A Proper Pursuit (13 page)

The carriage hit a bump in the road and Uncle Henry shifted positions, snorting loudly in his sleep. We happened to be passing beneath a gaslight and I saw the look Aunt Agnes gave him before she turned away; it was not a loving one. Except for the carriage ride to and from the ball, I hadn’t seen my aunt and uncle together all evening. Aunt Matt had piqued my curiosity, but I would never dare ask someone about her marriage.

“I’m going to send over my seamstress on Monday morning, Violet. You’re going to need a new gown for the party at the Kent home next Saturday.”

“Thank you. That’s very generous of you.” But I knew that my aunt’s offer wasn’t entirely altruistic. She would move up the social ladder along with me if I married well.

The lights were still glowing in our parlor when I arrived home, and I was surprised to find my grandmother waiting up for me, knitting a pair of socks. She looked tired. According to the hall clock, it was nearly one in the morning.

“I’m sorry I’m so late.”

“That’s okay, dear. How was the party? Did you have a good time?”

“I guess so.”

“You don’t sound very enthused.”

I watched her put away her knitting and slowly rise to her feet, leaning on the arms of her chair. I wondered if she was as disappointed in me as Aunt Matt was for getting so caught up in the social scene. Grandmother worked very hard for several charitable causes, yet I’d shown no interest at all in what she did. She had asked me to help her knit socks, but I hadn’t taken time to do that either.

“To tell you the truth, Grandmother, a lot of what goes on at these high-society functions seems a bit … phony. I want to find a good husband but …” I shrugged and left the sentence dangling. She rested her hand on my arm.

“What is your definition of
good
? A wealthy one?”

“I don’t know anymore. According to Aunt Agnes, Father sent me to Chicago to find a proper husband. So does that mean he wants me to marry into high society?”

Grandmother removed her hand and turned away. “I really don’t know, dear. Your father doesn’t tell me what he’s thinking.” Her voice sounded sad.

“But you’re his mother. Why doesn’t he—?”

“It’s very late,” she said, stifling a yawn. “We’d better go to bed. Will you be coming to church with me tomorrow?”

Attending weekly church services was a chore to me, and I longed to sleep until noon on Sunday. But I didn’t want to hurt Grandmother’s feelings—especially after she’d waited up for me tonight.

“Yes,” I replied. “I would be happy to go to church with you.”

Chapter

9

Sunday, June 11, 1893

S
unday morning dawned much too soon. I regretted my promise to attend church services with my grandmother the moment she tapped on my bedroom door to awaken me.

“Violet Rose? If you still want to come to church with me you’ll need to get up soon.”

“Okay,” I mumbled. “I’m up.” But I waited until the last possible moment to climb out of bed, just as I had in boarding school. I could get dressed faster than any of the other girls could. It helped that I always skipped breakfast—as I planned to do this morning.

Grandmother was waiting for me in the front hall when I finally descended the stairs. I still wore my hair pinned up from last night— a trick I’d learned that helped me get ready faster—but it looked very disheveled. I had also learned that I could avoid fussing with it by wearing a very large hat.

“Ready?” Grandmother asked.

I managed to nod in reply. I could barely keep up with her as she set off briskly down the street. Maybe I could squeeze in a short nap during the sermon.

“How far away is your church?” I asked, hoping it belonged to the steeple I saw on the next block.

“We’ll have to take a streetcar. It’s too far to walk. The church is downtown, on the corner of Chicago and LaSalle Streets.” I perked up at the name LaSalle, the street where my mother lived. If only I had thought to bring her address.

We took the same streetcar that Aunt Matt and I had taken and got off at the LaSalle Street stop. Then we boarded another car that drove straight up LaSalle. I studied all of the buildings we passed, wondering if my mother was inside one of them at this very moment, a stone’s throw away from me. Most of the buildings looked more like offices than residential dwellings.

My grandmother took me by the arm the moment we stepped off the streetcar and towed me behind her like a tugboat hauling an overloaded barge. She seemed flushed and excited and in a great hurry to get to church.

“What’s the rush?” I asked as I stumbled along behind her. “Are we late?”

“Not yet. But there’s someone I want you to meet before the service starts.” She led me to an enormous brick building, several stories tall, with an even taller, castlelike tower.

“I can’t believe this is a church,” I said, gazing up at the imposing building.

“The first church that Dwight Moody founded was over on Illinois Street, but it burned down during the Great Fire. He dedicated this building five years later.”

I was wide-awake now. My mother and father had met during the Great Fire. Maybe I could find another clue to the mystery.

“Did my grandfather preach at that other church?” I asked. “Did you live in Chicago at the time of the fire?”

“No, your grandfather’s church was in Lockport—you know that.”

I feared that my arm would come out of the socket as she pulled me up the stairs and into the building. She stopped once we reached the dim foyer and craned her neck to look around at the milling crowd, searching for someone.

“Ah, there he is!” she said with a smile of relief. “Yoo-hoo! Louis! Here we are!” She towed me by the arm toward a young man in his midtwenties who was kneading his hat in his hands.

“Louis, this is my granddaughter, Violet Rose.” She beamed as if presenting him with the grand prize in a prestigious contest. “And, Violet, I’d like you to meet a dear young friend of mine, Louis Decker.”

“How do you do, Miss Hayes? Your grandmother has told me so much about you. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

“Um … a pleasure, Mr. Decker.”

I confess that I was much too surprised to say anything else.Was he the reason why my grandmother had been so eager for me to accompany her? Was she trying to find a husband for me too? I suppose it was only fair, since Aunt Agnes was doing the same thing, but I had never expected matchmaking from my grandmother.

