The Challengers (2 page)

There were a few old boxes and crates scattered untidily around, and a rusty ax lay on the floor. Dared she?

She put the candle carefully down on the floor and lifted the ax gingerly. She approached a box and brought the ax down on it with a crash and exulted in the splintering ruin that ensued. The box didn't look very substantial. It was perhaps an orange or peach crate, but the splinters would be just the thing to catch fire from that spunk of brightness just winking out. She laid down the ax and gathered a handful of splinters, stuck them carefully down into the fire, and was heartened to see them catch and blaze up. She applied a few more and had a neat little blaze going. It was interesting coaxing a fire into being, but how fast it ate up the fuel! She seized the ax and attacked a heavier box, finding it not so easy to break up.

While she worked, she wondered what Mrs. Barkus or her grouchy husband would say when they found their kindling wood all gone. Could they arrest her for a thing like that when she was cold? When--but, of course, their rent wasn't paid. Still, it was only a month behind. Well, she would get a job and pay for the kindling wood herself.

But her heart sank as she remembered how she had spent her whole morning until two o'clock trying to find a job and had stopped only because she had come to the end of the advertisements she had cut out of the paper that morning. It wasn't easy in these hard times for a girl to find a job, especially a girl who had never been trained for a job.

But she had never been trained for a fireman, that was certain, and she found it a backbreaking job before she finally got a good blaze, juggled with the strange dampers and doors, and got the coal to catch with a little licking blue flame that promised smartly to accomplish some real heat pretty soon. But at last she closed the cellar door on her efforts, extinguished her candle, and went upstairs just in time, for she heard the front door key rattling in the lock as she turned away from the cellar door, and she had to beat a hasty retreat to get inside her own room before the door opened.

It was not Mrs. Barkus as she had feared, but her own sister, Melissa, looking pale and tired and pretty, and carrying a dripping umbrella.

Phyllis had retreated to the kitchenette and was entrenched behind the table when Melissa entered, bearing the umbrella to the sink.

"Mercy!" said Melissa crossly. "What's the matter? What have you been doing? You've got a smudge all across your nose and cheeks, and you look as if you expected an army with banners."

"I did," laughed Phyllis with relief. "I thought you were Barkus the Belligerent, and I was about to defend myself with the iron spoon."

"But what have you been doing, Phyl, that you should have to defend yourself? She hasn't dared to come down on you for the rent, has she?"

"Not yet," said Phyllis solemnly, "but she may. When she finds out what I've been doing, she may turn us out of the house before night. Or worse than that perhaps. She may have us all arrested. Lissie, do they ever arrest people for making fires in other people's furnaces?" she asked with mock solemnity.

"Oh, Phyl, you haven't been making a fire! How did you dare? Does she know? A fire! How heavenly! I'm frozen to the bone. I didn't know it was so cold, or I'd have worn my old sweater under my coat, but I did want to make a good impression!"

Phyllis cast a quick anxious look into her sister's face and saw the sudden overshadowing of trouble as she spoke.

"Did you get the job, Lissa? You didn't! Oh, Lissa!"

"Of course not!" said Melissa crossly, stumbling over the rocker of Rosalie's small chair. "You didn't expect I would, did you? I told you not to expect anything. I thought you'd just go and do that thing, be disappointed! That's why I hated to go. It's almost worse than getting turned down to have to come home and tell it."

"Oh, Lissie, dear! I didn't mean to seem disappointed. I really am only disappointed for you because I saw you were counting on it so."

"I wasn't counting on it!" snapped Melissa. "I'm not fool enough to count on anything anymore. Somebody's got it in for us, that's what. I guess God wants to destroy us the way He did some of those old fiends in the Old Testament."

"Don't, Lissie! Don't talk that way. You know that's not true. That's not like you. You're a good little sport!"

"Sport nothing!" glowered Melissa. "I mean it. Somebody has. It couldn't be just happening, all this to come to one perfectly good, respectable family!"

Phyllis shuddered involuntarily at the hard tone her sister used.

