12. The Vancouver Girls Corner Club
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE VANCOUVER GIRLS CORNER CLUB
FATHER AND I TRAVELED on the train together from Toronto to Vancouver, where my brother Murray met us at the station. It was strange to be together without Mother, and still more strange to find myself going across the ferry to North Vancouver in order to get home.
Father and Murray had rented a small four-room bungalow on Twelfth Avenue. Dad had one bedroom, I was given the other, and Murray put up a cot in the sitting room at night and slept there. The fourth room was a kitchen. A bathroom separated the two small bedrooms, and a good big basement took in my trunk and suitcases. The little place was scarcely big enough for the three of us. There were familiar things in the house—Mother’s piano, the well-known parlor chairs, friendly bookcases, and a big fireplace—just like the one in the old home. It was good to be back and I came to love that little house on the hill. From the front porch I could see the harbor and the waters of Burrard Inlet, beyond which lay—China.
There now faced me the need for employment. I must earn my living until the door to China reopened. Was I to go back to schoolteaching? I would have to sign a contract and then would not be free to leave if the way opened before the contract expired. I felt great reluctance in spirit to do this. God had led me out of schoolteaching. I felt it would be like sending Abraham back to Ur of the Chaldees to return to it. While I was praying and pondering I received an invitation to speak to the Vancouver Girls Corner Club (V.G.C.C.) at their evangelistic service on the next Tuesday night. Yes, I replied, I would be very pleased to be their speaker. Then, hanging up the phone, I asked my father who the V.G.C.C. were.
“Christian business girls banded together to try to win other business girls to the Lord,” answered Father. “The Club was founded by Mrs. Neff, a worker in the big evangelistic campaign held here when you were in your teens. Don’t you remember? Well, when the meetings were over they had a final supper with the converts, and some of the business girls got into a corner to discuss how they could keep together and keep going on after the campaign ended. They decided to form a club and to hold a weekly meeting to bring in unsaved friends. ‘Here we are in a corner,’ said one jokingly. ‘Let’s call it the Corner Club.’ And that is how it started and how it got its name. It is a fine work and I am glad you are going to speak to them.”
The next Tuesday evening Father took me downtown to the Club rooms. They had a big lounge overlooking Granville Street, one of the busiest streets of the city, a small office for their Superintendent, and a big dining hall where we went for supper. On Tuesday evenings a good supper was furnished for only fifteen cents a person. The dessert was always cake, and those delicious cakes were baked and donated by the women’s societies in various churches, thus enabling the supper price to be kept low.
After supper the tables were cleared, pushed back, and the chairs arranged for the meeting. A platform and piano were at the end of the long room and a bright evangelistic service was conducted for an hour. Christian business girls themselves led this meeting, and it was an enjoyable time, I thought.
In less than a week I received a second phone call. It was from the girls’ President of the V.G.C.C., who astounded me by an invitation to become their Superintendent! I had not noticed that the position was vacant, but apparently they had been without one for some time. “We feel shy to ask you to take it,” said the President, “because we can’t afford to pay you the salary you deserve, or even as much as we have paid in the past. Corner Club is run down a bit, having gone so long without a Superintendent. We can give you only eighty dollars a month to start with, but as the work picks up we hope to increase it. Your hours will not be heavy, and you will not need to be in the office until ten o’clock each morning.”
When I asked what were the duties of the Superintendent, she replied, “Well, to lead and direct the work. Every day at noon, tea, coffee, and milk are sold in the dining room. Business girls bring their bag lunches there and enjoy getting hot drinks to go with them. You will circulate among these girls, get to know them, and try to lead them to the Lord. Every Tuesday evening you will be in charge of the evangelistic service and will speak. The Corner Club has had to draw speakers from various churches in the city during this period without a Superintendent, and we would like to pay back our debt to them, so to speak, by having you speak at any of their young people’s societies who invite you. This would also advertise the Club. And maybe you yourself will create some new activities. Remember our motto is The Other Girl.”
