“I say yes! That will make it a lovely Christmas Eve.”
It was an evening Hope never forgot. They had dinner in a glittering dining room overlooking the lake, while an orchestra played such music as she had never heard. Then the long drive out to the Heights and two hours of ecstasy as she listened to that grandest of oratorios. She had heard a small club at home attempt to sing parts of it and had heard other parts over the radio. But here, two hundred of the best voices in the city sang in such perfect harmony that Hope was almost breathless with the beauty of it. She turned once to smile her appreciation at Dr. Ben, but he was sitting so quietly with his head on his hand and his eyes closed that she thought he was asleep. The poor chap had so few minutes of relaxation that it was no wonder he dozed when he could. But as the majestic strains of “And the Glory of the Lord” rang through the church, Hope realized that he had not been asleep, for he caught his breath and his hand clasped hers as it lay on the armrest between them. When the “Hallelujah Chorus” began, he was instantly on his feet and stood in rapt silence until it ended. In silence, too, he led her to the car after it was all over, and they drove many blocks before either spoke.
Finally he said, “That will carry me through many weeks of Sherman Street and Mrs. Mallory’s pseudo ills.”
“It was heavenly!”
“Heavenly is right. I’m not much of a musician now, but if I can sing that chorus in heaven with Billy at my side—well, that will be glory for me!”
It was the first time he had ever mentioned his feelings about Billy, and Hope hardly knew what to say, so she answered rather diffidently.
“I suspected that I was a stand-in for Billy when you squeezed my hand.”
Ben laughed heartily. “I beg your pardon for that. I was so carried away by the music that I had to let someone know. My thoughts haven’t been with Billy all evening though. I’ve enjoyed very much getting to know you better, and I hope I can count you as one of my special friends. It’s sort of a relief to talk to someone about my feelings for Billy. How did you guess it?”
“Guess it? I didn’t have to guess. It sticks out all over you.”
“Is it that bad? Does she resent it, do you think? You are with her so much that you ought to be able to help me. Where do I stand?”
“I don’t know, Dr. Ben, really I don’t. I’m for you, if that’s any help. She’s prejudiced against doctors—so she says. Dr. King tells her she’s trying to convince herself. I don’t know. Since Stan came he seems to occupy most of her thoughts.”
Dr. Ben looked at her, then stopped and gave his full attention to driving. As he told her good night at her door, after they had raided the icebox and eaten the chocolate pudding, he thanked her again for the assurance of her friendship, and she answered, “This evening has been one of the high spots of my life. I’ve heard bits of the Messiah before but never all of it. I didn’t dream it was so—so—” She stopped helplessly.
“That’s it,” said Ben. “It’s beyond words.”
“I keep thinking,” she went on, “if an oratorio, written by a man, is so breathtakingly grand, what will the real thing be like?”
“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard—” he answered. Then after another silence, “Good night again, dear friend. Let’s empty our stockings together in the morning.”
18
The Palace on Sherman Street
Christmas Day—8:00 P.M.
Dear Daddy,
It has been so long since I wrote you a real letter that I am starting early this evening and am going to make this a “doodun” as Judy used to say. I thought of you all many times today and almost wished I had been able to go home. It really didn’t seem best, so I will save my money for a long visit in the summer.
I hope you all had a nice day and received many fine gifts. Before I go further, I want to thank you for the box of gifts. Everything in it was lovely. The housecoat is so exquisite in its pastel colors that I almost hated to put it on for fear of soiling it. I tried it on just to see how it looked and wore it almost all day! It was sweet of you and Mother Bess to send it. The wooly slippers from Jack are just what I need. The floors of this old house are cold these winter mornings. Tell Judy I think the box of stationery is a hint for me to write her a letter, and I’ll do it in a few days. The box of homemade cookies will be a treat for a long time, if I can hide them well enough. And the fruitcake—yum, yum!
Grandpa and Grandma sent a box of goodies, too, with a nice warm scarf and a pair of skating socks. I do hope I can get a chance to skate occasionally.
