The Challengers

  Then, just as he spoke, Mrs. Challenger swayed, losing her hold of the davenport, and slipped down again in a little limp heap on the floor.

  The butcher sprang, picked her up, and laid her down on the old davenport as gently as if she had been a baby.

  "You girls get some water!" he said. "Bob, you go for Dr. Babcock. Barkus, you better get outta here in case she comes to. You've done enough damage for one night. You might have a case of manslaughter on yer hands if you keep this up long."

  "If she goes and dies on me, that'll be the last straw!" whimpered Barkus.

  "Get out!" shouted the butcher. "There come them cops. Wantta go and let 'em in, ur shall I send 'em away?"

  Mrs. Barkus hastily retreated to her own room and locked the door resoundingly. But the butcher went out in the hall and said in a good loud tone that would easily penetrate the thin partitions as he swung open the front door:

  "No, we don't need anybody just now. The trouble has passed for the time. But I'm right nearby and these folks will phone me if they need any protection during the night, and I'll let ya know. So long. Sorry ta 've troubled ya. Hope there won't be any more nonsense tanight."

  Then he went back to the sorry little parlor and closed the door gently, lifting Mrs. Challenger into a more comfortable position, fanning her with a folded newspaper, and stepping out of sight when she showed signs of coming to again.

  Bob brought the doctor almost at once. He scanned the white face with the closed eyes; he put a practiced finger on the slender wrist. He administered a restorative and said what they all knew, that what she needed was food and rest and freedom from anxiety, and then he went away with the kindly admonition to call him if she felt any worse, no matter what time of night.

  They were all alone together at last, with the door locked and the long-neglected supper on the table. Melissa had rescued the beefsteak just after Mrs. Barkus advanced to take it over and hidden it in the warming oven, so it was almost as fine as if they had eaten it right out of the broiling.

  But when they brought a plate to their mother with the delicious-smelling food upon it, she turned her head away and closed her eyes.

  "I can't eat," she said, and to her horror, Rosalie, who was holding the plate, saw a great tear stealing out under her mother's lashes.

  "But, Mother dear," she said, "the doctor said you must eat. Think how awful it would be if anything should happen to you! Suppose you were sick in the hospital, too, like Father. What would we all do?"

  "Never mind!" said Phyllis, coming up briskly. "Whatever it is, Mother, you're not going to tell us now, not till you've eaten. You will make us all sick, you know, besides yourself. Now be a brave dear little mother and open your mouth. See this lovely bit of steak? And, Mother, this is the best soaked bread I've ever made. It has lots of butter in it, and the onion is just right. And isn't it lovely that we can have supper at last? Did you ever taste such steak? Don't you mind that silly old Barkus woman. We'll get away from here sometime and never remember her again. She really doesn't amount to anything."

  "Oh, Phyllis, it is so humiliating. Your father would feel it so for us all."

  "Well, let's just be thankful he can't know. We needn't ever tell him unless we want to, sometime when we are all happy and right again."

  "Oh, but, my dear, I'm afraid we'll never be happy and right again. I haven't told you all. Your father--!"

  "Is Father worse? Tell me quick, Mother; it's better for us to know."

  "No, he's no worse. He's better. But--the doctor says what he needs now is to go to the country and rest for a year. He mustn't have a care or worry. Absolute ease, absolute quiet. And it's all just as impossible as if he had said he must have heaven here on earth for a year."

  Mrs. Challenger broke down and wept, and Phyllis, standing there with the nice forkful of beefsteak, just kept still for a minute and let her weep. Then she broke forth with a glad note in her voice.

  "Why, that's lovely, Mother. That's wonderful! Father well enough to leave the hospital and get out into the country somewhere. There's nothing to cry over in that. Come, let's be happy! Let's eat our nice supper. For, Mumsie dear, we're all of us deadly hungry. Lissa and I haven't had a bite since crackers and tea this morning, and you didn't even have the crackers."

  "But how can we ever manage to give him what he needs, Phyllis?"