I asked for time to pray about it and a date was set for my answer.
Nothing else was offered to me, and as I waited in prayer I felt the Lord wanted me to accept this invitation. So it came about that I became Superintendent of the Vancouver Girls Corner Club for 1927 and part of 1928. I had stipulated that the moment the door to China opened, I should be free to resign, and that was agreed to.
I now entered upon a fascinating period of my life. Corner Club was run by a Girls’ Board, a Women’s Board—representatives from different churches and denominations in the city—the Superintendent, and a business manager.
The business manager was a godly, middle-aged woman whom everyone called Mother Fitch. Mrs. Fitch was one of those energetic saints who are described as being full of good works. She had not enjoyed a higher education but had been taught of the Spirit and lived for the glory of God and the winning of souls. There was no big evangelistic effort in Vancouver without Mother Fitch having a hand in it somewhere. The city missions were enriched by her prayers and practical services. Realizing that God had not trained her for platform work, she humbly accepted any mundane service—cooking, serving, or even scrubbing—and prayed it into a ministry of blessing. Every Sunday she went to the jails to preach and during the week she ran the kitchen department of the Corner Club. Needless to say, I found in her a kindred spirit, although she must have been more than twice my age. We were a queer-looking team, but always a united one.
The Girls’ Board were elected by members of the Club. I was only twenty-five years old by now, and most of the Girls’ Board, I think, would have been a bit older than that, but our times together are among my happiest memories. I have always felt that my Corner Club girls were among the loveliest young women that God ever made. They were ready for any venture that would win souls, but they were also a very merry group, and the Club rooms resounded with laughter and gay banter in between the earnest prayer meetings and discussions.
I did not meet the Women’s Board immediately, and Mother Fitch laid hold of me early in that first week with a warning.
“Isobel,” she said, “I would like to suggest to you that you do away with the Women’s Board. They are not spiritually minded like the Girls’ Board, and I think they may be a drag on you. I believe God has sent you here for a red-hot soul-winning campaign and I am behind you one hundred per cent. You preach and I will cook! I know my place. The Women’s Board won’t allow you to give a call to decision on Tuesday nights, and I’m afraid you will meet with other restrictions. It is true the Club does get support from their churches and they would cut it off if the Women’s Board were dissolved, but I am willing to live by faith like Hudson Taylor, and I am sure you are too. I think you could talk the girls into agreeing, for they are anxious to give you a free hand to direct things as God leads you.”
Now this was the delicate situation into which I had come. I was young, inexperienced, and the words red-hot soul-winning campaign thrilled my soul. To give up a salary and live like Hudson Taylor would be heroic—the strongest kind of appeal to me at that time. It was many years before a quiet article in the C.I.M.’s private News Bulletin alerted me to the danger of missionary heroics. The article pointed out that just because a line of action is difficult, painful, or dangerous does not necessarily prove that it is the will of God. A simple illustration was cited: A call for medicine comes in the middle of a missionary’s meal. She jumps up and leaves her food half eaten and rushes off to answer. That may seem noble and sacrificial on the surface, but in reality it could be foolish and harmful. Of course, I am not referring to life-and-death emergencies, when promptness is a duty. I mean an ordinary medical call. The messenger has probably dilly-dallied several times already and an extra ten minutes’ wait until the nurse’s needed nourishment is properly masticated will hurt no one. As I read the article, I recognized my own behavior pattern with deep chagrin. I was not given to breaking up my mealtimes, but I had been guilty of other extremes of conduct. Some natures are more open to this temptation than others, and mine is one. So at this time of my youth, Mother Fitch’s suggestion appealed to me as quite possibly the highest line of conduct. I was cautious, however, and told her we must pray much before doing anything so radical.
I believe it was that very evening when I met the President of the Women’s Board. She was a warm-hearted Scottish lady who shook hands with me, giving me a hearty welcome to the Corner Club. Then she added: “You are a candidate of the C.I.M., aren’t you? I’m good friends of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Thomson, and he told me to keep an eye on you and let him know how you get on here!” And she beamed at me cordially, perfectly unconscious that she had just brought a whiplash down over my shoulders with a sting!