Only Dr. Ben and I and Mr. and Mrs. Berg are here. All the rest have gone for a few days’ vacation. So far as I can discover, Ben never takes a vacation. He and I opened our packages this morning in front of the fire in the hall. We had a lot of fun helping each other and exclaiming over the gifts. It seemed to me there was no end to them. The Kings gave me a new Bible, which I sorely needed, and Billy and Stan together gave me a reading lamp. Dr. Ben’s gift was a pin made from some shells a missionary friend sent him from the South Pacific. He gave Billy one almost like it, he said. I can’t begin to describe it, for it is a most delicate bit of beauty. I received gifts also from the Bergs, from Sam Pawley, the janitor, and from at least forty of my girls. My room tonight looks like The Old Curiosity Shop.
Ben and the Bergs and I had dinner together. Then he tried to teach me to play chess. Awful! As a chess player I’m a grand fizzle. Ben tried not to appear disgusted, but as I saw him getting more and more amazed at my dumbness, I grew so sorry for him that I suggested we quit and make fudge. I was on solid ground there, and the fudge was a success. Imagine my surprise when Ben told me he had never before seen fudge made! If he had never seen it made, he at least knew what to do with it.
In all my hastily scribbled letters I have never told you much about the folks here. I think I’ll do that tonight. It is so much fun to write here in bed with my new housecoat on and my new lamp shining just right that I could almost write a book. I have the checkerboard on my lap for a desk. If you can’t read this letter, that’s the reason.
Where shall I begin? Guess I’ll start at the bottom and work up. I presume that Sam Pawley is at the foot of the ladder, intellectually and financially. Poor old Sam! He isn’t very bright, and he works here for just enough to feed and clothe himself. He doesn’t want any more money—says he just wants to live here. He is busy by the time I wake up—firing the furnaces, cleaning the walks, and getting the Institute ready for the day’s activities. No matter how late we work, he is still at it when the rest of us quit. He has a one-track mind, and that track is completely given over to the Lord’s business. He can hardly read or write his name, yet somehow he has learned a lot of Scripture and can quote it very aptly. Dr. King says he is the most valuable personal worker at the Mission.
Katie and Tom Berg come next. Tom doesn’t work here regularly—just helps evenings and weekends because he wants to. Katie does all the laundry and cleaning, and that’s plenty, I assure you. I wish Jack and Judy could see our Palace. No joking, it has twenty-eight rooms! Katie and Tom have a nice apartment in the basement. It has been quite a revelation to me to see this place and realize how such folks as the Warwicks lived in the good old days when coal was three dollars a ton and hired girls worked for ten dollars a month. It must have taken an army of help to keep this place polished. Mahogany stairs down to the basement and hardwood floors in what Grandpa would call the “cellar.” Katie works full time, Tom puts in about ten hours a week, and all the rest of us chase dirt in our spare moments, and we never catch up!
I suppose Stanley Dykstra is next in line. He is the newest worker, having been here only since Thanksgiving. He is a long drink of water if there ever was one! Six foot two, and so thin and lanky that he doesn’t cast a respectable shadow. I think he is engaged to Billy, but I’m not sure. At first I didn’t like him, partly because I do so much want Billy to marry Dr. Ben, and partly because I had an unreasonable prejudice against hi
m. Since I’ve become better acquainted with him, I’ve learned to like him immensely. If I had had a big brother I would feel toward him as I do toward Stan. He is a tease, but I can take teasing so we get along fine. Sometimes I feel that he isn’t quite up to the spiritual level of the Kings and Billy and Dr. Ben. Not that he isn’t OK. He is clean and honorable and trustworthy in every way. But he just can’t measure up to them. Neither can I, though, so why should I criticize Stan? I guess we aren’t adapted to such a rarefied atmosphere as prevails around the Institute.
Stan’s outstanding trait—though he would never admit it—is his kindness. Any underdog stirs his sympathy. He does a lot of Sam Pawley’s work because he knows Sam isn’t strong—which doesn’t help Sam a bit, because he trots off and hunts up some other task. Stan usually spends Saturday afternoons taking some of the most underprivileged boys to places they would never get to see otherwise. Also, I know, a little bird named Billy told me, that he has purchased two pairs of crutches and an artificial leg since he came here. This leads me to believe that he, like Billy’s parents, is wealthy.