"But don't, Lissie," she pleaded again, following her sister into the living room. "It only makes it worse to take it that way. Tell me about it. What was the matter? I didn't see how you could possibly fail with that wonderful letter from the provost, and Miss Waring the librarian being an old friend of Mother's."

"Oh,
friends
!" sneered Melissa, taking off her beret and shaking the drops from it into the sink. "Now look! I've got my only good hat wet, and all for nothing."

"But what was the matter, Liss, didn't you even
see
her? Didn't she read the letter?"

"Oh, yes, I saw her, after waiting hours. She was in some kind of conference. She read the letter of course, and smiled her sweetest, and said she was so sorry but they had about decided on an assistant librarian. And then she looked at me as if I were some kind of merchandise she was rejecting. 'And anyway, are you through college, my dear?' And when I told her no, I had had only one year, she shook her head and said, 'Well, that would settle it. We're giving the preference to college
grad
uates now. You know almost
every
young girl goes to college nowadays.' As if I were staying away from college to play Parcheesi!"

Suddenly Melissa sank into the one big overstuffed chair that the room contained and, putting her head down on the worn old arm, broke into heartbreaking sobs that shook her slender shoulders.

Phyllis was on her knees beside her in a moment with an arm about her shaking shoulders.

"There, Lissie dear, don't cry. There's probably something a lot better for you. Don't feel so bad, dear."

"Well, I do feel bad," said Melissa, suddenly sitting up and pushing her hair up from her forehead wildly. "Here I am a great big girl and just as able as any college graduate to be assistant librarian, you know I am. You know, Father has trained us all about books, and I had that library course besides, and I
can't get in
! Not even with that wonderful letter from the provost. The old grump! I wouldn't have felt half so bad if she hadn't smiled so much! Just smiled and called me 'dear'! I wanted to smack her hypocritical old face. Do you know what's the matter? I heard it just after I got there. Another girl that had applied for the same job sat next to me and talked awhile. She said she had heard that Miss Waring wanted to keep the job for her young niece who is graduating from college this spring, and she has turned heaven and earth to get a pull with the trustees and get her in. And they say that even if one got the job now, it would last only till spring because she is determined to get that niece in."

Phyllis patted her sister's hand and looked troubled.

"Didn't she say anything at all about Mother, and us, and that she was sorry, or anything?"

"Oh, yes," snapped Melissa. "Said she was sorry all right, honey and almonds all over her lips when she said it. She was
surprised
that Professor Challenger was
willing
that his daughter should go to work before she had finished her college course. Said she should think he would have
insisted
upon that at
any
sacrifice. Said if it was a question of
money
, that
money
could always be
borrowed
. Said if there was
anything at all
she could do for my mother to be
sure
to let her know. Was Mother quite well? She had always been
very fond
of Mother! Pah! The old hypocrite!"

"The idea!" said Phyllis, getting to her feet indignantly. "Father! Poor Father! Didn't you tell her he was sick and didn't know that you had come back from college? Didn't you tell her Mother was having a terrible hard time and you needed that job even if it was only for two or three months? But, no, of course you didn't. You couldn't. I understand perfectly, Lissa. Now don't think another thing about it."

"But I can't help thinking," said Melissa with trembling lip. "It was going to be so wonderful earning all that money. We could have had all we wanted to eat every day, and, Phyl, I'm
hungry
right now. Is there anything in the house to eat?"

Phyllis turned her head quickly away and swallowed hard, trying to control the shake in her voice, trying to answer cheerfully. Though she was the younger of the two sisters, it had somehow always been her aim to keep Melissa happy. She could not bear to see Melissa's blue eyes clouded with tears or to know she was suffering in any way. She had adored Melissa since they were babies together.

"There's--just enough bread--for supper----I think--in case Mother doesn't get her money."

"Oh, but surely she'll get something, won't she?" asked Melissa, looking up with new anxiety in her eyes. "Didn't she say that Father had some government bonds put away that were only to be used in an absolute emergency? And didn't she say she was sure he would consider that they had to be used now. Surely she would be able to get money on them right away."

"I don't know," answered Phyllis doubtfully. "Perhaps it takes time to get government bonds cashed. Maybe she wouldn't be able to get the money until tomorrow. I thought we ought to save what there is for supper so everybody would get something, in case. . ." Her voice trailed off into anxious silence.