I never for a moment thought that Mr. Thomson had betrayed our secret to her. Charles Thomson was a godly Scotsman, the soul of honor and common sense. I was sure that Mrs. Mc—— did not know the full implication of what she had said, but I saw in a second that I was in no position to begin my Superintendent’s career by dismissing her! Some more gentle method must be found, so the Lord used this whiplash to guide me on to a better road. I told Mrs. Fitch that I felt we should go slowly and try what prayer could do first. She sighed, but never refused a challenge to pray. The day was to come when the President of the Women’s Board would kneel beside me in the little office, and with tears thank God that He had brought me to Corner Club. And I—likewise with tears in my heart—thanked Him for keeping me from the precipitate action which would have wounded this dear life and hindered the accomplishment of His purposes.
As I gradually met with other members of the Women’s Board I found a group of women very different in temperament one from the other, but gifted, reasonable, and co-operative. They did ask that I issue no calls to come forward for decision, feeling that the business girls would prefer more decorum and dignity in the Tuesday night services than the usual penitent form method, but they too wanted to see people converted.
God blessed the Tuesday night meetings in a quiet way. Not many made an open profession of Christ (which troubled me) but the attendance grew by leaps and bounds. No one knew how difficult I found those services. I was tormented by fear of stage fright again, or my mind going blank like it had during the M.B.I. graduation ceremony. Many a Tuesday night, as the girls were gaily putting out the hymnbooks, I slipped down the corridor to the bathroom—the only place where I could be sure not to be seen—and, leaning up against the wall, cried to the Lord for nerve to go back and get on that platform. He never failed me: the stage fright never came back seriously, and gradually I began to count on His help, and speaking grew easier.
Invitations to churches began to come, too. Finding that several of the girls had beautiful voices, I organized and trained a quartet, following the teaching I had received at Bible school in this. One of the younger members of the Women’s Board had a bell-like contralto voice suited to sing the bass part, so the quartet represented both the Girls’ and Women’s Boards and was a real success. “Miss Miller and the Corner Club Quartet” began to get calls from all different denominations, and our opportunities to witness for the Lord multiplied. Often we took our suppers to the Club and ate before leaving as a team for the church of the evening. Then it was that the empty dining-room rang with laughter, for all four had a keen sense of humor and the relaxation from their office work prompted an ebullition of youthful spirits. But always the evening’s work was brought before the Lord in earnest petition before we left.
I began to see what a power a Christian Business Girls’ Club could be. Through its interdenominational character, it was quietly reaching out and challenging young people’s societies in many denominations throughout the city.
And even into the business life of the city an influence was going out. A lawyer asked what had caused the change in the life of his stenographer and her answer had an effect on him. I saw more and more the wonderful potentialities of the work when first things were kept first. There have been corner clubs in other cities, but the temptation is to let them sink into merely social service efforts. Young life must have an outlet, and I soon saw that. So we had picnics, seaside corn roasts, hikes on Saturday afternoon, and in the winter we had a stunt night for girls only. This was one of the most hilarious evenings I ever spent. The stunts were all whole-some fun and revealed much brains and talent. I myself had opened it, dressed up as a cartoon version of an old maid schoolmarm, and I announced that the students of my boarding school were about to put on a program for their relatives and friends. Most of the girls had never seen me lay aside the dignity of my office just for fun, and it tickled their fancy to find I could enjoy a joke as much as the next one. That stunt night broke the ice between me and a certain girl for whom I had been fishing in vain for several weeks. It was only a short time afterward that she accepted the Lord in my office. But all our parties were threaded through with the love of Him, and a deadly earnestness that others might find Him too. I think that is the secret. A merely social club helps nobody very much, for it does not offer any solution to the problems of life.
