Chance of a Lifetime

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Sherrill was in the parlor singing Thanksgiving songs with Alan, and their voices blended sweetly, the soprano and the tenor.

  “We worship Thee, we bless Thee—” they sang, and their earnest faces bent over the book together, heads almost touching. Mary peered into the dusk of the room lighted only by the piano lamp, saw the good, sweet wholesome look on both faces, and took heart with hope. Yes, they were still children. Her mother might be right about their soon growing up, but it hadn’t come yet, thanks be! She felt a panic at the thought of the untried way that lay ahead of her girl. Oh, if she only dared hold her back and guard her. Yet Sherrill had good blood, a strong foundation of character, and an abiding faith in Jesus Christ. Was that not enough to keep her through the perils of city life for a few short months? Oh, was she right in sending her out, when she did not have to do so?

  The day before Thanksgiving, Keith came home with a great, brown, shiny box, long and narrow, and very distinctive looking.

  “What’s that, Keith?” asked Grandma, looking as excited as a girl.

  “It’s something for Sherrill,” said Keith, eagerly. “Where is she?”

  “She went upstairs to get my apron,” said Mary Washburn. “She’ll be down in a minute.”

  “Call her!” said Grandma impatiently, two pink spots blooming out on her old cheeks.

  “I’m coming, Grand, what is it?” asked Sherrill, hearing the discussion as she came down the stairs.

  “Keith has got something for you, Sherrill, I want to see what it is. Hurry and open it, child!”

  “For me?” said Sherrill, eagerness flashing into her eyes at once, followed by a troubled look. “Keith! You know I told you you mustn’t get me anything else,” she said, in quite a determined tone. “I have everything, just everything I need. Since I got that new fur collar for my coat, I’m just fixed fine now in every particular.”

  “This isn’t from me,” said Keith triumphantly, “it’s from Father and Mother.”

  Mary Washburn gave a startled look at her son, and then a light broke into her face, and she instantly flashed her joy in a signal for Keith that whatever it was that he had done, he had given it in a beautiful way: From Father—and Mother.

  Sherrill turned from her brother to her mother with startled eye and then said, “Oh! How lovely!” in a little sound with a sob of pleasure.

  “Yes,” said Keith. “I knew Father would have done it if he were here. He would have wanted his daughter to have everything she ought to have for such a visit to his brother’s family. So, when there came in a check today for the sale of that old land that we all have thought worthless so long, and Father left in my care to do what I thought best about, I just turned some of it into this for you, sister. Mother gets the rest for something equally nice that she needs.

  Keith lifted the shiny, big brown cover and picked back a corner of the tissue-paper wrappings awkwardly.

  “Lift it out, Sherry, and see if it fits,” he commanded.

  Sherrill, breathless, too filled with emotion to speak, bent forward with awed face, and plunged in her hand.

  “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Keith! Not a real fur coat! Not for me. Oh, Keith, a squirrel coat! And I’ve always wanted one!” She dropped the sleeve she had touched, and turning, flung her arms about her mother’s neck and buried her face in her shoulder, weeping.

  “Mother, I can’t go away. Not from you all when you have done all these wonderful things for me.”

  Mary Washburn held her child and kissed the top of her head. That was the only place she could reach.

  “But, Sherrill, it’s Keith you should thank, dear. He says the present is from your father and me, but he never told me anything about it. It all came out of his own thought. He’s right, dear, Father would have done it if he had been here, but it was really Keith who did it, because Father gave that land to him.”

  And then Sherrill wept upon her brother’s neck, and clung there.

  “But I can’t take it all. I can’t even try it on, Keith,” she managed to murmur at last, “not unless you promise up and down to get yourself that new suit and overcoat you need.”

  “Oh, sure, little sister, I’ll get some clothes. Sure, I’ll get them right away. Have them all ready to meet you at the train when you get back. Dress up so fine and fancy you won’t know this old hecker when you come riding in from New York town, expecting to be ashamed of your old country family! Come, kid, cut this sob stuff and try on that coat! If it doesn’t fit I’ll have to exchange it before tomorrow morning, for my man leaves on the early train and I want you to have a coat for your journey.”

