CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 28
Later that afternoon Burns was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. Immediately opposite were two large saloons.
Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened, and a strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty. Then he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. Then, by a tremendous effort, dragged himself back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes, his face drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again toward the steps and began to go down them. He looked toward the sidewalk and saw he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping.
He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face toward the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet.
He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he were already drunk. His soul shook within him.
He crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner.
The bishop seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. The bishop picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it.
Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The bishop stood there panting with his exertion, moved with unspeakable pity.
“Pray, Burns—pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!”
O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!” cried Burns. And the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray.
After that they rose, and Burns went to his room.
The bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. “How long, O Lord, how long?” he prayed.
When Dr. Bruce joined him, the bishop asked, “Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of the property adjoining us?”
“No, I haven’t taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worthwhile. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?”
“God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery,” was the grave reply. “Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement.”
“I’ll find out,” said Dr. Bruce.
Two days later Dr. Bruce walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. His old parishioner cordially welcomed him into his office.
“I called to see you about that property next to the Settlement where the bishop and myself now are. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?”
The effect of the question on his old parishioner was instantaneous.
The hot blood mounted to the face of the man. Then he grew pale and dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again, Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face.
“Doctor, since I took the pledge that morning with the others, that saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best-paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more.”
Clayton held out his hand, and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. Within a month the saloon next to the Settlement was closed. The saloonkeeper’s lease expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned.
Soon, Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service.
“Felicia, tell us your plan in full now,” said the bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building.
“Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem,” said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile. “So this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. Once it is arranged, then I’ll teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterward go out to service. The course will be six months long. In that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work.”
“Hold on, Felicia!” the bishop interrupted. “This is not an age of miracles!”
“Then we will make it one,” replied Felicia. “I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them.”
“Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose, it will bless this community,” said Mrs. Bruce. “God bless you as you try.”
With this blessing, Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship, which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable.