Where Two Ways Met

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “No, I don’t suppose you do just see,” smiled the boss, “but of course I couldn’t go away without taking some of my business along. And as the doctor absolutely refused to have me write letters and do the actual manual labor of carrying on what business I must do, I’ve got to take someone with me who is capable of doing these things for me. I was wondering about you, Madison? Would you like to go along with me? I remember you told me you could run a typewriter, so there wouldn’t be anything of that sort you couldn’t do, and it would be a nice vacation for you. You wouldn’t find the work too strenuous. Plenty of time for swimming and reading. I might even take you on for a few holes of golf, if the doctor is willing. And anyhow, when I don’t feel up to it, you can always pick up a good player on the links. Well, how about it? Does it appeal to you? Would you enjoy going?”

  “Where are you going?” asked Paige thoughtfully.

  “Well, I’m not sure yet. I’d thought of some fashionable resort where my wife would enjoy coming to see me now and then.”

  “Oh, isn’t Mrs. Chalmers going with you?”

  “No. Not at present. The doctor seems to think I would be better off without anyone who would get nervous over me.”

  “I see,” said Paige and was still again. At last he asked, “Then you would be alone over the Sundays, would you?”

  “Why, certainly not. Not if I had you along.”

  “Well, I’m sorry Mr. Chalmers, but I wouldn’t be able to go with you then. I have duties on Sunday that would keep me practically all day.”

  “Duties?” shouted Chalmers. “What duties could you possibly have that would hinder you going with your employer for a little while?”

  “Sorry Mr. Chalmers, but I have. I would have to be at home on Sundays, and I can’t possibly arrange anything else at present. Wouldn’t you have someone who could come down and stay with you Sundays? Saturdays and Sundays. I would like to leave at noon on Saturday. That is, if you are going to be near enough to home for me to get here by Saturday evening.”

  They talked for a long time but got nowhere. Chalmers tried to sneer and bully him out of his decision, but Paige still insisted that he was not willing to give up his Sundays. He would be glad to go with Mr. Chalmers during the week, but he must get home for Sundays. There were a number of obligations that he must fulfill at home, and no, he didn’t feel that he was at liberty to get out of any of those obligations.

  At last Chalmers sat, disgusted. He had gone out of his way to be nice to this bullheaded boy and could get nowhere with him.

  “I suppose it’s some girl!” he said with an unpleasant sneer, at last.

  Paige looked at him almost sadly and shook his head.

  “No, it’s not a girl,” he answered. “If it were, I might be able to do something about it. But it isn’t. It’s something I promised God I’d do!”

  “Something you promised God you’d do? Thunder!” fairly shouted Chalmers. “That’s about the most ridiculous alibi I ever heard. If you have access to God so you can make promises to Him, I’d like to know why you can’t just go and tell Him, or send word to Him, or however you do a thing like that, that you’ll have to be excused from that promise for a while. Say you’ll do it in the fall when you get home from your vacation. Tell Him you’re really needed to take care of a poor sick man. That ought to appeal to Him. This making bargains with God and then thinking you have to stick to them doesn’t seem to me to be a rational thing. How did you know what duty was going to come up that would hinder you?”

  “It has,” said Paige firmly. “I can’t be away this summer on Sundays. If you want me on that condition, I’ll be with you every day on weekdays, but I can’t undertake the job on any other condition.”

  His employer narrowed his eyes and watched him keenly for a full minute, and then he said sharply, “Not if I pay you well for it?”

  Paige looked at him with those steady eyes of his, and a smile of those firm lips, and said, “Money would have nothing whatever to do with the question.”

  Chalmers put on an amused, quizzical look.

  “Do you honestly think God is such a hard master as all that, Madison, that He wouldn’t be willing for you to have a little vacation during the summer months?”

  “No,” said Paige with a smile, “I don’t think He is a hard Master. I don’t think He is nearly so hard a master as you are, for instance.” He said it with a pleasant smile. “But I know that these things He wants me to do are pleasing to Him, and it means a great deal to me to keep my promises to Him.”