  So Sherrill was prevailed upon, at last, to open the papers and try on the coat.

  She looked like a young princess, enveloped in the rich fur of dyed brown squirrel. Its ample proportions and lovely lines showed at once that Keith had not taken up some poor bargain coat. He had found a little gem of a coat, and Mary Washburn’s heart was happy about her girl. With a coat like that she would be warm and comfortable, and look right wherever she went.

  But Sherrill stood before the long mirror in the parlor and looked at herself in dismay.

  “Mother, it isn’t right for me to have a coat like this. You never had a fur coat in your life, and you ought to have one first. I can’t take it, really I can’t. Not when you never had one,” she said, coming back to her mother’s side and looking first at her mother and then at her brother.

  “Well, she’s going to have one now, kid, so you don’t have to be a little martyr. I’ve been planning for it ever since last winter. I knew she was cold in that old black coat every time she went to church. And when this money came, I knew it was an answer to my prayers. So stop trying to refuse it, and see if it fits. You see, I got it from a buyer of one of the big New York houses. He happened to be here visiting his sister, Glen Howard’s wife, and Glen introduced me and mentioned about his being a buyer of furs in New York and we got to talking. I suppose Glen must have said something pretty nice about you, for he offered to get me a bargain and cut his commission, and it just arrived tonight. I’ve been in hot water for a week lest it wouldn’t come in time. And I’ve been dead afraid it wouldn’t turn out to be the right thing and would have to be sent back. Hurry up, kid, and look at it carefully. Are you sure it fits? It seems to be a good quality of fur, doesn’t it? I had Hastings Moore look at it, and he said it was wonderful. You know he bought a squirrel coat up in Canada for his wife last winter, and he knows about furs. He says I only paid three quarters the amount he paid for hers, and he thinks it’s a better value than hers. Look at the lining, kid, do you like that, or would you rather have had some kind of bright flowers on it? They had flowered linings. But I picked this, it seemed more like you.”

  He talked as eagerly as any of them, and so fast they couldn’t answer his questions.

  When Alan dropped in to see if Sherrill wanted him to go on any more errands, there they were in the middle of the floor, smiles and tears, half-finished sentences and answers all jumbled up together.

  Even Grandma had hobbled up from her chair, in spite of rheumatism, and come over to lay reverent hands on the lovely fur garment.

  And then Alan had to see the coat, inside and out, to notice the pretty scalloped cuffs on the sleeves, the trick of a pocket, the beauty of the skins, the shimmer of the lining, and, above all, how Sherrill looked as she walked across the room with it buttoned up about her chin, and completely eclipsing her ears and most of her hair.

  “And this is the way I will wear it, when I go out in the evening to a symphony concert,” said Sherrill suddenly, unfastening the coat, flinging the great scalloped cape-collar back over her shoulders and gathering the garment close about her waist. She held her head high and swung across the room haughtily. “That is the way they wear them for evening. I’ve seen them in the fur catalogs that come in the mail, and in the fashion magazines.”

  “Yes,” said Alan gravely, “I see now how you’ll go about making that clever mar
riage you talked about. But won’t you remember always to keep my pearls about your neck when you walk like that?”

  Sherrill laughed, putting her hand to her throat where the pearls were, and the pretty color flushed into her checks.

  “Why, of course,” she said. “Pearls and fur like this always go together, don’t they?”

  Then she went and sat down and looked so serious that Keith asked her anxiously, “Don’t you like it, kid? Tell me the truth. I suppose I was a fool to think I could pick out a thing like this for you, but I’d rather know if there is something else you would rather have. It isn’t too late to change, really, little sister.”

  “Oh, Keith,” said Sherrill, lifting shining eyes, “there is nothing in this world I would rather have than this beautiful coat. But I was thinking how almost dreadful it is for me, just little me, to have a grand thing like this. I don’t deserve it. And there are so many people who haven’t even got warm things. I don’t believe it’s right for me to have all this.”