Her sister looked at her sharply, noted the blue shadows under the brown eyes, the pinched white look around the sweet lips.

"I'll bet you never ate any lunch yourself, Phyl. Come, own up. Did you?"

"Well, I didn't have time, really," evaded Phyllis. "You see, I had to make that fire. I was out all morning myself hunting a job, but everything had been taken before I got there, of course."

"And so you came home and washed the dishes and didn't eat a crumb. Why didn't you at least make yourself a cup of tea? There's quite a lot of tea, isn't there?"

"Well, not a lot, but, you see, the gas went out before I got the dishwater heated, and I didn't have a quarter to put in the meter."

"Mercy!" said Melissa, getting up from the chair and walking back and forth frantically like a caged lion. "Isn't this awful! To think of us all hungry, and not a cent to get anything with! I spent my last nickel going down to that library. I had to
walk
home. I think God is just awful to treat us this way! Yes, I do, Phyllis! You needn't look so horrified! We're hungry! We'll starve pretty soon if this keeps on! Oh! I'd give anything for a good thick juicy beefsteak!" And she ended with a choking sob of desperation.

"Oh, Melissa, don't!" wailed a small sweet voice from the doorway.

The two girls turned, and there stood Rosalie, their little sister, blue eyes troubled and fearful, gold curls dripping with rain, little cold fingers gripping her schoolbag, the water squashing out of the crack in her boots.

Both girls were filled with compunction at once, but it was Phyllis who sprang to her and took the heavy schoolbag from her.

"Why, you're wet, darling! Where is your umbrella? Your hair is simply dripping. And your clothes are wet through to the skin. Didn't you carry an umbrella this morning to school?"

"Yes, but somebody took it," said Rosalie, troubled. "I think it was that Sara Hauser. Some of the other girls have missed things. I'm so sorry. It was Mother's silk one. She
made
me take it this morning."

"Never mind, Rosy Posy," soothed Phyllis. "It isn't the worst thing in the world."

"No, I guess not!" murmured Melissa from the window where she had retreated and was looking out on the dirty street with unseeing eyes.

"Why does Lissa talk that way?" asked Rosalie, turning troubled eyes on Phyllis.

"Oh, she's just a little upset because someone else had the job at the library. But she'll get another pretty soon," explained Phyllis. "Take off your wet shoes, Rosy, quick! You'll get tonsillitis again."

"H'm! Another job! Fat chance!" grumbled Melissa.

Rosalie submitted to being dried off and wrapped in a blanket by the register, from which a good rush of heat was now issuing, but her eyes were still troubled as she watched her oldest sister driving a pin hard into the windowsill, her very back eloquent with desolation.

"Why does Lissa talk that way, Phyllie?" she asked again. "I heard her say she was hungry. Haven't we anything left to eat, sister?"

"Well, we've got a little left for supper. Are you hungry, too?"

"A little," owned the smaller sister. "I shared my apple with Anna Betts. She's the little girl from down on the flats. She didn't have any lunch at all today. Her father broke his leg yesterday, and they're awfully poor."

"You darling child!" It was Phyllis who said it, and there were tears in her voice.

"It's just awful!" burst forth Melissa.

But Rosalie suddenly broke forth into a joyous little squeal.

"Why, it's hot, Phyllie; the register's really hot! I didn't know it could get hot like that. It's only been kind of warm before."

"Yes," said Melissa, whirling around, "this room is warm for the first time this winter. You must have made a wonderful fire, Phyllis. Maybe the house is burning up."

"It is getting hot, isn't it?" said Phyllis. "Isn't it wonderful? Perhaps I ought to go down and shut something. It will all burn out."

"I guess you ought. Hurry, and I'll watch the street and see if Mrs. Barkus is coming and warn you. You don't want her to find you down cellar at her old furnace."

"No," gurgled Phyllis, "let her think she made her own fire and it has lasted. Let her see how nice it is to have the house warm for once, even though she did go out all day to save coal on us." Phyllis hurried down cellar and back again as fast as she could without meeting any menacing landladies.