  “And what about me?” asked Chalmers, putting on a pitiful, pleading look. “Me, a poor sick man, your employer, to whom you owe a certain amount of help and comfort. What about me?”

  Paige looked up with another grin.

  “Mr. Chalmers, what would you want me for on Sundays? You don’t have your employees work on Sunday here at home in the office. You know there’s nothing in the world I could do on Sundays that would be of any help to you. And God knows it, too. So I’m afraid you’ll have to get someone else to go with you, unless you’re willing to take me on those terms.”

  There was silence in the office for some minutes while the two men sat and surveyed each other, and at last the employer said with a sigh, “Well, Madison, I’ve been hiring men to help me for a good many years, and some of them have been extraordinarily good fellows, but I’ll own you are the first one who ever attempted to dictate terms to me. They generally were glad to get my terms, and they never lost out by it either. But I guess this time you win. I’ll say this, however. Maybe as the days go by down by the sea, you’ll change your mind and want to stay, Sundays and all. If you do, will you let me know?”

  “Oh, certainly. But I know I won’t change my mind.”

  When Paige went home and told his mother about the proposition his employer had made, she looked troubled, but her eyes shone as he went on to tell of their conversation and how her boy had stuck by his principles and had not been afraid to talk about God as if he knew Him. And when she was praying for him that night, she went on to thank God for the way He was leading Paige. But she added a wistful petition or two that he might not get interested in that rich girl and that her Lord would please send June home soon.

  That night, when Reva got her father in a corner of his library by himself and asked the outcome of his interview that day, she was greatly disappointed at the outcome.

  “Dad, I don’t think you do as well with that stubborn guy as I do. I don’t believe you kept at him long enough.”

  “Yes, I kept at him all right,” said her father. “Oh, I kept at him till I fairly hung my head with shame. I never did coax anyone to work for me before, and I declare I never will again, not even if you ask me again. I kept at him till he put me up and compared me with God, and then I was licked. What a guy he is! I’ve never met his like before.”

  “Well, you see, Dad, that’s why I want you to get him. There aren’t any like him, and I’d like to conquer him and make him do what we want him to do, and like it. And then when we get tired of him we can always drop him like a hotcake if he acts up anytime. See, Dad?”

  “Yes, I see. But I don’t think you do. That fellow has what you call strength of character, and whether you think he’s right or not in his conclusions, you’ll have to have at least as much strength of character as he has to win him, and I don’t believe you have, kitten. You’re plenty stubborn and set in your ways, but that’s not strength, that’s usually founded in weakness, and selfishness, and this man hasn’t a selfish hair in his whole makeup. I can’t help but admire him a lot, even when he makes me mad as a hatter.”

  “Well, but Dad, I may not have strength of character, as you call it, but I’ve got something else. They call it glamour nowadays, and you wait till I try my glamour on him. He’s not had a chance to come in contact with that much. Wait till we go out to a few dances and I sport all my lovely evening frocks. Wait till we go swimming together and he maybe has to rescue me a coupla tim
es.”

  “Look out, baby! Don’t you go taking any chances. He isn’t worth risking your life for, you know.”

  “Oh, nonsense, Dad, I can probably swim better than he can. He’s been too much taken up with studying the Bible to waste much time swimming. And there are lots of other things we can do. Go out yachting, and deep-sea fishing. I hate old fish, but it’s a chance to lie around and look glamorous.”

  “I see,” laughed her father, and he pinched her pink cheek.

  “Well, is he going to go with you?”

  “Yes, on his own conditions, but it’s up to you to change those conditions, if you can. I wasn’t able to find out what on earth is tying him to home so closely. He said it wasn’t a girl, and I don’t really believe that he lies, not unless he’s an entire fake and putting on a religious act to make me trust him.”

  “Oh, no, he’s not a fake. But I can tell you what it is he has promised God he’ll do,” said Reva.

