Chance of a Lifetime

by Grace Livingston Hill

  She felt the warm color in her cheeks and a glow about her heart, as she walked along beside him. It had always been so. Alan had seemed to have some uncanny way of knowing when she felt sad. And suddenly it began to seem as if she must not go away and leave Alan. Yet, of course, that was absurd. She must go now. And Alan would be here when she came back. It would be good to go soon and get it over and get back to all the dear people.

  When they entered the dining room all the little candles had been lighted, and the little cakes of paraffin lay white and mysterious before them.

  With many exclamations and much laughter, they all found their seats. Alan and Sherrill were placed next to one another. Willa always favored friends, if she could, and put them together. She knew how to make everyone have a good time. Besides, were not these two the chief officers of the group?

  When they were all seated, they were told that the next item on the program was for each person to mold, out of the block of paraffin before them, any object they pleased. The only implements they were allowed to work with were their own two hands and the warmth of the little candle before them. They might make people or animals, whichever they chose, and might choose whether they should model the whole figure in miniature, or use all the material in head and shoulders, or a figure or a bust.

  Most of the company exclaimed in dismay as they took up the paraffin and felt its hardness.

  “Why, we never can do that!” they said. “It’s too hard. Give us knives.”

  The social committee had some difficulty convincing them that it was possible to work that cold, hard substance into malleability. But upon being assured that it was possible, they finally all set to work, holding the wax high over the candle flame, and working away with eager hands.

  It was Sherrill who first voiced the discovery that the hard wax was yielding.

  “This certainly is a good example for the Lookout Committee,” she said earnestly. “If that wax will yield to a tiny candle like that, we ought to not be discouraged when we try to bring new members, even from down on the Flats.”

  “There’s one thing you forget, Sherry,” announced Alan gravely. “The warm human hand has a lot to do with molding the thing. It isn’t that it just brings the wax in contact with the flame either, but it molds it and works over it, and keeps close to it to know how near it needs to get. It gets a lot of heat from the hand, too. I guess there must be a lesson in that somehow, isn’t there?”

  He looked up with his old grin gleaming, and they all laughed.

  “Listen to Alan!” said Willa. “He’s caught the preaching habit from Sherrill. Pretty soon he’ll be studying to be a preacher!”

  “I guess that’s right,” said Sherrill following out Alan’s thought. “It’s no good to go down after those Flats boys and girls unless we keep a warm human interest in them every minute, and follow it up continually. But we must not forget that it is the candle, after all, that makes the wax soft. The hand alone could not do it. I notice this wax gets cool mighty quick if we don’t keep it near that flame. I expect the prayer meeting committee might get some idea out of that. Wouldn’t prayer have something to do with keeping close to the flame?”

  “That’s all right, Sherry,” called out Priscilla Maybrick from across the table where she was working with her chunk of wax. “I’ll go. I hate those old Flats like everything. It smells of oilcloth in the making down there, and chokes me, but I’ll go. I don’t like that Mary Ross you sent me after, either. She needs to wash her hair, and she is coarse and loud and hard, if there ever was one, but I’ll go and I’ll pray for her, too. Only Sherry! Don’t rub it in on me tonight. Have a heart. This is a social, and I’m molding a saint out of my paraffin! Yes, I am, see his halo?”

  They all laughed at Priscilla and stretched their necks to catch a look of saintlikeness in the uncertain lump that she held in her hand.

  “I shall make a Rolls-Royce out of mine!” announced Phil Mattison. “It’s the only way I’ll probably ever get one.”

  “Mine begins to look like an Indian papoose,” said Rose Hawthorn, studying her wax with a troubled perplexity. “I think I’ll just wait and see what it turns out to be and then name it afterward.”

  Amid the laughter and chatter, the various lumps of wax were beginning to take shape. There was a soldier and a sailor, a dog and an elephant, a Dresden shepherdess and a bust of George Washington. There were several attempts at presidents, past and present, and other noted characters, but in the end it was Sherrill’s head of an Indian chief that took the first prize; with a model of Spike, the Barrington collie, as a near second; and Rose Hawthorn’s papoose took the booby prize. There were boxes of candy for the first and second prizes, and a rag doll for the booby prize. Everybody was full of laughter and talk as they rose from the table and went into the parlor for the music that came next on the program, and the charades that were to follow.

