The Challengers (3 page)

"There!" she said triumphantly, closing the hall door. "I shut something down below and turned a little handle in the back of the pipe that opened something. I guess it's all right. Anyway it stopped roaring. And I put some more coal on, too, so she can't put the fire out tonight anymore unless she pours water on it. I guess I did everything I ought to have done."

"Well, it's good to get warm anyway," said Melissa, who had come over to the register and was warming her feet.

"Yes," said Rosalie smiling. "It's nice, isn't it?"

"Now," said Melissa after she had basked in the comfortable heat for a moment, "our next need is food. What are we going to do about it? Shall we make a raid on the Barkus larder and really be put in jail, or would it be better to starve to death?"

Rosalie giggled, but it was easy to see that her laughter was near to tears.

"Seriously, Phyllis, what is there in the house? Mother will be hungry, too, when she comes. We ought to have whatever there is ready, oughtn't we?"

Melissa had a way on occasion of rising to a situation that she had been leaving to her younger sister as if she had been working hard and Phyllis doing nothing, but Phyllis was too genuinely troubled by the facts of the case to mind just now.

"Liss, there isn't a thing but the large half of a loaf of bread! Honestly! Oh, and a little tea. There isn't even hot water unless I go down and boil it on that furnace."

"Mother will have a quarter for the gas meter when she comes, won't she?" said Melissa thoughtfully.

"Maybe. But she hadn't but a dollar and five cents in her purse when she went away. If she couldn't get the money cashed today, she might have had to spend that for something for Father."

There was a silence in the room for a moment, and then Rosalie looked up with a sacrificial expression.

"I've got a quarter. It's the one that Mother gave me when I won that contest in school. I was saving it to get her a birthday present. But I guess perhaps she'd rather have tea ready when she gets home."

"I'm afraid she would, Rosy Posy," said Phyllis, stooping to kiss the sunny hair and hide her own tendency to tears. "Suppose you lend it to us on interest, a cent a month, how's that? I promise to pay as soon as my ship comes in."

"Oh, Phyl, how funny!" said Rosalie. "I don't want any interest." And she pattered over to the bureau drawer where she kept all her small belongings and rooted out the quarter from underneath her most precious things.

"It seems wicked to use it," said Phyllis as she held the quarter in her hand as if it were a jewel.

"Don't feel that way, sister," said the little girl. "I'm so glad I have it just now when we need it. Put it in quick, and I'll get the table set. Can't we have soaked bread? I love that. Lots of butter and salt and pepper and parsley and an onion, mmmmm-m, it's good."

"But we have hardly a scratch of butter," said Phyllis sadly, "just salt and a little pepper."

"Isn't there even an onion?" asked Rosalie. "I love onion in it."

"Not even an onion, nor so much as a sprig of parsley," said Phyllis. "I wonder where Bob is. He might have raised a penny or two, and we could send him for an onion."

"Why, yes, he is late, isn't he? Perhaps he hasn't got done his paper route yet. But he doesn't get his pay for that till tomorrow."

"Well, we'll have to do the best we can. Lissa, you cut the bread up and put it in the yellow bowl. Rosalie, you get your shoes and stockings on and set the table quick. Mother is liable to be here any minute, and we want it to look cheerful. Put the little geranium pot in the center; there are three buds on it almost open. It will look real festive. We'll pretend we're going to have a banquet. We ought to be very thankful that you had that quarter so we could get that gas going! It's uncanny to be without hot water."

"There's a little sugar for Mother's tea," said Rosalie, lifting the lid of the fine old china sugar bowl.

"Isn't that great!" said Phyllis with forced cheeriness. "Things aren't anywhere near as bad as they might be."

Melissa finished cutting up the hard bread with a sniff and went into the other room in the dark to stand by the window and glower.

"Oh, come on back, Lissa, and let's sing something. Things won't seem half so bad if we sing, and besides, Mother'll like to hear it when she comes in," called Phyllis.

"I can't sing!" snapped back Melissa. "I tell you, I'm hungry, and I don't think it's fair, so there!" And she flung herself down on the old davenport that was Bob's bed at night, and they could hear a choked sob.

Rosalie was laying the knives and forks carefully on the table, and her face was very serious. At last she said in a whisper to Phyllis: "Phyllie, do you think it would be all right to pray for just an onion?"