  “You can? What is it?”

  “Teach a Sunday school class, and he’s as much in earnest about it as if his life depended on it. He goes home Saturday night to study his Sunday school lesson so he can interest a lot of common boys and make them keep on coming to Sunday school. I bullied him until he told me. But I’ll soon beat that out of him when I get a chance to see him every day.”

  “And you still want him to come, even if he isn’t willing to stay over Sundays?”

  “Oh, sure I do. I think this is going to be fun. I’ll come down to see you about Wednesday or Thursday. You’re going down Monday morning, you said? Well, I’ll come down Thursday morning then, and we’ll have the time of our lives all day Thursday and Friday, all day and evening, and by Saturday noon he’ll be wishing he didn’t have to go back to that old Sunday school class. I don’t suppose I’ll actually accomplish much that first week, but the next week I’ll still be there, and I’ll turn on the glamour, for all it’s worth. Oh, boy! It’s going to be my special mission to make him forget his old Bible and really have a good time. By the second Saturday, he’ll be ready to telephone his mother or somebody to take over that class for him. You don’t know how well I can work when I get the chance, Dad!”

  “Okay, kitten, hop to it and do all you can. I’ll be betting on you, but I tell you truly, I’m not so sure you can do anything with that stubborn lad, and I hate to see you disappointed.”

  “Oh, I never get disappointed,” laughed the girl, with her head high. “You’re a gold old daddy to fix this all up for me.”

  “Well, I did the best I could, but at that, I’m not sure but the lad will stand me up. He didn’t seem keen on going.”

  “You didn’t tell him I was going to be there, did you? You know this is a good excuse for me to arrive to stay with you while he is away Sundays. Only Sunday was the time I was counting on to get in my best work.”

  “Yes, I thought so,” said her father. “Well, perhaps you’ll be able to make him stay. We’ll see how it works out.”

  So Harris Chalmers began hasty preparations for his migration to the shore, having carefully selected a resort not too far from home, so that his uncertain companion could go home Sundays and teach a class of little hoodlums. Ridiculous! Though, perhaps if somebody had taken that much trouble for him, he would have turned out to be a good man like Madison. Although that wouldn’t have fitted in very well with his ideas of success in business, and if he hadn’t been successful, Adella would never have married him. Well, he had had a fairly good life, and if he could put this over for Reva, he certainly would be glad. He didn’t feel at all sure that Reva meant anything serious with Madison. Still, if she did, it would be good to know that she had a good man. And of course he could make him a successful man in business lines. He was counting on being able to do a lot with the boy during this summer vacation.

  So Chalmers’s preparations went forward, and Madision was told to be ready to start the following Monday. They would go down in the car. Mr. Chalmers was counting on Paige to do the driving. Then if they ever got in a jam and Paige had to miss a train, he could in a pinch drive home and get back Sunday night.

  So Paige watched him solemnly, accepted in silence the decision, and went home to pack up the few belongings that he meant to take with him. Mainly some books that he wanted to study that would help him in his Sunday preparation. If he couldn’t be at home until the late train Saturday night sometime, at least he would have ample helps for his study. Of course, he was counting on giving Mr. Chalmers the main part of the day, taking dictation and typing letters. He certainly would have been surprised and more than a trifle indignant if he could have known how very little Mr. Chalmers was counting on using him that way. To his mind, this was wholly for Reva’s sake, and she might do the planning after the first day or two. He was taking with him some unimportant letters that needed rather full answers, to have on hand when he got hard up to occupy Madison’s time. Chalmers was adept at any kind of deception, and he could easily use it for amusement.

  One of the first things Paige did when he got home that night, after he had his boss’s definite announcement, was to call up June on the telephone. At least he would not run any risks of missing or having to wait for a letter.

