The Challengers (11 page)

Melissa was all in a flutter.

"Oh!" she said excitedly. "I don't know what Mother would think. I suppose I might, but--"

"Oh, your mother wouldn't care. She'd be glad you had the chance to go so soon. You say she wasn't sure she could get away today? She would surely be glad to have you go well chaperoned"--and he waved his hand toward the stout woman in the furs. "The Mater would like company, I know. Come on, you can leave a note. Aren't you all ready to go? Run up and put your toothbrush in your bag and come on. We ought to be getting started." He glanced at his watch and beamed persuasively upon her with his great black eyes so flattering. Melissa had never had eyes flatter her so.

"But--Mother intended my sister should go, in case she couldn't," Melissa said, looking troubled.

"But your sister isn't here, you say. Surely one sister is as good as another. Besides, we can't wait for somebody to come. Here, take my pen and this leaf from my notebook and write a line. Say you'll wire when you get there and you are in good hands, or shall I write it?"

"Oh, no, thank you," said Melissa, accepting the pencil and going over to the table to write. Then she hesitated again.

"What's the matter now, sister?" urged the young man. "We're wasting good traveling time, and your brother is probably having a fit this minute because some of his family haven't arrived. You aren't afraid to go with strangers, are you?"

"Oh, no," laughed Melissa assuredly. "I know who you are. I've seen your picture in Steve's college album. You were football captain last year, weren't you?"

"Sure thing!" beamed the handsome young giant. "Now, get a hustle on, sister."

"Well, I was just thinking," said Melissa anxiously. "I haven't very much money in the house, not enough to go on a journey. I don't know as I could go until Mother comes."

"Oh, forget it," laughed the young man. "I have all kinds of money with me. I can lend you all you want. Besides, you won't need anything. You're going in the car."

"When," asked Melissa with sudden new anxiety, "are you coming back? I would have to tell Mother that. She would be anxious."

"Oh, we're coming back day after tomorrow, sure thing. The Mater has a bridge party at the house the next day, so, you see, she couldn't stay any longer."

With fear and trembling Melissa ran upstairs and hunted out her mother's little overnight bag in which she carried things to the hospital for Father, flung her night things and her only other good dress into it excitedly, wondering all the while whether she was doing wrong. She wrote only a brief explanation:

 

Dear Mother:

The mother and brother of a classmate of Steve's are driving up to college and have asked me to go along. I thought this would help out a lot as it doesn't cost me anything. I'll phone or wire when I get there. We are coming back day after tomorrow. Hoping you will think I did the best thing. They were in a hurry, so I had no time to decide.

Lovingly,

Lissa

 

She carried the note down and laid it on the dining table where they would be sure to see it at once, then locked the house and went out with her heart in her mouth to that great shiny car, almost trembling visibly from the excitement of it all. She, Melissa Challenger, taking decisions like this into her own hands and going off in a great expensive car!

"I'll have to ask you to stop a minute at the butcher shop," she explained to the young man as he took her shabby little bag from her and helped her down the steps so gallantly. "I'll have to leave the key with him and ask him to give a message to my mother about the order he will be sending up."

"Oh, sure! It won't take long, will it?"

So Melissa rushed into the butcher shop and up to the pleasant-faced butcher. He drew away from the customer he was serving and leaned over so that she would not have to talk loud. "Oh, Mr. Brady," she said sweetly, "may I trouble you to do one thing more for us? My brother was hurt last night in an accident--"

"Yes, the kid told me on his way to school," said the kindly voice gravely. "He said he didn't know whether your ma was going up or not."

"No, she wasn't sure she could. It costs a lot to travel, and you know we are rather poor just now, but I've got a chance to go for nothing, and I'm going. The family of a classmate of my brother's is going up to visit him, and they asked me to go with them. Mother and the rest are all away, and I can't stop to explain, so I'm just leaving the key here. Would you mind watching for them and giving it to them? I've left a short note at the house, but I thought they might feel better about my going so suddenly if you told them you had seen me."

"H'm!" said Brady, eyeing her anxiously. "You know the chap you're going with?"

"Well, not exactly know him, but I've seen his picture, and Steve has of course spoken of his brother, the roommate."

Brady cast an appraising glance out of the door at the expensive car.

"That the chap that came here asking for you?" he asked.

"Why, yes, I guess it is," granted Melissa. She was beginning to feel a trifle out of breath with the suddenness of it all.

"Got any money?" Brady seemed to search down to her very soul for the answer.

Melissa colored uncomfortably.

"Oh, I shan't need money," she said airily. "We're driving, you know, and they are bringing me back day after tomorrow."

"How much you got?"

"Two dollars," said Melissa haughtily, as if she had said two thousand.

"Well, here," said Brady, pulling out a fat roll of bills from his pocket and peeling off a few, "there's fifty. Take that and pin it in your dress somewheres, and don't let anybody know you got it, understand? I can't let your mother's little girl run off alone this way with strangers and no money. Here's a piece of wax paper; wrap it up and pin it inside your dress. You go in the back there by my desk and fix it up. Quick!"

"Oh, Mr. Brady!" said Melissa with very red cheeks. "I couldn't think of taking your money. Mother wouldn't like it at all. You've done altogether too much for us already."

"Nonsense! You're not taking it; you're only having it with you in case of emergency. You don't need to use it unless you have to. You can give it back to me when you get home if you don't need it, but I'll feel safer and so will your mother if you have it along. And don't you let that chap know you got it, hear? He may be all right, but what he don't know won't hurt him, see?" From under the lapel of his coat he produced two safety pins. "Now run along back there and fix it up, and I'll take a look at the car you're going in so I can tell your family about it."

Melissa somehow felt she had to obey, and she hurried back, for she did not want to keep these kind strangers waiting.

