Not My Will and The Light in My Window (53 page)

“Yes, I truly do. When I bring them up here, you can have a big one for your own.”

Chad sat thinking of this blissful prospect, and the others were quiet. The clock on the mantle over the fireplace ticked away the last few minutes of the old year. The whistles outside announced that the new year was at hand.

As Stan and Ben arose, preparatory to breaking the circle, Eleanor said, “Let’s start the new year with prayer.”

She reached for Phil’s hand on one side and Hope’s on the other, while Billy clasped hands with Stan and Ben. So hand in
hand, they faced the year ahead, with hearts lifted to God for blessing and guidance.

After Phil and Eleanor had tucked Chad back into his bed and turned to take a last look to be sure the fire was safely out in the fireplace, Phil lifted one of the bronze curls that he loved to touch, and said, “My hopes for the future, like Stan’s, are too sacred to be made public. I’ll tell
you
what they are. I want a little daughter with red-brown curls.”

Eleanor laughed. “If you ever have a daughter she will probably have red-brown curls—and a snub nose and quite a few freckles—and a willful, stubborn streak a yard wide!”

“That will be OK with me. I like snub noses and freckles on little girls, and we’ll let God deal with the stubborn willfulness. He can, you know.”

Eleanor reached up and drew his face down to hers.

“Here’s the first kiss for the new year, darling. Yes, I do know it. He can, and, praise be, He does!”

T
he weeks that followed the New Year’s Day seemed just ordinary weeks, no different in detail from most of the other weeks that passed over Henderson Institute. Every day was full of absorbing, self-denying labor. There was always so much to be done that plans and hopes were far ahead of accomplishment. Men and women, boys and girls, toddlers and babes in arms crowded into the evening school, the Bible classes, the shop, the kitchen, the clinic, and the nursery to receive all that the workers had to give. Some of them went forth to share the service and the message with others. The workers, having given without measure of their time, talent, and their very selves, went to bed at night weary in body but happy in the consciousness of good deeds well done for the Master’s sake.

There was nothing in those weeks to make them stand out when reviewed through memory’s lens. Sandwiched as they were between the Christmas season and the memorable events of the late winter, they seemed only an indefinite succession of days, each too much like the others to be noteworthy.

Yet whether the dwellers in Kings’ Palace knew it or not, those weeks brought gifts and exacted tribute of each of them. The ties binding them together grew stronger, and the roots that held them to the work in this place went deeper with each experience they shared.

Early in January Eleanor received a letter that both surprised and pleased her. She had watched Hope’s slowly changing personality
with thankfulness. Since the day she had come to them with apology for her antagonism to Stan, Hope had been sweet tempered and friendly. There was still some shadow in the girl’s life, Eleanor knew, but the bitterness seemed to have gone, and she hoped that a bit more time and labor at her selfless tasks at the Institute would effect a complete cure. She often wondered what tragic happening could have brought such heavy shadows to one so young. She wished she knew more of the background from which the girl had come, but Hope said nothing to enlighten her. The letter filled in some of the missing parts of the puzzle. Eleanor read it to Phil as they sat at lunch.

“That is a gracious letter from a fine Christian mother,” said Phil when Eleanor had finished. “It must have taken a great deal of grace and patience for Hope’s parents to pray through the years. The young lady who came to us in August wasn’t the sort to reassure any parent. The change in her is almost unbelievable. I hope she goes home soon to visit those parents. They probably will not recognize her.”

“She
isn’t
the same girl that she was last August. That girl was an introvert who had been warped by some accident and mismanagement in childhood. I have thought much about her explanation to us. She said someone wronged her in childhood. I am sure it could not have been the mother and father who were praying for her who caused that injury. It is altogether possible that much of the difficulty was in Hope’s own mind. The Hope of last year was thinking only of self. The Hope we know today has lost self in service for others, and through that service has learned for the first time in her life how to really live. She looks and acts differently because she
is
different.”

“Thanks to you, little mother. I’ve seen her watching you when she didn’t know anyone saw her, and she actually yearns toward you. I know how she feels. I’ve often wished I were a little boy—a rather naughty little boy so I could crawl onto your lap and be loved into being good. After I’d done that I’d look at you the way Hope does.”

Eleanor paused on her way to the pantry and said softly, as she stooped to lay her cheek for a moment against his, “The thought that I might be able, through the grace of God, to help a little, or big, boy to be better, is a very humbling thing. I never get over the thrill of it. I am happy indeed to give a hand to a girl like Hope. She’s going to be a fine woman some day. Her battles aren’t all over yet. There is still a wall of some sort to be broken
down. I don’t know what it is, but it stands between us so that I cannot get close to her. We are making progress, and some day we will see victory, I am sure. In the meantime, she is an invaluable help here.”

“I’ll say she is! Leaving out the cooking and sewing lessons, that’s your department, not mine, she’s worth her salary just for her efficiency in the office. It’s a different place since she took charge. Billy is a willing secretary, but Hope is an efficient one.”

“Her coming was a real heaven-sent blessing. She brought order out of chaos in the office, she has the girls’ classes running smoothly at last, she and Billy are real pals, and—and—”

“And what?”

“Nothing. I mustn’t say more. Let time take care of any further developments. In the meantime, let’s be thankful that we have a full staff. Both Hope and Stan were God sent.”