Phyllis felt her own tears near the surface again, but she tried to keep her voice steady and cheerful as she answered: "Why, I can't see that it would do any harm, dear. Unless--"

"Unless what?" asked the little girl anxiously.

"Why, unless you'd get your hopes all up, and then if it didn't come you'd be so disappointed."

"No, I won't," said the little girl. "I thought about that, but, you see, if it didn't come I'd just think God had some other way He wanted to do. He mightn't think it best for us to have an onion now."

Phyllis looked at the earnest little face wonderingly. What a sweet simplicity there was in a child's faith. She sighed, for in her own heart there was stealing a fierce resentment against something, someone, that all her dear ones should have to suffer so. She could not quite put it into words as Melissa had done and blame God, but it did seem that God, if there really was a God, had forgotten the Challengers.

Rosalie had slipped away into the big clothes closet and closed the door.

Phyllis salted and peppered her dry bread cubes, laid on top of them a little wisp of butter that had been left over from the morning meal, carefully hoarded, then lifted the steaming kettle of water and poured it over the bread till she was sure she had just the right amount, covering it tightly with the biggest plate to let it steam until Mother came. The sight and smell of even that steaming, unbuttered bread made her sick with faintness, and she turned away, blinking back the tears.

The tea was ready in the tea ball, the gas turned to the minimum under the kettle, the cups ready. Everything was done. If there were only cream for the tea and butter for the bread, plenty of butter, and an onion! How many things it took to make just plain, simple, palatable food, and how much money it took for them all! Yes, life was very horrid!

She wandered into the other room and dropped down beside Melissa on the couch, her hand on the pretty head among the pillows.

"Don't get down and out, Lissa; it makes it so hard for the rest of us!" she pleaded.

"I won't!" said Melissa meekly, sitting up and brushing down her tumbled hair. "You're a darling. You never get down and out, do you? I don't know what we would do without you. But honestly, Phyl, I'm all in. I didn't eat any breakfast this morning. I'd kind of set myself not to eat till I got a job, and it sort of made me woozy."

"You dear precious old goose!" said Phyllis, catching her in her arms and kissing her. "You're going to have a cup of tea at once. There's plenty of tea at least for tonight. Why didn't you tell me before? You must be famished."

"No, I don't want any tea now," said Melissa. "I'd rather wait till Mother comes. I couldn't bear myself after all this fuss if I ate anything before the rest of you did. But where do you suppose Mother is? She always gets here sooner than this. It's perfectly dark, Phyl, and she's always here before dark, don't you know? Every time she has been to the hospital."

"Well," said Phyllis, anxiously getting up and going to the window, "you know, she may have had to go downtown afterward to get those bonds cashed. It may have taken some time. I don't know much about bonds, do you?"

"No, not much. I have a hazy idea of having studied them in math, but it doesn't mean a thing to me now. You don't think anything has happened to her, do you, Phyl?"

"No, of course not," said Phyllis briskly, with an assurance she was far from feeling. Then suddenly she turned swiftly away from the window.

"She's coming," she said and hurried back to the kitchenette, and there was in her voice something anxious mingled with the gladness, for she had seen a droop to her mother's tired figure as she walked past the streetlight in the gloom of the evening that filled Phyllis with a sudden alarm. Could anything have happened? Was Father worse? Was there some new menace? Phyllis had an almost uncanny way of divining the truth just before it occurred.

Rosalie had heard and came out of the closet with a sweet, radiant look upon her face. She went to putting the napkins around and drawing the chairs up. Phyllis was pouring the boiling water over the tea ball, and just a second before the front door opened Melissa struck up with her clear flutelike voice, that nevertheless quavered a little unnecessarily:

 

"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home--"

and the other two slid into harmony from the kitchenette,

"Home, home, sweet, home--"

 

Mrs. Challenger closed the door and paused a second in the hall to get control of herself as the bravery of the music struck into her harrowed soul. Then she opened the hall door and stepped in, and they were upon her at once.

"Where have you been, dearest?" caroled Phyllis, seizing her wet umbrella and bearing it to the sink.

