some canned fruit or vegetables. There is cabbage and carrots and celery from their root cellars. That pile of boxes there is for Christmas. Mother never does things by halves.”

Looking at the boxes, Hope agreed with her.

“It will take them another half hour to unload,” continued Eleanor. “That gives us time to get supper. Suppose you all come and eat with us tonight. I want you to meet my brother and sister, and I could do nicely with some help in the kitchen.

Hope and Eleanor bustled about, Phil came in with some logs and built a fire in the living room, and soon the additional warmth made the room comfortable. When Dr. Ben came in at six o’clock he gave Billy permission to get up and come out wrapped in a heavy robe. He put her carefully in a big chair and placed a hassock at her feet.

How can she help but love him?
mused Hope, setting the table. “He loves her so much, and he’s so nice all through.”

Just then Stan came in, and his joy at seeing Billy up was so great that Hope felt confused.
Stan is nice, too. He loves Billy, and she loves him, I’m sure. Oh dear! It’s a mess! She can’t marry both of them. I don’t want either of them to be hurt
.

The workers came in, led by Chad and a tall, sweet-faced girl whom he proudly introduced as Mary Lou. Eleanor introduced her brother, Bob, and his brother-in-law, Jack, who had driven the other truck.

During the meal Hope listened to the exchange of questions and answers and news from the farm. She learned more about Eleanor’s family than she had known before. There was the mother, or Mom, as Bob called her, and Bob had a wife, Marilyn, and two children, Patty and Bobby. There were Connie and Dick and Baby Paul, who lived some place else where Dick was pastor of a church. And there was Mary Lou. It all sounded like a lovable family such as Hope had always yearned to belong to. No wonder Eleanor could be so happy all the time. Life had been extremely kind to her.

“How would you fellows like to go over to the church to our men’s meeting?” asked Phil, as they arose from the table. “It’s not a mission service, it’s our Bible class, made up mostly of Christian men who have been saved at the Mission. I think you’d like it.”

“I’m sure we would,” answered Bob, “but we’d better get downtown to see about our hotel rooms. We had reservations at the Standford, but there’s been some sort of mix-up, and we want to try to get it straightened out.”

“Now listen here, Bob Stewart!” cried Eleanor. “We have only twenty-eight rooms in this house. Phil bought six army cots last week at an auction. If you
think
of going downtown, I’ll disown you.”

After the men had gone to the church, Billy sat in the big chair and watched Hope and Eleanor clear the table. Mary Lou and Chad were playing with Tinker Toys on the floor. The flames leaped and crackled about the logs on the hearth, and Billy said, as she felt the heat all about her, “Stan thought you were a bit batty to pray for heat, Eleanor, but you got the heat, so who cares if you are batty. Let’s sing the doxology!”

E
veryone connected with the Institute had learned to love Stan as a friend and helper, but to two of them he became even more. The first of these was Riley, the kitten Stan had picked up in the alley. Nominally the kitten belonged to Chad, and the little boy loved it dearly. However, it attached itself to Stan and was his devoted follower. At meals the kitten sat on his feet or crawled up his arm and perched on his shoulder. As Stan worked in the shop Riley often sat in the window over his bench. When he lounged in one of the big chairs that Billy had placed before the fireplace in the end of the great hall, Riley could usually be found draped over his shoulder, purring in his ear. Stan protested loudly that he did not like cats, that Riley was a nuisance, and that he should never have rescued him. However, his touch was always gentle, and if Riley did not meet him at the door, he went in search of the kitten.

The name “Riley” was given to the kitten by Billy, because of the life of ease and freedom from care which the kitten lived, calmly appropriating to itself the softest chairs and warmest spots in the house. “You live the life of Riley,” she would say when she had to lift it from a chair before she could sit down, or would find it curled up on her pillow. So the name stuck, and Riley lived his contented life among them.

The other devotee to Stan was Sam Pawley, the janitor. He had been with the Institute for more than fourteen years, ever since the night he had stumbled into the Mission on Water Street
and heard a young student from Bethel College tell the story of a Savior who died that such as he might be saved eternally. Sam had not known that he needed to be saved, but as the knowledge of his need was driven home to his half-drunken brain, the realization of his condition shocked him into sobriety. When the invitation was given, he went forward to seek that Savior. His earnestness touched the hearts of the workers, and as the weeks went by and the genuineness of his conversion was demonstrated, he was given work at the Institute. Sam had never been an intellectual giant, and years of drinking had dulled his mind. Yet, he showed an understanding of the truths of salvation that astounded them all.