I can’t finish about Stan without mentioning Riley. He is a gray kitten that Stan found in a paper bag in an alley. We fed him with an eyedropper, then with a doll’s bottle, and now he is quite able to drink from a saucer. He is supposed to belong to the Kings’ small son, but, with the independence that seems to be a part of every cat, he has decided to adopt Stan. Stan says he doesn’t like it, but if Riley fails to notice when he comes in, Stan pokes in all the corners until he finds his kitty. Dr. Ben says Riley sleeps on the foot of Stan’s bed. So he must like him. Sleeping with a cat he didn’t like would be too much even for Stan’s good nature.
I wish you could all know Billy. Her real name is Wilhelmina Gertrude Van Meter. As she is little and cuddly and lovable, you can see why she had to have a nickname. Billy it just had to be. Stan has a song to the tune of “Clementine” that he sings to her. He composes new verses at an average rate of one a day. She says she knows that there have been hundreds of them in the last ten years. They are all silly, and some of them have neither rhyme nor reason, but they give us a laugh on many a day that needs a bit of fun to lighten it. The latest went like this:
Oh, my darling, Wilhelmina!
Hurry, or we’ll miss our bus.
And ’twould spoil old Santa’s Christmas
If he missed his date with us.
Billy is a beautiful, dainty little thing with an angelic face and hair of an undeniable red. She is vivacious, and nothing that happens ever gets her down. She has been helping part-time here for four years, but when she graduated from Bethel last spring she came on as a full-time worker. Her specialty is the preschool age children. She runs the day nursery with the help of several neighborhood women. She is Dr. Ben’s right-hand man in the baby clinic. I entertain hopes of a marriage between her and Ben someday. However, since Stan came, those hopes are pretty dim. As I said before, Billy’s parents are very wealthy, and she and Stan seem to have a background of culture that Ben and I lack. Sometimes I think she loves Ben, and then Stan comes along and she is all devotion to him. There’s nothing I can do about it, however, except to wait and see.
The Kings are in charge here, and I feel inadequate to describe them. I admire them more than anyone else I’ve ever known. I love them both. They aren’t a bit alike. Phil is tall and very handsome. He is not yet thirty-five, I’m sure, but he has prematurely gray hair which, combined with his dark eyes, would make him distinctive looking in any crowd. He is wonderfully kind and understanding, and his heart goes out to every underprivileged boy and girl he sees. He has a charming personality and can win the confidence of the toughest youngster. I can’t really describe him. The way I’ve written it, he sounds sissified, like a modern Prince Charming. But he isn’t a bit like that. I’ve seen him wrestling with Stan and Ben, and he can put them both down at once. I’ve heard from others that he left quite an opportunity in another field to come to Henderson Institute, but he apparently doesn’t regret it, counting it all joy to be permitted to work at reclaiming human souls from the gutters of Sherman Street.
I never knew the full meaning of the word helpmeet until I saw how Eleanor King complements Phil in all his life’s purpose and work. As Stan says about them, “They are tuned in on the same wave length.” She is rather short, not fat at all, but not dainty like Billy. She always makes me think of the word sturdy. She is sturdy in physical build and in character, one to be depended on. She isn’t as pretty as Billy, either, though her face has a charm of its own that is most attractive. Her one real point of beauty is her hair. It is brown at most times, but in the sunshine it is a sort of mahogany color. That sounds silly, but it is true. When the firelight shines on it, it is bronze. It is very curly, and its bright waves and ringlets are lovely.
