CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 26
At Nazareth Avenue Church the simple appeal on the part of its pastor to his members to do as Jesus would do had created a sensation that still continued. Then Dr. Bruce came into his pulpit and announced his resignation, and the sensation deepened all over the city. When it became publicly known that the bishop had also announced his resignation and retirement from the position he had held so long in order to go and live himself in the center of the worst part of Chicago, the public astonishment reached its height.
“Why should what Dr. Bruce and I propose to do seem so remarkable a thing?” the bishop asked one valued friend who had almost with tears tried to dissuade him from his purpose. “If we were to resign our charge for the purpose of going to Bombay or Hong Kong or any place in Africa, the churches and the people would exclaim at the heroism of missions. Why should it seem so great a thing if we have been led to give our lives to help rescue the heathen and the lost of our own city in the way we are going to try it?”
But the public continued to talk, and the churches recorded their astonishment that two such men, so prominent in the ministry, should leave their comfortable homes, voluntarily resign their pleasant social positions, and enter upon a life of hardship, self-denial, and actual suffering.
It was fall again when the bishop came out of the Settlement one afternoon and walked around the block, intending to go on a visit to one of his new friends in the district. He had walked about four blocks when he noticed a shop that looked different from the others—a small house close by a Chinese laundry. There were two windows in the front, very clean. Then, inside the window, was a tempting display of cookery, with prices attached to the various articles that made him wonder somewhat, for he was familiar by this time with many facts in the life of the people once unknown to him. As he stood looking at the windows, the door between them opened and Felicia Sterling came out.
“Felicia!” exclaimed the bishop.
“How did you find me so soon?” inquired Felicia.
“Why, don’t you know? These are the only clean windows in the block.”
“I believe they are,” replied Felicia with a laugh that did the bishop good to hear.
“But why have you dared to come to Chicago without telling me, and how have you entered my diocese without my knowledge?” asked the Bishop.
“Well, dear Bishop,” said Felicia, who had always called him so, “I was just on my way to see you and ask your advice. I am settled here for the present with Mrs. Bascom, a saleswoman who rents out three rooms, and with one of Rachel’s music pupils to whom Virginia Page has given a course of study in violin. She is from the people,” continued Felicia, “and I am keeping house for her and at the same time beginning an experiment in pure food for the masses. I am an expert, and I have a plan I want you to admire and develop. Will you, dear Bishop?”
“Indeed I will,” he replied.
“Martha can help at the Settlement with her violin, and I will help with my messes. You see, I thought I would get settled first and work out something, and then come with some real thing to offer. I’m able to earn my own living now.”
“You are?” the bishop said a little incredulously. “How? Making those things?”
“Those things!” said Felicia with a show of indignation. “I would have you know, sir, that ‘those things’ are the best-cooked, purest food products in this whole city.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he replied hastily, while his eyes twinkled. “Still, ‘the proof of the pudding’—you know the rest.”
“Come in and try some!” she exclaimed. “You poor Bishop! You look as if you haven’t had a good meal for a month.”
So they had an improvised lunch, and the bishop, who, to tell the truth, had not taken time for weeks to enjoy his meals, feasted on the delight of his unexpected discovery and was able to express his astonishment and gratification at the quality of the cookery.
“Felicia, you must come to the Settlement. I want you to see what we are doing. And I am simply astonished to find you here earning your living this way. You don’t really mean that you will live here and help these people to know the value of good food?”
“Indeed I do,” she answered gravely. “That is my gospel. Shall I not follow it?”
“Aye, aye! You’re right. Bless God for sense like yours!”
Felicia went back with him to visit the Settlement. She was amazed at the results of what considerable money and a good deal of consecrated brains had done. As they walked through the building, they talked incessantly. She was the incarnation of vital enthusiasm, and he wondered at the exhibition of it as it bubbled up and sparkled over.
They went down into the basement, and the bishop pushed open a door. It was a small but well-equipped carpenter’s shop. A young man with a paper cap on his head and clad in blouse and overalls was driving a plane as he whistled. He looked up as the two entered and took off his cap. As he did so, his little finger carried a small curled shaving up to his hair and it caught there.
“Miss Sterling, Mr. Stephen Clyde,” said the bishop. “Clyde is one of our helpers here two afternoons in the week.”
Just then the bishop was called upstairs, and he excused himself a moment, leaving Felicia and the young carpenter together.
“We have met before,” said Felicia, looking at Clyde frankly.
“Yes, ‘back in the world,’ as the bishop says,” replied the young man, and his fingers trembled a little as they lay on the board he had been planing.
“Yes.” Felicia hesitated. “I am very glad to see you.”
“Are you?” The flush of pleasure mounted to the young carpenter’s forehead. “You have had a great deal of trouble since—since—then,” he said.
“Yes, and you also. How is it that you’re working here?”
“My father lost his money, and I was obliged to go to work. A very good thing for me. I learned the trade, hoping sometime to be of use. I am night clerk at one of the hotels. That Sunday morning when you took the pledge at Nazareth Avenue Church, I took it with the others.”
“Did you?” said Felicia slowly. “I am glad.”
Just then the bishop came back, and very soon he and Felicia went away, leaving the young carpenter at his work.
“Felicia,” said the bishop, “did you know Stephen Clyde before?”
“Yes, ‘back in the world,’ dear Bishop. He was one of my acquaintances in Nazareth Avenue Church.”
“Ah!” said the bishop.
“We were very good friends,” added Felicia.
“But nothing more?” the bishop ventured to ask.
Felicia’s face glowed for an instant. Then she looked her companion in the eyes frankly and answered, “Truly, nothing more.”