The Challengers

by Grace Livingston Hill

  "But, Mother," said the little girl, disappointed, "wouldn't you just try it? It might be something nice, mightn't it? A job for Phyllis or Melissa perhaps?"

  "Not possibly, little dear," said the mother, smiling sadly. "Jobs don't come that way."

  "Let me see it," said Phyllis with a sudden idea. "It might be a place where I could find a job."

  "Oh, Phyllis!" sighed the mother. "To think you have to go around in men's offices hunting a job. I don't like it!" And the slow tears came again.

  But Phyllis read the letter through thoughtfully and put it into her pocket for future reference. She might even go to those lawyers who were so much interested in her family and ask for a job, if her other places didn't pan out.

  But Phyllis did not go job hunting that day. She was too anxious about her mother, who would not rest nor eat and who stood at the window continually looking out. She half expected to see her fall, fainting from sheer weariness.

  Breakfast made a diversion for a few minutes for the rest of them, and Phyllis helped Bob and Rosalie to get off to school with lunches and everything. Then she cleared away and washed the dishes and made a nice little piece of toast and a cup of hot coffee for her mother.

  "Come, Mother dear," she coaxed, "let me feed this nice brown bite to you. See, it's all buttered and lovely and hot. And now take a sip of the coffee. Listen, I've got a suggestion to make. You know this waiting time is rather hard, but it's pretty sure that you'll probably have to go to Steve sometime soon, if not today. I've been thinking we ought to get you all ready so you could go at a moment's notice. You see, Melissa might come at any minute now, and she'll like as not want you to go right back. You'll have to eat to have strength."

  "But how could I go, Phyllis?" asked the mother as she swallowed the coffee obediently. "I haven't any money--"

  "Are you quite sure? We've got to plan for it somehow. Let's get out all our money and see how much we have. I still have eight dollars left. How much have you? Where is your purse?"

  "Up in my bureau drawer. But, Phyllis, you've got to have something to live on while I'm gone. And there would be other expenses besides just my fare."

  "There'll be a way to get enough," said Phyllis. "Let's find out first how much we have, then how much we have to have, and then where to get the rest, see?" And she hurried off upstairs after her mother's purse.

  "Bob will have his pay tonight, you know," she reminded as she came back and, emptying out the purse, began to count.

  "But what would you live on?"

  "Well, I'm to have another day's work Monday. It won't likely be ten dollars this time, of course, but it will be something. And we have quite a lot of things in the pantry. We wouldn't starve right away. Anyway, if it came to that, Mr. Brady wouldn't let us starve, you know that; and while I hate to take things from a stranger, still we can pay him back with interest someday, you know, and he likes us."

  "But what would you say to your father?"

  "Why, I'd tell him Steve has a broken leg. He won't be scared at that. Steve's an athlete. Things like that happen to athletes every day, you know," said Phyllis airily. "Father won't think a thing of it. I'd just tell him we got a telegram and we don't know the particulars yet. You wouldn't need to worry about that. I know Father. I could keep him satisfied all right. Then you could write funny little letters about the things Steve says and all, and he'd not miss you so much if I went to see him every day."

  "You're a dear child," said the mother, with a shadow of a smile.

  "So now, Mumsie, you just go up and pack, and I'll run out and get the information we need about trains and so on, and don't you worry. I won't be gone fifteen minutes."

  Phyllis had actually succeeded in turning her mother's thoughts from the immediate trouble over Melissa and giving her something to do to make the time pass. But she was wise enough not to wait to do the telephoning herself. She did not want to leave her mother alone so long. She asked Mr. Brady to get his errand boy to find out train times and prices and send cheap meat she needed for broth for her mother. Then she hurried home.

  Mary Challenger went up to her room to gather together a few necessities as she had promised, but left alone, her mind at once reverted to Melissa again; and she went around her room saying out loud, "Oh, God, find my little Lissa! Oh, God, You needn't do anything for me, if You'll only find my Lissa and keep her safe!"

