Read The Pilgrim Song Online

Authors: Gilbert Morris

The Pilgrim Song (9 page)

“No. I’ve been as big a fool as the other fools out there. This white elephant of a house—I had to borrow up to the hilt to get into it, and we spent a fortune on it. All that we had was in stocks, and now they’re not worth the paper they’re written on.”

“But they’ll go up again . . . won’t they?” Jenny asked nervously. The thought of a moneyless future terrified her. It was something she had never considered, and now her voice was unsteady. “Surely they’ll come up.”

“I don’t think so.” Lewis’s voice sounded hopeless. “I blame myself for all this. We’ll lose this house and everything else.”

Kat had been listening but only understood a little of the conversation. “You mean we’re going to be poor, Daddy?”

Lewis Winslow looked at his youngest daughter. He swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. Finally he nodded and whispered, “That’s the way it’s going to be, Kat. We’re going to be poor!”

****

Things were strangely quiet around the Winslow house after the bleak day that was already being called Black Thursday. It was not just a local phenomenon. The whole country had been shaken to its core. The big money men rallied to try to do something, but nothing worked permanently. From time to time there would be a slight rise in the market, but then that would be wiped out the next day.

Each of the Winslows took this in his or her own way. Josh faced the problem by drinking. Jenny went out and bought new clothes. Kat spent her days as she always had, and Hannah grieved for her father. She knew he blamed himself for losing everything and tried to comfort him. She herself had difficulty coming to grips with the loss of money and property and spent a great deal of time in her room praying, mostly for her father.

The servants, of course, were all shaken too, and they spent a lot of time discussing their future. Gerald Mason, the butler, summed it all up when he said bitterly, “We might as well get used to the idea of leaving this place.”

Lewis was gone all day every day. Hannah understood that he was trying desperately to salvage something, but she saw him come in night after night pale and speechless. The news reports spoke of Black Monday, and then Black Tuesday—October 29—when the bottom fell out of the market completely.

It was on November second that the final blow fell to the Winslow family. Lewis came in earlier than usual and called them all into the drawing room. When they were there, he paused and looked around at the expensive pictures, the ornate and lavishly decorated room. An expression of panic and fear crossed his face. “I’ve got to tell you the worst,” he said. “We’re going to have to leave this house.”

“But where will we go?” Jenny said in bewilderment.

“I . . . I don’t know.”

Joshua’s eyes were bloodshot, his speech slurred. “There’s got to be
something
left, Dad. It can’t
all
be gone.”

“I’m afraid it is, Josh. I’ve been a fool. We’ve lived on credit, and now everything’s gone.” He swept his arm around and cried desperately, “Even the furniture and the pictures—they were all bought on credit. We’ll have nothing left but the clothes on our backs.”

Jenny shivered in horror. “But, Dad,” she cried out, “we’ve got to do something. Lucy’s father will help.”

Lewis looked at her with an expression Jenny would never forget. “No, he won’t. I got a letter today from Lucy.” He tried to go on but could not.

“What did she say?” Hannah asked quietly.

“She . . . she said good-bye. What she didn’t say was her father would never let her marry a pauper.”

Suddenly Lewis began to cry. None of his children had ever
seen him weep. “It’s all my fault,” he choked. “I’ve ruined us all.”

Kat jumped and ran to her father, throwing her arms around him and declaring defiantly, “God will take care of us. He’ll send an angel. He’s got lots of them!”

CHAPTER SIX

God Provides an Angel

For a moment Hannah paused outside her father’s bedroom. She lifted her hand to knock, then pulled it back. Her pliant features suddenly grew sober and dark from the things she was remembering. Finally she squared her shoulders, raised her hand again, and knocked firmly on the door. No sound rewarded this, and after a moment she knocked again louder and called out, “Father—I have to see you.”

From inside the room came a muffled noise she could not make out, but she waited and finally the door swung open. Her father stood there, his clothes rumpled as if he had slept in them. Shadows darkened his eyes, and his face was branded with loneliness. His eyes especially frightened Hannah, for they were like empty windows staring out at nothing.