My noontime circulating among the lunchers was to me the most difficult part of my work. Always shy about meeting strangers, I also had this unfortunate background of having so fiercely resented personal work in my own earlier days that it made me timid to barge in on other lives. I always felt I was a failure in those noon contacts, where a gifted evangelist could no doubt have reaped a big harvest. But I made friends and had their confidence. The sins and temptations which they gradually opened up to me about were appalling and led us into many unexpected adventures.
Let me tell about two of them.
Edith was a clever young girl who had come out from England to get work in Canada, and she lived with an aunt while doing so. She met and fell in love with a young man, and we followed her joy through the day she appeared in the lunch room with her new diamond ring; to the time when she said good-by to office work and invited us all to her wedding. She had her dress and trousseau, had resigned her job, the wedding-day was set, and the invitations had all been mailed. A night or so before the wedding her telephone rang. Edith heard a strange woman’s voice on the wire: “Is it true that you are to be married to Mr. So-and-so in a couple of days?”
“Yes,” answered Edith, wonderingly.
“I am very sorry, but I must tell you he is already married. I am his wife. I have our wedding certificate here.”
Can you imagine the shock of this to that young English girl? The shame of it? The heartbreak—for she had given her love unreservedly? But you cannot imagine the worst. Her aunt, humiliated at having to cancel the wedding, in a towering rage ordered the girl out of the house. She would have no such thing of shame under her roof, she said.
Out on the street, homeless, wild with grief and heartache, where could Edith go? Her church? They were her aunt’s type and would probably hold the same views. Corner Club. She crept in, broken, distraught—then found herself clasped on Mother Fitch’s broad bosom. Corner Club protected her, loved her, found her a home, and led her to the Lord. She proved to be an exceptionally gifted girl, and it was only a year or two before she had earned enough money to go back to England, where her own mother still lived. It was a soul saved and a young life saved as well.
The most exciting story perhaps was that of Flossie. A knock on my office door came one afternoon and I opened it to see a fashionably dressed woman standing there.
“Miss Miller?” she asked. “May I have a word with you? I have been to your Club rooms several times and admire the work you are doing very much. There is a young girl named Flossie in my boardinghouse who needs help. May I tell you about her?”
I led the woman into the lounge and we sat while she talked. “Flossie is a nice young thing from the prairies. Her mother is a widow, I believe, who sent her to Vancouver to study to be a nurse. She is a pretty girl and seems to have a lot of dates with young doctors, you know, and I guess she neglected her studies. Anyway, she failed her year, is out of the hospital, and has no money. I am anxious that the temptations of a big city do not suck her under. Do you think your Corner Club could help her? I told her you were very nice, despite—ahem— your long hair, and—ahem—your long skirts”—this with an eye to each. (The fashions in 1927, you remember, had shrunk skirts until they barely reached the knees, and although I had shortened my dresses I still felt that modesty required that the knees be covered. My hair should be long for the China of those days, so I had never cut it.)
I was much amused at her two “ahems,” but boldly ignored this little difference of opinion between us, and answered, “We will certainly do anything we can to help Flossie. We are not an employment agency, but—”
“But do you have dishes to wash and dry?” urged the lady. “I thought if you could employ her here it would give you a chance to talk to her and perhaps steady her.”
“I will consult our business manager,” I replied. “Leave me your telephone number and I will call you. We do have dishes to wash, but our help is voluntary. Our budget does not allow for much paid labor.”
Mother Fitch, of course, was enthusiastic about taking in another young life to influence for Christ, and it was agreed to employ her for a week or so while we sought to get her regular employment. So Flossie was brought to us.
She turned out to be a gay little chatterbox. Most of the time she was busy in the kitchen, of course, but there came an hour when I was able to have her alone in the office and presented the claims of the Lord Jesus for her heart and life. She listened with the tears running down her face and acquiesced in everything. When she had left, Mother Fitch came in to inquire about the result.
“Well,” I answered slowly, “I am not satisfied. She was certainly touched and willing to follow me in prayer and accept Christ as her Saviour. She wept, but somehow I cannot believe she is bom again. Something did not seem to click—if you know what I mean.”
