The Challengers

by Grace Livingston Hill

  "Oh, I don't know. I'll think about it. I'm not sure what I ought to do."

  "But don't they say what they want to see you about?"

  "Why, yes, they mention property, but I don't know what property they mean. I don't suppose it is anything of any importance. I really haven't time to bother with it this morning. I must look after getting some money together for us to live on. If Mr. Cass, that old friend of your father's, was at home, I believe I would go to him and tell him all about our circumstances and ask his advice, only I know Father would hate so to have us tell anybody about it. Father is awfully proud and reticent, you know. Still, when it comes to a place where we haven't enough to eat, I think he'd want us to do anything. Oh, I wish I dared ask him, but the doctor positively said he must not be bothered in any way. Of course, that Mr. Cass has money himself, a lot of it, and was always very generous. He would probably lend us something, a hundred or so, at least until the bank would open and we could pay him back again. But Mr. Cass is in Europe this winter, so that's out of the question." She sighed deeply again and put her thin blue-veined hand up to her face.

  "Mother," said Phyllis at last, looking down at her lap where she was pinching little folds of her apron into accordion pleats in an embarrassed way, "if you really believe in God, why couldn't you ask Him, the way Rosalie suggested?"

  "Well, I could, of course. In fact, I did," said the mother, also embarrassedly.

  "Well, go and ask Him again," said Phyllis. "Do it now! Lissa and I will go around this room and the kitchenette and make an inventory of all the things we think we might sell, and you go into the bedroom and ask God to do something about it."

  "What a silly idea!" flamed out Melissa indignantly. "Don't make Mother ridiculous! I didn't know you were so superstitious. You certainly need a year at college!" And Melissa tossed her head in a superior way she had when her experience at college was mentioned.

  "It's not superstition! It's good sense!" responded Phyllis good-naturedly. "If there is a God and He wants us to pray, I think we ought to try it. Come on, Liss. Get your pencil and begin work. There's that old chair; write that down first."

  "Nobody would buy that!" scorned Melissa.

  "You can't tell what folks would buy till you try them. I'm going out to get a secondhand man to come and give us his price. We'll put in everything we could actually do without and see what it amounts to. There's one thing certain: what we sell we don't have to move, anyway, and outside of that cuckoo clock there isn't one thing in this room that I personally would weep for if it were gone. How about it? There's the sewing machine for the second item."

  "It's old and junky. Everybody has electric machines now."

  "Not everybody. There's an old woman down that alley over there that hasn't got one. I shouldn't wonder if she'd give at least fifty cents for this one."

  "Oh, fifty cents! What's that?" said Melissa contemptuously.

  "It's something," said Phyllis. "Two of them make a whole dollar, you know. Come, get to work."

  "But what would you sew with if it were gone?" queried Melissa thoughtfully.

  "We still have a needle or two left," said Phyllis.

  Mrs. Challenger lingered around a minute or two watching them, and then she slipped shyly into her bedroom and shut the door. Later they thought they heard sounds of sobs, but half an hour later when she came out she wore a more peaceful look on her face and smiled at them.

  "I'm going out now, dears," she said, trying to make her voice sound cheerful. "I'll try to be back by lunchtime. But if I'm not, don't go without eating again. There's bacon enough, isn't there?"

  "Yes, lots of bacon yet," said Phyllis, "and a whole loaf of bread not touched. We'll lunch luxuriously. But don't you dare go without any lunch yourself. Here, I'll make a sandwich for you to take along in your bag. We still have half a roll of wax paper left, thank fortune. Yes, you've got to take it. Look how you came home last night, all in! Now, you'll be good and eat it, won't you, Mother dear?"

  "But where are you going?" asked Melissa, with troubled eyes. "You aren't going to the hospital again, are you?"

  "No, they wanted Father to have absolute quiet today after his examination yesterday. They promised him if he did just as he was told that he could come out and come 'home,' they called it, in a week or ten days now. Just think if he has to come to Slacker Street! It would set him all back again. He hasn't an idea what kind of place we are living in."

