The Flower Brides (52 page)

But one man turned and looked her full in the face as she sped by, watching her until she turned the corner and went on out of sight. He was one of those who slouched low on the step, his gaunt, ill-strung length stretched to its utmost, his gawky limbs lying absolutely relaxed, his lazy arms anchored by hands in his pockets. He had a weak chin and an irresponsible manner. It had taken the distance of a block for him to get a full recognition across to himself, and even then he wasn’t quite sure. As much as he allowed his lazy mind to think, he turned the matter over once or twice and then decided it didn’t matter, anyway, and went on sunning himself on the step. If she was the girl who often used to pass his mother’s cottage when he was a child, what business of his was it, anyway? She wouldn’t recognize Bill Sharpe, of course. It likely wasn’t the same girl, and why should he care? He would have smoked a cigarette on it if he had had one to smoke, but he hadn’t. That was why he was here, to see if he could pick up a job. He needed some money badly. His mother was dead and could no longer earn it for him doing fine sewing. He sat still and soon forgot that he might possibly have seen a daughter of the Disston House go by in this most unexpected place.

But Diana walked more slowly back on the next street. She was looking around her now with a purpose. She must find a job. And if she couldn’t find a job within the next day or two, she might soon find herself having to move to one of these unspeakable little apartments that she was passing, for she had only two dollars and seventy-five cents between her and starvation. True, there was the five dollars the banker had suggested she might draw out at her will, but what was that? She scorned to go back and get it. At best it would keep her a very short time, and if there was a job somewhere, she must get it now.

She was keeping her eye out for signs, but there was nothing for women. Several places had a card out, B
OY
W
ANTED
, and one dirty little shop had a blackboard at the door with a scrawled sign, M
AN
W
ANTED TO
D
RIVE A
T
RUCK
, but there was nothing for women or girls until she came into the downtown region again, and there she saw a notice in the window of a cheap little restaurant, W
AITRESS
W
ANTED!

Diana paused before the door and looked inside. It was the noon hour, and there was a crowd of working people, swarming in like flies, waiting behind chairs for their occupants to finish. The waitresses had highly illuminated, hard faces and untidy dresses. They were knocking about among the people with heavy trays lifted high, calling out in raucous voices for room to get by. There was a heavy odor of burned grease, fried fish, and onions floating on the air. A man with fulsome, sneering lips and little pig eyes was directing it all. Diana stood for a full minute and took it all in. Then she turned and walked wearily away. Would she have to come to that?

It was not that she felt above such work. It seemed a thing that anyone might learn to do. But to have to live in such a noisy mess and be ordered around by a loathsome man like that! Why, Bobby Watkins was a seraph compared to that man.

She allowed herself a glass of milk and one little packet of peanut butter sandwiches for her dinner that night but had hard work to finish even that. She was heartsick and could not eat. She toiled up to her third-story room afterward, too utterly weary to think. But after a few minutes lying prone across her bed, she got up desperately and went to the drawer where she had put the little tract. She must have some help somewhere or she would lose her mind!

She had bought a cheap Bible the day before as she passed a secondhand bookstore but had had no time to look at it yet. Now, as she took it out, she realized that she ought to have saved even the small sum that she had paid for it. But it was too late for such regrets. Perhaps she might even come to having to sell it again, but she wanted to find those references and write them out before it was gone. She picked up the tract and read the now familiar words:

She looked at the first reference, Psalm 22:1, and turned bewilderedly to her book. She had been so long away from any intimate contact with a Bible that the books seemed to have changed places since she last knew them. But at last she found the Psalms, and suddenly a verse caught her eye: “When my father and my mother forsake me then the Lord will take me up.” What an astonishing verse for her to come upon when she was in such desperation! Her mother was gone and her father had practically forsaken her. For now as she thought over the interview in the bank, she began to see clearly the fine vindictive hand of her new stepmother in what her father had done to her. She was quite sure he would never of himself have done such a thing if Helen had not suggested it, and suggested it in such a way, fairly pursuing her victim until it was done, that he simply had to do it or rebel. Diana instinctively recognized that his marriage was too new for him to rebel yet. But at least for the time, whether he realized it or not, he had forsaken her, his daughter.

And now, was it true that there was Someone who cared about all this? She would find out. She turned back the pages to the twenty-second Psalm. But when she had found the verse she could make nothing of the desolate cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” until she finally turned to the reference in Matthew: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

So then Jesus was forsaken! She went back to the beginning of the chapter and read the whole story of the crucifixion. She had heard it over and over again in her childhood, of course, but it had made little impression. It had just been a story of a man who lived long ago whom she had been taught was the Savior of the world.

But now, because she realized for the first time that He was really in the position of having been forsaken by God, His Father, because He had taken upon Him the sins of the world and God could not have any fellowship with sin, she suddenly saw what had never occurred to her before, that Jesus, the Savior of the world, knew what she was going through now because
He had gone through it
. He had voluntarily accepted that separation from God, which was what His death meant, and had done it for her sake, for the sake of those He was saving.

