In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga Conference

"Tell me all about it, child," he said, in a soothing tone. Then he added, lightly, "I can't make a diagnosis of the case until I know all the symptoms."

When he had heard her little outburst of worry and distrust, he said, slowly:

"You have done all in your power to prepare yourself for a position as stenographer. You have done all you could to secure such a position, and have been unsuccessful. But you still have a roof over your head, you still have enough on hands to keep you two months longer without selling the house or even renting it – an arrangement that has not seemed to occur to you." He smiled down into her disconsolate face. "It strikes me that a certain little lass I know has been praying, 'Give us this day our to-morrow's bread.' O Bethany, child, can you never learn to trust?"

"But isn't it right for me to be anxious about providing some way to keep the house?" she cried. "Isn't it right to plan and pray for the future? You can't realize how it would hurt me to give up this place."

"I think I can," he answered, gently. "You forget I have been called on to make just such a sacrifice. You can do it, too, if it is what the All-wise Father sees is best for you. Folks may not think me much of a Christian. They rarely see me in Church – my profession does not allow it. I am not demonstrative. It is hard for me to speak of these sacred things, unless it is when I see some poor soul about to slip into eternity; but I thank the good Father I know how to trust. No matter how he has hurt me, I have been able to hang on to his promises, and say, 'All right, Lord. The case is entirely in your hands. Amputate, if it is necessary; cut to the very heart, if you will. You know what is best.'"

He pushed the long tray of dishes farther on the table, and, rising suddenly, walked over to the book-shelves nearest the chimney. After several moments' close scrutiny, he took out a well-worn book.

"Ah, I thought it was here," he remarked. "I want to read you a passage that caught my eyes in here once. I remember showing it to your father."

He turned the pages rapidly till he found the place. Then seating himself by the lamp again, he began to read:

"It came to my mind a week or two ago, so full an' sweet an' precious that I can hardly think of anything else. It was during them cold, northeast winds; these winds had made my cough very bad, an' I was shook all to bits, and felt very ill. My wife was sitting by my side, an' once, when I had a sharp fit of it, she put down her work, an' looked at me till her eyes filled with tears, an' she says, 'Frankie, Frankie, whatever will become of us when you be gone?' She was making a warm little petticoat for the little maid; so, after a minute or two, I took hold of it, an' says, 'What are 'ee making, my dear?' She held it up without a word; her heart was too full to speak. 'For the little maid?' I says. 'An' a nice, warm thing, too. How comfortable it will keep her! Does she know about it yet?'

"'Know about it? Why, of course not,' said the wife, wondering. 'What should she know about it for?'

"I waited another minute, an' then I said: 'What a wonderful mother you must be, wifie, to think about the little maid like that!'

"'Wonderful, Frankie? Why, it would be more like wonderful if I forgot that the cold weather was a-coming, and that the little maid would be a-wanting something warm.'

"So, then, you see, I had got her, my friends, and Frankie smiled. 'O wife,' says I, 'do you think that you be going to take care o' the little maid like that an' your Father in heaven be a-going to forget you altogether? Come now (bless him!), isn't he as much to be trusted as you are! An' do you think that he'd see the winter coming up sharp and cold, an' not have something waiting for you, an' just what you want, too? An' I know, dear wifie, that you wouldn't like to hear the little maid go a-fretting, and saying: "There the cold winter be a-coming, an' whatever shall I do if my mother should forget me?" Why, you'd be hurt an' grieved that she should doubt you like that. She knows that you care for her, an' what more does she need to know? That's enough to keep her from fretting about anything. "Your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things." That be put down in his book for you, wifie, and on purpose for you; an' you grieve an' hurt him when you go to fretting about the future, an' doubting his love.'"

Dr. Trent closed the book, and looked into his listener's thoughtful eyes.

"There, Bethany," he said, "is the lesson I have learned. Nothing is withheld that we really need. Sometimes I have thought that I was tried beyond my power of endurance, but when His hand has fallen the heaviest, His infinite fatherliness has seemed most near; and often, when I least expected it, some great blessing has surprised me. I have learned, after a long time, that when we put ourselves unreservedly in His hands, he is far kinder to us than we would be to ourselves.

