Where Two Ways Met (8 page)

“Now look here, kid, that’s no way to react in a situation like this. Straighten up, and let’s see what we can do about it.”

The boy sat up half angrily, and his voice shook hoarsely.

“But there isn’t anything we
can
do! My father said so. Tomorrow is the last day to make his next payment on the house, and we haven’t got the money, and the man at the bank said if he didn’t bring it before noon tomorrow, we’d lose the house. All my father has worked so hard to pay! And it’s all paid now but two last payments, too, and he’s goin’ to lose it
all
, and he just can’t bear it! It’s too much!”

“Well, now mop up and let’s see about this,” said Paige comfortingly. “The end of the world hasn’t come yet, and there are always things that can be done. You take my handkerchief and dry those tears. We’ve got important things to do. If that money’s got to be paid by tomorrow noon, we’ve got to get a hustle on and find the money. How much is it, do you know?”

“Uh-huh! It’s seventy-five dollars interest, and a hundred on the principal. And Dad’s been everywhere all day tryin’ ta borra some. He’s only got forty-five himself, an’ some o’ that he had ta use ta go places to try an’ borra, but nobody had enny ta spare, an’ dad came home so sick he couldn’t stand up. He went off without even a bite ta eat.”

“Well, now that’s too bad,” said Paige, “but look here, we’ve got more important things to do right now than bother about that money. I know places where we can get money. But what we need first is to see that your father is looked after. Has he had anything to eat yet since he came back?”

“Nope,” said the boy, “he said he never could eat again. Hadn’t any right to eat ’cause he was a failure.”

“There now, kid, don’t begin that bawling again. Where is your father? We’ll see what we can do about it.”

The boy at first wouldn’t answer. Then he said: “Dad won’t like it ef I tell ya.”

“That’s all right, kid. I’ll make it right with your father. Where is he? He doesn’t need to know you told me. Show me where he is.”

“He’s over on the old couch in the back shed,” said the boy, with a shudder.

“Okay, kid! Show me where that is. We mustn’t waste any time. Your father needs something to eat, and we brought some soup and hot coffee. That’ll brace him up, and then we can talk about the other troubles. Hurry! We haven’t any time to lose.”

At last the boy was induced to lead the way to the forlorn little bare shed behind the kitchen where the man was stretched despairingly on a broken-down sofa, partially covered with a worn Brussels carpet.

Paige turned on his flashlight, and the motionless figure stirred and looked up.

“Hello, brother. There you are! I’m hunting you to see if you wouldn’t like a good hot cup of coffee. Then you’ll be in better shape to help us get things straightened out.”

“Is my—little—Nannie
gone
?” asked the man’s weak, anxious voice.

“Why no, man. What gave you that idea? The doctor’s just gone in to see her. He’ll bring her round, and you’ve got to brace up and get ready to help us.”

“There’s—nothing—I can—do!”

“Oh yes, there is,” said Paige. “Wait till you’ve had a cup of that nice coffee. Does this door open into the kitchen? I thought so. Kid, suppose you get me a cup and saucer, and we’ll have your father fixed up in no time.”

Paige threw open the old wooden door to a bare kitchen where a single candle burned on a mantel shelf. The baskets he had brought in were still on the table where he had put them. He could hear the doctor’s cheerful voice across the next room, in the bedroom beyond, then a feeble child’s voice and a mother’s sobs. Just then June Culbertson came quickly out and went efficiently to work preparing a cup of broth from the other Thermos bottle. This was some girl, taking hold of a situation like this and carrying on efficiently!

He went back to the father with the hot coffee and an old cushion he had picked up from a chair.

“Now, brother,” he said cheerfully, “suppose you let me raise your head a little higher so you can drink this.”

In spite of the man’s protests, Paige was able to lift him into a comfortable position and coax him to swallow a few spoonfuls of the hot liquid, after which he seemed to revive a little, and finally sat up and drank the rest of the coffee.

“Oh, that’s good,” he said. “That’s heartening. But I ought not to have taken it. My wife needs it more than I do. She’s been up day and night nursing our little girl.”

“There’s enough for your wife to have some, too,” assured Paige cheerfully.

“But my little girl’s going to die!”