  “But I’m sure,” said Sherrill as she shoved back her chair and picked up her Indian chief, “that the Lookout Committee must have had a hand in this amusement. I can’t help feeling that we’ve all had a wonderful lesson as to what can be made out of the most unpromising material.”

  “She would!” said Rose Hawthorn, picking up her papoose and tucking her leggy doll under her arm. “Sherrill would! She always does! Now I shall never be able to enjoy my new doll without thinking of some worthless infant down on the Flats that needs going after and working into an angel.”

  Sherrill smiled understandingly at Rose. Dear Rose. Did she mean anything beneath all that whimsical banter? What a helper she would be down on the Flats, if she ever got near enough to the flame of the Spirit to get warmed into working for others. Dear, helpless, pretty Rose, who nevertheless had a warm, true heart.

  The two charades, which had been carefully worked out beforehand, were rushed through in great shape and found most difficult to guess, although when they finally were solved, they were voted the best charades that anyone had ever witnessed in Rockland.

  Hard upon their finish came the refreshments; an innovation, apple tarts served with a generous trimming of Mother Barrington’s homemade ice cream atop, and hot chocolate in the thin, old Barrington china cups with whipped cream atop.

  “Myum! Myum!” said everybody audibly as the trays arrived with their delectable burdens.

  The chatter that went on while all were eating was broken when Priscilla Maybrick rose with her gavel. When at last silence was restored she said, “Next month’s social is in the hands of our president, Sherrill Washburn. Sherrill, have you any announcement to make about it?”

  Sherrill, with a quick catch of her breath, arose with her plate in hand, though Alan swiftly and silently relieved her of it. She had a sudden remembrance that the social she was about to announce would probably be her last for the winter, if her plans carried out for going to New York. And her voice had an odd little catch in it as she spoke, which no one but Alan understood.

  “It’s our Thanksgiving social,” she announced bravely. “We all are to bring a slip of paper on which are written the special things we are most thankful for during the past year. They will be read at the close of the evening, but without the names. Make them true, of course.

  “There will be a Thanksgiving dinner,” went on Sherrill, gaining control of her voice as she spoke, “but it will not be at the usual noon hour when we have our home dinners. We mustn’t break in on home plans. This dinner will be held at half past seven in the evening at Howard Evans’!”

  Everybody drew a quick breath and looked at Howard Evans, who was a newcomer among them, his father having recently bought a run-down farm on the edge of town. The old farmhouse was small and unpretentious, and everybody immediately wondered where there would be room for a dinner table to hold the whole crowd. The question stood in their eyes as they looked at him. Howard turned red as his hair under the battery of eyes, and wished he had never suggested having the crowd at his place, but Sherrill’s voice went quietly on, with a twink
le of mischief in her eyes.

  “You don’t need to know many of the plans, only I’ll tell you a secret. Howard’s father is building a perfectly princely fireplace in his big new barn, and it’s all to be lighted with pumpkin lanterns. We’ve borrowed the long tables from the church basement for the occasion. Two big gas ranges have been loaned, and Mr. Evans is connecting them in a couple of stalls to take care of the cooking, and we’re going to have a wonderful time. Your part is to bring guests.”

  “Guests?” The question was popping all over the room.

  “Yes, guests!” said Sherrill, smiling. “This isn’t going to be just ourselves. Every one of us has to bring a guest. The men have to bring men, and the girls have to bring girls. And now, listen. Perhaps you won’t all like this plan, but we are asking you to try in good faith and with all your hearts, for this once, anyway. The guests are to be from the Flats!”

  There was a sudden dead silence in the room, as if something had been flung down that could be heard.

  Then back by the hallway came Rose’s soft, speculative voice in a plaintive little meditation, as if she were thinking aloud.

