Part 4 (1/2)

HER NEED

She was just a girl with a foreign name, a foreign face and a bit still of a foreign dress. But she was a girl, just the same, and her face was full of longing. Her home was near to a settlement where many girls came for lessons and for play. But somehow they had never asked her to come, though often she had sat on the steps at night where they must pa.s.s her. She had seen them come with their arms about each other, talking and laughing and singing--and when they had pa.s.sed, she had gone to her lonely hall bedroom and hidden her face in the pillow.

Oh, no, she didn't cry. She was too brave to cry. She just suffered alone and longed for help.

It had been a year since she had left the home across the sea and had come to join her father in the land where ”work was plenty and friends were easily made.” But she had found her father living where she could not and would not live. The friends he had made in America she could not and would not have for hers. So when she had grown proficient enough in the factory, she had gone to live in that loneliest of all lonely places--a boarding house.

The days had pa.s.sed one by one. Some of the boarders called her fussy; some said she was cold; some said she was ”stuck-up” and none of them had found that beneath the surface there was a sweet, gentle, lonely heart.

Then came the strike--and she was out of work. In the bank she had a few dollars but they had soon fled and now--oh, what could she do? The way was so black ahead. She couldn't go to her father and his friends. What could she do?

The girls pa.s.sed her as they went to the settlement house but no one noticed her sad little face. So she slowly rose and wended her way down the street. Out of the poorer section she went, then down a long avenue till she came to a great church. The altar lights were lighted. All was quiet and restful, so she sat, and looked, and listened for the still, small voice that she longed to hear.

A long, long time she sat there, counting her beads. Then she slowly rose and entered the confessional, but when she came out there was still the look of longing in her face. Toward the altar she went. Perhaps in the communion she might find help for her troubled soul, and again she counted her beads.

But, somehow, there was no prayer on the beads that seemed just what she wanted to say. Again, she went to the altar. But this time she lifted a face, white with suffering and thin from lack of food, to the face of the Christ above the altar and from the depths of her heart she prayed,

”O G.o.d! My G.o.d! I do not ask for money, though I am hungry. I do not ask for a home, though I am oh! so very lonely. I do not ask for work, though I have none. For only one thing I ask. Give me a friend. Oh, give me a friend! For Jesus' sake. Amen.”

Again she walked back through the avenue and down the narrow street to her only home. The doors of the settlement were opened and the girls came out, happy as birds in the springtime. Quietly she watched them as they came nearer. Then suddenly one of them stopped.

”Excuse me for speaking to you,” she said, ”but our guardian heard that you lived in this house, so she asked us to come and invite you to come to Camp Fire with us next Tuesday. We are to have a supper together so that you will soon know us all and then we are to go for a hike together. Shall we stop for you as we go?”

For a moment she could not answer. In her throat was a lump so big that she could not swallow. Then she said in a low, sweet voice,

”Indeed I should like to go. Thank you for asking me.”

And the girls pa.s.sed down the street, singing their Camp Fire song.

But up in the little hall bedroom there was a girl with a foreign name, and a foreign face, and a bit of a foreign dress. She was on her knees, looking up at the heavens full of stars and over and over she was saying, ”Oh, I thank thee. I thank thee. I have a chance to be a friend.”

And her heart was content.

THE MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAIN

”In the beginning G.o.d created the heaven and the earth.”... ”Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” These were the two sentences that were neatly written on two pieces of paper on Marcia Loran's desk and the girl sat looking at them while the minutes went steadily by. How could they be? How could a power that made the earth be also in her life? How could it be?

Marcia had always been a reader of her Bible; she had always loved her mother's G.o.d and she loved Him now, but she was longing for help and no one seemed near to give it. And the reason for the need of this help was easy to give. The new girl who had moved into the next room had been laughing at her belief in G.o.d and Marcia knew no way to answer. She had hoped that her course in Bible at college would help her but somehow she seemed less able than ever to answer it now.

Who was G.o.d? Where was G.o.d? How could she know that these two verses could both be true? It was an honest doubt and she knew she must answer it before her mind could be at rest. She felt she could never ask the question in a letter to her mother, for mother must never know that she was questioning. Oh, if only some one knew how much she needed help!

But it was time for the picnic which the members of her cla.s.s were to have, so she slipped the papers again into her Bible and went to the campus. They were to climb one of the mountains near by and dear old Professor Hastings was to be their guide. Old in years but young in heart and lithe still in limb, he stood out among the students as one of the best of the companions. As they climbed, Marcia kept near to him.

”I am looking,” he said, ”for a rare little flower which grows on this mountainside. Perhaps you can help me find it. It is very tiny and it grows in the crevice of the rock. But I am needing a specimen of it for my collection.”

So together they looked in every crevice but not a bit of the little white blossom did they see.