“Oh, they raked up that old football snapshot, the one with your torn sweater on and mud on your face, the one the girls used to carry around in their schoolbooks,” said his sister, with dancing eyes. “Some brother I’ve got. Look! It’s in the evening paper!”
“Good night!” said Chris modestly. “What a fuss about throwing a few apples!”
“Yes,” said his father, “and that’s not all. Mr. MacLaughlin called up this morning and offered to take you into the Title and Trust Company and train you into a banker. Title and Trust is a good old company, solid as Gibraltar. How about it, Chris? Want to be a banker?”
But Chris shook his head.
“Nothing doing, Dad. They wouldn’t have me when I needed it, and now I’m in line for managership of the grocery store, someday. I wouldn’t give it up for any old job in a bank, not on a bet. I’d be years getting a pittance, and then some. Then there’s another thing—a grocery is a good, solid business. You can’t have a run on a grocery. People have to eat. I’m sticking by the grocery store. It’s a great institution, and I’ll be the head of the whole company.”
“But Chris, dear, a banker is always so much respected. Your father—”
“I know, Mother dear, it’s a very respectful business, but so is the grocery business, and one banker is enough in the family at a time. Besides, Mother, I didn’t notice that respect saved our home when we got in a tight place. Dad was one in a thousand, of course, and everybody understood that and trusted him, but I didn’t see that it got him by any better than if he’d been a grocer. And I’m putting my lot in with the grocery store, if you don’t object.”
“Of course not, Son,” said the Father quickly. “Not if you’ve thought it over carefully and decided that way. I’m proud to have a son like you, and the grocery business is good and honorable, and as much needed as a bank.”
“Another thing, Mother,” said Chris, getting a little flustered, “I—we—I’ve decided I want to get ready to do some real kind of Christian work in the world, and that takes money.”
They were silent for very wonder, and Chris got red and embarrassed and looked down at his plate.
“You see, we—that is, I–I’ve come to see things in a different way lately. I used to think what you believed was mostly bunk. Yes, I did. Oh, I know I went to church and all that, but I thought it wasn’t quite right, when you and Dad believed so firmly in God, for you to lose all you had. But now I see it differently, and I want to study the Bible and get ready to be of some use in the church and among the people. I don’t know how to tell you.” He floundered around, searching for words, and was aware of his sister’s bright eyes fixed upon him, half mockingly.
“You see, we—that is I, I—You see there’s a girl, Mother, I’d like to you to invite to dinner or something!” he blurted out.
“Chris!” said his mother, instantly aghast, “Oh, Chris, you aren’t trying to tell me that you want to get married. Not yet!”
Chris laughed excitedly.
“What do you think I am, Mother? Crazy? Of course not. But she’s just a wonderful girl, and I want you to know her.”
“And you haven’t been getting engaged either?” she asked anxiously.
“Not exactly engaged, Mother, dearest. What have I got to get engaged on? I’ve got a family to look out for, and she has, too. We’ve got to work hard, both of us for awhile yet—but we like each other a lot, Mother, and I want you to know her.”
“Is she the girl whose life you saved, Chris?”
Chris looked her straight in the eye, his color rising a bit. “Yes, Mother, if you call it that, though I’m not so sure she didn’t save mine instead, calling up the police just in time.”
She looked at him a little uncertainly. Then a bright smile bloomed out. “I’ll go and see her tomorrow, Chris.”
“Thanks, Mother, a lot. You’ll like her, I know.”
“I’ll try, anyway,” said the mother bravely.
“You won’t have to try, little Mother,” sang Chris, with a lilt in his voice and something bright and beautiful in his eyes. “She’s wonderful! I know you’ll like her, Mother. She’s your kind!”
He stooped and kissed her tenderly.
“Well, I’m sure I hope for your sake that she is,” she said with a quivery smile and a mother-sigh.
Chris went back to his chair again and tilted it back against the wall.