  Phyllis hurried upstairs and entered into her preparations exactly as if she were sure of starting in an hour.

  "You'll want at least one extra dress, Mother. It would be safer to have it along," she suggested as she folded the old black crepe that had done duty for best for quite a while.

  "It's lucky I won't want three!" said the mother with a twinkle of her own dry humor that usually kept the family so heartened and merry when all went well. "Because if I wanted three, it would just be too bad!" She mimicked her children's tone as she said it, and Phyllis had to laugh at that.

  The morning wore on to nine o'clock and still no word from Melissa. Phyllis felt that she should go crazy if something didn't happen pretty soon, yet she maintained an outward calm and kept her mother's mind busy.

  "Now, Mother, tell me exactly what you want said to Father. I'll write it down," she said, and that occupied a few more minutes.

  When the butcher's boy arrived with the timetables and information, Phyllis almost fell downstairs in her hurry to get to the door quickly, and she was so frightened that she could hardly speak till she recognized him.

  "Phyllis," said her mother sharply when she came back with the timetables, "I've got to do something about your sister at once! Your father will blame me severely and justly if I don't. In fact, I don't see how I could have let it go so long. I should have done something last night."

  "But--what could you do, Mother? I'm sure Melissa must be all right somehow."

  "Your being sure doesn't make it so," said the mother with a look of agony on her face. "I've got to telephone somewhere. We should find out when she left the hospital. Why didn't we do that last night?"

  Phyllis tried to keep her lips closed, but her mother's searching eyes were upon her, and suddenly she knew she must tell the truth. It would only mean a few moments' delay even if she did not.

  "Well, Mother, I may as well tell you now. I telephoned early this morning. They started yesterday about ten thirty, the nurse said. I didn't tell you before because I thought it would only make you worry more, and I thought surely some word would come from Melissa pretty soon."

  Her mother looked at her quietly, with a tense control of herself. Phyllis could see that she felt the news was momentous. Then she said in a low, steady voice: "We should telephone those people who took her and find out if they are home. What was that name? Do you remember?"

  "Yes, Hollister. Mr. Brady wrote it down for us. He looked up their address in the city, too. He's remarkably thoughtful for a stranger."

  "He's a very unusual man," said Mary Challenger. "We shall never forget his kindness. Now, Phyllis, will you look up their number and run out and telephone?" Mary Challenger's lips were white, but she kept that steady self-control, and after she had spoken she went into her room like one who goes to a last resort and quietly knelt down beside her bed.

  So Phyllis, with that feeling of utter goneness and despair, more frightened than she cared to own at this unnatural calmness in her mother, hurried off to the butcher shop again to telephone.

  It was only a maid with a foreign accent who answered: "Naw, they hayn't coom hum yet. They goes about a greaddeal an' they never tells me. I dono when they coom. Mebbe taday, mebbe next week. I cayn't tell."

  When Phyllis got back, she found her mother on her knees with the door quite unlocked. She lifted a white anguished face and read in her daughter's face that there was no news yet.

  "I'm afraid we ought to put it in the hands of the police, Phyllis," she said quietly. "I'm sure your father would say so. I've asked God to help about it, and He doesn't, and now I t
hink we'll have to call the police. Your sister must be found."

  It was just then that they heard a step on the porch and a knock at the door.

  Phyllis turned and hurried down to answer it, a terrible fear upon her. Perhaps this was a telegram to say that Melissa had been killed in an accident! Her sister Melissa! Pretty little frail Melissa! Her throat contracted and her eyes filled with apprehensive tears, and she flung open the front door.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The tall young man who walked down the platform that morning in the mists before the dawn had no idea when he set down his suitcase and folded his arms to lean back against the station wall and await the early milk train that he was not entirely alone in that part of the town.