  “Nonsense, Sherrill,” said her mother quickly. “That’s not for you to consider. You didn’t ask for it, did you? You didn’t even buy it for yourself. It was a gift. You’ve nothing to do with that. Besides, it is a sensible, warm thing that will last for years if you take reasonable care of it and save buying other coats, and it is just the thing for you to wear on your trip. It is cold up in New York. You would need a fur coat with those thin evening dresses. It will last a lifetime almost!”

  “No,” said Keith quickly, “it won’t last a lifetime, but by the time it gets shabby, I shall be in shape to get another one—”

  “Or someone else will”—put in Alan in a low tone, so that only Grandma heard him.

  Sherrill settled down at last to enjoy her lovely coat, and they had a beautiful evening all together, talking about it and enjoying one another. It was the last night they were to spend together before Sherrill went to New York, for the next day was Thanksgiving, and the barn dinner was to come off then.

  Every little while they made Sherrill get up and put on her coat and walk around the room. And once she went upstairs and got one of her new hats that Harriet Masters had helped her buy, and paraded around like a lady of fashion.

  “Grandma has been afraid I would come back utterly spoiled,” said Sherrill when she had taken off her hat and coat for the fifth time and folded her coat away in its shiny brown box, “but she miscalculated the time. I’m going away spoiled! I couldn’t be worse spoiled than I am, so why bother? Pearls and furs and velvets! My cousin Carol won’t be in it at all with me. Really, Mother, I’m ashamed. A quiet Christian girl like me looking like a fashion plate. What would those girls from the Flats say to me, if they knew I could dress like this? What would Mary Morse say? You know I’ve had a terrible time to make her promise to come tomorrow night, and I had to tell her I would wear this old blue dress before she would say yes, because she said she hadn’t a new dress to wear.”

  “Well, dearie,” said her mother with a tender look, “you’re wearing the old blue dress for Mary Morse’s sake tomorrow, and next week you’ll wear the blue taffeta for cousin Carol’s sake. Life, after all, is a comparative thing, and clothes suit certain places. Clothes are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. If God hadn’t sent these lovely things for you to wear, without any attempt on your part to bring it about, why then, my girl would have gone happily off in the next best thing she could have got. I know you, Sherrill. But the pretty things have come and you may just be thankful for them. There have been times when you couldn’t have them, couldn’t even have a lot of things you needed, and you have always been sweet and cheerful about it. So we all like to have you have this beautiful surprise.”

  It seemed that the little group who loved her could scarcely bear to break up that night, so sweet it was to sit and look at the dear girl and be happy in her happiness, so hard it was going to be to have her gone, even for a short time.

  But, at last, Alan got up with a sigh and declared he must go home.

  And the next day was Thanksgiving.

  Chapter 11

  Sherrill spent the early morning putting last things in her trunk. Her mother insisted that she was to have no part in the preparation of the dinner, for she would have enough else to do.

  So the turkey had been stuffed the day before, and went into the oven in ample time to be ready at one o’clock. It was to be watched over by Grandma, who was too late to go to the Thanksgiving service. She said that no one else quite knew how to baste a turkey to the right brown anyway, and she enjoyed being left with the responsibility.

  Keith took his mother and sister in his car to the church, and they sat in the old pew together, each of them thinking how it would be a long time before they sat there together again, and praying quietly for one another.

  Sherrill wore her new coat for the first time. Keith had asked her to. He said he wanted to see how his sister looked in her “glad rags.” So Sherrill wore one of her new hats and her coat, and sat quite conscious of her raiment for a while, as the eyes of her friends sent glances of admiration her way.

  Alan MacFarland, across the aisle, watched her furtively and was glad that she was also wearing his string of pearls. He was thinking how much he would like to be up in New York this winter and take Sherrill to symphony concerts and church, and all sorts of nice, interesting places. How proud he would be to take her somewhere in that coat. Perhaps he would in the spring, if spring ever came. She wouldn’t wear that coat to the barn dinner that evening, he was sure, if it were only just on account of Mary Morse.