“Father, the servants are leaving.”

“I can’t come down, Hannah.”

“You really must. They need to be thanked, and they have to be paid.”

Lewis shook his head and did not answer. Then, as if gathering courage, he took a deep, raspy breath and said huskily, “There’s no money, Hannah—and I can’t face them.”

“I have the money to pay them. I kept a little saved, but please come and say just a few words.”

For a moment Hannah thought he intended to refuse, but then he nodded.

“Let me change clothes, and I’ll be right there.”

“I’ll wait outside.”

Hannah stepped out and leaned back against the wall. She was very tired, and the problems of the week had quickened her breath and tightened her mouth. Her father had been so drained by the disaster that he could barely speak, and he was not eating properly. She tried to encourage him, but there was little she could do. Josh had been worse than useless, keeping himself in a state of perpetual drunkenness. Jenny was not much better. She was badly frightened, and her self-confidence had withered away to nothing. Now with her father almost unable to function, she clung to Hannah for strength.

As for Hannah, she had forced herself to be strong as the rest of the family declined. She had quickly discovered that Lewis’s worst fears were accurate. The house, of course, would have to go. Bankruptcy proceedings had already been started, and all of the assets had been frozen. This even included most of the jewelry, all that had been bought in the past two years. Hannah had little of that, since she did not wear much jewelry. She only had a pearl necklace that had been her mother’s. The bulk of the jewelry had belonged to Jenny, and she had wept when Hannah had insisted on confiscating it all.

As she stood in the hallway waiting, Hannah felt desperation creeping up on her. She had prayed almost night and day and struggled with the bills, but there was no relief in sight. She tried to put this out of her mind for now and think more hopeful thoughts, when finally the door opened and her father stepped out. He had combed his hair and put on a fresh suit of clothes. “All right,” he said in a dull voice, “might as well get this over with.”

The two went downstairs to the kitchen, where most of the servants were gathered. Earl Crane was already gone, having been dismissed earlier. Clint had offered to stay and work for the family at no charge in gratitude for taking him in when he needed help. He’d said he would help with packing or with any other jobs that needed to be done with the other servants gone.

Lewis looked around at the waiting servants, seeing the fear in their eyes, and took a deep breath before launching into his speech. “I suppose this comes as no surprise to any of you. You know what’s happened to the stock market, and we’ve been hit hard by it. I’ve written good references for all of you; you’ll find them in the envelope with your final payment. I’ve written to several family friends who I hope have weathered this situation and asked if they would consider hiring you. I wish I could afford to give you all bonuses, but I can’t. Hannah will see that you’re all paid up to today. Thank you all for being so faithful, and God bless all of you. I trust that you will find other employment soon.”

Lewis shook hands with each of them and then practically fled. He could not bear to linger with these people who had depended on him.
Another failure,
was his only thought as he retreated to his private quarters.

Hannah had taken from her store of emergency cash the wages of each servant and put them in envelopes. She passed them out and received their thanks, and finally, they all turned to leave—all except Gerald and Susan Mason.

“What’s the family going to do, Miss Hannah?” Cook asked gently.

“We’ll make out somehow. God will provide for us.”

“We wish you well, Miss Hannah,” Gerald said, bowing in his well-trained butler manner as he took her hands. “Goodbye.”

“Good-bye, Mason. Good-bye, Cook.” Hannah watched them go, then turned around, listening to the eerie quiet of the empty house. She shook off the feeling of doom that threatened to envelop her and busied herself as quickly as possible.

****

Lewis sat in his study staring at the wall. The desk was littered with papers and bills. He and Hannah had shuffled them about, trying to juggle the figures, but it was hopeless.
He looked up when Jenny entered and handed him an envelope. “We got a letter from Uncle Aaron, Dad.”

Lewis opened it, read it quickly, and said, “He’s invited us to come live with them.”

Jenny’s eyes lit up with a ray of hope. “Could we do it, do you think?”

“No, they’re hard hit too, and there are too many of us.”