“Oh, no, she isn’t, not just now,” said the heartening voice of the doctor who had just come out of the sickroom. “All she needed was a little cheering up and some of that good hot soup Miss June brought along. Do you know what’s the matter with this household? You’ve all been sitting around weeping and wailing. No wonder little Nannie thought she was going to die. No wonder your wife is almost dead on her feet and everything is all wrong. Do you know where we found your son? Out in the grass, crying because he thought you were going to die, too. Now, brother, let’s see what’s wrong with you.” And the doctor stepped determinedly over to the father and laid a professional hand on his wrist and then on his forehead.

“I thought so,” he said, getting out his thermometer. “You’re way below normal. What are you trying to do, arrange for a family funeral on the town? That’s no way to do.”

“But I can’t pay you, Doctor. I’ve been out all day hunting a job and trying to borrow money, and it’s no go! I can’t get a thing!”

“Yes? Well, if my bill is all you’re worrying about, forget it. Things aren’t always going on this way for you. You’ll get a job. We’ll all help you.”

“But that isn’t all, Doctor. I’m going to lose this house, and there won’t be any place for us to even die in.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks. Here! Take this pill, and I’ll give you another before I go. You talk your troubles over with young Madison, here. He’s a bright young man interested in finance, and ten to one he’ll find some solution for your difficulties. Now, I’m going back to see how Nannie is. And Madison, I leave this man with you to find some solution for his trouble. He can’t go on carrying all this burden and then get up and do a man’s work besides. It isn’t possible. There’s some way out of this, and we’ve got to find it, or I’m not a doctor.”

“Of course!” said Paige cheerily. “Now come, we’ll get you a bite more soup, and some bread and butter, and then you can give me the details.”

The doctor’s eyes twinkled as he looked back on the two and noted the expression on the discouraged father’s face.

Paige lost no time in producing the soup, and saw that every drop of it was swallowed before he said a word about any troubles. Then he put the dish over on the table and came back, drawing up a chair to the old couch.

“Now,” he said, getting out a pencil and paper, “just what is it that’s worrying you most? This house? What makes you think you’re going to lose it?”

“Because they told me that if I missed another payment, that was the end. I’d got to pay up interest and all, or they’d have to close me out. And tomorrow’s the last day. Twelve o’clock they close, tomorrow.”

“Have you got any papers to show for all this?”

“Yes. Over in the drawer of that old desk in the corner of the dining room.”

“Mind if I see them?” asked Paige.

“Oh, sure, but it’s no use to try anything with those folks. They haven’t any hearts. They don’t care if we all die. And I’m dead sure there isn’t anybody would lend a red cent to a poor old failure like me.” The man drew a heavy, discouraged sigh and bowed his head in his hands.

Paige went to the desk and brought back a bundle of papers. To his surprise he saw that they were drawn in the name of Harrison Chalmers and Company, and his heart sank with indignant fury. So this was the kind of thing that his delightful bosses were carrying on under the guise of benevolence and righteousness!
Now
, what was he to do?

“Well, now look here,” he said to the discouraged man, “you mustn’t give up this way. I know where I can get this money for you.”

“Oh, yes, you think you do, but just wait till they find out who wants to borrow it. Wait till they see my old rusty coat and the down-and-out-ness in my face. And wait till you find out the awful rate of interest they’ll want to charge for it. Interest I could
never
pay, even if I did get well and get a job.”

“No,” said Paige firmly, with a strange feeling that he was somehow being directed from above, and must say these things. “No, there won’t be anything like that, because I’ll get the money for you myself. It’ll be loaned
to me
, and I won’t charge you a cent of interest. Not till you get on your feet and have plenty to spare. Then, if you want to pay me back, you can do it. But just at present you won’t have
anything
to pay, and you won’t have to sign any contracts. Your business is to get well, see? Now, let me look over these papers. I am sure I can arrange this for you. You’d better brace up and see if you can get the strength to take your payment in. Do you think you’re up to that? Wait, we’ll ask the doctor whether you can. Of course, it could be mailed in if it would reach them in time.”

“Oh, yes, I can take it,” protested the sick man. “I’d rather. They’ll think I’ve failed again if I don’t come myself. But I can’t let you do this for me.”

