And then came the happening which led to the final big experience of
my life.
I had halted in the lower hall, to rest a minute before climbing
the stairs to my own apartment. I stood with my foot on the lower
step, leaning heavily against the banisters. The outside door opened
and Miss Marsh came in. I was too tired to try and escape her. She
stopped beside me and asked anxiously:-
“What’s the matter, Mr. Allen?”
“Nothing. Just a little tired,” I answered, and started on up the
stairs.
She followed. In the hall above I stopped at the door of my
apartment, and she moved on toward hers. Then she turned suddenly,
and came back to me.
“I sure would like to do something for you if I could, Mr. Allen,”
she said, in her Southern way of speaking.
I turned and looked at her. In her face was an expression different
from any that I had ever seen there-more sincere and earnest.
It commanded a respect that I had never felt for her. I mumbled
something or other in the way of thanks, to which she paid no
attention, but went on to say:-
“I know it must be mighty hard to have to look for a new job after
you have worked for so many years in the same place.”
I cringed, and I think I must have scowled. For I was wondering how
she had found out that I was looking for another job. I thought that
I had kept the fact pretty carefully concealed. But I guess the most
of us are ostriches, stretching our heads down in the sands of our
own secret conceits. While I stood there, wondering, she kept on
talking. The next thing that I caught was:-
“Don’t reckon you’ll want to take any advice from me, but you can’t
afford to let yourself grow old like this, Mr. Allen. Nobody wants us
if we’re old.”
I tried to laugh. It was a sickly attempt. What she had said hit me
in so many sore spots that I squirmed to get away. But inside my own
apartment, the thing that she had said repeated itself in my thoughts.
“You can’t afford to let yourself grow old.”
I smiled satirically. How folks can fool themselves. That little old
maid, with her dyed hair and painted face, thinking that she was
hiding the fact of her age!
But still the thing kept repeating itself-“You mustn’t let yourself
grow old.”
“_Let! Let! Let!_”
That word finally got to hammering itself in my tired brain. I tried
to get away from it, but I couldn’t. There was something accusing
about it, like the gesture of a pointed finger. It seemed to put the
blame of all my failure up to me-some wrong understanding in myself.
_And then came my first experience with the Voice!_
I call it the Voice, for I don’t know what else to call it. But I
know that some Power outside a man’s own being can speak to him in
the time of his need; when his ego is weakened by the discouragement
of defeat. When he listens, he learns and is helped. For this Voice
teaches _Life_! Our schools and churches have taught us systems and
creeds.
I had pulled up a chair to the kitchen table, on which I had set out
a scrambled sort of supper. I was going over to Brooklyn as soon as I
had finished eating. The “_Let! Let! Let!_” was still pounding away
in my thoughts. Finally I halted in my supper, set down my coffee-cup
and asked:-
“Have I let myself grow old?”