After the cold days of the first part of January, a sudden warm spell brought about the “January thaw.” The snow and ice melted into dirty water that stood in puddles on the broken sidewalks and backed up in the filthy gutters. Instead of following the pattern of most January thaws and lasting a week, it continued on into February. A few yellow and black quarantine signs had been seen shortly after Christmas, but suddenly, before the Institute staff knew what was happening, the signs were everywhere. Each day there would be new absences from the classes. Dr. Ben would be out until long after dinner time on his calls. Billy’s babies were most affected, and as she counted her charges each morning and missed little faces that had grown dear to her, she grew grave and sad.
“Can’t anything be done to keep it from spreading?” she cried desperately. “Oh, if I could only keep them in the nursery day and night, I know they’d be better off. I hate to tell them good-bye at five o’clock, for I never know who will come back!”
“They would be safer here,” admitted Ben. “But it can’t be done. I fear you won’t be able to have them in the daytime much longer. The Board of Health is considering closing the schools and kindergartens, and forbidding children to attend any public gathering.”
“Oh, no! Why, it’s lots better at the nursery than in those cold, smelly houses!”
“I know we think so, but we’ll have to accept what comes and obey like soldiers.”
One by one the older boys and girls began to drop out. Then influenza and pneumonia struck, hitting old and young alike. The hospitals were full, and the public health nurses went from house to house, working under all sorts of handicaps and through almost impossibly long hours, trying to stem the tide of death. The closing order came from the Board of Health, and the Institute, which a short time before had hummed with life, became oppressively quiet.
On the second morning of the enforced vacation Phil called his staff together. His face was drawn and tired and his voice sober as he said, “Ben tells me the situation is desperate. Doctors and nurses are working to their limit. Yet they can’t reach all the homes. They are calling for volunteers. I am not asking any of you to go. In fact, unless you’ve had it, I am asking you not to volunteer. Both Eleanor and I have had it, and we are sending Chad to his grandmother in the country so that we can be free to go as the Lord calls. If you youngsters want to go home until the emergency is past, you may do so without feeling any sense of guilt at all.”
Hope listened to the noise of a car bumping over a hole in the street and wondered dully if it were the ambulance again. She had seen it more times in the last week than she dared count. Yesterday she had gone to the funeral of Dot Mills, the gayest little girl in her classes. This morning Sam had come in with the news that Chad’s little chum, Patsy, had gone. The tragedy and horror of it all seemed too much for Hope. She could not face any more of it. If Phil and Eleanor would not blame her she would leave at once. She could have a visit at home and come back when the Institute opened again. For the first time since she came to the city she longed for home and Daddy and Mother Bess. She longed to see Jack and Judy and to forget these underprivileged waifs of Sherman Street. It would be like another world there, away from the disease and filth and death they were fighting here.
She looked at Phil’s worn face, at Eleanor’s tired, sad eyes, and she knew that they had not considered leaving. She saw Billy’s chin quiver as she cried, in a choked voice, “I’m going to stay, Phil, and even Ben can’t tell me not to. My babies are all sick, and I have to stay.”
Stan’s gruff tones showed his emotion as he followed with, “You know you need us all, fellow. We’ve as much right here as you have, so count me in. I’m here to stay.”
Still Hope did not speak. No one would censure her if she went. She knew that Daddy and Mother Bess would welcome her. Yet, was she ready to go to them? She had forgiven them and held no bitterness against them, but somehow she did not want to say so yet. Perhaps by summertime, but not now. She thought of Mary and Della and Gracie, of Tommy and Butch and all the boys and girls who could not get away if they wanted to. She thought of Billy’s babies, some of whom would never again play in the nursery. She thought of Billy herself who could at this moment have been traveling with her parents, had she so desired, but who chose instead the work and hardship of Sherman Street. The words of a Scripture verse she had read recently came to Hope’s mind: “Choosing rather to suffer affliction …” and all at once Hope knew she could not go when she was needed here.
“If you’ll let me stay, I want to do what I can,” she said slowly. “I don’t know much about nursing, but I can obey orders and I’m strong and I’d like to help.”
Philip and Eleanor each smiled at her in understanding and gratitude, Billy squeezed her hand, and Stan looked at her across the arched back of Riley, who was climbing on him at the moment, with an approving grin. “You’re all right, Hopeful. I knew you’d come across!”
The weeks that followed were like a nightmare of work and sorrow. Ben brought arm bands from the health department that gave them entry into the homes where help was needed. Phil gave up his classes and lectures at the college. Under Ben’s instructions they went from home to home, taking temperatures, administering medicines, giving baths, changing linens, and distributing the jars of soup that Katie prepared in the big old kitchen. The days were long, for they were abroad before eight o’clock, and often it was late at night before they stopped.
Ben watched over them carefully for signs of fatigue or overexertion. He insisted that they eat regularly and get a full eight hours of rest every night. Each morning he examined their throats before issuing the orders for the day. Then, before they separated, Phil would call them together for prayer. It seemed to Hope as she listened that she could almost feel strength for the day flow through her. They went out from those morning devotions uplifted and able to meet the burdens of the hard hours ahead, trusting in God to bring them through, whatever might befall.