  It thrilled him tremendously when he heard her voice over the phone. He didn’t altogether understand it. He had been wishing with all his heart that she were back home and that he might have a good long talk with her, but now, with his heart pounding like mad over just the sound of her voice hundreds of miles away over a telephone wire, he felt that this was something else. This was a reason for meditation, and of course he had no time to meditate just now.

  Here was June on the wire, and his own voice began almost to tremble as he answered.

  “June! Is that you? Grand! This is luck that I could get you right away, because I haven’t very much time. But first, how are you? All right? That’s good. And having a good time? What’s that? Not so you’d notice it. Is that so! That’s a pity. I wish I could send you a lot of good time by mail or radio or telegraph.”

  “Thanks very much. I’ll take the will for the deed. But how are you?” said June.

  “Oh, I’m all right, but not very happy over the way things have taken a turn. My boss says he isn’t so well, and the doctor tells him he must go to the shore for a while. He has picked me to go along with him and keep up with his mail that must be attended to. The man he usually uses that way has to stay at the office and hold the fort. He says I must go. He won’t take no for an answer. I balked, of course, on Sundays being included, and finally he has given in and will allow me to come back for my Sunday school class. I told him I wouldn’t go at all unless I could be home on Sunday. I’m telling you all this because I don’t want to miss your letters, so act accordingly when you address anything to me; remember I’m at the shore from Monday morning to Saturday noons, and you can get me by calling for the Larchmont, Crystal Lake. You remember Crystal Lake, don’t you? I think you said you were there once. What? Yes, I guess it’s an ideal place, but I would much prefer being at home this summer. Say, is there any chance of you getting home soon? I’m hungry for a real talk with you again. There are a lot of things that are not quite clear to me that I think you could help me about.

  “Is that a bell I hear? Is it calling you? Am I keeping you too long?”

  “No, Paige! No!” said June eagerly. “Yes, that’s my aunt’s bell, but it won’t matter. I’ll explain it to her afterward.”

  “Yes, I know, but I don’t want to make trouble for you. Have you got that address? Read it to me. Yes, that’s right. And you’ll write to me tonight will you, June? Thank you. I shall be desperately lonely, because I don’t want to go, and I’m not altogether sure it was the right way, yet no other way opened.”

  “Then it will be the right way, at least for the present, you know,” June’s voice came ringing the answer over the wire. “Don’t forget! I’ll—be praying!”

  “And I, too! And say, June, do you happen to have a
n extra picture of yourself? I’d love to have one if you could spare it. I’ll be lonely, you know.”

  “All right, if you’ll give me one of yourself. I get lonely myself sometimes.”

  There was softness in the tones that said more than the words could say. More than either dared to say because of possible listeners. But Paige turned from that telephone with relief in his heart to know that now there would be no reason for his missing any letter that June might have time to write him. And in his heart he gave thanks for a mother who had sense enough to stay out of sight and not make him self-conscious when he was telephoning.

  He kissed his mother tenderly.

  “I know you don’t like this, Mother, neither do I, but I couldn’t see my way out of it, not yet, anyway. I hope you won’t worry too much, Moms dear. This is partly in the nature of an experiment.”

  “I won’t worry, dear. I can trust you in God’s hands. There’s just one thing I’ve been wondering about a lot. It’s that girl. Is she going along?”

  Paige gave her a startled look.

  “Oh no, Moms, I don’t think so. He distinctly said he was ordered to go off from everything and rest. I am being taken along for strictly business purposes. I have to take over anything in the way of business that has to be brought to his attention. That was where we had our first difference of opinion. I definitely refused to go unless I could come back for Sundays, and he pled in vain, saying how forlorn he would be alone. I suggested that perhaps his wife would come down occasionally for over Sunday, but he seemed to think the seashore didn’t agree with her, and she wouldn’t be down often. He didn’t suggest that anybody else would come. I don’t think your fears are well founded, Mother dear.”

  She smiled. “Well, my dear, you know I don’t trust that girl. When she gets an idea that she wants you to fill in for some man who has stood her up, she won’t hesitate to run after you. Remember, she has done it several times already.”