Partners (7 page)

So she got up and washed her face, dashing the cold water over it refreshingly, combed her hair, and changed her dress as if she were going out somewhere. Then she made a game of getting an interesting supper out of the odds and ends she had in her little tin box out the window, which she called her refrigerator. A stalk of celery, too tough to enjoy raw, nearly a cup of stewed tomatoes left over from yesterday, a lump of baked beans, the last of a can she had opened a week ago, a scrap of hamburger.

She put them all in her little tin saucepan and watched over them carefully, till there came out a very tasty dish of soup--was it bean or beef? At any rate, it had a delicious flavor.

There was also a lettuce leaf, two leaves of spinach, one radish, and half a tiny onion, besides the little white leaf top of the celery stalk. Minced fine they made a very attractive salad, with the last cracker from the box and a tiny wedge of cheese. It was a good dinner, and she really enjoyed it. And then as she nibbled at a single chocolate peppermint left over from some that had been passed around in the office that day, and now serving as dessert, she got to thinking that she really ought to go out somewhere and get a brighter outlook on life. She must not let herself slump this way. It was spoiling her morale. She wasn't even going to church. Perhaps that was what she needed to help her keep her trust in God.

All these days she had been like one groping, as if everything was dark about her. If only she could get to a place where it was light! She could walk with confidence again if it were only light about her! What did that remind her of? Suddenly, from somewhere back in the dear happy days of her girlhood, came words that she had often heard her mother read.

Impulsively, she got out her mother's Bible. Those words were somewhere in the little Johns, first or second, she was sure.

Scattered here and there over the pages were precious penciling from her mother's own hand, and there all at once the verses stood out underlined:

 

This then is the message. . .that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light
, we have fellowship one with another----

Fellowship! She paused and read the verses over again. Fellowship. She hadn't been having fellowship with anyone for this long time. She hadn't even tried to have fellowship with any other Christians. She could almost hear the troubled words her dear mother would have spoken about it.

And suddenly there came to her a desire to change that. She would go to church! She would go this very night! This was Wednesday night and some church would likely be having prayer meeting. She would just start out and find a prayer meeting!

So she put on her hat and coat and gloves and started.

There were loud voices from the front room where the noisy roomers were gathered playing cards. Their raucous voices rang out to the hall and made Dale's sensitive nerves cringe.

"What am I? A frail flower?" she said to herself angrily. "That I can't stand the unpleasant things of earth. Fellowship!" she repeated. "How could one have fellowship with people like that?"

She gave a little shudder as an oath ripped out through the hall, and then one of the girls screeched, "Give me another glass of beer, can'tcha? I'm perishing fer a drink!"

She hurried out into the evening, glad to get away from the atmosphere.

"Am I wrong," she asked herself, "that I can't fellowship with such people?"

Then to her soul came a clear, quick answer, from more words stored away in her memory, hardly comprehended until now.

"Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord."
That must mean come out from people who are not His own. The fellowship must be with those who know and love the Lord, else there can be no true fellowship for a believer. That's why she was going to church tonight, to try and find some people who love the Lord; to get strength and assurance from being with them.

It was marvelous the way the things she had learned in the past were coming back to her now. How she had wandered away from the path in which her father and mother had trained her young feet from babyhood! How many things she knew that she had not put to use in these hard days! What a fool she had been to let them slip away from her when these were just the times for which they had been given, to save her from drifting into doubt and despair. She had allowed a kind of belligerence to get into her mind, as if her troubles and fears were God's fault, and she had been going on in her hard way, half pitying herself for being treated like this!

Then all at once she came to a little chapel where she had been twice before and where she had heard great truths uttered in a sweet simplicity.

 

"God's way is the right way,

God's way is the best way,

I'll trust in Him always,

He knoweth the best."

 

It seemed extraordinary that they should have sung that just then, as she was entering. She could not get away from the thought that God was speaking to her through the whole service.

The young minister began to read the eighth chapter of Romans, and presently he came to the verse: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose."

The minister lifted his eyes a moment and in a quiet voice asked, "And what
is
that purpose to which He has called us?"

He read the next verse: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his Son
!"

He lifted his eyes again and looked steadily at them, speaking in a quiet, impressive, conversational tone.

"Then God's whole purpose in whatever He is doing to you, whatever He is allowing in your life, is that you may be transformed into the image of God's Son. That you may be
like Him
. Remember God first made man in His own image, but through sin man lost that glorious image. No man today would ever be recognized as being from God's family, would he? But God loved us so much that He sent His dear Son to be crucified for our sins, to purchase our pardon with His precious blood, and to restore us to His image. All that He allows to come to us is for that purpose, that we may resemble God again, that we may be as younger brethren to His dear Son. It is only so that we can really represent our Lord and witness for Him."

Dale sat startled, fascinated by his words. It seemed as if they had been spoken just for her, and as if God Himself had sent them to her. She felt arraigned there in the presence of God for having doubted Him, for having grieved and worried about her small trials, when all the time it was just God, doing needful things for her, that the presence of His glory might be restored to her marred and sinful self!

She wanted to bow her head and weep, but she sat there quietly enough, the color soft in her pale cheeks, the glint of earnestness in her sweet eyes. She did not know it herself of course, but she was very sweet and attractive as she sat there listening, and more than one noted the lovely girl who seemed to be drinking in what was said.

Afterward they came and spoke to her, welcomed her to their midst. Some of them asked her where she lived and begged her to come again.