Dr. Cortland telephoned from Bethel to say that special prayer meetings were being held morning and evening among the students and faculty. Eleanor’s mother wrote from the farm that members of her church were pledged to pray through. On the darkest day of all, when the battle seemed to be a losing one, when the gray skies overhead added to the dreariness of the situation, the workers came home late, in the cold and drizzle, to find a telegram:
TUNE IN ON W-G-J AT TEN-THIRTY
Wondering, they followed the instructions as they gathered in the Kings’ living room. Phil and Eleanor were together in front of the fireplace, in which they no longer had time to light a fire. Ben sat by the radio, the girls were in easy chairs, and Stan, with Riley poking inquisitive paws into his ears, was stretched out on the davenport. They were too tired to talk, so sat in silence listening to several hymns and choruses sung by a choir from the Bible Institute from which the program came. Then a girl’s voice spoke.
“The next song is sung especially for the workers at Henderson Institute. It is our greeting to you who are carrying on so courageously there.”
Then, as they listened together, six soldiers weary from battle, over the air came the words and music of a grand old hymn. Some of the verses were so exactly the assurance they needed that they seemed God-sent.
“Fear not, I am with thee, oh be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand …
“When through fiery trial thy pathway shall lie,
My grace all sufficient, shall be thy supply,
The flames shall not hurt thee, I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine …
“The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to His foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake …�
�
As the last notes died away Eleanor, with her face shining, exclaimed, “Connie and Dick! Oh, I needed that tonight. I was almost defeated when I got home. I’m all right now. We will come through. I know we will!”
“That was Eleanor’s sister and her husband, Connie and Dick Dunlap,” explained Billy as she and Hope prepared for bed. “If I could sing like they can, I’d have to be paid to keep still. They never sounded so well as they did tonight. I guess we all needed that tonic.”
Somehow, after that night it was never quite so bad. One morning they awoke to find the temperature almost to zero, while a blizzard raged outside. Ben viewed it with approval.
“That’s the kind of weather I’ve been praying for,” he said. “We’ll pull out of it now. Germs don’t like such weather.”
Slowly things grew better. The yellow and black signs disappeared. Then, one morning in the middle of March, Billy, with happy face, greeted her little charges as they were brought in. The Institute was open again!
22
The coming of spring is a time of joy and hope even when there are few trees or shrubs to signal it. There is always the sky overhead, no matter how dreary the lateral view may be. Even through the murky air of Sherman Street the freshness of spring was borne in on the breeze. The buds of the trees in the big yard grew fat and soft, and Billy broke off branches to show her little folks how leaf babies live and grow. Hope’s girls raked the dead leaves off the borders, and for the first time in their lives saw tiny flower spikes push their way through the mold to turn green in the sunshine.
True to his promise, Stan had trimmed the vines and shrubs and was watching the soil in the garden for just the right time to begin spading. Eleanor drew a chart of the garden, marking it off in plots where the older boys and girls could each have a bit of ground for vegetables or flowers. At one side a long strip by the fence would provide a place for the kindergartners to plant some beans, carrots, and zinnias and watch them grow.
Chad was at home again, and his parents watched him with love-filled eyes. He was puzzled by Patsy’s absence but accepted Eleanor’s explanation without question. Billy’s parents lingered in South America, and Billy stayed on in the tower room with Hope. The hardships and sorrows of the winter were past, and to the seminary students who came back after the quarantine was lifted, the Institute seemed the same. The residents of the Palace knew that things were not the same, however.
Phil and Eleanor both showed weariness and strain from the ordeal through which they had passed. Phil was working long hours overtime to make up the work at the college that had suffered from his absence. Eleanor let Hope and Billy take over much of her Institute work and spent more of her time working on the textbook that was overdue at the publisher. At Phil’s insistence Dr. Ben took a vacation and went to Florida to rest for a while and to build up his depleted energies.
“You have to do it, Benny,” Phil said. “Even a doctor has his limitations, and you’ve been out of bounds too long. Get going!”
They all missed him more than they had thought possible. It was strange how the absence of one quiet young man who was always busy and seldom at home could change the atmosphere. Hope and Billy worked industriously with their charges, carrying on dependably and thinking that things would soon settle back into the old routine.
The biggest change was in Stan. All during the epidemic he had labored at Ben’s side, not sparing himself nor counting the hours. With Sam as a faithful shadow he had climbed stairs, carried meals, tended feverish, suffering men, and even scrubbed floors. Through it all he had never lost his cheerful buoyancy, and his smile was a tonic to them all. It was a matter of wonder to them now to see his sober face as he worked alone or sat silently on the hall seat with Riley draped across his shoulders. Hope felt he must be grieving because Billy would not marry him. Yet they had not quarreled she knew, for they often had long talks together in the evening, after the Institute was closed. Perhaps he did not like the city now that spring had come, or perhaps he was becoming weary of his labor with the boys, or homesick to be back in the smaller town where spring would be more beautiful than on Sherman Street.