“There’s another thing, folks,” he said, kicking the toes of his shoes gently together to hide his embarrassment. “You might as well hear the whole story at once.”
They all looked up, startled, but he did not give them time to worry.
“It’s this. I’ve got to the place where I can say I’m glad from my own standpoint, really glad all this trouble happened to us. I can see that going back to college and all that isn’t always the best thing a fellow can have to begin with life, and whatever God hands out is always best. It’s Natalie’s doings. She’s a wonderful Christian, folks, the kind of Christian you are, Mother. And she’s made me see it, too. She’s had a lot of hard things in her life, and she says she’s glad for them—that they’ve helped her to know God better and not be selfish and all that. And—well—she’s got me thinking that, too. And now I feel that I’m really saved. I wasn’t before, but now I am, and I want God to have His way in my life. And—we–we’re going to study the Bible, evenings, at a class that’s been started down at the Water Street Mission. I just thought I’d like you to know the whole thing.”
But his father was on his feet now, standing beside him, looking down with shining eyes. And his mother came over and laid her lips tenderly on his hair, where it fell away from his forehead.
Then his father spoke. “Chris, dear son, that’s the best thing you ever told me. That’s better than health or wealth or anything else in life, to know that you belong to Christ and are learning to be led by His will. I have known all along that God was handing us His best when He sent sorrow and humiliation and scorn and poverty for me and mine, but I didn’t see why He did it, and I didn’t expect to see why till I got over in the Home Eternal. But He has made me see, now, bless His holy name! I’m glad He gave us trouble when it was to lead to such a great joy as this. And we’ll love the little girl, too, for having helped.”
“Yes, dear!” said the mother, making it like a promise.
“Well, then, that’s all right!” sighed Chris, with joy in his face, getting up cheerfully around the room. “I ought to have known you’d take it like this, but I hated like the dickens to tell you. I wasn’t sure I could make you understand.”
“You can always make us understand, Son, when you use the language of heaven,” said his father with a wonderful smile. “I’d rather have you tell me what you just did than anything else in the world. I’d rather have you know the Lord than be the richest banker that ever lived.”
So presently, Chris kissed them all around, pinched his sister’s cheek to make her look less solemn, and hurried away to the next street to call on Natalie.
But it was really Natalie’s mother that he called on first. He found her sitting in the front room finishing a bit of sewing while the girls washed the supper dishes. He went over and took her work gently out of her hands, and laid it carefully on the table as she looked up wonderingly at him with a half premonition in her eyes.
“Now, Mother Halsey,” he said, as tenderly as he would have spoken to his own mother. “I’ve come to confess to you. I don’t know what you will say to me, and I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but it’s done and you ought to know about it. You see, last night I told Natalie that I loved her. I didn’t mean to do it so soon, not till I had an assured position in life and plenty of money to take care of her the way she ought to be taken care of. But—well—I—we—well, I told her, and I found out she cares, too, and I thought you ought to know it. I don’t want to do anything underhanded. Do you mind, very much, Mother Halsey?”
Natalie’s mother looked at the earnest young m
an who was waiting so eagerly for her answer. Her lip trembled and tears welled into her eyes, but she said, with a real smile and a bit of a quiver in her voice, “You dear boy!” And then she put up her two hands and softly laid them one on each side of his cheeks and drew him toward her and kissed him gently.
Then she whisked out her handkerchief, brushed away the tears, and smiled again.
“I ought to be very glad and proud.” She smiled. “I am. Of course, it is a little bit sudden, and you are both young, and I was afraid of a rich young man at first. I didn’t know how dear you were—”
Her lip quivered again.
“But I’m not rich, Mother Halsey.” Chris laughed joyously. “I’m poor as a church mouse. That’s what makes it so bad for me to have told Natalie how I feel, when I can’t do a thing about it yet. But if you’ll trust me, I’ll work hard and try to get a place where I can give her the kind of home she ought to have.”