"I'm not sure I shall be there very long," she said as she gave her address, with sudden remembrance of her vanishing job. "It's a long way off, but I'll come again when I can, and if I move I'll try to get near here. I like your church. I'll surely come again if I can. I've been helped tonight." She said it shyly, very quietly, and they watched her and really hoped she would come again. She had come out here to this little church in search of fellowship. Fellowship of those who knew and loved her Lord. She had been trying to walk in the light, and now she had found fellowship, and it was sweet to her. They were strangers, yes, but they spoke as brothers and sisters. They spoke the dear old family language of those who were God's children, born-again ones. How the old accustomed phrases came back and slipped into place. She was among God's family again, and it was good to be here.

And then the very next morning the blow fell!

The sun had a very uncertain look as she glanced out of the window while she was hurrying to get her dressing and breakfast out of the way. There were many anxious-looking little bluish-gray clouds scurrying around as if uncertain of directions. And when she went out the door a bitter wind caught her, and pulled at her garments, and flung cold down her neck and into her face; a wild wicked wind that set her shivering and gave her a miserable inadequate feeling as if the way to the office was too hard, too long.

"But I am trusting in the Lord," she told herself. "I must not forget that all day. He is setting the pace for me, and there is nothing for me to do but follow where He leads me."

She took a deep breath of the sharp cold and lifted her head and shoulders to go forward. This was a day that made her remember the promise of a nice warm squirrel coat that her father had made her just before Christmas came, and she hadn't had the fur coat. Mother couldn't get it for her, though she would gladly have done so. There wasn't money enough, and Mother had to have doctors and operations; there never had been money enough. But just the thought of that promise in the long ago was pleasant. How good it would have felt to snuggle into the deep fur collar this morning, and how glad both her father and mother would have been to have left it behind them to keep their child warm! And God cared just as much as they did, only He saw that there was something that Dale Hathaway needed more than fur coats to help her to conform to the image of His Son. That was the important thing.

Of course, for the time being, and down here in the cold, Dale couldn't quite understand how important it was for her to conform to the image of God's Son, but He did, and she had just come to realize that He did, therefore she must not worry, nor fret for a fur coat.

So she started to hum the tune of the song they had sung in meeting last night, and her spirits rose in spite of the fierce wind.

As she turned the corner into the broad avenue where her office was located a wicked little bitter snowflake stung her face. Snow? Was it going to snow? She cast an imploring look up at those scurrying, turbulent, multicolored clouds. They might snow, or they might clear away into brightness by and by, but somehow they had an ominous look.

She was glad when she was safe at the office and seated at her desk, getting a few odds and ends from yesterday out of the way before the mail and dictation time came.

It was mid-morning when Miss Alice arrived, blowing in with stars in her eyes and flowers on her cheeks and snowflakes in her hair.

Dale looked up as the door opened, perhaps because her heart had been waiting for just this, expecting. She knew at once who she was, and her heart almost skipped a beat and then hobbled painfully on.

She wasn't a young girl, she was older then Dale, with experience written all over her plain, pleasant face, and joy and sunshine in her eyes. It was incredible that she could have retained so much joy and sunshine when she was just emerging from such a desperate illness as they said she had been experiencing.

She had gray eyes, and long heavy hair coiled graciously and easily about her head in smooth braids. She had pleasant lips devoid of makeup, and a faint color whipped into her cheeks by the wind. She was glad to get back. You could see that in her eyes. Those stars in her eyes were gladness, and Dale like her at once, and felt a sudden pride that she had been able to substitute for such a woman.

The office came clamoring joyously about her, welcoming her. There hadn't been such a hubbub in that office since Dale had been there. And she must sit quietly and do her work until it was taken from her!

So her fingers went skillfully forward accomplishing wonders in a short time. She didn't want to leave scraps of work behind for the other secretary to finish up.

They introduced her to Miss Alice, and strangely she felt as if she was a friend, at least one whom she would like to have for a friend, even if her coming did mean that her job was gone.

But she went on and finished the typing of the dictation she had taken. And then when she took the letters to her chief for his signature, he asked her to sit down.

"Perhaps you know that the one whose place you have been taking has returned," he said pleasantly. He was trying to let her down easily. It choked her all up so that she couldn't make her voice sound natural as she tried to answer.

"Yes," she managed, trying to look as if she were cheery about it.

The manager was eyeing her keenly.

"Well, I've done what I promised," he said. "I've been looking around to find something else for you, for, you see, we do appreciate it that you were willing to come in for an uncertain time, and you've done well! We've no fault to find with your work. You understand if we had need for another secretary you would undoubtedly be our choice, and we can recommend you most heartily to anyone who is in need of such work. I'm just sorry that we have no place for you here. But I think I have found something even better for you."

He paused, and Dale drew another long breath and looked at him wistfully, with just a shade of hope in her eyes.

"Oh, that's very kind of you," she murmured, too tense really to take in what he was saying. Something better! That wouldn't be likely.

"Yes," he said with a satisfied smile. "It's a better salary. I suppose that will please you, won't it?"

"Better salary?" said Dale half dazed. She hadn't dared to dream of anything like that. "What is it? Where is it?"

"Well, that's it. It isn't exactly what you're doing now. And it wouldn't be daytime work. It would be evening work."

"Evening work?" Dale looked at him startled.

The manager was appraising her.

"Yes," he said pleasantly. "I thought I was rather fortunate in finding it for you. Of course, you may never have done anything of the sort, but I'm banking on you being able to work into it."