Although we were not an employment agency, and certainly not a rescue mission, still it was possible at Corner Club to announce to the girls that a certain one needed work and to ask that the members keep their eyes open for a suitable vacancy. This we did, and Flossie was not with us long before a noon-hour girl named Helen came to my office.
“Do you suppose, Isobel,” she said, “that this girl Flossie would be willing to take a poorly paid job until something better turns up? My mother has had a stroke and is completely paralyzed—she cannot even turn in bed. I am only an office worker and cannot afford a trained nurse to care for her during the day while I am away. But Flossie has had some training. I would give her room and board and a little pocket money if she would come and care for Mother.”
We called Flossie in, and she accepted the position. She would be free every evening and we urged her to come to our Tuesday supper and service, and said good-by. As our life was full of unexpected cases, it was not possible to follow up Flossie very closely.
Summer came, and I was to have two weeks’ vacation, which I chose to spend at The Firs, naturally. A few days before I was to leave I had a telephone call from Helen.
“Isobel, have you heard about Flossie?” she asked.
“No, not a word,” said I in alarm. “Please tell me.”
“Well, she is in the hospital. She began to act and talk strangely here and one evening she had a sort of spell so I called in a doctor. He sent her to her old hospital and now says she is insane. I don’t believe it myself. In fact, I think she is acting a part to get away from here. It is a bit quiet for her, I guess. I feel she’s been accustomed to hit the pace, you know. Anyway, I wish you would go and see her. Her doctor might believe you. He won’t listen to me. Here is his name and telephone number.”
I was staggered at this news, but promised to go and see Flossie. Helen hung up and I called the doctor’s number. A crisp, professional voice answered.
“Doctor, this is Miss Miller, Superintendent of the Vancouver Girls Corner Club. I believe you are treating Flossie ——?”
“Yes,” he said, shortly.
“Well, our Club is interested in her, and I have been asked to go and see her at the hospital if you will allow it.”
“It would do no good, Miss Miller,” came the answer quickly. “She would not know you. She recognizes no one and I have had her put in the violent ward.”
“Well, Doctor, the friends with whom she was staying feel that she is just acting a part.”
An exclamation of anger stopped me. “Miss Miller, I have been a specialist in mental cases for many years. Do you presume to tell me I cannot recognize insanity?” He was clearly insulted.
“No, Doctor. I beg your pardon. But for the sake of her friends, could you not give me permission to visit Flossie? My pronouncement would quiet them.”
He gave an exclamation of impatience.
“All right. Be at the hospital on Saturday afternoon at two. I’ll give orders for you to be admitted.” He slammed down the receiver.
Down went my phone, too. And up went my heart to the Lord. “Now, O Lord, I’m in for it! I have a new search on now. Can you control the highstrung bunch of nerves which is me, and enable me to face an insane person?”
I think that most people must have a private horror, a phobia, about some one thing. Most women fear snakes. I’ve known a big man almost to go to pieces at the news that a rat was near. A famous-scholar of our generation admits to a phobia regarding insects. Now my own private fear has always been insanity. I don’t like snakes or rats, but they do not set my nerves ajingle like the word insane.
“Lord,” I prayed, “when I felt I should go down into that cellar to see if Mrs. Mac had hung herself there, I asked You for the nerve to go, and I didn’t get it. Of course, You knew she wasn’t there and that I didn’t need to look. But still—can You nerve me to face insanity? Saturday afternoon will be my proving time.”
I was to leave on Saturday night for The Firs, so I was packed and ready for the train. Leaving my baggage at the Corner Club, I proceeded to the hospital at two o’clock in the afternoon and inquired for the ward where Flossie was. It was in the basement. Across the corridor were heavy, locked doors, and in front of them, at the side was a desk with two nurses in attendance. On the other side of the doors, someone was singing a ragtime song at the top of her lungs.
I went up to the nurses and said, “Please, may I see Flossie ——?”
The nurses looked at one another. “I’m sorry,” said the elder of the two. “It’s against the rules. No one is allowed to see her.”