'Always hath the daylight broken,Always hath he comfort spoken,Better hath he been for yearsThan my fears.'

I can say from the bottom of my heart, Bethany, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."

The tears had gathered in Bethany's eyes as she listened. Now she hastily brushed them aside. The face that she turned toward her old friend reminded him of a snowdrop that had caught a gleam of sunshine in the midst of an April shower.

"You have brushed away my last doubt and foreboding, Uncle Doctor!" she exclaimed. "Really, I have been entertaining an angel unawares."

The old clock in the hall sounded the half-hour chime, and he rose to go.

"You have beguiled me into staying much longer than I intended," he answered. "What will my poor patients in the country think of such a long delay?"

"Tell them you have been opening blind eyes," she said, gravely. "Indeed, Uncle Doctor, the knowledge that, despite all you have suffered, you can still trust so implicitly, strengthens my faith more than you can imagine."

At the hall door he turned and took both her hands in his:

"There is another thing to remember," he said. "You are only called on to live one day at a time. One can endure almost any ache until sundown, or bear up under almost any load if the goal is in sight. Travel only to the mile-post you can see, my little maid. Don't worry about the ones that mark the to-morrows."

CHAPTER VI.

TWO TURNINGS IN BETHANY'S LANE

"Sunshine and hope are comrades."

THE early morning light streaming into Bethany's room, aroused her to a vague consciousness of having been in a storm the night before. Then she remembered the garden roses beaten to earth by the hail, and the flood of doubt and perplexity that had swept through her heart with such overwhelming force. The same old problems confronted her; but they did not assume such gigantic proportions in the light of this new day, with its infinite possibilities.

All the time she was dressing she heard Jack singing lustily in the next room. He was impatient to try the new brace, and paused between solos to exhort her to greater haste. She knelt just an instant by the low window-seat. The prayer she made was one of the shortest she had ever uttered, and one of the most heartfelt: "Give me this day my daily bread." That was all; yet it included everything – strength, courage, temporal help, disappointments or blessings – anything the dear Father saw she needed in her spiritual growth. When she arose from her knees, it was with a feeling of perfect security and peace. No matter what the day might bring forth, she would take it trustingly, and be thankful.

About an hour after breakfast she wheeled Jack to a front window. It was growing very warm again.

"It doesn't hurt me at all to sit up with this brace on," he said. "If you like, I'll help you practice, while I watch people go by on the street." He had often helped her gain stenographic speed by dictating rapid sentences. He read too slowly to be of any service that way, but he knew yards of nursery rhymes that he could repeat with amazing rapidity.

"I know there isn't a lawyer living that can make a speech as fast as I can say the piece about 'Who killed Cock Robin,'" he remarked when he first proposed such dictation; "and I can say the 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers' verse fast enough to make you dizzy."

Bethany's pencil was flying as rapidly as the boy's tongue, when they heard a cheery voice in the hall.

"It's Cousin Ray!" cried Jack. "I have felt all morning that something nice was going to happen, and now it has." Then he called out in a tragic tone, "'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.'"

"You saucy boy!" laughed Mrs. Marion, as she appeared in the doorway. "I think he is decidedly better, Bethany; you need not worry about him any longer."

She stooped to kiss his forehead, and drop a great yellow pear in his lap.

"No; I haven't time to stay," she said, when Bethany insisted on taking her hat. "I am to entertain the Missionary Society this afternoon, and Dr. Bascom has given me an unusually long list of the 'sick and in prison' kind to look after this month. It gives me an 'all out of breath' sensation every time I think of all that ought to be attended to."

She dropped into a chair near a window, and picked up a fan.

"You never could guess my errand," she began, hesitatingly.

"I know it is something nice," said Jack, "from the way your eyes shine."

"I think it is fine," she answered; "but I don't know how it will impress Bethany."

She plunged into the subject abruptly.

"The Courtney sisters want to come here to live."

"The Courtney sisters!" echoed Bethany, blankly. "To live! In our house? O Cousin Ray! I have realized for some time that we might have to give up the dear old place; but I did hope that it need not be to strangers."

