Chance of a Lifetime

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

About the Author

Rockland, New York
Autumn 1931

T
he morning Alan MacFarland’s father broke his leg, Alan got a special delivery letter from his former high school professor, inviting him to accompany him as a sort of assistant, at a small salary, on an archaeological expedition to Egypt that was to sail from New York in three days.

“I would have given you more notice if it had been possible,” wrote Professor Hodge, “but the vacancy only just occurred through the resignation of a young man who was taken seriously ill. I have recommended you, and I hope you will be able to accept. It will be the chance of your lifetime. The salary is not large nor the position notable, but the experience will be great. I am sure you will enjoy it. You are young, of course, but I have great belief in your character and ability, and have told our leader that I am sure you will make good. It will be necessary for you to write at once if you wish to hold the job, as there are other eager applicants; but you have precedence.”

There followed a list of necessities that Alan must bring with him, and directions to the place of meeting with the rest of the expedition.

Alan was sitting at his father’s desk in the Rockland Hardware store reading this letter. He had just come from the house, at his father’s request, to open the mail and answer one or two important letters that were expected. This letter of his own had been brought to the store by mistake instead of being delivered at the house, and therefore it happened that the great temptation of his young life was presented to him all alone, away from the watchful, loving eyes of his mother or his father.

Alan’s first reaction was wonder and awe that he, Alan MacFarland, just a graduate of the Rockland High School, had been chosen for such a marvelous honor, a place in the great expedition to Egypt! There was nothing in the whole world of honors that Alan could think of that he would more desire to do. He had always been interested in archaeology, and his soul throbbed with eagerness. To go in company with Professor Hodge, who had given him his first interest in ancient things, seemed the height of bliss. His eyes shone as he read, and his breath came in quick gasps of wonder. He looked up at the last word of the letter with a dazed expression and stared about him, as if to make sure that he was awake and in the land of the living, not dreaming or anything.

A chance like that to come to him! A smile broke over his face as he sat with the letter still in his hand and gazed through the iron grating that surrounded the cash desk. Across the store were shelves filled with neat boxes, green and brown and red, all labeled; gimlets and screwdrivers and chisels in orderly rows, but he saw instead a wide desert under a hot orient sky, and toilers in the sand, bringing forth treasures of the ancients. He saw himself with a grimy, happy face, a part of the great expedition, exploring tombs and pyramids and cities of another age.

Suddenly the immediate environment snapped on his consciousness; bright gleaming tools of steel and iron—saws and hammers and nails and plows; and the desert faded. They fairly clamored at him for attention like so many helpless humans.

“What are you going to do about us?” they asked. “Your father is helpless, and we are your responsibility.”

Alan’s smile suddenly faded even as the desert had done.

“But this is the chance of my lifetime!” he cried out indignantly to himself. “Surely Father would want me to accept. Surely he would not stand in my way.”

“Yes, but are you willing to put it up to him?” winked an honest oatmeal boiler, aghast. “You know what your father told you this morning! You know how touched you were when he told you that he could bear the pain and the being laid aside, since he knew you were free to take over the store and that he could trust you to run it as well as he would have done himself.”

“But there is Uncle Ned,” cried out Alan’s eager youth. “He has nothing in life to do now since he has retired, and surely he could look after things for a while till Dad is on deck again!”

Then conscience spoke.

“You know what your father said this very morning about Uncle Ned. You know he told you that Uncle Ned let everything run down, and got the books all mixed up those six weeks he had charge while your father went to California last year. And you know your father said there was a crisis just now in his affairs and that if he couldn’t tide things over for the next six weeks he would lose all he gained in his lifetime.”

Alan’s hand make a quick nervous movement in laying down the letter, and a heavy paperweight in the form of a small steam engine, a souvenir of the last dinner of the United Hardware Dealers the elder MacFarland had attended, fell with a clatter to the floor.

Alan stooped and picked it up, and it seemed as he did so that all the blood in his body rushed in one anguish flood to his face, and throbbed in his neck and head. Was this appalling thing true, that he was going to even consider whether or not it was right to accept this wonderful offer? Surely, surely, his father would not permit him to make such a sacrifice!