“But I was told that I might, if I came at this hour,” I said. Again they exchanged glances, then the younger nurse said to me, “She is violent. That is her singing now.” The youthful voice was rollicking on.
“Dr. —— told me he would give orders to let me in,” I protested. That was a magic word. “Oh,” they said, scrambling through some papers on the desk. “Yes, here is an order for a Miss Miller.”
“I am Miss Miller.”
“All right. Step this way.”
The nurse took a big bunch of keys and opened the corridor door, ushering me into the aisle on the other side. Small cells lined this corridor on both sides, and each door was locked. The cells were beneath ground level, but had one iron-barred window high up near the ceiling, level with the ground outside.
My heart was beating so violently I felt dizzy and sick, but before I knew what was going to happen, the nurse had unlocked a cell, and pushed me in alone. I heard her lock the door behind me!
Flossie stood with her back to the door, looking up through the little barred window and shouting her song. She was in a disheveled mess that it would not be kindness to describe. At the sound of the key in the door she whirled around like a wild animal about to spring on its prey, but as soon as she saw me she went limp, blinked stupidly for a moment, then said, “Miss Miller!”
“Yes, Flossie dear,” I answered. Going forward and taking her in my arms, I kissed her. “I’ve only just learned that you were sick. I’ve come to see you. Get into bed, dear, and then we can talk.”
Like a lamb she climbed on to her cot and I sat at the foot of it, as there was no chair in the cell— nothing else but the iron bed. I talked about the Corner Club, trying to draw her memory back to quiet things and to the Lord. She answered each question intelligently and only once did she exhibit anything strange. I was telling her of some little Corner Club incident and said, “Mother Fitch— you remember who she is, Flossie, don’t you?”
“Yes,” came from the young face on the pillow. Then there followed an expression of cunning, “And I know you,” she cried emphatically. I went cold all down my spine, but ignored it, continuing my quiet chit-chat. I told her to trust in the Lord and promised to write her mother. “I am going on my vacation,” I said, “but will come and see you as soon as I get back.” I stayed about fifteen minutes, then knocked loudly on the door, hoping the nurse would hear. She came at length and I left—leaving Flossie still lying quietly in bed.
When I got back to the Corner Club I telephoned the doctor. “Yes,” he said. “Well, how did you get on?”
“She knew me immediately, Doctor, and called me by name.”
There was a staggered silence at the other end of the line, then I heard him say to himself, “Well I’ll be——.” To me he said, “Miss Miller, please tell me exactly what happened, right from the first.” After I had done so, he said, “How soon can you visit her again?”
“I am leaving in a few hours for vacation, Doctor. I will be gone two weeks, but will call you as soon as I return.”
“You do that!” he said earnestly, and we hung up.
Of course, I felt that Helen must be right—Flossie was playing a part for some reason. If I had known it was so important, I would have given up my vacation to attend her, but I didn’t. In my next telephone conversation with the doctor on my return from The Firs he told me she had been sent to an insane asylum outside Vancouver. He was quite indifferent whether I visited her or not, saying, “This time she won’t know you,” but he gave me permission for a visit with her.
Looking back at this incident after nearly thirty years, and after having had more than two decades of experience with devil-worshiping mountain tribes, I am inclined to think that Flossie was demon-possessed. The Devil has hoodwinked educated America into thinking he is a myth, and he is working havoc unrecognized. My reason for believing this is twofold. First, I found that the mere presence of a consecrated Christian in a demon-haunted house was enough to force back those powers. My entrance into that hospital cell brought with it the power of my Master and the demon force was temporarily quelled. Second, that look of cunning when she affirmed—unasked!—that she knew me, was the very same that I have seen on the face of a demon-possessed tribes girl just before that demon was cast out. And the compulsion to confess recognition is similar to what took place in our Lord’s day. But as Superintendent of the Corner Club, I knew as yet nothing of these matters.