  Everything was still as things usually are at that early hour when people are deep in their late sleep before waking. The houses lay along the streets beyond the track like a deserted village. The milkman and the bread man had not yet started on their rounds. There were no birds so early in the season to break the silence with their matins. Not even a dog nor an old gray cat was abroad to skulk eerily across the still, dark road. The very streetlamps seemed blinking low, as if their time had almost come to sleep now, too.

  The air was keen and sharp and clean after the storm. The young man shivered and pulled his coat collar up, yawned and changed his weight to the other foot. He did not enjoy rising so early as this. It seemed ridiculous to spoil a good night's sleep. But it had been necessary to meet his appointment for the day.

  He yawned again half audibly and was startled to hear a softly breathed moan as if in answer. He turned sharply in the direction from which it had come and saw something lying on the platform, a heap of papers perhaps or merely a burlap bag. Some freight that had not been too valuable to leave outside. He turned away and thought the sound had been his imagination, but presently his thoughts turned back to it, and he walked slowly toward the dark object, eyeing it carefully in the dim light of dawn to try and dispel his illusion that it was a person. As he drew nearer, it took even more human form. Could it be a person lying there? Some drunk perhaps? Or--someone--dead--it might be!

  He stopped and then went forward cautiously, his footsteps scarcely audible. One must be careful these days; there were so many murders about. The form was utterly still. Perhaps he ought to go back and rouse someone to investigate. A murder would be a serious business, and he would not want to get mixed up in any such thing. It might delay him, too, and his business was urgent. He turned and walked away again. Perhaps it was all imagination. If not, he had better not know.

  He went back to his suitcase and stood with his back to the huddled form at the other end of the platform, yet he could not forget it and knew that he would not all day, no matter how urgent his business. He must dispel this phantasm. Perhaps it was only a box with a pile of old newspapers on top giving it a semblance of a person.

  He walked slowly up the platform again and came nearer, and now he saw that it was surely a person, a girl, huddled up as if she was cold. Her hands were slipped up inside her sleeves. Her hat had fallen off behind her; her head was pillowed on a shabby satchel. Could she be drunk? He stooped lower and saw that her face was delicate, pretty, and very sorrowful. There were tears upon her white cheek. Or were they raindrops? Was she breathing? She lay so still that it almost seemed she was not living.

  He walked away silently again, strangely disturbed. Was there something he ought to do about it?

  He went to the extreme other end of the platform, around the corner of the station, and stood there looking up the track. If the train came now, it might easily be that she would not be seen at all. People were all sleepy on a train at an hour like this. But if she were seen, it would be extremely embarrassing to be connected with her in any way. It might look bad both for her and for himself. Not that he would let that weigh with him if she were in any need of his ministrations, of course. But she seemed to be as comfortable as one could be taking a siesta on a dark platform in the open in the middle of the night. And anyway, what had he to do with it?

  Yet he could not get away from the thought of her, puzzling what had brought a pretty little sorrowful girl like that to be sleeping there all night. There had been no smell of liquor on her. She did not look like a girl that stayed out all night on purpose.

  The train was late. He grew more and more uneasy. Perhaps she was ill, out of her head. To reassure himself after he had listened for the hundredth time for a sound of the train, he walked back again slowly and viewed her from afar.

  The light was coming stronger now. Things were looming out of the darkness with a ghostly unreality, a house here, a shed there, the water tank not far away, the track spinning away like spiderwebs. The streetlights were beginning to look sick. Was that the sound of a train coming? He listened and heard a humming on the track. It was some distance away, but still, coming at last. Why didn't he walk away and get out of sight behind the station so that if anybody did notice the girl, he would not be in the picture at all?

  What was that sound across the tracks? A truck? Was it perhaps coming to the station with milk for the train? Why, of course.

  The humming of the tracks was more distinct now, but it did not disturb the sleeper. Could it be possible that she had come down early to catch the train herself and fallen asleep waiting?