“Oh, I meant you were accustomed to riches. I was afraid you were spoiled—you may as well know the truth! But you’re not! You’re all and more than I could possibly desire in a man for my dear girl. And I’m proud of you, besides. Oh, I’ve read the papers. You and Natalie thought you had kept last night’s happenings from me, and Janice helped, too. But the boy that came to fix the gas stove told me and showed me a paper. He knew who Natalie was, and who you were, and I know all about it, and I’m proud of you both. Of course, I didn’t expect this—that is, not so soon, anyway—I guess you had a right—and I can understand.”
“You’re a peach, little new mother,” said Chris, “and I hope I won’t disappoint you. The only thing is I wish I could get Natalie out of that store right away, though of course I’d miss the sight of her greatly. But I’d like to relieve her and all of you, at once, of all care and work.”
“Well, that’s dear of you. But, of course, Natalie must go on working right away, and you mustn’t expect to have all you want right away. It won’t hurt either of you to work and win your way ahead, and I’m glad that Natalie has real joy in her life. She’s never had much of a chance to have a good time—”
“Now, Mother!” protested Natalie from the kitchen doorway, “I’ve always had a happy life.”
“Yes, you’ve been a good girl and said so.” The mother smiled, half ruefully.
“No, but Mother, I have!” insisted Natalie. “I’ve been happy in my home and family. I’ve had you and Father and my wonderful sister.”
“Yes, she would add that,” said Janice, joining them as she wafted a dishtowel over the plates. “She’s some sister, I tell you, big brother!”
“You’ve said it!” added Chris earnestly. “Say, I’m so happy I could swing my hat in the air and shout!”
“But,” warned the mother, “you may have a long road ahead full of disappointment and waiting, you know.”
“We know,” said Natalie, smiling, “and we don’t care. We have each other now and those things won’t matter so much.”
“And it’s not going to be so frightfully long either, Mother Halsey, if I can make it short by hard work, see? And I guess it makes some difference, too, that we both belong to God, now, doesn’t it?” he added shyly.
“It certainly does,” said the mother, with shining eyes. “It makes all the difference in the world to me. I couldn’t have given my child to a man that didn’t know the Lord, you know, rich or poor. Natalie told me about that last night, and I certainly was glad. For, of course, I couldn’t help seeing how things might be going and should have been terribly troubled to have my girl going around with you much longer if you didn’t belong to the Royal Family.”
He flashed her a bright smile as she slipped out of the room and left him with Natalie.
“Oh, I’m glad I belong!” he said as Natalie came over to sit down beside him on the little old couch. And he took her hand, reverently, and bent over to lay his lips upon it.
But out in the kitchen, Janice was complaining.
“I don’t see, Mother, why they need to have the door shut. We are entirely in sympathy with them. Aren’t they going to be chummy anymore? If I were you, I wouldn’t begin that way.”
“Well, Janice,” said the mother, “suppose you let them have a little chance to talk things over first. We’ll make a bit of fudge and the smell of it’ll call them out by and by. There’s fresh chocolate that Natalie brought home tonight. Suppose you start it while I finish this seam, and then I’ll help stir it.”
And so, presently, the enticing smell of cooking chocolate stole silently under the crack of the front room door and brought the two back to earth again from the little earthly heaven they had been planning sometime in the future. And they came out with shining eyes and helped beat the fudge, turn by turn, till Chris claimed the right to finish it all himself.
After Chris was gone home that night, Janice turned back with a satisfied sigh. “Well, I guess it’s going to be nice after all, having a brother-in-law. He seems to be able to fit in pretty well anywhere, and anyway my arm always does ache stirring fudge!”
Chapter 17
It was a bright day in the following spring that Chris brought his father down to the bank in an old secondhand Ford he had bought for a song. For the Fidelity Bank and Trust Company had opened its doors again to the public and was rewarded by a long line of depositors waiting to put back into the bank what they had recently received from it.
