“What a place for mosquitoes!” cried Hope. “Give me that stick, Chad, and I’ll open that drain. No wonder your face is all bumps. There. That’s better! Now we’ll let it drain, and maybe your daddy will let us clean it all out tomorrow.”
Between the walk and the side fence they found evidences of a former garden—dried peony bushes, hollyhock stalks, chrysanthemums that had lived bravely through the years, and leaves that told of tulips and iris. Rose bushes thrust out thorny arms and caught the explorers when they tried to reach the gate that led to the vegetable garden behind the lawn, so they returned to the house and washed off the dirt they had acquired.
“We’ll try again tomorrow,” Hope promised the little boy.
“Yes, an’ we’ll ask Daddy if we can chop and chop till we get all the old stuff chopped away and we can go down all the paths, won’t we? It’s like the Sleeping Beauty’s hedge that Mary Lou told me about.”
“And who is Mary Lou?” asked Hope, scrubbing at the grimy little hands.
“Oh, she’s my auntie. She lives on a big farm. Mother and I used to live there. I don’t call her aunt. I can’t remember to. She’s not old enough to be an aunt. She knows lots of things and she tells me. She’s going to be a doctor—a Miss Doctor—and I’m going to be Mr. Doctor, an’ we’re going to live together.”
“How fine! There, you’re all clean once more. Now trot in and get ready for bed. Mother said you could do it all alone.”
“I can. But I don’t like to. That’s the only thing I don’t like about being my folks’ child. They go away and let me go to bed alone. Mrs. O’Shea never does that. She puts Patsy to bed her own self.”
“I’m sure your mother and father don’t go away unless they have to.”
“No—o, I guess they don’t, but that doesn’t make it any funner.”
“You can’t expect everything to be fun. You’re a big boy now, and it helps your mother and father to know you can do so well by yourself.
“I don’t see how, but I’ll do it because Mother said I had to. When she says I have to, I really have to. And he’s not my father. He’s my daddy. My father’s in heaven. Is your father in heaven, Hope?”
“Yes, we both have a Father in heaven.”
“Do you have any brothers and sisters, Hope?”
“Yes, a brother nine years old and a sister seven.”
“Do they go to bed alone?”
“Oh yes, when their mother says they must.”
“Well,” with a sigh, “I guess I’ll do it right now. I’ll even say my prayers alone. Good night, Hope. I’m glad you came here to live.”
Hope intended to lie awake as she had been accustomed to do, thinking of the unhappy events of the past months and feeding the bitterness in her soul with imaginary pictures of the wedding Jerry and Grace would have in the home church, with the same bridesmaids she had planned and everyone gay and happy with no thought of the one who should have been the bride. But the unusual activities of the day had made her drowsy, and she fell asleep before she had time to get the stage set for the drama.
7
When Hope awakened the next morning and tiptoed out to get breakfast before the rest of the family should be up, she remembered her intention to go seeking a better job. She did not want to do it, for every time she thought of it the face of Mr. Skeen, with its sickening smile, rose before her and sent cold chills down her back. However, she could not be a cook all her life, so she would have to get out and hustle. Hope really was grateful to God for bringing her here just when she needed both a room and a job, but Mrs. King could eventually get some one who could fill the place better than she could. She was sure she could find another secretarial job—one where there would be no Mr. Skeen.
At breakfast Chad greeted her joyfully. “Miss Hope, Daddy says we can chop and dig all we please if we be careful and if we let him tell us where to chop.”
Dr. King smiled at the enthusiastic little boy and said, “I don’t want you to think you must undertake our landscaping, Miss Hope. Chad says you want to help him chop and dig.”
“Indeed I do,” said Hope, laying aside her plans. She could look for a job tomorrow. “After I get the morning work done and have been to market, I’d like to help him. We could clean out that pool and get rid of the mosquitoes, and I’d like to clear away some of the brush from the fall flowers that are trying to fight through.”
“Flowers?” cried Eleanor in delight. “What kind?”
“Chrysanthemums, cosmos, and asters that have seeded themselves, a big clump of goldenrod, and several others.”