“For which I thank Him daily. The plans I have for Henderson Institute would be only pipe dreams if I didn’t have my four fine youngsters to help. I try not to work them too hard, but it’s a temptation. We must see that they get some fun as they go along. Even Ben is too young to work all the time. Next year the Norrises will be ready to take over the household arts and the boys’ work, but the foundation that Hope and Stan are laying will tell for many years.”

Apparently Stan also thought there should be some time for play, for one evening as he and Hope and Billy sat at dinner he proposed a skating party at the lagoon in the park across the city. Hope agreed, for she had been longing to skate, but Billy did not seem enthusiastic.

“You know I’m a rotten skater, Stan. You and I aren’t built to skate together. Take Hope and let me stay at home. She is much nearer your size.”

“Not on your life, my love. You are going with us. I promised your mother I’d guard your health, and you need a race with the wind to put some color in your cheeks. Come on, Hope and I will pull you.”

Just as they were leaving, Ben came in tired and hungry. Stan insisted that he, too, needed some fresh air and exercise, so while Ben ate a belated dinner, Stan found another pair of skates.

The ice on the lagoon was smooth, the stars shone in a cloudless sky, and the cold, clean air was exhilarating. At first the four of them skated abreast, Hope on one end and Stan on the other, suiting their strokes to the shorter ones of Billy and Ben. Then, by common consent, they separated, Ben and Billy to skate lazily along the shore, while Hope and Stan with long swinging strokes struck out into the center of the lagoon where the more skillful skaters were racing to and fro. For a while they were content to skate without talking. To Hope it seemed such a rare treat to be out in the open air away from the scents and sounds of Sherman Street that she cared only for the joy of the exercise, almost forgetting her partner as they sped swiftly around the curves of the winding lagoon. Stan sensed her exhilaration and followed her example of silence, realizing that he was seeing an entirely different girl from the serious teacher of household arts in Henderson Institute. Her enjoyment of the sport was so keen that he hesitated to break the spell.

So, hand in hand, with the wind in their faces, they raced along. In the weeks of their acquaintance this was the first time they had been alone together, except for short intervals of consultation over some problem or bit of work. Under some circumstances there might have been self-consciousness, but here each was on familiar and enjoyable ground and was pleased to find such harmonious reaction from the other.

At length, at the far end of the lagoon, Stan drew to a stop.

“Boy, oh boy! That’s keen! I haven’t had so much fun since the day I fell in Grandma’s cistern. Where did you learn to skate?”

“Down by the watermelon patch.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Just that. Down along the river where grandpa’s farm is, there are many ponds or bayous of backwater that freeze over much more quickly than the river does. Grandpa would never let me on the river, no matter how cold it got. But all of us kids would swarm to ponds. Once George Meadows and I played hooky from school and skated all day. Gramps wouldn’t let me have my skates any more that winter.”

They were skating leisurely now with the wind at their backs, talking in comradely fashion.

“Who was the George guy? Special friend?”

“No. Special enemy. But the best skater in school. I owe him something, for if I hadn’t tried so hard to beat him, I wouldn’t be such a good skater now.”

“Thanks, George. Now you can fade out of the picture.”

Hope laughed at his nonsense, then realized with a pleasurable thrill that she was talking as easily with Stan as she might have done with her brother, Jack. After an interval of silence, Stan spoke.

“Say, Hope, what do you think of that gang we’re in with?”

“What gang?”

“Oh, the Kings and Ben and Bill and Sam. All of ’em.”

“I didn’t know what you meant. You talk like Butch Belcher.”

“Don’t dodge the question. What
do
you think of them?”

She hesitated a minute before answering, then spoke slowly. “It’s hard to say what I think. I never met anyone like them before, and when I first came I couldn’t believe they were sincere. Since living with them, I know they are. All of them, from Dr. King down to Sam, have given me a different idea of Christianity from anything I ever had before.”

“It’s different all right. But don’t you think they’re all a little—odd, shall we say?”

“Not odd, but peculiar. That is, different from the world I’ve always known. It’s a mighty fine way to be. I admire them for it.”

“Disregardless?”

Hope laughed. “Yes, disregardless.”

“Well, I
like
them. And I think they are doing a grand piece of work at the Institute. But, honestly, I don’t think they need to be
quite
so religious. They could work just as well without so much sanctimony.”

“I don’t think it’s sanctimony. I think it’s a genuine love for Christ that motivates them. They love Him so much that they have to be constantly expressing it. Isn’t that the way anyone acts who really loves?”

“Yes—er yes, if he gets a chance.”

“Without that compulsion they would all be different. The Kings would probably be teaching at the university, Billy would be a social butterfly, and Ben would—”

“Ben would be a successful practitioner out in Haldane Heights and could look forward to having something to offer a wife some day, instead of wearing himself out among people who can’t pay him. I wonder if it’s worthwhile. Sam, of course, could never do anything else, but the Kings and Ben could make their mark in the world, and Bill—well, my Wilhelmina could shine with the best of them.”

“She certainly could, and at first I couldn’t understand her at all. Now when I see her with her babies in the kindergarten, I realize that she never could shine quite so brightly anyplace else. Can you picture Eleanor getting such a thrill out of biology as she does out of her Mothers’ Club? Could Phil teach philosophy with the power to change lives that he has when he pours out his soul at the Mission?”

“Whew! What an exhorter
you
turned out to be! But all you’ve said doesn’t add up to a thing. I admire them for their work. I said so. If I didn’t think it worthwhile I wouldn’t stay here. However, I think they’re all, except Sam, too big for their jobs, and I am sure they’re off balance. They’d get just as far in their reforms if they weren’t so—so—almost fanatical.”