  He ought to get away now before that truck driver came near enough to see where he was standing. Yet he lingered uncertainly. Ought he perhaps to waken her? He could see the loutish form of the driver slumped in his seat as he passed a streetlamp on the other side of the track. Would a nice delicate girl like that--if she was a nice delicate girl such as she looked----relish being found sleeping there when that fellow came down the tracks with his milk cans to the high milk platform, as he undoubtedly must come pretty soon?

  The humming sound was very clear now, and the girl did not stir. Suddenly the distant darkness became illuminated by a great headlight. The train had swept around a curve. It would be here in a moment, and the girl had not stirred.

  Quickly he stepped to her side and, stooping, touched her shoulder gently.

  "I beg your pardon!" he said clearly in her ear. "But is it possible you meant to take this train? It is almost here."

  Melissa started up, looking around wildly in the dim morning light, her face full of fright.

  "Oh, the train? Is there a train coming? Yes." She tried to rise but fell back with a moan, yet started up again.

  "I must have hurt my ankle when I fell in the field," she said aloud, as if speaking to herself, "but--I must get up! I must get this train. Mother will be so worried."

  He helped her up and steadied her against the wall of the station.

  "If you will just wait here until I get my baggage," he said courteously, "I will help you on the train."

  He picked up her bag and handed it to her, and Melissa stood there like a little child just wakened out of sleep, rubbing her eyes, not rightly remembering how she came there, only very much frightened.

  The young man was back in a moment, and taking his own bag and her little one in one hand, he put his other hand under her slender arm and guided her to the train, which was coming to a halt before them now.

  They had to walk back two cars to reach the passenger coach, and she limped so that he had to help her and almost lift her up the steps. She was stiff and sore from the cold and lying on the wet boards all night. She was half-sick, too, from her long frightened walk in the fields, her fright, and her nights spent on the hard hospital couch.

  He seated her in the only section that was unoccupied, the seat by the door that had been vacated by a laborer who swung off for the day's duty at the station they had just left. There were a bunch of red lanterns standing on the floor in the aisle, and the young man guided her around them and put her down in the seat then looked around for a place for himself. But everything else was filled by laborers going to their work, some sprawled over a whole seat, their heads back, their mout
hs open, fast asleep, snoring. Then he looked down at her and laughed pleasantly.

  "Would you mind if I sat here?" he said. "There doesn't seem to be any more parking spaces left in this car."

  "Of course not," said Melissa, reassured by his courteous manner and his merry eyes. "I am very grateful to you. I am afraid I should still have been sleeping on that platform if you hadn't been kind enough to waken me. I was pretty tired."

  "You certainly looked it. I'm glad I made no mistake. I didn't know but I was being a little presumptuous."

  The train had started on by this time, after backing up to the milk landing and taking on a great many enormous cans, and now it was well under way. The conductor with a red lantern swung on his arm came in, slammed the door, and looked over them curiously.

  "Fare!" he said snappily.

  The young man handed out his money, and Melissa slipped her hand under her coat and quickly unfastened the safety pins, with a deep gratitude to Brady for his thoughtfulness. Suppose she had not had this money! What would she have done? She would have had to walk all the rest of the way home, and it would have taken her days! A sudden unexpected sense of security enveloped her. Somebody had been looking after her in spite of all the trouble, even if it was only a butcher; she had not had to go out into danger without some provision. Yet what made Brady so kind? He was only a stranger who had taken a notion to Bob. There must be some Power beyond just human whim to make people do nice things.

  "Now," said the young man, when the conductor had passed by, "since I'm wished on you for a while, it's high time I introduced myself. My name's Ian Jenifer; I'm taking graduate courses in the university in your city----at least, the city where you told the conductor you are going--and I've been out here last night at a Bible conference and visiting my aunt. Do you know many people in Cliffordsville? My aunt is Mrs. Merton on Maple Street. Perhaps you know her and that would introduce us nicely."