“Grand! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have a really lovely garden? A place where the little children could play and pick flowers and maybe learn to grow gardens for themselves. I dream of it, and if it became a reality I’d—”
She stopped and choked over her own enthusiasm at such a possibility. Dr. King looked across the table, his eyes shining in sympathy, and said, “Keep on dreaming, Len, honey. Such dreams have a way of coming true. But for today, with the mercury pushing one hundred, don’t try to help in any other way. Remember, I’m your boss.”
Eleanor laughed ruefully. “Oh, I’ll remember. It’s hard to get used to being babied. I am not usually so fragile, Hope. But I got too hot in Mother’s berry patch a few weeks ago and am still paying for it. I’ll be glad when this heat is gone.”
Dr. King had arisen to leave the room, and as he passed his wife’s chair he ran his hand lightly over the red-brown curls.
“No, in spite of her brilliant plumage, she isn’t a topical fowl. She’s a snow bird, I guess.”
“More like a fat gray junco,” said Eleanor with a laugh. Then she turned to Hope and spoke seriously.
“Our day at the Institute begins at nine o’clock—that is, the regular work. One of the helpers gets here at seven to open the nursery and take in the children whose mothers go to work. Just before nine Billy and Ben—when he can—come in and we have devotions together. We’d like to have you come over, too. It gives us a good start for the day.”
Hope would have preferred not to go, for “devotions” were something with which she had no acquaintance. However, Eleanor had taken her going for granted, and she did not want them to wait for her. So, as nine o’clock drew near, and the dishes were done and the kitchen and dining room cleaned, she took off her apron and crossed the court to the church. Chad was waiting at the door.
“Mother said for me to show you where. They’re in the study.”
Hope had thought that she could not pray aloud. Even in the young people’s group at home she had avoided it. Here it seemed different. She was seated between Chad and Billy, and after Dr. Ben had read a portion of Scripture and they began to pray she realized they were praying in turn as they were seated. She felt a moment of panic, but when the woman who had been in the nursery had prayed in broken English and Chad had joined in with a sentence or two, it did not seem so hard. As she prayed haltingly and in low tones, Billy’s hand reached for hers, and the warm clasp gave her assurance. It seemed to her as she listened to all the prayers that she was nearer to heaven than she had ever been before. She had not known one could feel such closeness to God as this. He was here, in this shabby little cubbyhole. Billy’s and Dr. Ben’s prayers made her eyes sting with unshed tears as she realized that these two young people, hardly older than herself, were giving their labor in this place, helping others in the name of the Lord to whom they were talking.
When Eleanor began to pray, Hope forgot the room and the people in it. There was just herself and the loving Lord who had given His all for a lost world and who was now yearning over that world as He had done centuries before. She was not conscious of the change when Eleanor’s voice ceased and Dr. King’s took up the petition. She only knew that her heart ached with a longing to know better this Lord whom she had accepted years before but who had never seemed real and near at hand as He did today. Chad’s touch on her arm aroused her, and she stole out silently
and went to her room where she could be alone. For the first time in her life she had caught a vision of what was meant by “consecration.” She had heard the term used but had thought it would apply only to persons who lived peculiarly isolated lives like old Mrs. Carlisle at home, or like missionaries or nuns.
Today Hope had caught a little of the meaning of the call that the Lord sends to those who are His sheep. She had been in the presence of souls utterly yielded to their Lord and had heard in their voices the submissive tone which told of completely surrendered wills. She only partially understood what she had seen and heard, but she felt chastened and sobered, and wished she might have been privileged to have had the deep and happy experiences that must have been the Kings’ lot, rather than the unhappy ones that had befallen her. She did not expect that life could ever give her such joy as dwelt in the home and hearts of the Kings, but the sight of it she had had today left an afterglow of glory that she would not forget.
Chad’s voice, calling through the hall, ended her reverie.
“Hope! Mother says she and Aunt Billy have to take the car out to get some s’plies, so they’ll do the marketing. We can clean the fountain now.”