  "Well, we're leaving here today," said Phyllis with determination. "Mother, have we your permission to sell some of this junk? And do you mind if we go out and find a room for tonight, even if it is only one room?"

  "Sell whatever you think we can get along without," said the mother indifferently, "and find a room if you can. We can crowd in anywhere for a while till we can look around."

  "I don't like the look in Mother's eyes," said Melissa after the mother was gone. "I believe she's gone to pawn her wedding ring."

  "I'm afraid she has," said Phyllis, looking out of the window after her mother's slender figure.

  "Well, we've got to do something, that's all," said Melissa. "Will you go out for that secondhand man or shall I?"

  "You go," said Phyllis. "I'll stay here and get the things we want to sell all together so things won't get mixed up. You don't think we need this rug, do you? It isn't a very grand one, nor very large, but it's Oriental, or was once, and it ought to bring a little something. Go to that place on the corner of Tenth Street. They seem to be a little more respectable than the others."

  But Mrs. Challenger had not gone to pawn her wedding ring yet. She was hurrying breathlessly down the street toward the main avenue and the business part of the town and gripping more closely in her hand the letter that had come to her that morning.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Stephen Challenger sat on the edge of his iron bedstead in the top floor of his college dormitory, carefully darning a hole in his trousers. He had never had to do anything of the sort before, and he didn't know how to do it right, he was sure, but he had to have the trousers; there wasn't anything else for him to wear, and before that objectionable hole had arrived in the trousers he had asked a girl to go with him to a college dance.

  It was a terrible predicament to be in, and there seemed absolutely no way to get out of it. He simply couldn't tell the girl about it. She would wonder why he didn't wear another pair of trousers. He couldn't tell a girl he hadn't another pair of trousers, could he? He couldn't say that he had spilled soup on his second-best ones when he was waiting on tables and in cleaning them had worn a hole in the knee of one leg a great deal more noticeable than this one he was now mending in his very best ones. He couldn't ask her to go with another fellow, could he, when she was a girl he had been trying to get to go with him all winter, and he hadn't had a chance with her because Sam de Small had been rushing her? This was Stephen's one and only chance at Sylvia Saltaine.

  Sylvia! He said her name over softly as he darned the coarse black thread in and out of the frayed dark blue serge that had till then composed the seat of his best trousers.

  Sylvia Saltaine. Her name glided along just like herself, all trailing chiffons and soft fluttery scarfs and pastel colors. Her garments always seemed to just drift about her as if they loved her. She was so feminine and lovely.

  Her hair was lighter than most blond hair. It was almost startlingly gold, a sort of white gold. Was that what they called ash-blond? He wasn't sure. And her eyes were so very large and blue under those long curling dark lashes. Of course, she did use too much mascara on her lashes sometimes, at least his mother might think so, but of course that was a minor matter, and it did set out her gold hair and very pink cheeks and blue eyes. And her mouth!

  But there was another point on which his mother might not quite agree with him. Her mouth was very red. Of course, he had been brought up to think that really nice girls didn't do that, but he couldn't deny that on Sylvia it did make a wonderful combination. Oh, his mother couldn't h
elp but see how lovely Sylvia was in spite of all these things.

  Of course, his sister Melissa was a pretty girl. He had always been proud of her looks. He was yet. He loved to take Melissa places, though she really was only a kid, a freshman at college, and he a senior. Yes, Melissa was a dear kid and pretty as a peach, and she never used lipstick. Mother wouldn't let her. But she was a different type, and perhaps even she, when she was older----Mother was apt to be a trifle Victorian. It didn't do any harm to be that way. Sort of protected his kid sister, he supposed. But Sylvia was another type. Sylvia was--

  Stephen left that sentence unfinished and gave his entire attention to his needle, which had come unthreaded for the sixth time since he sat down to sew.

  Gosh! Now he had stuck the blamed thing into his thumb! How did women manage to sew so much anyway? Well, he was doing his best, but somehow the hole looked all puckered around the edge. Would a good pressing take that out and make it seem all right? he wondered.

  Steps sounded along the hall, long strides.