"Why, they are not strangers, Bethany. They went to school with your mother for years and years. You have heard of Harry and Carrie Morse, I am sure."

"O yes," answered Bethany, quickly. "They were the twins who used to do such outlandish things at Forest Seminary. I remember, mamma used to speak of them very often. But I thought you said it was the Courtney sisters who wanted the house."

"I did. They married brothers, Joe and Ralph Courtney, who were both killed in the late war. They have been widows for over thirty years, you see. They are just the dearest old souls! They have been away so many, many years, of course you can't remember them. I did not know they were in the city until last night. But just as soon as I heard that they had come to stay, and wanted to go to housekeeping, I thought of you immediately. I couldn't wait for the storm to stop. I went over to see them in all that rain."

"Well," prompted Bethany, breathlessly, as Mrs. Marion paused.

She gave a quick glance around the room. She felt sick and faint, now that the prospect of leaving stared her in the face. Yet she felt that, since it had been unsolicited, there must be something providential in the sending of such an opportunity.

"O, they will be only too glad to come," resumed Mrs. Marion, "if you are willing. They remembered the arrangement of the house perfectly, and we planned it all out beautifully. Since Jack's accident you sleep down-stairs anyhow. You could keep the library and the two smaller rooms back of it, and may be a couple of rooms up-stairs. They would take the rest of the house, and board you and Jack for the rent. Your bread and butter would be assured in that way. They are model housekeepers, and such a comfortable sort of bodies to have around, that I couldn't possibly think of a nicer arrangement. Then you could devote your time and strength to something more profitable than taking care of this big house."

"O, Cousin Ray!" was all the happy girl could gasp. Her voice faltered from sheer gladness. "You can't imagine what a load you have lifted from me. I love every inch of this place, every stone in its old gray walls. I couldn't bear to think of giving it up. And, just to think! last night, at the very time I was most despondent, the problem was being solved. I can never thank you enough."

"The idea!" exclaimed Mrs. Marion, as she rose to go. "No thanks are due me, child. And Miss Caroline and Miss Harriet, as everybody still calls them, are just as anxious for such an arrangement as you can possibly be. They'll be over to see you to-morrow, for they are quite anxious to get settled. They have roamed about the world so long they begin to feel that 'there's no place like home.' Jack, they've been in China and Africa and the South Sea Islands. Think of the charming tales in store for you!"

"Goodness, Bethany!" exclaimed Jack, when she came back into the room after walking to the gate with Mrs. Marion. "Your face shines as if there was a light inside of you."

"O, there is, Jackie boy," she answered, giving him an ecstatic hug. "I am so very happy! It seems too good to be true."

"Cousin Ray is awful good to us," remarked the boy, thoughtfully. "Seems to me she is always busy doing something for somebody. She never has a minute for herself. I remember, when I used to go up there, people kept coming all day long, and every one of them wanted something. Why do you suppose they all went to her? Did she tell them they might?"

"Jack, do you remember the plant you had in your window last winter?" she replied. "No matter how many times I turned the jar that held it, the flower always turned around again towards the sun. People are the same way, dear. They unconsciously spread out their leaves towards those who have help and comfort to give. They feel they are welcome, without asking."

"She makes me think of that verse in 'Mother Goose,'" said Jack. "'Sugar and spice and everything nice.' Doesn't she you, sister?"

"No," said Bethany, with an amused smile. "Lowell has described her:

'So circled lives she with love's holy light,

That from the shade of self she walketh free.'"

"I don't 'zactly understand," said Jack, with a puzzled expression.

She explained it, and he repeated it over and over, until he had it firmly fixed in his mind.

Then they went back to the dictation exercises. It was almost dark when they had another caller. Mr. Marion stopped at the door on his way home to dinner.

"I have good news for you, Bethany," he said, with his face aglow with eager sympathy. "Did Ray tell you?"

"About the house?" she said. "Yes. I've been on a mountain-top all day because of it."

"O, I don't mean that!" he exclaimed, hastily. "It's better than that. I mean about Porter & Edmunds."