  “She would!” she said. “Sherrill would just wish something like that on us all! And she knows we won’t any of us wear halos but her!”

  The whole room burst into laughter, though some of it seemed almost touched with tears, and then Sherrill, smiling herself, lifted her head.

  “Listen—you—dears!” There was something very tender in her voice. “I don’t want to wish something disagreeable on you all, but I do think we’ve got to look after those people down there and bear witness to them somehow. Alan”—with a sudden inspiration she looked toward him—”won’t you—would you be willing to pray that God will make us willing, and then show us how?”

  Without an instant’s hesitation, Alan’s voice came clear and steady. Alan, who always shirked out of leading a meeting or being called on to pray or speak anywhere. Alan, who always did his work quietly, and would never take the lead. “Dear Father in heaven, make us ashamed that we haven’t been after these whom You love, long ago. Help us to forget ourselves and be at Your service wholeheartedly. Show us how to work wisely, and be with us. We ask it in Christ’s name.”

  The room was hushed when he was finished. Very quietly they all said good night. A few girls slipped up to Sherrill and whispered, “Oh, Sherrill, I think it was wonderful of you to think of that. I’m afraid I’m not as good as you are—”

  “Oh, don’t!” said Sherrill. “It was not my thought. It was God’s. He’s been making me think of it a long time, only I hated to propose it because it would be awfully unpopular and terribly hard work. In fact I’m not terribly keen on it myself, but I got to the place where I had to do it. And girls, the girl I’ve got to invite myself is one that made faces at me when I was in the first grade in school.”

  “Sherrill! Not Mary Morse! You don’t mean you would invite Mary Morse?”

  “I’m going to try,” said Sherrill. “I think God wants me to. She’s lost her mother, and she’s taking care of her eight little brothers and sisters, and working in the mill besides, and I think we girls ought to give her our friendship.”

  “Do you believe she wants it, Sherrill?” asked Rose Hawthorn thoughtfully.

  “Probably not,” said Sherrill, “but I guess it’s up to us to make her want it, isn’t it? After all, it depends a lot on how we go about it, and I guess the only way to do that is to pray a lot about it. I feel all shaky when I think of going to invite her. But girls, when I do, you’ve got to be awfully nice to her afterward!”

  Out in the starlight, Alan and Sherrill walked along silently for a whole block after they had parted from the others. Finally Alan spoke.

  “You didn’t tell them you were going, Sherry,” he said gravely, with a question in his voice.

  “Oh!” said Sherrill. “I know, I forgot it until just as we were leaving, and then somehow I just couldn’t. I thought, perhaps—well, perhaps I won’t tell anybody until the Thanksgiving dinner is over. Will you help me keep my secret? I can be getting ready, you know—but— Well, who knows but something will turn up that I wouldn’t have to go at all.”

  Alan turned to her with a happy light in his eyes.

  “Sherrill, I believe you don’t really want to go after all,” he said, his voice vibrant with something she did not understand.

  “No, I don’t, Alan. It just seems as if I couldn’t,” said Sherrill with a little catch in her voice.

  “That makes it a whole lot better,” said the grave young voice, and Alan gave Sherrill’s hand a friendly little squeeze in the darkness.

  Chapter 9

  Sherrill put it to the family next morning at the breakfast table, just before Keith left for the business.

  “Say, folks, I’m going, all right,” she declared seriously, “but I want you to do one thing for me. Please don’t tell anybody yet—not a soul, until I give you permission.”

  Keith wheeled around from the door, his hat in his hand. “What’s all this, little sister? You’re not trying to slide out of it again?” he asked, studying her face keenly.

  “No, Keith, truly,” she answered, meeting his eyes steadily. “I just would rather get used to the idea myself first, and besides, I don’t want to have the crowd all know it till after we get our plans all made for that Thanksgiving dinner. I’m not going till after Thanksgiving anyway! I couldn’t stand that!”

  “Of course not!” said Keith crisply. “We couldn’t be thankful without you, I’m afraid.”

  “Of course not,” said Grandma radiantly.