This did not come to her all at once. It took careful reading over and over, and even then it was only a dawning comprehension. Nevertheless it was enough to fill her with wonder and a degree of belief.

At last, her mind filled with the picture of Calvary and the meaning of it as applied to herself, she found the next reference, Hebrews 2:18:

It was as if a voice spoke to her soul from the printed page. She was so lonely and desolate that she welcomed the message with a throb of joy. It was like an assurance from heaven that there was Someone who cared after all else had failed!

She thought about it for a few minutes. Able to succor! Then He had the power, an understanding power because He had been through the same experience. Ah! how wonderful! But—were there no qualifications that one must have to be worthy of such succor, except just to be in need? Was this for everybody? How could she be sure He would succor, even though He was able?

She turned to the next verse:

How tenderly precious. He would come. Her father hadn’t been willing to come. But this One had promised to come and bring comfort.

But wait! She still did not know whether that meant herself or not. How could she be sure? He hadn’t come, had He? She had been in the direst need and He hadn’t come. Wasn’t there something lacking somewhere, in her case at least?

But there was one more reference. She hurriedly turned the pages. This little tract seemed so sure. Why should it be broadcast in print this way if it were not for everyone in trouble? Then she read, and it was the story of Mary going to the empty tomb to find her Lord and finding only angels:

Diana read in astonishment. Well, what could that mean in
her
life, always supposing that this story was meant to mean something in her life? Could it be that Jesus had come to her somewhere, somehow, and she had not recognized Him? Oh, to understand, to know! But how was she to find out? She went back and read through the resurrection story, finding herself curiously interested, sympathetic with the weeping Mary, yet still perplexed, still wondering how to find Mary’s Lord and whether He would be willing to be her Friend and Comforter. It all seemed so long ago, and she here alone in a new dreadful world, wherein money was withheld as well as comfort. There was no comfort it seemed. And she had never dreamed that money bulked so largely in the human equation. There had always been enough before, and she had never thought about it. But now she had to think. She must earn her way, and she was hungry! Actually hungry! But she didn’t dare spend more than was absolutely necessary, and tomorrow she must get a job! Even if she had to go back to that awful restaurant, she must get one!

The money was all gone, and she had actually not a cent left after the glass of milk she took for her breakfast on the morning that she did find some work.

Of course, her room was paid for the month. That was good. If she had to starve, she could at least die decently. And, of course, there were things she could sell, though she didn’t know how to go about selling them, and it made her heart sink to think of it. There were the pearls! But they should be the last resort. Her mother’s pearls! She laid her hand over the little chamois bag that hung around her neck beneath her dress on its tiny platinum chain and felt stronger for the contact.

“‘When my father and my mother forsake me then the Lord will take me up,’” she said softly over to herself as she started out on her desperate way. “I’ll just have to trust Him, that’s all. I don’t know Him, but perhaps He knows me, and I’ll
have
to trust He’ll look out for me, for I’ve nobody else!”

It was just a moment later that her eye caught a glimpse of the card in the window of a small bookshop, or was it a publisher’s office? She wasn’t sure. But there was the neatly printed card.

She stopped short and stared. She felt somehow as if her unspoken prayer had been answered. She began to wonder if her eyes were really seeing all right. Did things really happen like that?

Then she turned and went in.

It was a neat, pleasant office with a sweet-faced elderly woman at its head and a glimpse of several nice-looking women and girls at desks in an inner room, two of them at typewriters. Farther on there was another room where she could see a gray-haired man sitting at a desk and a younger man standing by him with papers in his hand about which they seemed to be talking. She learned later that this was the editorial room.

It was all so easy. She had only to write her name and address and a sentence or two. They took her at once. She wrote a beautiful, clear hand, and her appearance was in her favor. But her heart sank when she was told that it was only a temporary job. It might last only a couple of days, or they might even get the work done by night. They were not sure. It depended upon some lists that might come in before the day was done. The pay was reckoned on the number finished each day.

Diana sat down at the desk they assigned her in the middle room and began her work. She was glad she had brought her fountain pen along in her handbag. She could work better with her own tools. Soon she was hard at it. The manager from the front office came through the room several times, stopped now and again to look over her shoulder, noticed how rapidly the finished piles of envelopes were mounting, and smiled her approval, but beyond that nothing was said to her.

At noon the office manager stepped in and told her she might take her lunch hour now, and Diana looked up with a rising color of embarrassment.

“Would you mind if I didn’t go out?” she asked. “I really don’t care for lunch today, and I’d like to stay and get more done, if that’s all right with you.”

The woman gave her a keen, swift look but told her she might stay if she preferred. “Although,” she added, “I always think it’s better for the girls to get out for a breath of fresh air and a little something to eat, even if it isn’t much. You can, of course, bring your lunch if you prefer. There’s a dressing room just up those steps to the right where you can eat it. But do as you prefer. Of course, we’re anxious to get these envelopes finished as soon as possible.”