  "Oh, there'll be a way, Mumsie dear. Let's forget it tonight and eat our supper."

  "Yes, there'll be a way! There will truly, Mother!" said little Rosalie earnestly. "I prayed for an onion and a beefsteak and they both came! And this will come, too!"

  "You prayed for an onion!" exclaimed Melissa in horror and then began to laugh.

  "And a beefsteak!" added the little girl seriously. "Say, do let's go and eat it before it gets cold. I'm just awful hungry."

  Something in her little girl's face made Mrs. Challenger rise above her weakness and go out to the table with her children.

  They bolstered her up in her place with pillows and gathered around excitedly, praising the steak and hearing over and over again Bob's account of how he went ten miles with a basket to earn that beefsteak, and what a wonderful friend Butcher Brady was.

  "But you don't mean you really prayed for a beefsteak?" said Melissa, suddenly remembering and turning toward her little sister. "Not honestly, and an onion, Rosalie."

  "Sure I did," said the child, somewhat abashed. "I asked Phyllie, and she said it would be all right. Was there anything wrong about that, Mother? He answered, anyway."

  "Why, no, dear, not wrong. I'm sure God understood that you needed something to eat and that you were perfectly reverent about it. Melissa, dear, you ought not to laugh at your little sister."

  "Well, but, Mother, do you believe God is like that, knowing about what we need, and even onions and things? Do you really believe there is a God, Mother? Hardly anybody at college seemed to believe in God at all, or if they did it was just a great power or influence or something like that."

  "Why, certainly I believe in God," said Mrs. Challenger. "I'm shocked at you, Melissa. For pity's sake, don't take up with all these common modern ideas. Of course there is a God. Your father would be shocked to hear you talk like that."

  "Well then, Mother, if you believe in God, why are you so worried? Don't you think He will somehow make things better for us?" asked Phyllis softly.

  "Well, yes, I suppose, eventually--I'm not sure--I don't know just what I believe. I really have been too much worried to think about it, Phyllis. When one is in such straits as we are, it is no time to philosophize. But of course I believe in God."

  "How in the world did Mr. Brady happen to give you onions, Bob?" asked Melissa, taking the last delicious bite of beefsteak. "Of course, it's wonderful to have them, but it's kind of weird he thought of them--when Rosy prayed for onions."

  "Oh, he said of course we needed onions with beefsteak; said his wife always had 'em and he'd put 'em in," said Bob with his mouth full. "Say, pass me that butter, won'tcha? I'm goin' ta get full for once."

  "Hadn't you better save a little for breakfast?" suggested Phyllis.

  "Nope! I'm goin' ta eat all I want. I got a fifty-cent piece left, and breakfast can go hang tanight."

  They all laughed at that and agreed with him.

  "There's half a box of cereal left," said Phyllis. "I just found it. Thought it was all gone. If you get some milk, that will make a nice breakfast."

  "Aw, gee! I'm going to get bacon and eggs!" said Bob, taking a big bite of steak.

  But every crumb of supper was finished at last, and while Phyllis and Rosalie washed up the dishes and put the kitchenette in order for morning, Melissa went to get her mother to bed.

  It was after the lights were out and everybody had been still for a long time that Rosalie ventured: "Mother, wouldn't it be nice if we all prayed for a home where Father could get well?"

  The mother was still for such a long time that they all, listening, thought she must be asleep, but
then they heard her say in a low voice, deeply stirred: "Yes, very nice, Rosalie, but--you better go to sleep now."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Only two letters came in the mail next morning, together with the usual collection of advertising or begging letters and pamphlets and magazines that still continued to pour down upon the once-noted professor's family.

  Rosalie and Bob had gone off to school, each with a couple of bacon sandwiches wrapped in paper for their lunch.

  "We mustn't let them get hungry like that again!" sighed the mother as she sat down to look over the mail and throw most of it in the wastebasket as usual. "We must do something--sell something perhaps. How about that chair? It's solid mahogany and quite old. It ought to bring something. Could we get along without it? And somehow we must manage to pay back that kind Mr. Brady. It was wonderful of him to do what he did last night."