She is working on a scientific book of some sort and spends a part of every day in her den. Occasionally they take trips to the woods with several cameras, and afterward she works in a darkroom that Phil has fixed for her in a big clothes closet. I am curious to know what it is all about but do not dare to ask. Eleanor has a part in every phase of Institute work. She visits in the homes, helps with the babies, gives me a hand with the girls, teaches English, conducts Bible classes, heads up the Americanization work, directs the program for better sanitation in the homes—oh, I can’t tell you all she does. She is under thirty and much smaller than I, but when I am tired or a bit low I find myself wanting to snuggle on her shoulder as Chad does. She’s so motherly! I do hope that some time you and Mother Bess can meet them. Then you will understand how I feel. In spite of all the things that work against it, the family life of the Kings is held sacredly inviolate. (Aren’t those big words? I’m quoting Billy.) Even with all her other interests, Eleanor puts Chad first. Because of him she has few evenings out. Whenever Phil can be home we leave them alone and guard them from the world, which would press in on them. That’s all they require for happiness.
Chad is a husky little five year old: lovable, droll, and usually most obedient. He has a peculiarly stubborn streak in his nature, and sometimes there is a real struggle with him. But Eleanor, who seems to be the disciplinarian, deals with him alone behind closed doors, and they come out hand in hand, the battle over. I’d like to know how it’s done. Perhaps I’d better suggest that she give me a similar treatment. It seems a bit queer that Phil leaves all the discipline to Eleanor, but I don’t think he could do it. He is putty in that little lad’s hands. Chad is tall for his age and looks like neither parent. Eleanor’s young sister visited us a few weeks ago, and then I saw where Chad got his looks.
We all live here together in the Kings’ Palace like a big family. It is pretty quiet tonight, but usually it is like a three-ring circus. I must quit now and get some sleep. I have a big lot of work planned for tomorrow, and I promised Ben I’d go to the museum with him if he can get away. There isn’t one chance in fifty that he can go, but I want to be ready “just in case.” Kiss Judy’s little snub nose for me, give Jack a squeeze, and thank you all again for the lovely gifts.
Lovingly,
Hope
19
As the last hours of the old year hurried out, the snow began to whirl around the rickety tenements of Sherman Street as if it wanted to cover up the scars that sin had left on what had once been a beautiful world. Snow piled high against the walls and fences and formed deep drifts across the sidewalks. The thermometer dropped to a new low for the year. The shop windows frosted up so that even if one cared to stop he could not have told what the window display inside was like. Dr. Ben, struggling on foot down a street where his car could not go, thought that, for the first time he could remember, the Sherman Street district was beautiful.
Just so, he mused, Christ’s righteousness can cover all our sin and ugliness and present us, spotlessly white, before the Throne.
Inside the Palace, Hope and Billy and Stan rested before the fire in the hall. That was the warmest place in the
house tonight, being farthest removed from the winds that found entrance around even the well-fitted windows of the big house. The young people had spent the evening at a party in the church with games and fun aplenty. The last half hour had been a quiet time that sent them home thoughtful and subdued. Stan and the girls had expected to drive over to Bethel College afterward for a watch night service. When they came out of the church the storm had met them with such fury that they decided not to attempt the drive. Stan stirred up the fire and laid fresh logs on it to drive back the encroaching cold. The big built-in settee faced the fire and provided a cozy spot from which the girls could watch the flames, Hope at one end and Billy at the other, curled up like a couple of kittens among the pillows. Stan was stretched on a rug at their feet with a pillow under his head and Riley asleep on his chest. It seemed a much nicer way to see the old year out than to battle the drifts to and from Bethel. They did not even talk much for a while. The crackle of the fire and the sound of the wind outside were soothing, and they drowsed in silence until the outer door slammed and Ben came in, stamping the snow from his feet and rubbing numb hands together.
“Come on, feller,” called Stan as Ben slid out of his overcoat. “Park your little satchel under the sofy, and if anyone calls I’ll answer and tell them Doc is in conference. Come on, get busy and confer.”
“Thanks, I’ll do the same for you some day,” answered Ben, joining the group and looking about for another pillow. Hope started to toss him one, but before she could do so, Ben had slipped the pillow from under Stan’s head and seated himself on it with the woodbox at his back. As Stan’s head hit the floor he sat up with a growl.
“Hey! Go hunt the old family cistern and fall in, please!”
Ben handed him a birch log and said soothingly, “Use this for a pillow. It’s soft wood.”
Not My Will and The Light in My Window Page 38