Cleaning the fountain basin was an enjoyable task to Hope. She liked to bring order out of chaos, and this outdoor work just suited her. Chad found a bushel basket in the church furnace room, and the wet leaves and trash were loaded into it and carried out to the vegetable garden.
“They’ll be good for the soil if this is ever plowed,” said Hope. “If not, they can be burned when they are dry.”
They carried buckets of water from the house and scrubbed the basin until the last vestige of soil had run down the drain, and it was all so clean that no mosquito would feel at home in it. Then they picked up the dead branches that were lying about and carried them to the garden where they piled them in a heap. Chad, struggling with an armful of sticks, stumbled over something that protruded from the ground by the back steps.
“What’s this, Hope? It won’t come up. Is it part of a little wagon, or somethin’?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a wagon wheel. Let me see if I can turn it. Maybe it’s—oh, I have a idea. Wait a minute.”
She picked up a stout stick that lay nearby and thrust it through the spokes of the wheel. She pushed and turned this way and that. Through years of disuse the iron had become corroded with rust, and it seemed impossible to turn the wheel. However, Hope was a sturdy miss and a determined one, and at last she felt the stick give as she threw her weight against it. It turned only a short distance, but Chad called excitedly. “There a little bit of water running in the fountain! The boy’s pouring it from the shell!”
After trying in vain to open the valve further, Hope closed it again, promising Chad that she would find a way to open it fully later. She realized as she worked in the old garden that she was enjoying this experience so much that she had become sidetracked from her real purpose.
It was pleasant here, and she felt secure from prying landladies and leering men. The only men she had seen since coming were Dr. King and his gracious kindliness, and Dr. Ben, who probably had forgotten her as soon as she was out of his sight. Outside the high fence she could catch glimpses of the noisy life of a sordid neighborhood. The entire city seemed cruel and wicked, with just this place like an oasis of good. Hope dreaded the thought of starting again the search for work. Yet she must. She would not be a cook all her life, and she could not go home. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would try to find work.
Next morning she heard Eleanor regretting her inability to find someone to clean the empty rooms upstairs.
“Katie Berg will help, but she can’t do it alone. She isn’t well and mustn’t overdo. If I had someone to help Billy with classes for several days I’d do it myself!”
“Don’t let me catch you at it,” said Dr. King quickly. “Let it stay dirty.”
“Oh, we can’t. The dust is so thick up there that it flies down the open stairs and doubles the labor of cleaning. Chad goes exploring and comes back looking like a coal miner. We just have to get it cleaned.”
“Then let Katie tackle it alone. She can at least get off the first coat, and maybe we can find someone else later.”
After the Kings had departed Hope hurried about her morning work so that she might feel free in the afternoon. She need not be back until five and so could make some real progress about getting a job in that time.
A crash and a wail from upstairs startled her. She flew up the stairs and down the long hall toward the room from which issued Katie’s lamentations. There she found an overturned stepladder and a bedraggled Katie seated in a pool of soap suds.
“It’s not hurt I am but plenty mad!” she muttered. “T’was a sperrit jerked the ladder.”
Hope helped Katie to her feet. Then she mopped up the streams of water, realizing as she did so how greatly the entire upstairs needed cleaning. She stood watching Katie’s futile efforts and decided that if the task were to be accomplished at all someone else would have to be recruited. Katie was willing but needed supervision.
At eleven o’clock Eleanor, coming in to see how Katie was progressing, found Hope on the stepladder washing woodwork while Katie stood outside on the porch roof vigorously polishing the windows.
“Hope! I didn’t mean that you should do this!”
“I know,” said Hope rather shamefacedly, “but it’s so much fun to scour dirt off and leave things clean and shining. Please don’t feel bad. I wanted to do it. And if you want me to I’ll help Katie whenever I have time until it’s done. It’s really fun.”
