The Challengers (5 page)

"I don't have ta tell ya, ya impertinent meat chopper, ya, but I don't mind ya nor a policeman, neither. I'm on my rights. These here folks owe me money, and they've promised and promised to pay and they won't do it, and they're eatin' sirloin steaks and livin' on the fat o' the land, and me starvin' away an' givin' 'em house room--"

"You needn't go into particulars. How much rent do they owe you?"

"It's thirty-five dollars rent fer last month and fifteen fer the damage they done in the cellar this morning."

"Aw, gee!" murmured Bob loudly.

The butcher eyed Bob and swept a quick look around the room, his glance coming to rest on Phyllis's face.

"Damage? What damage?" he asked and waited for her to speak.

"I made a fire," said Phyllis. "I chopped up two old boxes and put on ten shovels full of coal. Mrs. Barkus had gone away for the day and let the fire go out. My mother was coming home in the rain, and I was afraid she would be sick."

"Doesn't your lease allow for heat?" asked the butcher keenly.

"Not heat like this!" snapped Mrs. Barkus.

"Yes," said Phyllis, "but we've hardly ever had it. It's never been really comfortable, and sometimes the register is perfectly cold."

"I can't furnish heat when I don't get my pay," whined Mrs. Barkus.

"Well, if you're that bad off, perhaps we better let you have the money tonight," said Brady, suddenly digging down in his wide pocket and bringing out a fistful of bills. He counted out thirty-five.

"I'd sooner Mrs. Challenger should be owing me than you," he said with a kindly look toward the lady and handed the money to the Barkus woman, who grabbed greedily and began to count.

"But how about my damages?" she asked.

"Nothing doing!" said the butcher with a laugh. "It was up to you to furnish heat, and when you went off and let the fire go out, the young lady had a perfect right to look after the fire. I think you are fortunate she didn't sue you for damages instead. Look at that lady there; she looks sick enough to be in bed, and you making all this rumpus!"

Then, just as he spoke, Mrs. Challenger swayed, losing her hold of the davenport, and slipped down again in a little limp heap on the floor.

The butcher sprang, picked her up, and laid her down on the old davenport as gently as if she had been a baby.

"You girls get some water!" he said. "Bob, you go for Dr. Babcock. Barkus, you better get outta here in case she comes to. You've done enough damage for one night. You might have a case of manslaughter on yer hands if you keep this up long."

"If she goes and dies on me, that'll be the last straw!" whimpered Barkus.

"Get out!" shouted the butcher. "There come them cops. Wantta go and let 'em in, ur shall I send 'em away?"

Mrs. Barkus hastily retreated to her own room and locked the door resoundingly. But the butcher went out in the hall and said in a good loud tone that would easily penetrate the thin partitions as he swung open the front door:

"No, we don't need anybody just now. The trouble has passed for the time. But I'm right nearby and these folks will phone me if they need any protection during the night, and I'll let ya know. So long. Sorry ta 've troubled ya. Hope there won't be any more nonsense tanight."

Then he went back to the sorry little parlor and closed the door gently, lifting Mrs. Challenger into a more comfortable position, fanning her with a folded newspaper, and stepping out of sight when she showed signs of coming to again.

Bob brought the doctor almost at once. He scanned the white face with the closed eyes; he put a practiced finger on the slender wrist. He administered a restorative and said what they all knew, that what she needed was food and rest and freedom from anxiety, and then he went away with the kindly admonition to call him if she felt any worse, no matter what time of night.

They were all alone together at last, with the door locked and the long-neglected supper on the table. Melissa had rescued the beefsteak just after Mrs. Barkus advanced to take it over and hidden it in the warming oven, so it was almost as fine as if they had eaten it right out of the broiling.

But when they brought a plate to their mother with the delicious-smelling food upon it, she turned her head away and closed her eyes.

"I can't eat," she said, and to her horror, Rosalie, who was holding the plate, saw a great tear stealing out under her mother's lashes.

"But, Mother dear," she said, "the doctor said you must eat. Think how awful it would be if anything should happen to you! Suppose you were sick in the hospital, too, like Father. What would we all do?"

