The Challengers (30 page)

It was Jenifer who had suggested that there would have to be a hospital room downstairs for a time till the two invalids were well enough to walk upstairs. So the girls had established two beds, one at either end of the great sunny room, and it was here they put their father to bed to rest after the ride.

They fed him with broth that Phyllis had made and left him to rest, but when they came tiptoeing in to see if he was all right, they found him lying happily, looking off across the beautiful rolling hills that were just putting on their lovely spring foliage. He seemed very happy, and not at all excited.

After he had had his dinner, they told him more of the surprise, all about Stephen coming, too, and how they were going to meet him.

Young Garrison came over in the late afternoon with a great sheaf of roses, a whole hundred of them, and some pots of hyacinths and daffodils. He went in to see the invalid and be introduced, though indeed Phyllis had told her father of him two weeks before. She stood by, watching Graham's face as he was talking with her father, and she could see he admired the scholarly professor.

"Say, he's all right," he said to Phyllis as he went out. "Boy! What wouldn't I give if I had a father like that! Now, when your mother gets here, I'm going to be happy."

Phyllis loved it that he said such things about her father and mother. It made him fine in her eyes. She watched him down the driveway, walking with his head up, and thought how nice it was to have a friend like that and how good God had been to her. Then she turned back to her cooking, for there was to be a real company supper that first night. Chicken with the little biscuits and gravy that were a tradition in the Challenger family for any festivity. Mashed potatoes, onions----Rosalie insisted on them--and snow pudding that invalids could eat.

Melissa had gone to meet the train with Jenifer and bring Mother and Stephen home. It was almost time for them to come. The table was set with the best Forsythe china, and everything was ready. In a few minutes now Bob and she would help Father into his best dressing gown and get him to the big davenport before the fire in the library. There he would be among the bookcases, which were filled with many books now, for the girls had delved into boxes and barrels and brought them out and shelved them. Oh, it was a wonderful day for the Challengers!

But before Bob came back from getting another bottle of milk from the farm half a mile away, Graham came in again.

"I thought perhaps you'd let me help some more," he said wistfully. "I'd awfully like to be here when they come, if you don't mind. It seems as though they sort of belonged to me, too," he said, with a funny little wrinkle around his engaging eyes.

So it was Garrison's strong arm that helped the professor to his couch before the fire, brought him his medicine and a rug to lay across his feet, and hovered about telling what he knew of the old Forsythe house till Rosalie announced from her perch in the wide window seat, "There they come! I can see Ian's car just coming up over the hill. The greyhound on the front shines red in the setting sun. Oh, Mother's coming back! Mother's coming back! I'm glad, glad, glad!"

Then all was bustle and stir for a few minutes while they helped carry Stephen in to his bed.

But Stephen was like one revived. He looked around everywhere and smiled, and when he passed through the wide hall, he looked toward his father on the couch and waved his hand cheerfully.

"Hello, Dad! Isn't this great?" he shouted as he was borne past; and then he protested, "I'm not going in another room to bed yet. I want to go in there with Dad and see everybody together. There's another couch on the other side of the fire. Why can't I go there?"

And so he had his way, and the Challengers gathered around the fire just as Phyllis had dreamed they would when she first saw the room.

When they were settled on the two couches, Mary Challenger took her first look around the great beautiful room.

"Phyllis! Phyllis! No wonder you said you knew a lovely place. But, my dear, isn't this going to be very expensive? It looks like a wonderful private home. This is not a hotel!"

"No, Mother dear," laughed Phyllis, "it is a private house. I knew the lady who owns it. She's lovely, and she won't charge us anything. We can have it as long as we like."

"Oh, my dear!" said the mother, looking wistfully about. "It's very wonderful, but you know we can't be under obligation like that. We must look for something right away, the first thing in the morning. You know, Father will never stand for being under obligation to anyone."

Phyllis's eyes were dancing.

"He will this time though, Mother, for he happens to be married to the owner. Mother, haven't you really suspected at all that this is your own house that you inherited from your cousin?"

They all stood there watching her with broad grins of delight on their faces and their eyes dancing with fun--Rosalie dancing and clapping her hands, Bob with his eyebrows up to his hair his eyes were so wide with merriment, Melissa smiling in the doorway with Jenifer just behind her, and Graham peeking in around the other corner of the opening.

Mary Challenger stood and stared at them all, then up at the oak beams of her palatial home, down at the beautiful hardwood floor, out through the vistas of the arched windows toward the dying sunset. "Not
this
! This can't be my house!" she said, and then the tears trembled into her eyes, bright tears, and she took one step and knelt beside her husband's couch and buried her head on his shoulder. "Oh, John, and I've been so untrustful!" she said. "So worried and afraid lest God wouldn't take care of us, and here He has given me all this!"

The professor-invalid laid his thin hand on his wife's head like a tender blessing and said feelingly: "You deserve it all and more, Mary--beloved!"

It was after supper had been served in various places, to the invalids in the library and to the rest of the family including Jenifer and Garrison in the dining room, that they gathered again around that open fire for just a few minutes before the invalids were put to bed.