  “Of course not,” echoed Sherrill’s mother with a relieved sigh. It wasn’t going to be at all easy for her family to get along without Sherrill.

  “But what Thanksgiving dinner is this, little sister?” questioned Keith turning back after he had opened the hall door. “You’re not planning to eat dinner with the crowd on that day? We can’t stand for you to do that, you know.”

  “Oh, it’s not to take the place of the home dinner. It’s in the evening in the Evans’ barn, and we’re inviting guests from the Flats,” announced Sherrill gravely. “I’m afraid if the crowd thinks I’m going away so soon, they won’t think it necessary to carry out the plans.”

  “I see,” said Keith with a curious, tender light in his eyes as he watched his sweet-faced sister. “Well, you can count on me, kid. Anything I can do for that dinner? Suppose I furnish the ice cream? I’ve heard of a place up in the city where you can order it made in the shape of different flowers, or fruit—something appropriate for Thanksgiving. How about that? Like that? Well, count on me for the ice cream. Let me know how many accept. Double your own crowd, I suppose? All right. Give me a few days’ notice.”

  “Such a brother,” said Sherrill with her eyes shining. “Ought I to tell him, Mother? And after he’s given me that big check, too. I just know he won’t get himself a new overcoat this winter, and he ought to have one. His old one isn’t near heavy enough for cold weather. Ought I, Mother?”

  “Yes,” said the mother, “he likes to help out, and it won’t hurt him. He’s proud of you, Sherrill. You’re doing some of the things he would like to be doing if he only had the time.”

  “It makes a lump in my throat,” said Sherrill as she brushed a tear from her eye. “Why should I want to go away, even for a week, from such a dear, wonderful family and hometown as I have?”

  “There, there, Sherrill,” said her mother crisply, taking a deep breath to keep away a certain tendency to tears that arose in her throat. “Don’t get us all to weeping. This is something that you ought to do, and you’re going to do it right. Come, let’s get these dishes out of the way and then get to ripping. We ought to do that the first thing, and get the old things out of the way. Then we can tell rightly what new things we ought to buy. You’ve got a good month now to work in, and we ought to be able to get a pretty good wardrobe up in that length of time. What time did you tell Aunt Harry you w
ere coming?”

  “Half past ten,” said Sherrill, “but I can rip up the brown and the green before that, and perhaps get them sponged off so we can see how much good material we have to work with.”

  “I’ll help rip,” said Grandma, getting out her best glasses and beginning to hunt in her table drawer for her razor blade she kept for ripping.

  “You better rip those lace things and I’ll wash them while you are gone,” said Mary Washburn. “Some of the yellowiest ones we’ll just dip in coffee and call them ecru-lace.”

  “Why, of course!” laughed Sherrill. “I read in the fashion magazine that was all the style now!”

  So they hurried through the dishes, talking happily, and then sat down with Grandma, who had already ripped up a good part of the dress.

  “They’ll want you to learn to dance,” said Grandma after a silence during which nothing had been heard but the snip, snip, snip of scissors and parting stitches.

  Sherrill jerked her thoughts back from her plans about the Flats’ young people and gave attention to her grandmother amusedly.

  “Well,” said Sherrill disinterestedly, “let them want. I’ll just tell them I don’t want.”

  “You’ll have to learn to be very courteous in your declining, Sherrill,” warned her mother. “You’ll have to learn to say no so pleasantly that they’ll be just as pleased as if you had said yes. Wasn’t it Longfellow that tried to do that when he had to decline an invitation to speak at some school commencement? Or was it Bryant?”

  “Oh, I don’t remember, Mother. But, of course, I’ll try to be polite.”

  “It won’t be so easy,” said Grandma grimly. She had been lying awake half the night thinking of things that might happen to Sherrill. “You’ll be in their house. Besides, you have never been tried. You don’t know how much you’ll want to do what they ask you to do.”

  “Grandmother!” said Sherrill, dropping her hands with their burden of lace and scissors in her lap in dismay. “You don’t have much faith in me, do you?”