The Challengers (6 page)

This will have to be all this time, for I heard the bell ringing and I'm late already.

Heaps of love to all,

Steve

 

Calamity sat upon every face as she finished reading. They looked at one another in dismay.

At last Phyllis spoke. Phyllis was always the practical one.

"What can we do, Mother? You can't charge anything anymore, can you?"

"No, dear," said the mother sadly, struggling with the tears. "There's an unpaid bill almost everywhere. You see, I had to let them run, right away at first when Father was so sick. I had no time to think of anything else, and then came the crash of both banks where our money was, all the savings of the years, and our having to move, which took every cent and more-- And then, this last bank closing that had our cash account. I don't see what we can do. Poor Steve! He's been so brave, and it must have taken a lot of nerve to humble his pride and work so hard doing sort of menial tasks. He's proud, too, you know, and always kept himself looking so nice. I hadn't realized, but he hasn't had a new thing this year. If there was only something really valuable we could sell. Of course, that clock, but we never would know how to get its value, with Father sick. And besides, Father would feel that it was almost criminal to let that go. It has a special value to him, you know. And suppose that friend of his should come back? But then, we can't stop on that, of course."

"But, Mother, aren't there a lot of things in storage that could be sold?"

"I suppose there are some things," said the mother thoughtfully, "but not too much. We sold everything worthwhile, you know, when we broke up housekeeping. But even if there were, there's a big unpaid bill there, too. I must see what I can do. Perhaps they will let me get a few things out, but the last time I spoke of it they objected to letting anything go till it was all paid. They sell them at auction themselves, you know, after a certain length of time."

"Oh!" said Phyllis sadly. "And I suppose there wouldn't be enough there, even if you sold everything, to cover all our needs anyway?"

"No, I suppose not," said Mother.

"Well, Mother, I don't see how you can believe in a God," said Melissa in the hard tone she had used the day before, "at least not in any God one would want to have."

"Oh, Melissa! How terrible! Don't speak like that, child. Don't make things worse than they are."

Melissa laughed a hard little worldly laugh.

"Well, I don't see how that makes things any worse than they are. That's only looking facts in the face. It would be worse to my mind to believe in a God and have Him treat me the way He is than not to believe in Him at all."

"Stop, Melissa! I can't listen to such things. Something even worse might come to us."

Melissa laughed again.

"How could there be anything worse?"
"There could be a lot worse!" said Phyllis indignantly. "You know there could. Look at us. We're all well, aren't we, but Father? And he's getting well fast. We ought to be all kinds of thankful for that."

"Well!" sneered Melissa. "Well enough today perhaps, but likely to starve to death before the week's out. How long does it take people to starve to death, anyway, Mother?"

"Don't, Melissa!" shuddered her mother.

"For pity's sake, Lissa, haven't you any sense? Can't you see that Mums has had all she can stand the last two days? Hurry up, Mother, and open your other letter. Let's forget about our troubles and try to find a way out of them."

"It's probably only a bill," said the mother dejectedly. "What's the use of opening it? Everybody we ever owed a cent to is coming down upon us today."

"Seems as if Stephen might have managed without asking help when we're having such a hard time," mused Melissa sullenly.

"Remember, we haven't told him a word about the bank closing or the stocks going down till we're practically stripped of everything. It was enough that he should work his way through his last hard year of college without having to bear all that, too," said Stephen's mother in defense.

"Well, I think it's high time he knew," said Melissa. "He'll be furious that we didn't tell him, if I know anything at all about Steve."

"Yes, I suppose he will. But it was your father's wish that he shouldn't be told how bad things were at the beginning, and of course they're worse now. You know, of course, that when he is through this year he will have his diploma and be able to get a good position, and without his diploma it would be hard work to find anything."

"Yes," said Melissa, remembering her experience with the library position and wilting into depression.

There was silence in the room again while the mother absently picked up the second letter, tore open the envelope, and began to read. The two girls sat in troubled thoughts. At last the silence was so long that they were seized with sudden new apprehension, and looking up, both at once studied her face intent upon its letter. At last Phyllis could bear the suspense no longer.