Brady was stalking leisurely in from the door as she came out of the little alcove where the desk was, feeling much more confident, truly, with that bit of wax paper pinned safely inside her dress.

"Who's the dame?" he asked Melissa as she tried to thank him with her best smile.

"His mother."

"H'm! Well! You take care o' yerself!" he admonished and then stood in the door and watched her with a troubled frown as the big car started away from the door.

Melissa felt a little like crying as she settled back on the soft cushions and realized that she was really started on a journey in this wonderful car. She looked back at the big troubled butcher there in his doorway and waved a little white hand at him, and then she took a deep breath to choke back those excited tears.

What would her mother say when she got home and read that note? What would they all say? Would they think she had done right? Well, for once, she, Melissa Challenger, had taken things in her own hands and gone ahead without waiting for anybody!

Mrs. Challenger started out to the corner drugstore where there was a telephone booth. She shivered as she went down the badly paved street, stepping carefully because the bricks were so uneven.

The sunshine was bright and warmer than yesterday, but she felt cold to the bone and sick at heart. The outside air seemed to strike a chill through her, and there was a frightened feeling at the pit of her stomach. It seemed to her that she could not drag her heavy heart through another day of anxiety and uncertainty. It was all right to say be thankful because John was getting better, was undoubtedly past the danger point now, unless some bad setback came! But supposing there was no place to take him for that year of utter quiet and rest that the physician said was an absolute necessity to his regaining his normal health again?

And how were they even to live and provide the necessary food and clothes just to keep the breath of life in them and be barely decent? With all the money gone, absolutely
gone
, except that thousand dollars that they couldn't get yet----how long would a thousand dollars last for six people who hadn't a job among them and couldn't get one? She had begun to realize that there weren't any jobs anywhere and perhaps were not going to be any for months, even years, if this depression kept on. Just what could they do? The poorhouse? Charity! She shuddered again and drew the collar of her shabby coat up closer. Had God forgotten the world? Was it as Melissa had so shockingly put it, ridiculous to expect God to look after trifles of daily life?
Was
there a God, as Melissa had asked?

It was perhaps the first time in her well-regulated life that such a real doubt had ever entered her mind. She had been brought up to believe in God, of course, and go to church regularly whenever possible. She didn't know much about God or the Bible, but she had always asserted that she believed in them. Now she was appalled by the sudden thoughts that assailed her. Why, what did her circumstances have to do with those facts of the ages? All respectable people believed in a God and the Bible as a sacred book. Of course she believed in it. This was folly. This was a product of a tired, sick, discouraged mind. This had no bearing on her burdens. Another time she would carefully consider these questions and think out a way to reconcile the fact of trouble with a loving God such as she had always been taught to believe her God was. But she had no time to consider such things now. She would go insane if she couldn't think that God somewhere, somehow, was the same as always. It was better to pray about things, even if nothing happened. Of course, it was hard to believe a God could spare time to look after every one of His creatures' daily needs. Poor little Rosalie and her beefsteak and onions! Of course, that was just a coincidence. Yet she herself had been helped to get rest and some relief from her anxiety last night after she had prayed. Well, if there wasn't anything in prayer, she didn't want to know it just now. There certainly wasn't anything else to depend on, anyway.

And now this trouble with Steve. That was what made her stomach feel so strange and empty, though she had made herself eat quite a good breakfast. Steve, her good eldest boy! Steve in trouble like this? It couldn't be that Steve had borrowed somebody's car and smashed it up. There must be some other explanation. Steve had always been such a sensible boy. Full of fun and mischief of course, but always careful of other people's things. And his father had always laid such stress on never borrowing things. It couldn't be possible.

She drew a heavy sigh as she stepped into the drugstore and proceeded to study the telephone directory, sudden tears blurring her eyes as she thought of her bright, handsome Steve laid low with a broken leg, and no telling how many other bruises and dangers, and she not there to help. Concussion! That might mean all sorts of things. It might be even worse than the telegram had stated. His very life might be in danger, and here she was shut up to telephoning instead of flying to him instantly!

It was with difficulty that she controlled her tears and set herself to find someone in that distant college town.

A person-to-person call to the dean who had wired her. That was the only thing that could satisfy her. She must talk with the one who had worded that message, with its half-sneering insinuation of blame for Steve, "a borrowed automobile," telling a whole tragedy in a single phrase! She would make him understand that her son was a responsible young man. That there need be no insinuations about what Steve had done. Steve's family would of course be responsible and make good whatever loss--! Her thoughts stopped short, suddenly fixed by the fact of the family's new poverty. They had never been rich, of course--one didn't expect college professors to be wealthy--but they had been fairly well off, having saved early in their married life and continued it throughout the years. And now grimly the appalling fact looked her in the face that the family could make nothing good now. Nothing! Not even a dollar's worth! She had not money enough even to go to her son's bedside!

It seemed hours before she finally got her call through and was informed by the operator that the dean had gone to New York for three or four days, and was there anybody else with whom she could talk?

The college president.

Another age of waiting, and then, the college president had gone south to give an address at some seat of learning.

Some other official? There was no one around at the time. When she frantically suggested the name of a professor Steve had mentioned in his letters, she was told that it was impossible to locate him at this hour.

She tried pathetically to think of names of some of Steve's associates, but only the nicknames would come to her bewildered mind.

When, in desperation, she said she would talk with the office clerk, she was merely told that they had no information concerning Mr. Stephen Challenger except that he was in the hospital in a nearby town where the accident had occurred. The clerk did not know the name of the hospital, but she would try to get it somewhere. If Mrs. Challenger would telephone again at twelve o'clock, there might be somebody in the office who would know more about it.

Heartsick, the mother hung up the receiver and leaned her head down with a soft moan on the box under the instrument.