It took two weeks to get the house cleaned thoroughly. There were large cupboards and closets to be emptied of trash, scrubbed, and aired. There were plate-glass mirrors to be polished. There were light fixtures to be cleaned and repaired. The workers did not stop at the second floor but went on to the third, where spacious servants’ quarters had once been. Those, too, were cleaned and aired. There was much old-fashioned furniture that Katie cleaned, and that Eleanor said could surely be used when they wanted to furnish rooms for additional helpers. It was a gargantuan task, and several times Hope mentally berated herself for attempting it. However, she did like to see cleanliness emerging from the shadow of grime that had covered the old mansion, and she was loathe to give up a job once started. So she kept on, promising herself that when this was done she would go job-hunting in earnest.
The day they finished Hope took the Kings and Billy and Dr. Ben on a tour of the place to display its newly discovered beauties. They were amazed at the transformation and exclaimed again and again at parquet floors, beautiful woodwork, delicate carving, and, in the master bedroom, walls and ceiling hand-painted in rare beauty of design and color.
“What a beautiful room!” cried Eleanor, standing at the broad tower window. “This huge tree outside hides the ugliness of the street, and one might imagine himself in a castle in the woods.”
“I know what I’d like to do with this room,” said Dr. Ben dreamily. “I’d like to make a room here to bring some of my patients to when they leave the hospital. It makes me sick when they have to go home, after a hard siege in the hospital, to unspeakable poverty and filth.”
“That’s an idea,” said Dr. King. “Keep on dreaming, Benny. It may come someday. I haven’t any definite plans yet, but I’m sure this monstrous place was not given us just as a home for a half dozen people. I’m asking God to show us His plan for it.”
“He will,” said Eleanor. “When He is ready for us to take another step He’ll lead the way. He always does.”
“And when He does, you folks will have your uniforms on all ready to march,” said Billy. “You never are satisfied. When you get one project going to the point where I begin to breathe freely and plan to settle down to a normal existence, you start two more. If I had half the sense I was born with I’d desert the ship before I’m found dead in a front line trench.”
“You have your metaphors m
ixed, as usual, Wilhelmina,” laughed Dr. King. “And you know you wouldn’t quit if we fired you. If you and Ben will quit your squabbling and get married, we’ll make another apartment up here and you can run Ben’s hospital.”
Billy turned an outraged face to him.
“Me! Marry a doctor? Not on your life! When I get married, it will be to a man who comes home regularly and stays there. Either a banker or a—a—mailman! No doctors for me!”
The others laughed, but Dr. Ben’s face flushed and Hope felt that such an idea was not a joke to him. As they climbed the stairs to the third floor, Billy ran on ahead, the Kings were hand in hand as usual, and Hope fell behind. Dr. Ben, at her side, said kindly, “You’ve done a most thorough job of sweeping and garnishing this old place, Miss Hope. It does me good to see it clean and lived in. Ever since I can remember, it has been forlorn, dirty and empty.”
“It has been just plain fun,” said Hope. “It seemed asleep, and we woke it up and washed its face.”
Dr. Ben laughed at her fancy, and they joined the others in the front hall of the third floor.
“I can see all sorts of possibilities here,” said Eleanor. “Everything from a playroom for Chad in stormy weather to a laboratory for myself. It’s so light and spacious.”
“In time we will use it all, I’m sure,” said Dr. King. “I had thought it would require much repairing and painting, but it is in remarkably good condition. We’ll just go along as God leads and find out what His plans are for this old house.”
8
Hope looked at the calendar on the kitchen wall one morning and realized with a start that four weeks had passed since she had come here for “just a few days.” She excused herself for the delay by remembering that she had felt she must help these folks who had been kind to her. However, she resolved to go out that very afternoon and begin the search for a real job.
So two o’clock found her again in the downtown block where several employment agencies were located. At the first one there were no vacancies for the kind of work she wanted, but the next one had an opening. In a short time Hope was on her way to the interview. The woman at the agency had painted an attractive picture of the position with its promise of quick advancement, and Hope felt encouraged. Yet, as she sat in the outer office of the prospective employer, she felt again the panicky fear that had been with her before. The two girls working at nearby desks appeared so sleekly sophisticated and efficient that she knew she could never be at ease with them. When a young executive stopped at one desk for some letters, his familiar attitude and the pert answers of the typist made Hope even more uncomfortable.
Not My Will and The Light in My Window Page 31