"Never mind!" said Phyllis, coming up briskly. "Whatever it is, Mother, you're not going to tell us now, not till you've eaten. You will make us all sick, you know, besides yourself. Now be a brave dear little mother and open your mouth. See this lovely bit of steak? And, Mother, this is the best soaked bread I've ever made. It has lots of butter in it, and the onion is just right. And isn't it lovely that we can have supper at last? Did you ever taste such steak? Don't you mind that silly old Barkus woman. We'll get away from here sometime and never remember her again. She really doesn't amount to anything."

"Oh, Phyllis, it is so humiliating. Your father would feel it so for us all."

"Well, let's just be thankful he can't know. We needn't ever tell him unless we want to, sometime when we are all happy and right again."

"Oh, but, my dear, I'm afraid we'll never be happy and right again. I haven't told you all. Your father--!"

"Is Father worse? Tell me quick, Mother; it's better for us to know."

"No, he's no worse. He's better. But--the doctor says what he needs now is to go to the country and rest for a year. He mustn't have a care or worry. Absolute ease, absolute quiet. And it's all just as impossible as if he had said he must have heaven here on earth for a year."

Mrs. Challenger broke down and wept, and Phyllis, standing there with the nice forkful of beefsteak, just kept still for a minute and let her weep. Then she broke forth with a glad note in her voice.

"Why, that's lovely, Mother. That's wonderful! Father well enough to leave the hospital and get out into the country somewhere. There's nothing to cry over in that. Come, let's be happy! Let's eat our nice supper. For, Mumsie dear, we're all of us deadly hungry. Lissa and I haven't had a bite since crackers and tea this morning, and you didn't even have the crackers."

"But how can we ever manage to give him what he needs, Phyllis?"

"Oh, there'll be a way, Mumsie dear. Let's forget it tonight and eat our supper."

"Yes, there'll be a way! There will truly, Mother!" said little Rosalie earnestly. "I prayed for an onion and a beefsteak and they both came! And this will come, too!"

"You prayed for an onion!" exclaimed Melissa in horror and then began to laugh.

"And a beefsteak!" added the little girl seriously. "Say, do let's go and eat it before it gets cold. I'm just awful hungry."

Something in her little girl's face made Mrs. Challenger rise above her weakness and go out to the table with her children.

They bolstered her up in her place with pillows and gathered around excitedly, praising the steak and hearing over and over again Bob's account of how he went ten miles with a basket to earn that beefsteak, and what a wonderful friend Butcher Brady was.

"But you don't mean you really prayed for a beefsteak?" said Melissa, suddenly remembering and turning toward her little sister. "Not honestly, and an onion, Rosalie."

"Sure I did," said the child, somewhat abashed. "I asked Phyllie, and she said it would be all right. Was there anything wrong about that, Mother? He answered, anyway."

"Why, no, dear, not wrong. I'm sure God understood that you needed something to eat and that you were perfectly reverent about it. Melissa, dear, you ought not to laugh at your little sister."

"Well, but, Mother, do you believe God is like that, knowing about what we need, and even onions and things? Do you really believe there
is
a God, Mother? Hardly anybody at college seemed to believe in God at all, or if they did it was just a great power or influence or something like that."

"Why, certainly I believe in God," said Mrs. Challenger. "I'm shocked at you, Melissa. For pity's sake, don't take up with all these common modern ideas. Of course there is a God. Your father would be shocked to hear you talk like that."

"Well then, Mother, if you believe in God, why are you so worried? Don't you think He will somehow make things better for us?" asked Phyllis softly.

"Well, yes, I suppose, eventually--I'm not sure--I don't know just what I believe. I really have been too much worried to think about it, Phyllis. When one is in such straits as we are, it is no time to philosophize. But of course I believe in
God
."

"How in the world did Mr. Brady happen to give you onions, Bob?" asked Melissa, taking the last delicious bite of beefsteak. "Of course, it's wonderful to have them, but it's kind of weird he thought of them--when Rosy prayed for onions."

"Oh, he said of course we needed onions with beefsteak; said his wife always had 'em and he'd put 'em in," said Bob with his mouth full. "Say, pass me that butter, won'tcha? I'm goin' ta get full for once."

"Hadn't you better save a little for breakfast?" suggested Phyllis.

"Nope! I'm goin' ta eat all I want. I got a fifty-cent piece left, and breakfast can go hang tanight."