He handed his brother’s letter to Hannah, who read it and said gently, “That was kind of Uncle Aaron, but of course we can’t do it.”

“No, it’s quite impossible.”

“But what are we going to do?” Jenny said, her voice unsteady. “We’ve got to do something, Dad. We’ve got to be out of here next week.”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Lewis stared at the papers on the desk and then looked up. “Where’s Joshua?”

“He’s drunk—as usual,” Jenny said bitterly, flopping down in a leather armchair and laying her head back in defeat.

“God is going to have to help us with this,” Hannah said calmly.

Lewis struck the desk angrily, causing papers to slide off on both sides. “I’ve ignored God for years! Why should He help us now?”

Hannah stood her ground and faced her father squarely. “The Scripture says, ‘If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?’ The Lord is going to do something. I just know it. In the meantime we’ll just have to wait.”

****

Unable to sleep, Hannah put on her heavy coat and went outside to the dark garden, where a cold wind roughed up the leaves that had drifted down from the oaks. A thin moon lay low to the south, and from one of their neighbors’ homes she heard a dog howling plaintively.

As she walked back and forth on the cobblestone walk that bordered the rose garden, she prayed, trying to comprehend
what was happening. As was her custom, she prayed aloud, though softly. She had discovered long ago that if she voiced her prayers, she seemed to find the presence of God much more quickly. “Oh, God, I’ve read so much about how you delivered your people time and again, but now I need more than a story—I need
you!
What are we going to do? We have no money and no one to take us in. I feel so alone, but I know that you haven’t forgotten us. I know you are watching us.”

As she prayed, verses of Scripture leaped into her mind. She took this as a message from God to her heart. One Scripture came from the book of Genesis. She recalled the story of how Abraham had a child by a servant maid named Hagar. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, could not bear this and forced Abraham to turn the young woman out. Taking her child with her, Hagar wandered in the desert, hungry and thirsty, and finally sat down, prepared to die. But then God appeared to her and promised her that she would live and the child would prosper. That God had seen Hagar in her distress and made this promise to her burned into Hannah’s heart amid the darkness and fear that struggled to gain a hold of her spirit. She looked up at the stars overhead and whispered, “Like you saw Hagar in the wilderness, I know you see me too, God. You can see that my family is helpless. Dad is sick with worry, Joshua is drunk, and Jenny is beside herself with fear. Show me what to do!”

She grew very still then and finally went back to her room. She looked up the passage that she had been thinking about in the Bible and read it several times, then began to pray again. “I know you see us, Lord, and I know you care.” She looked around the room and thought about how she had hidden here for years. Her eyes took in the bookcases filled with volumes of sermons and theological studies, and she wondered how all of her reading could help her now. She knew that whatever future lay before the family, it would not be something she might read about in a book, but it would be lived, worked out in flesh and blood and perhaps amid tears and hardship. Up
until now this room had been a haven for her, but she could no longer use it as a place to hide.

****

As soon as dawn broke, Hannah washed her face and went downstairs. She started cooking breakfast and was surprised to look out the window and see Kat and Clint. No one else was stirring yet. She watched the pair for a while. They seemed engrossed in some deep conversation. The tall man leaned against one of the oak trees and Kat moved about him, waving her arms expressively, words pouring forth like a fountain.

Moving to the door, Hannah called out, “Kat, you and Clint come in.”

She waited until they came into the kitchen and then turned to say, “What are you two discussing with such passion so early in the morning?”

“I’ve been telling Clint that I’ve been praying for God to send an angel to help us,” Kat said briskly.

Despite the problems that faced her, Hannah could not help smiling. “That’s a good prayer,” she said. “I’ll agree with you on that one.”

“Do you believe in angels, Clint?” Kat demanded.

“I guess so . . . but I’ve never seen one.”

“You may have seen one,” Hannah said with a smile. “The Bible says that sometimes we entertain angels unawares.”

Clint nodded. “I remember hearing that. Maybe I have seen an angel or two, but they’ve never identified themselves. Can I help you with the cooking?”

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