Even old Sam noticed his abstraction and spoke of it.
“You ain’t sick, are you, Stanny?”
“Nope.”
“You ain’t worried about nothin’, are you?”
“Nope.”
“You thinkin’ ‘bout what I said, Stanny? You under conviction?”
“No!”
“Well, I jes’ wondered. I been prayin’, so you’ll be comin’ disregardless.”
“Oh, shut up!”
Sam looked hurt as he turned away, and Billy, meeting him in the doorway, spoke reprovingly to Stan.
“Shame on you, pal. He only wants to help you.”
“Help me what? I don’t need any help.” And Stan picked up Riley from the workbench and stalked away.
The kitten was the only one who failed to be disturbed by Stan’s moodiness. To him life was one long day of joy, and he tumbled and romped through the Palace and Institute to the delight of all the children. He padded after Stan as he worked and did not appear to notice that his idol no longer laughed and teased him as he had formerly done.
When Ben returned looking brown and rested after two weeks of sunshine, he tried to get Stan to go home for a while, but that idea was ridiculed. No one could understand the change in the lad. All they could do was to pray that whatever was troubling him would be cleared away.
“The troubles of youth are such poignant ones,” said Eleanor to Phil, “and I long to help them bear them. But how can we help if we don’t know where the trouble lies? I’d like to show every one of our youngsters how God can take every hurt and sting and make it into a beautiful memory that brings blessing through life’s long years. Each one has to learn that for himself though.”
“Yes,” he answered, “that’s one of the saddest things in human history. You can’t pass over your experience to the fellow behind you. Even if we knew Stan’s difficulty, we couldn’t promise him a cure. There is One who can. We’ll have to leave it to Him.”
Then one morning a catastrophe struck. Riley had followed Stan from the house and had lingered to play in the driveway. A passing dog spied him, and bounded through the gate to indulge in the age old game of dog chase cat. In panic Riley fled into the street. Stan heard the dog’s bark and hurried to his pet’s rescue—too late. A mail truck, turning the corner, had struck the fleeing kitty and tossed him in a broken heap against the curb. Stan, with white face and trembling hands, carried the limp little form into the shop and handed it to Sam.
“Won’t you bury him, Sam? I can’t. If anyone asks for me, tell them I’ll be back later. I don’t feel so good.”
That evening as the girls were doing the dishes, Ben and Stan sat at the table in the alcove. Stan seemed even more depressed than usual, and they felt that his mood was due to Riley’s absence. Indeed, it had been hard for all of them to enjoy their meal without the frolicsome little chum who was accustomed to sharing it with them. Each of them, as he rose from a chair or opened a door, found himself looking carefully to avoid stepping on Riley. Then, as the realization that he would not be in their way any more would come to them, there would follow a period of silence as their sick hearts tried to accept the truth.
“I didn’t know a cat could leave such an emptiness behind it,” said Hope as she picked up the saucer that would not be needed tonight.
“I didn’t either,” said Billy with a suspicious catch in her voice. “He was such a loving little soul.”
Ben, in a tone that implied that he was offering comfort, said, “Do you think that even such an unusual cat as Riley had a soul? Isn’t that going a little too far? After all, he was only a cat.”
Stan gazed at him in speechless shock, then burst forth, “How do you know about cats? What’s a soul, anyway?”
Ben shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t say, I’m sure. I was just asking you.”
“Well, just because you were never able to find one when you and your fellow butchers carve folks up, you think there isn’t such a thing. How do you know Riley didn’t have a soul? Just what is a soul, I ask you again?”
“Old Aristotle said it was the essence of whatness. I can’t do any better.”
Billy spoke up hesitantly. “It’s so queer to think of Riley being gone. I don’t know where he went, nor why God made him to be loved such a little while and then be gone. It makes me all the gladder that God has provided something sure for us. Death is a real enemy, but we won’t have to meet it alone.”
“You’re right,” answered Ben quietly. “All death is mysterious and awe inspiring. I never get used to it. Every time I meet it, I thank God for the One who conquered it for me.”
Stan rose suddenly, pushed back his chair and stalked from the room. Looking after him Billy said sadly, “I’m so sorry for him, and I’d like to comfort him. I don’t know what’s the matter though. It can’t be just Riley. After all, he was just a cat.”
Ben, with the memory of the moods and tempers of the past weeks in his mind, spoke. “I don’t think it is Riley alone. I think Stan’s own soul is the scene of a pretty stiff battle.”
After she was in bed that night, Hope thought over that remark. Did Ben think that Stan was disturbed over his and Billy’s friendship? What would be the outcome of this three-cornered romance? She wondered if Billy herself knew which one of the young men she preferred. Was Stan’s depression due to the realization that Ben also loved Billy? Oh, it was a sorry tangle. She wished Billy had been twins, so that Ben and Stan could each have won one of her! She didn’t want either of them to be unhappy.
Not My Will and The Light in My Window Page 41