  "Yes, and, Mother, can't we get out of this house right away today? I feel as if I couldn't bear the sight of that Barkus woman ever again," this from Phyllis.

  "It's sure I don't know where we'd go, nor what we would move with if we did. Remember it costs money to move."

  "But, Mother, what about the bonds? Wasn't Father willing you should use them now? Surely things couldn't be much worse than they are at present."

  "My dear, that's the trouble. There aren't any bonds."

  "There aren't any bonds!" exclaimed both the girls in chorus.

  "But, Mother, I remember when Father showed them to us, when we were little girls," added Phyllis.

  "Yes, but it seems when Father was going to the hospital, he thought there might be an emergency more than he knew at the time, and he took them and put them in the Mercer Loan and Trust Company, and that was the bank that closed its doors last week. They are there all right, in our own safe-deposit box, and they belong to us, and eventually we can get them, but not now. The bank has closed its doors indefinitely; in a few days or a week or two things will be arranged. Of course it will, for the bonds are ours. But that doesn't do us any good today. And, girls, there wasn't as much there as I thought there was. It seems Father invested all but two five-hundred-dollar bonds in what he thought was going to bring in a bigger interest for us right now while we needed it. And the stock he bought has gone down, down, down, until it is worth practically nothing."

  The girls were silent, trying to look life's sordid facts in the face. What a strange thing life was anyway! A week ago they were possessed of money enough to keep them from starving, and now--where was it? And yet they had not spent it. It had not been stolen. It was just gone into the infinite somewhere. What became of money you had and hadn't? How strange it was!

  Mrs. Challenger looked at her letters.

  "Oh, here is one from Stephen!" she exclaimed with a smile and a sigh. "Poor Steve! He doesn't know what we are going through!"

  She began to read aloud.

  Dear Mother and All:

  I haven't much time to write this morning. I'm due over at the dining hall to sling hash in ten minutes. If it weren't for my need, I wouldn't take time to write at all. And I'm awfully sorry to come to you at all for help with all the burdens you and Dad have while he is sick, but truly, Mud, I've got to have some more clothes. My pants are worn so thin I have to sit down when anybody very swell comes around, and I can't possibly graduate without a new suit.

  I thought I could earn it myself, coaching football, but another guy got the job, and then I had to work pretty hard at my thesis nights when I got done working, and I've been so dead tired that I didn't try for anything else beyond what I am already doing. But I thought, Mud, if you could just get one of those cheap blue serge suits they always have advertised at the department stores in the city, and have it sent up; you know, I'm always a perfect thirty-eight, and anything will fit me. I'll pay it back to you and Dad the first week I get home. There'll be plenty of lawns to cut by that time out in the country, and I can surely make twenty-five bucks in no time. I'll be glad if you'll send it as soon as possible because, Mud, I truly haven't a thing but my old gray knickers that are fit to wear in company.

  This will have to be all this time, for I heard the bell ringing and I'm late already.

  Heaps of love to all,

  Steve

  Calamity sat upon every face as she finished reading. They looked at one another in dismay.

  At last Phyllis spoke. Phyllis was always the practical one.

  "What can we do, Mother? You can't charge anything anymore, can you?"

  "No, dear," said the mother sadly, struggling with the tears. "There's an unpaid bill almost everywhere. You see, I had to let them run, right away at first when Father was so sick. I had no time to think of anything else, and then came the crash of both banks where our money was, all the savings of the years, and our having to move, which took every cent and more-- And then, this last bank closing that had our cash account. I don't see what we can do. Poor Steve! He's been so brave, and it must have taken a lot of nerve to humble his pride and work so hard doing sort of menial tasks. He's proud, too, you know, and always kept himself looking so nice. I hadn't realized, but he hasn't had a new thing this year. If there was only something really valuable we could sell. Of course, that clock, but we never would know how to get its value, with Father sick. And besides, Father would feel that it was almost criminal to let that go. It has a special value to him, you know. And suppose that friend of his should come back? But then, we can't stop on that, of course."