"What is it, Mother? Some new trouble? A bill?"

"No, not a bill," sighed the mother, folding the letter up and putting it thoughtfully into her pocket.

"But, what is it? Has something more terrible happened?"

"Oh, no, nothing happened at all. I guess it is nothing. Probably only some trifle. It's just a letter from some lawyers. I think perhaps somebody Father knows. I don't seem to remember the name, but it must be. Perhaps they have some word about our stocks, or it may be only some lawyer who has heard somehow that we had a deposit in the closed bank and wants us to let their firm handle our claim. It might be something like that."

"But, what is it? What do they want you to do?"

"Oh, they only want me to come into their office and see them sometime soon."

"But you won't go, will you, Mother? Isn't that what they call shyster lawyers, or something like that? I think I've heard Father speak of lawyers who are hanging around trying to get clients. Not real lawyers, only kind of frauds, aren't they? Wouldn't Father tell you to keep away?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'll think about it. I'm not sure what I ought to do."

"But don't they say what they want to see you about?"

"Why, yes, they mention property, but I don't know what property they mean. I don't suppose it is anything of any importance. I really haven't time to bother with it this morning. I must look after getting some money together for us to live on. If Mr. Cass, that old friend of your father's, was at home, I believe I would go to him and tell him all about our circumstances and ask his advice, only I know Father would hate so to have us tell anybody about it. Father is awfully proud and reticent, you know. Still, when it comes to a place where we haven't enough to eat, I think he'd want us to do anything. Oh, I wish I dared ask him, but the doctor positively said he must not be bothered in any way. Of course, that Mr. Cass has money himself, a lot of it, and was always very generous. He would probably lend us something, a hundred or so, at least until the bank would open and we could pay him back again. But Mr. Cass is in Europe this winter, so that's out of the question." She sighed deeply again and put her thin blue-veined hand up to her face.

"Mother," said Phyllis at last, looking down at her lap where she was pinching little folds of her apron into accordion pleats in an embarrassed way, "if you really believe in God, why couldn't you ask Him, the way Rosalie suggested?"

"Well, I could, of course. In fact, I did," said the mother, also embarrassedly.

"Well, go and ask Him again," said Phyllis. "Do it now! Lissa and I will go around this room and the kitchenette and make an inventory of all the things we think we might sell, and you go into the bedroom and ask God to do something about it."

"What a silly idea!" flamed out Melissa indignantly. "Don't make Mother ridiculous! I didn't know you were so superstitious. You certainly need a year at college!" And Melissa tossed her head in a superior way she had when her experience at college was mentioned.

"It's not superstition! It's good sense!" responded Phyllis good-naturedly. "If there is a God and He wants us to pray, I think we ought to try it. Come on, Liss. Get your pencil and begin work. There's that old chair; write that down first."

"Nobody would buy that!" scorned Melissa.

"You can't tell what folks would buy till you try them. I'm going out to get a secondhand man to come and give us his price. We'll put in everything we could actually do without and see what it amounts to. There's one thing certain: what we sell we don't have to move, anyway, and outside of that cuckoo clock there isn't one thing in this room that I personally would weep for if it were gone. How about it? There's the sewing machine for the second item."

"It's old and junky. Everybody has electric machines now."

"Not everybody. There's an old woman down that alley over there that hasn't got one. I shouldn't wonder if she'd give at least fifty cents for this one."

"Oh, fifty cents! What's that?" said Melissa contemptuously.

"It's something," said Phyllis. "Two of them make a whole dollar, you know. Come, get to work."

"But what would you sew with if it were gone?" queried Melissa thoughtfully.

"We still have a needle or two left," said Phyllis.

Mrs. Challenger lingered around a minute or two watching them, and then she slipped shyly into her bedroom and shut the door. Later they thought they heard sounds of sobs, but half an hour later when she came out she wore a more peaceful look on her face and smiled at them.