They all laughed at that and agreed with him.

"There's half a box of cereal left," said Phyllis. "I just found it. Thought it was all gone. If you get some milk, that will make a nice breakfast."

"Aw, gee! I'm going to get bacon and eggs!" said Bob, taking a big bite of steak.

But every crumb of supper was finished at last, and while Phyllis and Rosalie washed up the dishes and put the kitchenette in order for morning, Melissa went to get her mother to bed.

It was after the lights were out and everybody had been still for a long time that Rosalie ventured: "Mother, wouldn't it be nice if we all prayed for a home where Father could get well?"

The mother was still for such a long time that they all, listening, thought she must be asleep, but then they heard her say in a low voice, deeply stirred: "Yes, very nice, Rosalie, but--you better go to sleep now."

Only two letters came in the mail next morning, together with the usual collection of advertising or begging letters and pamphlets and magazines that still continued to pour down upon the once-noted professor's family.

Rosalie and Bob had gone off to school, each with a couple of bacon sandwiches wrapped in paper for their lunch.

"We mustn't let them get hungry like that again!" sighed the mother as she sat down to look over the mail and throw most of it in the wastebasket as usual. "We must do something--sell something perhaps. How about that chair? It's solid mahogany and quite old. It ought to bring something. Could we get along without it? And somehow we must manage to pay back that kind Mr. Brady. It was wonderful of him to do what he did last night."

"Yes, and, Mother, can't we get out of this house right away today? I feel as if I couldn't bear the sight of that Barkus woman ever again," this from Phyllis.

"It's sure I don't know where we'd go, nor what we would move with if we did. Remember it costs money to move."

"But, Mother, what about the bonds? Wasn't Father willing you should use them now? Surely things couldn't be much worse than they are at present."

"My dear, that's the trouble. There aren't any bonds."

"There aren't any bonds!" exclaimed both the girls in chorus.

"But, Mother, I remember when Father showed them to us, when we were little girls," added Phyllis.

"Yes, but it seems when Father was going to the hospital, he thought there might be an emergency more than he knew at the time, and he took them and put them in the Mercer Loan and Trust Company, and that was the bank that closed its doors last week. They are there all right, in our own safe-deposit box, and they belong to us, and eventually we can get them, but not now. The bank has closed its doors indefinitely; in a few days or a week or two things will be arranged. Of course it will, for the bonds are ours. But that doesn't do us any good today. And, girls, there wasn't as much there as I thought there was. It seems Father invested all but two five-hundred-dollar bonds in what he thought was going to bring in a bigger interest for us right now while we needed it. And the stock he bought has gone down, down, down, until it is worth practically nothing."

The girls were silent, trying to look life's sordid facts in the face. What a strange thing life was anyway! A week ago they were possessed of money enough to keep them from starving, and now--where was it? And yet they had not spent it. It had not been stolen. It was just gone into the infinite somewhere. What became of money you had and hadn't? How strange it was!

Mrs. Challenger looked at her letters.

"Oh, here is one from Stephen!" she exclaimed with a smile and a sigh. "Poor Steve! He doesn't know what we are going through!"

She began to read aloud.

 

Dear Mother and All:

I haven't much time to write this morning. I'm due over at the dining hall to sling hash in ten minutes. If it weren't for my need, I wouldn't take time to write at all. And I'm awfully sorry to come to you at all for help with all the burdens you and Dad have while he is sick, but truly, Mud, I've got to have some more clothes. My pants are worn so thin I have to sit down when anybody very swell comes around, and I can't possibly graduate without a new suit.

I thought I could earn it myself, coaching football, but another guy got the job, and then I had to work pretty hard at my thesis nights when I got done working, and I've been so dead tired that I didn't try for anything else beyond what I am already doing. But I thought, Mud, if you could just get one of those cheap blue serge suits they always have advertised at the department stores in the city, and have it sent up; you know, I'm always a perfect thirty-eight, and anything will fit me. I'll pay it back to you and Dad the first week I get home. There'll be plenty of lawns to cut by that time out in the country, and I can surely make twenty-five bucks in no time. I'll be glad if you'll send it as soon as possible because, Mud, I truly haven't a thing but my old gray knickers that are fit to wear in company.