Now I felt I must visit Flossie in the asylum. Again I was terrified at the thought, but as God had taken care of me in the hospital, He would surely help me in this second step. So one afternoon found me arriving by bus at the famous institution which I had never dreamed I would ever see.
It was a huge place several stories high, and as I approached the large entrance, men patients behind the iron bars of a veranda screamed out to me and thrust their arms through the bars as if trying to reach me. Not very soothing to the nerves! Inside, I was ushered first into the office of the resident physician. He was a young man, and as I advanced to his desk he exclaimed, “Why, it is Miss Miller!” It was my turn to be astonished.
“Isobel Miller of Arts 22, U.B.C. (University of British Columbia), isn’t it?” he repeated, shaking hands cordially.
“Why, yes. But how do you know?” I queried. He laughed.
“I was an undergraduate, a year or so behind you. What have you been doing since then?”
We had a little chat. My work at the Corner Cub brought up the name of Flossie. There must have been several thousand patients in that place, so I asked, “Would you possibly know Flossie?”
“Would I?” he returned. “I’ll never forget the night they brought her here. It took four strong men to hold her!”
“What do you think? Is she incurable?”
“No-o,” he answered thoughtfully. “This type is brought on by dissipation and with the use of modern drugs we can often effect a cure. Did she talk very much? That is the first sign of this condition coming on—extreme talkativeness. She’ll be here two years at least, though, and then there is likely to be a recurrence later on.”
“My Club would like to help. Of course, we believe that prayer will help her, but is there anything else you can suggest?”
“Yes,” he answered. “She is run down through late hours and the life she led. If your Club can send her nourishing food, with extra protein values, such as meats and broths, that might hasten her recovery. The ordinary food here is good, but she needs extra meat and such, which a government institution can hardly provide.”
I promised that we would do our best, and he rang for an orderly to show me the way to Flossie’s ward.
“They must prepare her to see you,” he warned, “so you will have to wait awhile.”
Again I was taken to a corridor with a locked door. A lounge opened off at the side where harmless patients were sitting around, some embroidering, some reading, one playing the piano, and a nurse at a desk was obviously in charge. I sat in a bench opposite the locked door. Up tripped a young woman who asked me boldly, “Who have you come to see?”
“Flossie——,” I replied, rather wonderingly.
“Oh yes, a nice girl, I know her!” This with a loud voice, her eyes on the matron at the desk. Then behind her hand in a whisper she said to me, “She is no more insane than I am.”
“I’ve brought her some chocolates. Do you think she’ll like them?” I asked, more to make conversation than anything else.
“Oh, yes. The food here is fine!” This also in a loud voice toward the Matron, then behind her hand in a whisper, “It’s awful. They starve us. Bring her lots of chocolates!” And so she went on— compliments in a loud voice for the Matron to hear, and complaints in a whisper behind her hand to me. It was all I could do to keep my face straight, but evidently she was known to them, for after a few minutes the Matron quietly lifted her head and ordered, “K——, you come back in here.”
“See our bondage!” whispered the woman, making a wry face to me—but she obeyed.
At length a nurse came with a key and I was again ushered in behind the door to where a second nurse had brought Flossie, then to my horror both nurses left me alone and locked me in with the patient.
I would not have recognized Flossie. She was so thin and a mere shadow of herself. The preparation they had given her was to drug her into stupidity, then immerse her, hair and all, in a bath to clean her up. She stood before me swaying unsteadily, her damp hair clinging to her like a drowned rat, and she obviously did not know me. I told her my name and repeated it, but she gave no sign of recognition. I proffered the chocolates and she opened them eagerly, popping them into her mouth one after the other rapaciously. Within five minutes I knew that conversation was useless. It was true, she did not know me nor could she follow my thoughts.
Then the effect of the drug began to wear off. She had been brought to me in a corridor, with rooms on both sides.