"I don't see how anything could be better than the news she brought," said Bethany.

"Well, it is. Mr. Porter asked me to see their new law-office to-day. They have just moved into the Clifton Block. They have an elegant place. As I looked around, making mental notes of all the fine furnishings, I thought of you, and wished you had such a position. I asked him if he needed a stenographer. It was a random shot, for I had no idea they did. The young man they have has been there so long, I considered him a fixture. To my surprise he told me the fellow is going into business for himself, and the place will be open next week. I told him I could fill it for him to his supreme satisfaction. He promised to give you the refusal of it until to-morrow noon. I leave to-night on a business-trip, or I would take you over and introduce you."

"O, thank you, Cousin Frank!" she exclaimed. "I know Mr. Edmunds very well. He was a warm friend of papa's."

Then she added, impulsively:

"Yesterday I thought I had come to such a dark place that I couldn't see my hand before my face. I was just so blue and discouraged I was ready to give up, and now the way has grown so plain and easy, all at once, I feel that I must be living in a dream."

"Bless your brave little soul!" he exclaimed, holding out his hand. "Why didn't you come to me with your troubles? Remember I am always glad to smooth the way for you, just as much as lies in my power."

When he had gone, Bethany crept away into the quiet twilight of the library, and, kneeling before the big arm-chair, laid her head in its cushioned seat.

"O Father," she whispered, "I am so ashamed of myself to think I ever doubted thee for one single moment. Forgive me, please, and help me through every hour of every day to trust unfalteringly in thy great love and goodness."

CHAPTER VII.

JUDGE HALLAM'S DAUGHTER, STENOGRAPHER

THERE was so much to be done next morning, setting the rooms all in order for the critical inspection of Miss Caroline and Miss Harriet, that Bethany had little time to think of the dreaded interview with Porter & Edmunds.

She wheeled Jack out into the shady, vine-covered piazza, and brought him a pile of things for him to amuse himself with in her absence.

"Ring your bell for Mena if you need anything else," she said. "I will be back before the sun gets around to this side of the house, maybe in less than an hour."

He caught at her dress with a detaining grasp, and a troubled look came over his face.

"O sister! I just thought of it. If you do get that place, will I have to stay here all day by myself?"

"O no," she answered. "Mena can wheel you around the garden, and wait on you; and I will think of all sorts of things to keep you busy. Then the old ladies will be here, and I am sure they will be kind to you. I'll be home at noon, and we'll have lovely long evenings together."

"But if those people come, Mena will have so much more to do, she'll never have any time to wheel me. Couldn't you take me with you?" he asked, wistfully. "I wouldn't be a bit of bother. I'd take my books and study, or look out of the window all the time, and keep just as quiet! Please ask 'em if I can't come too, sister!"

It was hard to resist the pleading tone.

"Maybe they'll not want me," answered Bethany. "I'll have to settle that matter before making any promises. But never mind, dear, we'll arrange it in some way."

It was a warm July morning. As Bethany walked slowly toward the business portion of the town, several groups of girls passed her, evidently on their way to work, from the few words she overheard in passing. Most of them looked tired and languid, as if the daily routine of such a treadmill existence was slowly draining their vitality. Two or three had a pert, bold air, that their contact with business life had given them. One was chewing gum and repeating in a loud voice some conversation she had had with her "boss."

Bethany's heart sank as she suddenly realized that she was about to join the great working-class of which this ill-bred girl was a member. Not that she had any of the false pride that pushes a woman who is an independent wage-winner to a lower social scale than one whom circumstances have happily hedged about with home walls; but she had recalled at that moment some of her acquaintances who would do just such a thing. In their short-sighted, self-assumed superiority, they could make no discrimination between the girl at the cigar-stand, who flirted with her customer, and the girl in the school-room, who taught her pupils more from her inherent refinement and gentleness than from their text-books.

She had remembered that Belle Romney had said to her one day, as they drove past a great factory where the girls were swarming out at noon: "Do you know, Bethany dear, I would rather lie down and die than have to work in such a place. You can't imagine what a horror I have of being obliged to work for a living, no matter in what way. I would feel utterly disgraced to come down to such a thing; but I suppose these poor creatures are so accustomed to it they never mind it."