“He is a demonstration of the fact that spiritual truths are spiritually discerned,” said Philip in talking to his Christian education class one day. “I have seen men with the highest degrees our universities offer who could not comprehend the plan of salvation as Sam does. And such a memory! He can’t even remember to eat his meals regularly, but he knows all the Bible verses he needs to use in pointing a soul to the Lord. If all Christians were as zealous as Sam Pawley we would really evangelize the world in this generation.”

When Stan came, Sam accepted him at once and gave him almost reverential love. Stan seemed to embody all the things Sam admired but could never hope to achieve—good looks, facile speech, gay spirits, and a keen mind.

“You’re a smart feller, Mr. Stan. You’re smart enough to be president, I betcha, some day,” he would say as he watched Stan designing some bit of woodwork or tinkering with an electrical repair job the complexity of which utterly confused Sam. Wherever Stan worked he could depend on having Sam look in on him every half hour or so to ask some wistful question, often apparently just for the purpose of getting attention. As in the case of Riley, Stan pretended disinterest or annoyance, but he always answered patiently and kindly, and found countless ways to help the faithful Sam.

On nights when he was not busy, Sam always went over to the Mission, where his simple testimony had led many another wanderer to the fold. As often as he could, Sam persuaded Stan to accompany him, and ere long Stan began to arrange his work
so that his nights at the Mission coincided with Sam’s. It became a common sight on Water Street to see the two of them hurrying to the hall or out on the street persuading men to go in to the meeting. As time went on, Sam appeared to be studying Stan with a troubled air, and one night as they were banking the fire in the church, he spoke sadly.

“Mr. Stan, I wisht you was a Christian.”

Stan looked up in surprise. “Why I am, Sam,” he said.

“A really born-again one?” asked Sam persistently.

“Just a Christian, Sam. Isn’t that enough? What’s wrong with me, anyway, to make you ask such a question?”

“Nuthin’ wrong, Mr. Stan, effen you’re saved. But everthin’s wrong effen you ain’t.”

“Well, what makes you think I’m not? Can there be saved Christians and unsaved Christians?”

That seemed to puzzle Sam for a moment, and then he said, “No, I reckon not. Effen you ain’t saved, you’re lost. So you ain’t a Christian.”

“But I say I
am
a Christian.”

“But you’re dodgin’ an’ won’t say you’re saved. So effen you won’t say so, it mus’ be it ain’t so. Disregardless of what you call yourself, I’m gonna ask God to save you.”

He resumed shoveling coal into the furnace, and Stan gazed at him in resentful bewilderment. Then he laughed good-naturedly and said, “OK, fellow. Do it disregardless.”

That was the first of many discussions. Sam’s theology was simple and direct, and, try as he would, Stan could not dodge the issue. Sometimes he would become so irritated that he would not talk with Sam for hours, but the meek patience of the other always overcame his resentment, and the comradeship would be resumed only to be disturbed again in a short time by Sam’s efforts to win Stan.

“Don’t you b’lieve all that?” he would question anxiously, as they returned from a meeting where Phil or one of the students had preached and pleaded with the power of the Holy Spirit.

“Sure, I believe it. But he wasn’t preaching to me. I’m not like that gang.”

“Yes, it was to you.
‘All
we like sheep have gone astray,’ he said, and that means you as well as Dan Hagan.”

“Now listen, Sam. You can’t feed me that line. I
haven’t
gone astray like Dan Hagan. He’s an ex-convict, and if he doesn’t straighten up soon, he’ll be a convict again. Do you think I’m
that
bad?”

Stan’s face showed his distress, and his voice quavered. “I didn’t say that, Mr. Stan, honest I didn’t. But it says, ‘All we have gone astray,’ an’ that means lost, I betcha.”

“Well, I’m
not
lost, so quit worrying. I know where I am, and I like it here, and I’m not
lost
.”

“Jist thinkin’ so don’t make it so. You’re lost disregardless.”