The nurse had been sent away in the Garrison servants' car to catch the evening train back to his hospital. They were together at last as a family, for Jenifer and Garrison had succeeded in making themselves a part of it somehow already, and a sweet silence hovered over them all. Phyllis had turned out the lights and was sitting on the floor by her father's couch with the flicker of the firelight on her face, and Garrison stood by the big mantel watching her surreptitiously. Rosalie was curled in her mother's lap in deep peace, Bob in one of the window seats with his chin on his knees looking out at the stars, Melissa on a little stool beside her brother's couch, and Jenifer around the other corner of the mantel watching her.

Suddenly the master of the house spoke.

"Children, this has been a wonderful day. The blessedest day of my whole life, except my wedding day." And he smiled across at his Mary. "I've been thinking before we part I'd like to say a little word while we're all together. No, don't go away, you two," he said as a little stir in the shadows of the mantel showed the two young men about to withdraw and leave the family to itself. "Jenifer, Garrison, you have helped to make this happiness of ours possible. You are one with us tonight. And what I have to say I want to say to you, too.

"No, Mother, don't you stop me. I'll not be but a minute. It won't tire me. It's the crowning of the day. I want to give a testimony this first night in this new home before I sleep.

"I want to say that I have to thank the Lord for sending my illness to me. I do believe He did it in kindness. I was getting so far away from Him that I scarcely believed in His power anymore. And when He laid me low, He began to teach me again to look to Him. For a time I was in despair. I thought I should lose my mind, to see my attainments, my family, my ambitions all in the dust----to see myself a failure, sick and ready to die.

"Then the Lord sent a servant of His, an old minister to visit me one day. He was there in the hospital with a sickness worse than mine. A painful sickness that racked his body sometimes till he almost fainted. He was there to die because his disease was a fatal one. And yet he wore such radiance constantly and went about whenever he was able, telling others of his mighty Lord and what He had done for him, that I was ashamed, and one day I asked him to pray for me and he did. Such a prayer as brought me close to the throne. Every day after that he came into my room when he was able and read the Bible with me and prayed. I never knew what a book that was before. Oh, it's a great book!

"Now, Mary, the thing I want to say to you, and to my children, and to these other two friends here who have been so kind to you all, is this. I'm a new man now, please God. The Lord Jesus is to come first in my life henceforth. I believe I've been born again, and I'd like to go on record this first night in the world again, in our new home, as saying that I want our house to be a house of prayer. Yes, Mother, I'm not going to talk any longer. I'm just going to ask Jenifer here to read a few verses from the Book of books and pray a short prayer with us before he goes. Can you see by the firelight--Ian?"

"All right, sir!" said Jenifer with a ring to his voice, and he had his Testament out of his pocket and was stooping to the firelight, fluttering the leaves over as if he had known this was to come to pass.

It was a sweet stillness that hung over the little group. The boy Garrison stood in awe and watched it. It was like no experience that had ever come to him before.

Jenifer read: "I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. . . . I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. O taste and see that the Lord is good. . . . The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. . . . none of them that trust in him shall be desolate."

There followed such a prayer as brought the Lord Christ down into their very midst, and in the hush and quiet of the room no heart was unmoved. Stephen's head was turned away toward the back of the couch, and there were tears upon his cheeks. Even Bob rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, and Graham Garrison stood with bowed head in wonder and awe; he did not know he could feel.

After they rose from their knees, they were very quiet about their good nights. Phyllis turned on the lights in the hall, and the young men lingered to help the invalids into the other room.

Graham Garrison took Mary Challenger's hand in good night and said in a voice that was all husky with feeling: "You Challengers are a great bunch. I shall never cease to be thankful I met your daughter and got to know you. I appreciate being here tonight."

Jenifer took Melissa's hand for a moment at parting. "Our God is a great God!" he said quietly.

"Wasn't it wonderful!" said little Melissa. "I'm so happy tonight I don't know what to do! And to think I wondered how Father would take it! Oh, I'm glad God sent you to us!"

"So am I!" said Jenifer and then pressed her fingers with a quick clasp and a bright smile and was gone.

Out under the starlight Garrison was waiting for Jenifer.

"Come over and stay with me tonight, Ian!" he said. "I'd like to hear more about this thing. How do you get that way?"

Ian Jenifer threw an arm across the other's shoulder. "All right, Graham, I'll come. I'd like to," and then added thoughtfully, "Aren't those Challengers a dear family?"

"They certainly are," said the younger man. "I never saw anyone like them before. I'd like to belong to that family."

"So would I!" echoed Jenifer heartily.

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL (1865–1947) is known as the pioneer of Christian romance. Grace wrote over one hundred faith-inspired books during her lifetime. When her first husband died, leaving her with two daughters to raise, writing became a way to make a living, but she always recognized storytelling as a way to share her faith in God. She has touched countless lives through the years and continues to touch lives today. Her books feature moving stories, delightful characters, and love in its purest form.