Then his conscience held up before him the picture of his father as he had seen him just a few minutes before, his face white with pain, his lips set in a strong endurance, his voice weak from shock; and again he heard the trembling sentences from those strong lips that had never acknowledged failure before:

“There’s a note to be met, son, the first of next week. The man is needing money badly and will foreclose if it isn’t paid. I thought I had it all fixed up, but I got his letter last night, and I reckon that’s what I was thinking about when I crossed the street in front of that car. You see, the worst of it is he has a purchaser ready to take over the store and give him cash at once on foreclosure. I suspect it’s that evil-eyed Rawley that’s been hanging around asking questions the last three weeks, and there’s nothing for it but to raise the money somehow— There are those city lots we’ve been saving for Mother—They’ll have to go, unless you can get Judge Whiteley to fix up another mortgage somehow to tide us over—”

The voice had failed with a new wave of pain, and Alan’s mother had signaled him in alarm.

“That’s all right, Dad,”
Alan’s strong young voice had rung out with assurance.
“I’ll fix that up okay. You don’t need to worry a minute! And of course I can run the store. You needn’t think anything is going wrong just because you are taking a few days’ rest.”

That was how he had cheered his father, one short hour before, and walked down the street with his shoulders back and a proud feeling of responsibility upon him to take over the business and make it succeed, pull it out of a hole as it were. How his heart had responded to his father’s appeal.

And here he was considering dropping the whole thing, shedding the whole responsibility like a garment that could be discarded at will, and running off to play at digging up gold vases in some dead king’s tomb! Calling it the chance of a lifetime and crying out for an opportunity to fulfill his dreams and ambitions, while his father lay in pain and discouragement and saw his own life struggles and ambitions end in utter failure, too late to mend.

Well, he couldn’t do that, of course. He couldn’t lead his own life at the expense of all Dad had done, not now, just as things were nearing a fulfillment of his dreams. And in a sense Dad was doing it all for his sake and Mother’s. Who was he to presume to live his own life at the expense of his parents’? And why should his life be any more important in the universe, and in the eyes of God, than his father’s life and fortunes were?

He was sitting up now, with the paperweight in one hand and the letter in the other, staring at the four walls of the hardware store that had always seemed so important and so friendly to him. These questions were being shouted at him by a bright chisel that caught the light of the sun through the window, by a keg of gleaming wire nails that stood behind the counter within sight at his right hand, by a bundle of ax handles that bunched together over in the corner next to a great burlap bag of grass seed. All these inanimate creatures suddenly seemed to come alive and accuse him. Even a box of bright little seed packets left over from the spring seemed to reproach him. And then he seemed suddenly to have to defend himself to them all; he, the son of the house, who was now in command and expected to bring order out of the confusion and trouble. What made any of them
think
he was going to desert, his glance seemed to say, as his upper lip stiffened and his chin lifted, just the slightest, perceptible bit?

Alan laid down the paperweight and grasping his father’s pencil began to write on the back of Professor Hodge’s envelope.

He counted the words carefully, and then reached out his hand for the telephone, but instead of calling Western Union as he had intended, he hesitated, with his fingers on the receiver, looked about thoughtfully, firmly, as though the matter was settled of course, but stuffed the scribbled envelope down in his pocket and called his home.

“How’s Dad, Mother? The doctor been there? What does he say? What?
Ohhh–h!
He does? Did you say he thinks it’s a difficult fracture? He said Dad might be a long time in bed? What’s the word? Complications? Oh! Worry? Why no, of course not! There’s nothing whatever to worry about. Tell Dad I’m at the helm and the ship is sailing fine. I’ll get all this mess straightened out in great shape, don’t you be afraid. Just tell him so! Tell him— Tell him I’m having—the time of my life! Why—tell him—I’m having”—he caught his breath as if a pain had shot through him and ended in a bright voice—”Tell him I’m having the chance of a lifetime. See? And don’t you worry, little Mother! Dad’ll pull through beautifully. This is just his chance to rest. He’s worked hard for years. It’s my turn to take the helm!”