  "Telegram!" a voice called. "Ho, everybody!"

  Stephen's heart lost a beat. He dropped his sewing regardless of an unthreaded needle and went into the hall. Then his folks had come through after all! They would have likely perhaps sent a new suit by airmail! Or, no, they would likely be telegraphing money.

  "Telegram for me?" he called out eagerly, appearing in his doorway.

  "Naw, not for you. Telegram for Elicott Brender. Where is he?"

  Stephen answered shortly that he did not know and returned to his sewing, slamming his door sharply.

  When he had retrieved his needle from under the bed where it had inexplicably slithered out of sight and coaxed again the too-heavy thread into its aperture, he began to reflect on life bitterly. Why did men in school with all the responsibilities of education and graduation on their shoulders, especially fellows that were so noble as to offer to work their way through their very most important last year, have to have things like this happen to them?

  He began to think perplexing thoughts about his family. His letter had had plenty of time to reach Mother. Why hadn't she done something about it? It was not like Mother not to do something right off the bat, the minute she knew a need. Of course, he had undertaken to care for himself this year, and that was all right, but the family would surely be glad to help him out to the extent of a new suit. They would want him to look decent. And he hadn't quite made it as bad in his letter as the state of his wardrobe really was. He was almost ashamed to let them know just how low he had let his stock of garments get. Of course, if he hadn't ordered the most expensive class ring, the one with the real stone in it, he would have had plenty to get the new suit, which would be good enough. But it hadn't seemed good economy to get just a cheap plated class ring with no stone in it. One had only one college graduating class ring in a lifetime, and it ought to be good. Sometime he might want to let a girl wear it, and he would be ashamed of just a common ring. Then of course he had got the new racket. He really couldn't do his best with the old one, and this was his last chance to make a record at the spring tournament. Yes, and of course he had had to get the new raincoat on account of having left his old one on the train the time he went up with the football team in the fall.

  Thus reasoning, he drove his needle into his thumb again, and flinging his trousers far into the corner, he put his thumb into his mouth and danced around the room with the pain and the state of his nerves.

  "Hang it all," he said, pulling his thumb out of his mouth and speaking aloud, "I b'lieve I'll call 'em up. I can charge the call and pay it at the end of term, and then Mother can wire the money and get it here before the store down in the village closes at five o'clock. That suit down there would do. Of course, it's fifteen bucks more then she would pay in the city, but Caesar! I've gotta have that suit tonight, no two ways about it."

  So Stephen Challenger put his conscience in his pocket and went downstairs to the office.

  "I want long distance, Buck," he said to the young man behind the desk, "and I want it charged to my account."

  "Okay with me," said Buck. "Take booth number two; I got a call ta N'Y'rk coming in on number one."

  Stephen caught Phyllis just as she was going out to look up a cheap room somewhere. He had some trouble getting the call through because service had been discontinued the week before on account of a long-overdue bill, but he persuaded the operator that his was an emergency call and he would be personally responsible for that bill, and she put it through.

  "Hello, Mater," he called joyously, "is that you?"

  "Oh Steve!" answered Phyllis. "Is that you?" There was a note of apprehension in her voice. "What's the matter?"

  "I want to speak to Mother, kid; call her quick!"

  "She isn't here, Steve. She went out almost an hour ago, and I don't know when she'll be back. You'll have to tell me, I guess."

  Stephen considered. Phyllis was often apt to be too practical. Still, what else could he do?

  "Did Mother get my letter?"

  "Yes, just before she left."

  "Oh." A dismal pause. "Then she's gone out to order me a suit, I suppose."

  "Oh, no, she hasn't, Steve!"

  "That's good," said the brother with relief in his voice, "because I'll have to get it here after all. I've got to use it tonight. It'll cost a little more, but it can't be helped. Can you get hold of Mother in the next half hour and tell her to wire me fifty dollars before three o'clock? I simply must have it."

  "She can't, Steve; she hasn't got it." Phyllis's voice was full of distress.

  "Well, but she can get it somewhere, surely. Tell her I must have it. I'll pay it back with interest as soon as the term is over. You're sure she hasn't gone to order the suit and charge it somewhere?"