  "But, Mother, aren't there a lot of things in storage that could be sold?"

  "I suppose there are some things," said the mother thoughtfully, "but not too much. We sold everything worthwhile, you know, when we broke up housekeeping. But even if there were, there's a big unpaid bill there, too. I must see what I can do. Perhaps they will let me get a few things out, but the last time I spoke of it they objected to letting anything go till it was all paid. They sell them at auction themselves, you know, after a certain length of time."

  "Oh!" said Phyllis sadly. "And I suppose there wouldn't be enough there, even if you sold everything, to cover all our needs anyway?"

  "No, I suppose not," said Mother.

  "Well, Mother, I don't see how you can believe in a God," said Melissa in the hard tone she had used the day before, "at least not in any God one would want to have."

  "Oh, Melissa! How terrible! Don't speak like that, child. Don't make things worse than they are."

  Melissa laughed a hard little worldly laugh.

  "Well, I don't see how that makes things any worse than they are. That's only looking facts in the face. It would be worse to my mind to believe in a God and have Him treat me the way He is than not to believe in Him at all."

  "Stop, Melissa! I can't listen to such things. Something even worse might come to us."

  Melissa laughed again.

  "How could there be anything worse?"

  "There could be a lot worse!" said Phyllis indignantly. "You know there could. Look at us. We're all well, aren't we, but Father? And he's getting well fast. We ought to be all kinds of thankful for that."

  "Well!" sneered Melissa. "Well enough today perhaps, but likely to starve to death before the week's out. How long does it take people to starve to death, anyway, Mother?"

  "Don't, Melissa!" shuddered her mother.

  "For pity's sake, Lissa, haven't you any sense? Can't you see that Mums has had all she can stand the last two days? Hurry up, Mother, and open your other letter. Let's forget about our troubles and try to find a way out of them."

  "It's probably only a bill," said the mother dejectedly. "What's the use of opening it? Everybody we ever owed a cent to is coming down upon us today."

  "Seems as if Stephen might have managed without asking help when we're having such a hard time," mused Melissa sullenly.

  "Remember, we haven't told him a word about the bank closing or the stocks going down till we're practically stripped of everything. It was enough that he should work his way through his last
hard year of college without having to bear all that, too," said Stephen's mother in defense.

  "Well, I think it's high time he knew," said Melissa. "He'll be furious that we didn't tell him, if I know anything at all about Steve."

  "Yes, I suppose he will. But it was your father's wish that he shouldn't be told how bad things were at the beginning, and of course they're worse now. You know, of course, that when he is through this year he will have his diploma and be able to get a good position, and without his diploma it would be hard work to find anything."

  "Yes," said Melissa, remembering her experience with the library position and wilting into depression.

  There was silence in the room again while the mother absently picked up the second letter, tore open the envelope, and began to read. The two girls sat in troubled thoughts. At last the silence was so long that they were seized with sudden new apprehension, and looking up, both at once studied her face intent upon its letter. At last Phyllis could bear the suspense no longer.

  "What is it, Mother? Some new trouble? A bill?"

  "No, not a bill," sighed the mother, folding the letter up and putting it thoughtfully into her pocket.

  "But, what is it? Has something more terrible happened?"

  "Oh, no, nothing happened at all. I guess it is nothing. Probably only some trifle. It's just a letter from some lawyers. I think perhaps somebody Father knows. I don't seem to remember the name, but it must be. Perhaps they have some word about our stocks, or it may be only some lawyer who has heard somehow that we had a deposit in the closed bank and wants us to let their firm handle our claim. It might be something like that."

  "But, what is it? What do they want you to do?"

  "Oh, they only want me to come into their office and see them sometime soon."

  "But you won't go, will you, Mother? Isn't that what they call shyster lawyers, or something like that? I think I've heard Father speak of lawyers who are hanging around trying to get clients. Not real lawyers, only kind of frauds, aren't they? Wouldn't Father tell you to keep away?"