Louis Decker was a compact, vigorous-looking young man with dark, discerning eyes behind his smudged, wire-rimmed spectacles. He was the first man I’d met in Chicago who seemed able to look at me rather than at my pretty facade. Nevertheless, I wished I had taken more time with my appearance.

“Louis is a student at the Chicago Evangelistic Society,” Grandmother explained. “We’ve both been helping with Mr. Moody’s campaign to win souls for the Lord while the Columbian Exposition is in town.”

“Are you interested in Mr. Moody’s work too, Miss Hayes?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard of him.”

He blinked and his eyes widened in surprise.

“I’ve been away at boarding school for the past three years,” I quickly explained, “and I’ve only been in Chicago for a week.”

“I see. Well, Dwight L. Moody is a very famous evangelist who has traveled all over the United States and England, leading people to the Savior. And now that the whole world is coming to Chicago for the Exposition, he has organized a special campaign to preach the Gospel all over the city.”

“Louis is very dedicated to Mr. Moody’s work,” my grandmother added, patting his shoulder. “And he also helps me with my work with the poor.”

Louis held up his hands in protest. “It’s all for the Lord’s glory. After all, He has done so much for me.” They might have been speaking a foreign language.

The best word to describe Louis Decker would be
intense
. He had a sense of urgency about him, as if a celestial clock was ticking away the seconds and soon he would have to give a thorough accounting of himself to the Almighty. Louis had longish hair and he wore a rumpled suit, but unlike my own tousled appearance, which was the result of my own laziness, Mr. Decker’s dishevelment seemed the result of his having more important matters to attend to than his appearance.

“Why don’t you take Violet Rose to see the Sunday school?” Grandmother asked. “There’s time before the service starts. I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.”

Louis nodded and led the way, plowing a path through the crowd for me. He was either too shy or too focused on his mission to offer me his arm, so I followed him as best I could. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

The Sunday school children—and there were hundreds of them—were the poorest, most bedraggled souls I’d ever seen. Not one of them wore a decent set of clothing. I saw outfits that were many sizes too big or too small, ragged, worn out, falling apart at the seams. Most of the children were without shoes, and the shoes I did see obviously didn’t fit—or were about to disintegrate. I thought of the cold winters in Illinois and knew that if Grandmother and I both knit from now until Christmas, we would never be able to make enough warm socks for all those dirty, callused little feet.

“Oh my!” My hands fluttered helplessly. “Oh, the poor little dears!” I looked at their matted hair and scabby faces, and I couldn’t help comparing them to pudgy, well-scrubbed Horace and Harriet, who had probably never known a day of want in their lives. Louis Decker must have noticed the tears that had sprung to my eyes.

“We can always use an extra pair of hands around here,” he said gently.

“Yes … I-I can see that you might.”

“The Gospel gives them hope, Miss Hayes. Jesus was born into poverty, just as they were. And He loved these little ones. He said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.’ That’s what our work is all about— building the kingdom.”

“They seem very happy here.” It was true. I saw smiles on nearly every little face in spite of their destitution.

“Mr. Moody started out as a shoe salesman,” Louis told me. “He saw kids like these roaming Chicago’s streets, and he made up his mind to start a Sunday school for them. His father had died when he was a child, and he understood what it was like to grow up desperately poor. But he also knew that God promises to be a Father to the fatherless.”

“What about the motherless?” I murmured.

Louis bent his head toward mine and cupped his ear. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you above the noise.”

“Nothing. Please continue.”

“Mr. Moody’s first Sunday school classes met in a converted saloon, but when that space became too small, he raised money to build his first church over on Illinois Street. He eventually had fifteen hundred children in his classes. President Lincoln heard about it and paid the Sunday school a visit. Mr. Moody is still a salesman—and I mean that in the best sense of the word. Only now he’s using his talent to pitch the Gospel instead of shoes.”

I could only nod, too moved by all of the ragged, exuberant children to speak. I recalled the fervor of Mr. McClure’s presentation aboard the train for Dr. Dean’s Blood Builder, and I tried to imagine that same fervor applied in selling religion. Louis Decker reminded me of Silas McClure and of Herman Beckett all rolled together into one man; he had the same restless energy I’d seen in the elixir salesman, combined with Herman’s somber earnestness. If he had Nelson Kent’s fortune, he could have transformed the world.

“We’d better find your grandmother,” Louis finally said. He gently led me away from the pitiful children, walking back the way we had come. I confess that I couldn’t have turned aside on my own.

“Have you enjoyed your visit to Chicago so far, Miss Hayes? How have you been occupying your time?”

His question caused the tears in my eyes to overflow. I couldn’t reply. My own superficiality horrified me. I’d spent my time sipping tea and preening to win a wealthy husband. I shuddered at the thought of all the wasted food I’d seen at Aunt Agnes’ parties, at all of the money her society friends spent on gowns and jewels, and at the shallowness of my pea-pod dancing partners. Louis Decker lived a life that was meaningful, and mine felt banal and superficial in comparison. What good were all of the fine manners I’d learned at Madame Beauchamps’ School for Young Ladies when children were shivering and hungry?

“I would like to help you with your work,” I said, wiping a tear.

He smiled for the first time. “I’d be honored, Miss Hayes. Do you play the piano, by any chance?”

“Yes, a little. I haven’t practiced in weeks though.Why do you ask?”

“We’re desperate for a pianist for some of our evangelistic services. Mr. Moody rents theaters in various parts of the city and puts up tents in order to preach to the crowds wherever he finds them.

You could be a tremendous help if you would be willing to accompany us on the piano for our song services.”

“Oh, but I’m not a professional by any means.”

“That doesn’t matter. The music is quite simple—four-part hymns, usually. I could give you a copy of Mr. Sankey’s songbook so you could practice in advance.”