  "Yes, I'm sure, Stephen. We haven't any charge accounts anywhere anymore. They won't let us charge anything because we can't pay our back bills. And Mother doesn't know anywhere to borrow a cent. We've been having an awful time. I think they ought to have let you know long ago, but Mother didn't want you bothered while you are studying so hard. But, Steve, dear, we haven't any money to send you. Not any."

  "But listen, kid"--Steve's tone was a bit lofty and annoyed--"I'd pay it back in a few days, and I'm in a hole."

  "So are we!" said Phyllis with a sob in her voice.

  "But not like this, sister. Listen. I'm supposed to take a girl to a dance tonight, and my only good trousers have given out. I've tried to mend them, but they look something terrible."

  Phyllis was silent an instant trying to keep the sob out of her voice.

  "No, not like that!" she burst forth bitterly. "We're not thinking of taking a girl to a dance, but--" She choked on the words. "Stephen Challenger, do you know that we almost got put out on the street last night because we couldn't pay last month's rent? Do you know that Lissa and I had nothing to eat yesterday all day long till eight o'clock at night, and Mother nothing but a cup of weak tea and she fainted dead away twice after she got back from the hospital? Hasn't anybody told you that the bank where all Father's ready money was kept failed two months ago, and the bank where he kept a couple of bonds in a safe-deposit box has closed its doors and we can't get them, and we're absolutely up against it? If it hadn't been for a kind butcher last night who gave Bob a beefsteak, we'd have starved or died of weakness; and if it hadn't been for that same butcher who paid our rent, Mother and all of us would have been turned out on the street in the rain last night after a tirade of the most insulting language I ever heard a woman utter! Steve, I've just got back from selling everything we have that's out of storage, except our beds and a few necessities, to get money enough to feed us tonight. Now, do you understand why Mother can't get you a new suit or send you money?"

  Phyllis had poured forth the truth in a torrent, and now she paused for breath, and the poor self-centered boy at the other end of the wire fairly gasped, for he loved his family.

  "Gosh!" he said limply when she let him sp
eak. "Gosh! No, I didn't know that. How was I to know? Nobody gave me even a hint! I oughtta been told. Gosh! I'll come right home t'night."

  "Mercy, no you won't! I don't know where we'd put you if you did. We're moving just as soon as we can find a room, one room to hold us all. You stay where you are. At least you've got a bed and something to eat, which is more than we're likely to have. You stay and take your girl to a dance and have a good time. Wear your old clothes! Wear patched trousers! Anything! Or wear your pajamas! But for pity's sake, don't ask Mother for any money now! Oh, I'm sorry to talk so, Steve, but--it's been--awful!"

  "You poor kid! Gosh, I'm sorry. Gosh, I've got to do something. How about Dad? Does he know?"

  "No, he doesn't know, and don't you write to him about it, either. He's better, and the doctor says we can take him into the country to rest for a year in about ten days or two weeks. You don't know any fine country place that's going a begging, do you? That's about killed Mother, for she doesn't know where we can find a place for him. If only Uncle Timothy were alive now, or if all Father's friends hadn't gone to Europe for their sabbatic year, we might hope for something. But there, Steve, don't you worry. You just graduate and come home, and then everything will be all right. But Mother's main anxiety is for you not to be worried till your college course is over, and now I suppose she'll give me ballyhoo for telling you; only, Steve, I had to tell somebody or bust. But we're coming through; I can see we are. I just sold our old davenport for three seventy-five. Had to work hard to get the seventy-five instead of fifty. Now Bob'll have to sleep on the cot, but we've got enough to buy supper and breakfast tomorrow morning, with some left over for lunch."

  "Gosh, you poor kid. I feel like a beast!"

  "No, you're not, brother; you're doing just what is right for you, only it did get under my skin for a minute to hear you talk about taking a girl to a dance when we were starving. But that's part of your life, I suppose, and you go ahead and get all the fun you can, for I can see there's hard work ahead of you. Only for heaven's sake, don't get engaged or anything."