“Oh yes, you can. We’re brothers, you know. And if you don’t like to let me do it for yourself, then I’ll do it for your family’s sake. Now if you’ll show me about these different papers, I’ll try and get things in shape for you. I’ll have to give you the money in the morning, as of course I don’t have that much with me, but if you can be ready to go back with me, I can make the trip that much easier for you. I’ll have to get back to the office where I work by nine o’clock. Will that be too early a start for you? And then about your getting back. I could pick you up at the noon hour and bring you home. But we’ll have to see what the doctor says about your going at all, first.”

The doctor had been standing just outside the door of the sickroom, and now he came over to them, smiling.

“Sure! Go and get your troubles off your mind! That’ll be better for you than all the medicine in my chest. And if you’ve got any more of those financial troubles, let’s get them out in the open and get rid of them. Are there any more debts bothering you, brother?”

“There’s your bill,” sighed the man. “I guess that comes next.”

“Well, we’ll just forget that for the present. Let’s get the other things out of the way first. How about the grocer’s bills? Are they all paid?”

The man shivered as if a cold blast had struck him, and he groaned.

“Yes, I thought so!” said the doctor. “Nothing like a lot of unpaid bills to put a person down sick in bed and ready for the undertaker. Let’s get them off your chest.”

“Are these all your bills, Mr. Shambley?” asked Paige, holding up a bunch of papers he had brought from the drawer in the dining room where he got the mortgage papers.

The sick man looked up with a start and then sank back.

“Yes,” he groaned. “Those are all of them. But if I could get a job I’d soon have those out of the way.”

“Well, it’ll be time enough to talk about that when you get well and have a good job so you can take care of your family. Let’s get these out of the way now. Madison, you add those up, and I’d like to chip in and help with them. I want to see this man get well. Here’s a milk bill. Twenty dollars, and it’s dated two months ago! Is that why Nannie hasn’t been drinking milk anymore? Well, we’ll see about that. I want her to have plenty of milk, and you, too. The whole family needs milk. I’ll just take this bill along and settle it up and see that they send some milk over right away tonight. And you get the other bills together.”

“There aren’t so many of them. Two groceries, and the shoe store; Johnny had to have his shoes fixed or he couldn’t go to school. A small bill at the hardware. The ax broke and we
had
to have another to cut down a tree for a fire. There’s a gas bill, too, and electric light, but they’ve been cut off for three weeks.”

“There, now, don’t think anything more about it,” said Paige. “These don’t add up to so much. We’ll be able to get enough to cover these, so don’t worry. Now, let’s go over them again and see if we’ve missed anything.”

Paige’s matter-of-fact tone seemed to give a new kind of strength to the discouraged man.

“Now, are you sure there isn’t anything else?”

“The bread man,” murmured the poor man.

“Yes. But that’s not so much. I can get you money enough to cover all these, and a little more to keep you going until you get your job. It won’t pay to starve yourself or your family. It only makes more bills. So now, let’s get this thing straight. You are to eat some more soup and bread and coffee, and then you’re to go to sleep and put all your troubles out of your mind. That’s the first step to righting things. The doctor says your little girl is not going to die at present and will get well soon if you brace up and get well yourself. The doctor is getting a nurse tonight, too, so your wife can get some rest. And now I’ll go and see if there is anything else I can do. Where is that son of yours? It’s time he had something to eat, too.”

So Paige went in search of the boy and to find out from June what plans she had.

“I’m staying here till the nurse comes,” she said, “but I think you should go home and tell my folks what has happened. Dad will come after me. And tell him to bring some more coffee and a loaf of bread. Now please, go. I’ve taken enough of your time already, and I surely am obliged to you. I didn’t know I was getting you into such an extended performance, but it certainly has been wonderful to have you along. You’ve done wonders with that poor discouraged man. Now go, do. Your mother will be worried about you.”

Paige looked at her amusedly.

“So that’s the kind of softy you think I am, is it? Leave you here to face all this music and go home to save myself? Not on your life, I don’t do that. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll go to the store and get some groceries. There’s a store over near our house that stays open late, and even if they’ve gone to bed, I know them well enough to wake them up. So you wait here till I come back. I won’t be long.” And with that, Paige vanished out into the darkness.