"We've been scared to death lest you had been run over," put in Melissa, unbuttoning her raincoat. "Why, Mother, you're wet to the skin! This raincoat has gone bad. And look at your feet! You didn't have any boots! Now, if
we
had done that! In this driving rain, too!"

"My dear, the soles of both boots gave out, and they flopped so they impeded my progress, so I took them off and threw them in the gutter!"

Mrs. Challenger was trying to laugh flippantly, but the girls could see a bright glitter of tears in her eyes.

"Oh, I'm glad you've come, Mother precious!" said Rosalie, putting her face up for a kiss.

"Sit right down in this chair, Mumsie," said Phyllis, "and get warm and drink yours first before you come out to dinner. Gaze on that hole in the wall called a register. Did you ever feel a heat like that come out of it before in all your experience?"

Mrs. Challenger sank into the chair that was pushed up for her and stretched her numbed fingers to the grateful heat.

"Oh, Phyllis! How did you manage it? What have you said to her?"

"She doesn't know a thing about it, Mumsie," exulted Phyllis. "She went away for the day--took the baby, locked up, left us without a spark of fire--and I went down and made it up. Do you think she'll put us all out, or send us to jail or anything?"

"
You
made the fire, dear? Oh, my dear Phyllis!"

"But isn't it wonderful?" said Rosalie dancing around and clapping her hands.

"But I didn't know you knew how to make a furnace fire," said the mother, who had never had to do such a thing in her whole life.

"Neither did I," laughed Phyllis. "But it's warm, isn't it?"

"But--hasn't Mrs. Barkus come back? What did she say?"

"No, she hasn't come yet. It's all dark over on her side of the hall. There! There's someone turning the front door key now. Perhaps she has come!" said Phyllis in sudden alarm, and they all stood breathlessly still and listened. Then the front door shut with a bang that only a boy could give it, and an eager breathless boy at that.

"It's only Bob!" said Rosalie. "Oh, I'm glad he's come!" And she rushed to open the door for him.

"Oh boy!" said Bob, rushing in and thumping down a big basket on the floor. "Whaddaya think I got? Guess!"

Rosalie stood with her hands clasped under her chin, her eyes fixed upon her brother's face and a look of breathless radiance.

But Bob could not wait for them to guess.

"A beefsteak!" he shouted. "A real beefsteak, thick as yer foot and big as they make 'em. It's all red and juicy. Oh boy! Lead me to it. All I had t'day is one banana! Who's goin' ta cook this spread?"

"A beefsteak!" breathed Rosalie with starry eyes.

Phyllis received the precious brown paper bundle, soft and damp, and looked down at the basket, which was still fairly full.

"What else is there, Bob?" asked Melissa, stooping down. "Where did you get them all? These things must have cost a lot of money. You didn't go and charge anything, did you?"

"Naw, I didn't charge anything, Funny-face! Where'dya think I'd find anybody ta charge things to, I'd like ta know? I
earned
'em, all righty. That's why I'm sa late. I dunno what all's there. I told him ta put in a lotta things, p'tates and t'mates, and cheese and crackers. I guess there's onions there, too, an' parsley--"

"Onions!" exclaimed Rosalie, her face aflame with joy. "Oh, onions, Phyllis!"
"But how did you get them, Bob?" asked Phyllis, "You couldn't have sold enough papers to buy all those things."

"Sold enough ta get a pound o' butter," said Bob indignantly. "Had Tom's route and mine both tanight. And then when I went ta Brady's ta buy a pound a butter, he asked me could I do him a favor. He'd just had a phone call from a good customer of his wanting an order sent away out in the country and his boy was gone, and he couldn't leave the shop, so I said course I'd go. I hadta take a trolley and change twice, and, gee, I thought I'd never get back! He didn't say what he'd pay me. I thought it might be a quarter, but boy! When I got back, didn't he have this basket all fixed up for me to take home, and a whole dollar besides, and he said he'd never forget it, because it was late and this was an awful good customer, and he wanted ta please her, because she buys a lot and she was awful anxious ta get the things there tanight."

"There's a glass of jelly, and some olives," announced Melissa, who had been rooting in the basket.

Then suddenly, as they all stood gazing at the wonderful basket, the mother dropped down into a little heap by the fireplace, and in dismay they turned their attention to her.