Where Two Ways Met (21 page)

“Well, old fogy kinds of ideas. He can’t do this and he can’t do that, and he won’t do the other thing, and he seems to think it’s practically wicked to have a good time. So if I’m going to make him over, I’ve got to get him out of that idea. Don’t you see how much more valuable he’ll be to your business if I do? He’s simply got to get so he can—what’s that thing you say?—be all things to all men, you know. He’s got to get to be a good society man, ‘rejoice with them that do rejoice.’ That’s one Bible verse I learned that day you made me go to Sunday school when I didn’t want to. But now, why, he couldn’t do that at all. He’s glum as an owl most of the time when I see him.”

“Why, I thought he was rather a pleasant young man. He has a nice smile.”

“Oh, yes, when he uses it, but most of the time he doesn’t. And I’m beginning to find out why he’s that way. Dad, do you know what he’s doing tonight, and what he’s planning to do tomorrow, why he can’t accept any of the invitations I’ve given him? Dad, he’s going to teach a Sunday school class of boys tomorrow, and tonight he’s studying his
Sunday school lesson
! Can you imagine that? For a full-grown man, and one that’s been to war, too?”

“Well, that’s a commendable thing to do, isn’t it?” asked the grinning father. “I was asked to take a class in Sunday school once myself. Of course I didn’t do it. But it shows what good people think of the young man when they ask him to do that. It won’t hurt his reputation a bit.”

“Oh,
that
! What’s reputation? But you couldn’t expect a young man to mingle in good society if all he does for recreation is study the Bible. Why, my teachers in school, practically all the teachers in all the schools I ever attended, said that the Bible is an antiquated book and practically
nobody
believes in it anymore. And just fancy any businessman getting his education out of the Bible nowadays!”

“Well, they do claim there’s some very wise sayings in the Bible,” said Mr. Chalmers amusedly. “I suppose he could do worse. But I don’t understand just what all this has to do with me. What do you want me to do about it? I can’t call Paige Madison into my office Monday morning and tell him I don’t want him to read the Bible anymore, can I?”

“Oh, you silly! Of course not. But you can get him away from here on a vacation, and arrange it so I can come with you and get a chance to work on him. Now, Dad, don’t you begin to say no. You haven’t given this enough thought yet. You are all tired out, aren’t you? And didn’t I hear you say you needed to get away and rest somewhere? And you said, too, that you couldn’t get away from your business. But why couldn’t you take your business with you? Take Paige along and let him write letters for you. He types, I know, for I saw him doing it the other day. That, of course, would be the only way you could lure him away with you, by telling him you weren’t well and the doctor wanted you to have a change of air and you would need him to go along with you. Then a few days later I would come down, wherever you want to go. I’d vote for the seashore. You know I adore swimming, and I’d work on him all the while, when he wasn’t taking dictation for you. How about it, Dad? Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

The father smiled with a humoring look in his eyes.

“Could be,” he said. “I’ll think it over, and meantime, you run along and get together your ideas and see whether you think it would really work.”

As it turned out, Reva kept at her father persistently, and at Paige also, trying to get another tennis game, or a dinner date, and at last Mr. Chalmers yielded his opposition.

“All right, work away at him, and I’ll see what I can do, but I doubt whether he’ll go. He isn’t hired for a stenographer or secretary, and he may balk at the idea.”

“But he’s working for you, isn’t he? Doesn’t he have to do what you say, or you could fire him, couldn’t you? Isn’t he important to you?”

“He will be, I hope, after a while, when I get him trained.”

“Well then, couldn’t you make this work out?”

“I suppose I could,” laughed the father. “Well, run along, kitten, and we’ll see what can be done. I suppose there is something in your idea, and at least it will give you a decent somebody to run around with—I won’t have to sit up nights worrying about where you are and whether you are staying out too late. It probably won’t last very long with you, for I have a hunch you can’t wind that young man around your little finger, even if you do get him off at the shore by himself where you can work on him.”

“You’ll be surprised, Daddy, what I can do when I get a chance,” said Reva coyly.

So Harris Chalmers went to his office and began to study maps and make reservations at a favorite seaside resort, and conspicuously sent for his doctor to come to the office so that the whole working staff would know he had been there. And afterward he sent for Paige Madison.

W
hen Paige got the message that he was to come to the office at eleven o’clock that morning, he frowned. Now what was going to happen? Another foreclosing trip? Because he simply wouldn’t do it. If that was the kind of thing they were going to do with him every little while, nothing doing! There certainly were other jobs in the city, and there was no reason why he couldn’t find one if he made a business of looking for it.

So he put his desk in order, gave last directions to his secretary about the letters he had been dictating, and went to meet Mr. Chalmers.

He found the boss in a most amiable mood, so he was not probably going to find fault about anything.

Paige sat down in the chair the boss indicated and prepared for orders. After a pleasant morning greeting Mr. Chalmers began, with a smiling face, as if he were about to confide in a close friend.

“Well, Madison,” he said in a confidential tone, “I’ve just had a visit from my doctor.” He paused to let that sink in.

“Doctor?” said Paige with a concerned, polite lifting of the eyebrows. What next, he wondered. Was the business about to fold up, and was he being dismissed? “Why, sir, are you sick?”

“Well, not exactly sick,” said the boss apologetically. “This is more a matter of prevention. There were certain symptoms that I knew ought to be checked up, and I found it was a wise thing. You know, if you catch a thing in time, you can prevent almost any ill that human flesh is heir to.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Paige answered, still puzzling over why he had been called into this intimate conversation. “But I wouldn’t have supposed you had anything the matter with you. You always look so well.”

“Well, yes, I still look that way, but it doesn’t take long when anything goes wrong. However, the doctor thinks he can put me in shape soon if I’ll do exactly as he says.”

Oh!
thought Paige. This was probably a dismissal then, or else a plea for him to take over some disagreeable duty while his head was gone somewhere, to a hospital or sanitarium, or something.

But the pleasant, cajoling voice went on.

“He wants me to spend some weeks at the shore, and to go at once; that is, within a few days.”

“Oh?” said Paige trying to sound sympathetic. “That sounds like a pleasant cure.”

“Well, yes, it does sound that way, but you see, Madison, it means going away from my business, just now, at a critical time. And just when Bill Arsdel has gone on that trip, which is likely to take three months if he makes all the contacts I advised.”

“Yes, I see,” said Paige politely. Somehow he was going to be made to fit into this puzzle, he supposed, but he failed to see how. He was only a
new assistant manager
.

“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.”