The bank had been able to pay back every cent of its indebtedness and to get on its feet again for business with a clean record.
It had been nothing short of a miracle that had made this all possible, and the one who had been used to work this miracle was Christopher Walton Senior, the honored president. For he had been unanimously elected president again, even against his own protest. The bank felt that it could not do without his influence and good judgment. They recognized that it had been largely through his wisdom and efforts that the marvelous reconstruction of the bank’s affairs had been brought about.
Two things had conspired to make possible this miracle of the business world. Three men, warm friends of Mr. Walton’s who had been in Europe at the time of the closing of the bank’s doors, had returned and come to the aid of the bank with a large sum of money. This, added to the fact that Mr. Walton had been able to turn over a good figure, a huge block of real estate in which much of the bank’s assets had been tied up, had restored the people’s confidence, and the bank was in a fair way to be stronger than ever.
Mr. Walton’s personal fortune was, of course, gone, but he had friends and his business, and the confidence of his neighbors once more.
“And someday,” said Chris Junior as they talked it over one night, “you might even be able to buy back our home, that is, when I get to be owner of the grocery stores, of course.” And he grinned. “I love that place and so does Natalie, and I’d like to have it back and see you and Mother in it again. I heard the other day that the chump that bought it is getting restless again and seeking fairer pastures. He says the people in this town are all a set of snobs, and he thinks he’ll go to Europe and buy an old palace somewhere in Italy. When he does, I mean to see what can be done toward buying it back. That is, of course, if God is willing,” he added softly, half under his breath. “What He wants goes with me from now on.”
Mr. Foster had been transferred to the managership of the district, and Chris was now manager of the store. He was as pleased as if he had been made president of the United States. Perhaps even more pleased, for he had developed a genuine love for his store and the goods he handled. His efficiency had been noticed and commended more than once from headquarters.
“Meantime, Dad,” went on Chris after a minute, “I’ve been thinking. I find this house next to us here is on the market at a ridiculously low price, and I’m talking with the agent about financing it. He thinks it can be done at a price that I could carry, perhaps. What would you think about it? It’s a double house, you know, and it has possibilities. We could do a lot of little th
ings ourselves to it. And I just thought, if Natalie and I found it possible pretty soon to get married, we could take this side and let Natalie’s mother and Jan have the other side, and then we families would all be together. At least that would be for the present till we could manage to get back the old home.”
“I think it would be lovely!” said Mrs. Walton quickly, her eyes sparkling. “That won’t be like losing you. Oh, Chris, you’re a darling boy!”
“Well, Mother dear, that was Natalie’s suggestion. She loves you, she really does, and her mother does, too.”
“And I love them both, and Janice, too,” the mother added, “and so does your father and Elise. I think we are going to be very happy, whether we get the old house back or not. I’m not sure but I’d be just as well satisfied to stay right here. It’s cozy, and we’re all happy together.”
That was the beginning of the talk, but things moved rapidly on, and it wasn’t long before the house next door was getting a new coat of paint and paper, outside and in. Natalie was shopping for some very cheap, pretty, bargain curtains, and evenings were exciting times when everybody had come over to see the new house and see the latest thing that had been done to it.
It was Betty Zane’s young sister that asked Elise one day, “Say, Elise, is it true that your brother is going to marry that Halsey girl?”
“Yes,” said Elise coldly, “it is.” Her tone did not invite further comment, but her smile showed that she was entirely satisfied with his choice.
“Mercy,” said the other girl disagreeably, “did she work in a store? I should think you’d feel terribly about it.”
“Yes, she worked in a store,” said Elise proudly, “and so does my brother, but we are just delighted about it. We love her very dearly and are very glad that he is going to marry her. She’s choice. Good-bye, I’m going this way today.” And Elise swept around the corner, a trifle haughtily.
But it was some weeks later that Betty Zane and Anna Peters were walking down the street together.