Bethany's eyes blazed. She knew Belle Romney's position was due entirely to the tolerance of a distant relative. She longed to answer vehemently: "Well, I would starve before I would deliberately sit down to be a willing dependent on the charity of my friends. It's only a species of genteel pauperism, and none the less despicable because of the purple and fine linen it flaunts in."

She had not made the speech, however. Belle leaned back in the carriage, and folded her daintily-gloved hands, as they passed the factory-girls, with an air of complacency that amused Bethany then. It nettled her now to remember it.

She turned into the street where the Clifton Block stood, an imposing building, whose first two floors were occupied by lawyers' offices. Porter & Edmunds were on the second floor. The elevator-boy showed her the room. The door stood open, exposing an inviting interior, for the walls were lined with books, and the rugs and massive furniture bespoke taste as well as wealth.

An elderly gentleman, with his heels on the window-sill and his back to the door, was vigorously smoking. He was waiting for a backwoods client, who had an early engagement. His feet came to the floor with sudden force, and his cigar was tossed hastily out of the window when he heard Bethany's voice saying, timidly,

"May I come in, Mr. Edmunds?"

He came forward with old-school gallantry. It was not often his office was brightened by such a visitor.

"Why, it is Miss Hallam!" he exclaimed, in surprise, secretly wondering what had brought her to his office.

He had met her often in her father's house, and had seen her the center of many an admiring group at parties and receptions. She had always impressed him as having the air of one who had been surrounded by only the most refined influences of life. He thought her unusually charming this morning, all in black, with such a timid, almost childish expression in her big, gray eyes.

"Take this seat by the window, Miss Hallam," he said, cordially. "I hope this cigar smoke does not annoy you. I had no idea I should have the honor of entertaining a lady, or I should not have indulged."

"Didn't Mr. Marion tell you I was coming this morning?" asked Bethany, in some embarrassment.

"No, not a word. I believe he said something to Mr. Porter about a typewriter-girl that wants a place, but I am sure he never mentioned that you intended doing us the honor of calling."

Bethany smiled faintly.

"I am the typewriter-girl that wants the place," she answered.

"You!" ejaculated Mr. Edmunds, standing up in his surprise, and beginning to stutter as he always did when much excited. "You! w'y-w'y-w'y, you don't say so!" he finally managed to blurt out.

"What is it that is so astonishing?" asked Bethany, beginning to be amused. "Do you think it is presumptuous in me to aspire to such a position? I assure you I have a very fair speed."

"No," answered Mr. Edmunds, "it's not that; but I never any more thought of your going out in the world to make a living than a-a-a pet canary," he added, in confusion.

He seated himself again, and began tapping on the table with a paper-knife.

"Can't you paint, or give music lessons, or teach French?" he asked, half impatiently. "A girl brought up as you have been has no business jostling up against the world, especially the part of a world one sees in the court-room."

Bethany looked at him gravely.

"Yes," she answered, "I can do all those things after a fashion, but none of them well enough to measure up to my standard of proficiency, which is a high one. I do understand stenography, and I am confident I can do thorough, first-class work. I think, too, Mr. Edmunds, that it is a mistaken idea that the girl who has had the most sheltered home-life is the one least fitted to go into such places. Papa used to say we are like the planets; we carry our own atmosphere with us. I am sure one may carry the same personality into a reporter's stand that she would into a drawing-room. We need not necessarily change with our surroundings."

As she spoke, a slight tinge of pink flushed her cheeks, and she unconsciously raised her chin a trifle haughtily. Mr. Edmunds looked at her admiringly, and then made a gallant bow.

"I am sure, Miss Hallam would grace any position she might choose to fill," he said courteously.

"Then you will let me try," she asked, eagerly. She slipped off her glove, and took pencil and paper from the table. "If you will only test my speed, maybe you can make a decision sooner."

He dictated several pages, which she wrote to his entire satisfaction.

"You are not half as rapid as Jack," she said, laughingly; and then she told him of the practice she had had writing nursery rhymes.