"I'm going out now, dears," she said, trying to make her voice sound cheerful. "I'll try to be back by lunchtime. But if I'm not, don't go without eating again. There's bacon enough, isn't there?"

"Yes, lots of bacon yet," said Phyllis, "and a whole loaf of bread not touched. We'll lunch luxuriously. But don't you dare go without any lunch yourself. Here, I'll make a sandwich for you to take along in your bag. We still have half a roll of wax paper left, thank fortune. Yes, you've got to take it. Look how you came home last night, all in! Now, you'll be good and eat it, won't you, Mother dear?"

"But where are you going?" asked Melissa, with troubled eyes. "You aren't going to the hospital again, are you?"

"No, they wanted Father to have absolute quiet today after his examination yesterday. They promised him if he did just as he was told that he could come out and come 'home,' they called it, in a week or ten days now. Just think if he has to come to Slacker Street! It would set him all back again. He hasn't an idea what kind of place we are living in."

"Well, we're leaving here today," said Phyllis with determination. "Mother, have we your permission to sell some of this junk? And do you mind if we go out and find a room for tonight, even if it is only one room?"

"Sell whatever you think we can get along without," said the mother indifferently, "and find a room if you can. We can crowd in anywhere for a while till we can look around."

"I don't like the look in Mother's eyes," said Melissa after the mother was gone. "I believe she's gone to pawn her wedding ring."

"I'm afraid she has," said Phyllis, looking out of the window after her mother's slender figure.

"Well, we've got to do something, that's all," said Melissa. "Will you go out for that secondhand man or shall I?"

"You go," said Phyllis. "I'll stay here and get the things we want to sell all together so things won't get mixed up. You don't think we need this rug, do you? It isn't a very grand one, nor very large, but it's Oriental, or was once, and it ought to bring a little something. Go to that place on the corner of Tenth Street. They seem to be a little more respectable than the others."
But Mrs. Challenger had not gone to pawn her wedding ring yet. She was hurrying breathlessly down the street toward the main avenue and the business part of the town and gripping more closely in her hand the letter that had come to her that morning.

Stephen Challenger sat on the edge of his iron bedstead in the top floor of his college dormitory, carefully darning a hole in his trousers. He had never had to do anything of the sort before, and he didn't know how to do it right, he was sure, but he had to have the trousers; there wasn't anything else for him to wear, and before that objectionable hole had arrived in the trousers he had asked a girl to go with him to a college dance.

It was a terrible predicament to be in, and there seemed absolutely no way to get out of it. He simply couldn't tell the girl about it. She would wonder why he didn't wear another pair of trousers. He couldn't tell a girl he hadn't another pair of trousers, could he? He couldn't say that he had spilled soup on his second-best ones when he was waiting on tables and in cleaning them had worn a hole in the knee of one leg a great deal more noticeable than this one he was now mending in his very best ones. He couldn't ask her to go with another fellow, could he, when she was a girl he had been trying to get to go with him all winter, and he hadn't had a chance with her because Sam de Small had been rushing her? This was Stephen's one and only chance at Sylvia Saltaine.

Sylvia! He said her name over softly as he darned the coarse black thread in and out of the frayed dark blue serge that had till then composed the seat of his best trousers.

Sylvia Saltaine. Her name glided along just like herself, all trailing chiffons and soft fluttery scarfs and pastel colors. Her garments always seemed to just drift about her as if they loved her. She was so feminine and lovely.

Her hair was lighter than most blond hair. It was almost startlingly gold, a sort of white gold. Was that what they called ash-blond? He wasn't sure. And her eyes were so very large and blue under those long curling dark lashes. Of course, she did use too much mascara on her lashes sometimes, at least his mother might think so, but of course that was a minor matter, and it did set out her gold hair and very pink cheeks and blue eyes. And her mouth!

But there was another point on which his mother might not quite agree with him. Her mouth was very red. Of course, he had been brought up to think that really nice girls didn't do that, but he couldn't deny that on Sylvia it did make a wonderful combination. Oh, his mother couldn't help but see how lovely Sylvia was in spite of all these things.