  He watched Keith take his mother and sister away home, and followed them with a wistful glance. Then he went dutifully home to his own family Thanksgiving dinner. For he had a family that was just as anxious to have him all to themselves as Sherrill’s family were to have her. But he consoled himself with the thought that, anyhow, he was to drive Sherrill up to the Evans’ barn late that afternoon to set the tables, and that later, when it grew dark, he would drive her down to the Flats after Mary Morse. Then he would sit beside her at the barn dinner, with Mary at her other side, and his dinner guest, Sam O’Reilly, on his other side. Later he would drive them all home, and perhaps stay a few minutes with Sherrill to say good-bye, for she was leaving early in the morning. Oh, it was going to be a large evening. Sherrill wasn’t gone yet!

  The turkey was wonderful! Sherrill’s grandma knew how to cook turkey. She had stuffed it, too, with the old family recipe that nobody could quite imitate. Yet Sherrill somehow could not eat. It seemed to her that there were tears in her throat, where the food should go down, that hindered her from swallowing. She wanted to laugh and she wanted to cry, and she wished, oh how she wished, that she were going to stay home and enjoy all her lovely things with the people who loved her, instead of going off among strangers and try to satisfy people who would be always criticizing her and judging her by her clothes.

  But then, Mother and Keith and Grandmother all felt the same way, of course, and everyone tried to be jolly and tender and make the time go pleasantly. By the time the pumpkin pie came, Sherrill was laughing with them and telling all the funny things she meant to say to her New York relatives when she arrived, although they all knew she would rather cut out her tongue than say any of them.

  She even put on her new coat and stuck up her chin and stuck out a spineless little hand indifferently to a supposed Aunt Eloise, saying quite loftily, “Please ta meet ya, Auntie!”—and sent them all off in peals of laughter.

  Suddenly, they looked up and Alan stood among them.

  Oh! The time had gone! The Thanksgiving dinner was over. There would be no more family all together now until Sherrill got back from New York!

  With a pang she jumped up and rushed around, helping her mother put away things and carry out dishes in spite of protest.

  They all went to work and scrambled the dishes into the kitchen, the boys carrying out the things for the refrigerator and piling dishes in treacherous tower
s, helping to scrape up and put away, everybody laughing and talking. It was as if they were hanging on to the very last minutes when they could all be together. Her dear family—and Alan! How precious they all seemed to her as she looked up from the pantry drawer, where she had been picking out clean dish towels. Her eyes blurred with sudden tears and a great longing to throw off her journey even now at the last minute. Only of course she knew she could not do that now.

  And then, in the midst of it all, came Harriet Masters, who had declined to eat Thanksgiving dinner with them, because a very old lady at the boardinghouse who had been taken suddenly ill had begged her to stay with her. But now the old lady was better, and asleep, and Hannah Maria, the second girl, for recompense, was sitting in the hall to listen if she called, and Harriet had slipped away for a few minutes.

  They got her a plate with some of Grandma’s pie, and while she ate they washed the dishes. At least, Sherrill washed them and Keith and Alan wiped them, while Mary Washburn put them away.

  Alan watched Sherrill’s hands working swiftly, skillfully among the soap bubbles in the great dishpan, plunging the dishes in and out again, into the rinsing water and out on the drain board, another and another, how quickly she did it. How pretty her hands looked while she did it. How pretty her hands looked with the sparkle of the suds on the back.

  They talked and laughed and kept cheerful as could be, yet all of them were feeling the coming separation, as if Sherrill were going around the world for an indefinite stay, instead of just running up to New York for perhaps only three months. How they all loved her! Ridiculous, of course, to feel it so, but it was the first break in the family since father had gone away when

  Sherrill was a very little girl.

  The dishes were all in shining rows on the shelf in a very short space of time, and Alan and Sherrill started out on their rounds.

  “And haven’t you even told Willa and Rose that you are going away?” asked the boy when Sherrill was seated in his car on the way to the Evans’ barn.