The Challengers by Grace Livingston Hill Read Free Book Online

that again!" sighed the mother as she sat down to look over the mail and throw most of it in the wastebasket as usual. "We must do something--sell something perhaps. How about that chair? It's solid mahogany and quite old. It ought to bring something. Could we get along without it? And somehow we must manage to pay back that kind Mr. Brady. It was wonderful of him to do what he did last night."
    "Yes, and, Mother, can't we get out of this house right away today? I feel as if I couldn't bear the sight of that Barkus woman ever again," this from Phyllis.
    "It's sure I don't know where we'd go, nor what we would move with if we did. Remember it costs money to move."
    "But, Mother, what about the bonds? Wasn't Father willing you should use them now? Surely things couldn't be much worse than they are at present."
    "My dear, that's the trouble. There aren't any bonds."
    "There aren't any bonds!" exclaimed both the girls in chorus.
    "But, Mother, I remember when Father showed them to us, when we were little girls," added Phyllis.
    "Yes, but it seems when Father was going to the hospital, he thought there might be an emergency more than he knew at the time, and he took them and put them in the Mercer Loan and Trust Company, and that was the bank that closed its doors last week. They are there all right, in our own safe-deposit box, and they belong to us, and eventually we can get them, but not now. The bank has closed its doors indefinitely; in a few days or a week or two things will be arranged. Of course it will, for the bonds are ours. But that doesn't do us any good today. And, girls, there wasn't as much there as I thought there was. It seems Father invested all but two five-hundred-dollar bonds in what he thought was going to bring in a bigger interest for us right now while we needed it. And the stock he bought has gone down, down, down, until it is worth practically nothing."
    The girls were silent, trying to look life's sordid facts in the face. What a strange thing life was anyway! A week ago they were possessed of money enough to keep them from starving, and now--where was it? And yet they had not spent it. It had not been stolen. It was just gone into the infinite somewhere. What became of money you had and hadn't? How strange it was!
    Mrs. Challenger looked at her letters.
    "Oh, here is one from Stephen!" she exclaimed with a smile and a sigh. "Poor Steve! He doesn't know what we are going through!"
    She began to read aloud.
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    Dear Mother and All:
    I haven't much time to write this morning. I'm due over at the dining hall to sling hash in ten minutes. If it weren't for my need, I wouldn't take time to write at all. And I'm awfully sorry to come to you at all for help with all the burdens you and Dad have while he is sick, but truly, Mud, I've got to have some more clothes. My pants are worn so thin I have to sit down when anybody very swell comes around, and I can't possibly graduate without a new suit.
    I thought I could earn it myself, coaching football, but another guy got the job, and then I had to work pretty hard at my thesis nights when I got done working, and I've been so dead tired that I didn't try for anything else beyond what I am already doing. But I thought, Mud, if you could just get one of those cheap blue serge suits they always have advertised at the department stores in the city, and have it sent up; you know, I'm always a perfect thirty-eight, and anything will fit me. I'll pay it back to you and Dad the first week I get home. There'll be plenty of lawns to cut by that time out in the country, and I can surely make twenty-five bucks in no time. I'll be glad if you'll send it as soon as possible because, Mud, I truly haven't a thing but my old gray knickers that are fit to wear in company.
    This will have to be all this time, for I heard the bell ringing and I'm late already.
    Heaps of love to all,
    Steve
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    Calamity sat upon every face as she finished reading. They looked at one another in