“I want to go back!” she said suddenly, and started staggering down the corridor, hunting for her own room. As I did not know which one it was, I knocked and banged on the locked door to call the nurses back. At length one of them came and took Flossie to her place. But by this time Flossie had evidently come to. She turned fiercely on the nurse, swore, and cursed her. A glimpse into the room showed me why they had to drug her and bathe her before allowing any other human being to see her. Obviously she was living like an animal. Heartsick, I turned away and came home. It was an experience I would not care to have often, but the Lord had strengthened me to go through with it.
At the Corner Club I did not describe what I had seen, but merely gave the doctor’s advice to send her nourishing foods. I told how emaciated she was and asked for prayer. I also wrote to her mother and the result was that a sister was sent to Vancouver to visit Flossie and care for her needs.
Prayer was made constantly for the poor child’s recovery, and cartons of jellied chicken, home-made broths, jellies, and other good foods were sent by the girls and the Women’s Board. Still we were not prepared for our dear Lord’s answer to our prayers, abundantly above all that we had asked or thought.
Within six months Flossie was dismissed, cured. After asking the Lord daily to do this, I was taken aback by the speed with which His answer came. One day I received a telephone call from a stranger which ran something like this: “Miss Miller, you do not know me, but I am Mrs.——, neighbor of Flossie’s mother on the prairies. My husband and I are on a trip to the coast and Flossie’s mother asked me to bring Flossie home with me when we return. Do you know she was dismissed from the hospital a few days ago? No? Well, she was. She is living with her sister, but would like to come and see you before she leaves and thank you for what you have done for her. May I bring her this afternoon? We leave by the evening train. Thank you. At three o’clock, then.”
I sat back in my swivel chair and gasped. Then I bowed my head and thanked the Lord.
I awaited three o’clock with a little trepidation. I had met two very different Flossies already. Which one would this one resemble? The gay chatterbox? The doped animal? Could she really be normal? The third Flossie was the real Flossie, and a distinctly different person still. She had gained weight to a pleasing plumpness, but was so shy and quiet I could hardly recognize her. She thanked me prettily and sincerely, but when she was gone into the kitchen to salute Mother Fitch I turned to their neighbor and said, “My, she is quiet! Do you flunk she is afraid of me?”
The lady widened her eyes with astonishment. “Oh, no. Flossie never did talk much. She was always the quiet one. She is just like she used to be. Her mother will be delighted.”
And so we parted. But my story isn’t ended.
Nine years passed and now I was back at the Corner Club as a missionary on furlough, a married woman and a mother. What a welcome they gave me! But before the first message, which they asked me to give at the old Tuesday evening hour, I had a telephone call.
“Isobel, I wonder if you will remember me. This is Flossie.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Flossie! You back in Vancouver?”
“Yes. But I’m married now. Oh, Isobel, the Lord has been so good to me. I want to tell you all about it before you meet my husband. Will you take supper with me downtown, just the two of us alone, and then I will go with you to the meeting? My husband is coming to the meeting tonight—I got permission to bring him, since John, another man, will also be present. But I want you to hear my story first.”
I wonder if you can understand my joy? No one can who has not mothered spiritual children. No one can who has not stood and watched the brand blazing in the fire, and then shrunk from the heat which almost scorched the hand stretched out to snatch it from the burning!
That evening in a little cubbyhole of a restaurant we sat face to face once more. She was still sweet-faced Flossie, her quiet manner lit up with heartfelt gratitude. “Yes, I have a good husband and two darling children. And I’ve never had a recurrence. I’m sure the Lord won’t let me now. And, Isobel, I want my children to be brought up in the church. My husband and I are agreed: we want a Christian home.”
Just one little peach from a year’s harvest at the Corner Club. What potentialities lie in such work-leading business girls to Christ!
Often, on furloughs, I have heard the impatient remark, “Why go to the foreign field? There is lots to be done at home here!” There most certainly is. And there are lots of Christians at home—but are they doing it?
By searching for Him, He makes us conscious of the need of others, and helps us cut channels by which He may be poured into their lives. In no time we find ourselves His fellow workers, and life is rich.
But I must come back to my tale: for by now the door to China was opening again.