“You see those boys in there? There are five of them, and two will
probably stick to us. That’s about the proportion we keep permanently of
all who come in. I don’t know which two they will be—you never can tell.
Perhaps it will be the piano-mover and the Scotchman; perhaps the man
they call Headlights and the Irishman; perhaps the little chap and some
other one of them. But whichever they are they’ll chip in for the sake of
the new ones we shall reclaim, and take on themselves the burden of the
work.”
The thought that for the comforts I had enjoyed that morning I was
dependent on the sacrifice of men who had hardly enough for their own
children made me redden with a shame I think he understood.
“Their generosity is wonderful,” he went on, quietly; “and I tell it to
a man like you only because you can appreciate how wonderful it is. It’s
the fact that so much heart’s blood goes into this work that makes it so
living. These fellows love to give. They love to have you take the little
they can offer. You never had a meal at your own father’s table that was
laid before you more ungrudgingly than the one you ate this morning. The
men who provide it are doing humble work all over the city, all over the
country—because we’re scattered pretty far and wide. And every stroke of
a hammer, and every stitch of a needle, and every tap on a typewriter,
and every thrust of a shovel, and every dig of a pick, and every minute
of the time by which they scrape together the pennies and the quarters
and the dollars they send in to us is a prayer for you. I suppose you
know what prayer really is?”
His glance was now that of inquiry.
“I’d like to have you tell me, sir,” I answered, humbly.
He smiled again.
“Well, it isn’t giving information to a wise and loving Father as to what
He had better do for us. It’s in trying to carry out the law of His being
in doing things for others. That isn’t all of it, by any means; but it’s
a starting-point. Spender tells me that that nice fellow Pyncheon brought
you in. Well, then, every glass of soda-water Pyncheon draws is in its
way a prayer for you, because the boy’s heart is full of you. Prayer is
action—only it’s kind action.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, with an effort to control the tremor of my
voice; “I think I understand you.”
“You yourself will be praying all through this week, in your very effort
to buck up. You’ll be praying in helping that poor man Lovey to do the
same. In his own purblind way—of course I understand his type and what
you’re trying to do for him—he’ll be praying, too. Prayer is living—only,
living in the right way.” He said, suddenly, “I suppose you rather dread
the week.”
“Well, I do—rather—sir.”
“Then I’ll tell you what will make it easier—what will make it pass
quickly and turn it into a splendid memory.” He nodded again toward the
back room. “Chum up with these fellows. You wouldn’t, of course, be
condescending to them—”
“It’s for them to be condescending to me.”
He surprised me by saying: “Perhaps it is. You know best. But here we
try to get on a broad, simple, human footing in which we don’t make
comparisons. But you get what I mean. The simplest, kindliest approach
is the best approach. Just make it a point to be white with them, as I’m
sure they’ve been white with you.”
I said I had never been more touched in my life than by the small
kindnesses of the past two hours.
“That’s the idea. If you keep on the watch to show the same sort of thing
it will not only make the time pass, but it will brace you up mentally
and spiritually. You see, they’re only children. Fundamentally you’re
only a child yourself. We’re all only children, Frank. Some one says that
women grow up, but that men never do. Well, I don’t know about women, but
I’ve had a good deal to do with men—and I’ve never found anything but
boys. Now you can spoil boys by too much indulgence, but you can’t spoil
them by too much love.”
He stopped abruptly, because he saw what was happening to me.
The next thing I knew was his arm across my shoulders, which were shaking
as if I was in convulsions.
“That’s all right, old boy,” I heard him whisper in my ear. “Just go up
to the bath-room and lock the door and have it out. It’ll do you good.
The fellows in there won’t notice you, because lots of them go through
the same thing themselves.” Still with his arm across my shoulders he
steered me toward the hall. “There you are! You’ll be better when you
come down. We’re just boys together, and there’s nothing to be ashamed
of. Only, when you see other fellows come in through the week—we have two
or three new ones every day—you’ll bear with them, won’t you? And help
them to take a brace.”
He was still patting me tenderly on the back as with head bowed and
shoulders heaving I began to stumble up-stairs.
_CHAPTER V_
My acquaintance with Ralph Coningsby was the hinge on which my destiny
turned. A hinge is a small thing as compared with a door, and so was my
friendship with Coningsby in proportion to the rest of my life; but it
became its cardinal point.
I met him first at the meeting of the club at which the Scotchman and
the piano-mover presented themselves for membership. As to the five
outsiders whom Lovey and I had found on arriving, Christian’s prediction
was verified. Three went out when their week was over and they had got
sobered up. Two stayed behind to go on with the work of reform. At the
end of another week each stood up with his next friend, as a bridegroom
with his best man, and asked to be taken into fellowship.
That was at the great weekly gathering, which took place every Saturday
night. Among the hundred and fifty-odd men who had assembled in the two
down-stairs sitting-rooms it was not difficult to single out Coningsby,
since he was the only man I could see in whom there was nothing blasted
or scorched or tragic. There was another there of whom this was true, but
I didn’t meet him till toward the end of the evening.
I had now been some ten days within the four walls of the club, not
sobering up, as you know, but trying to find myself. The figure of speech
is a good one, for the real Frank Melbury seemed to have been lost. This
other self, this self I was anxious to get rid of, had left him in some
bright and relatively innocent world, while it went roaming through a
land of sand and thorns. I had distinctly the feeling of being in search
of my genuine identity.
For this I sat through long hours of every day doing absolutely
nothing—that is, it was absolutely nothing so far as the eye could see;
but inwardly the spirit was busy. I came, too, to understand that that
was the secret of the long, stupefied forenoons and afternoons on the
part of my companions. They were stupefied only because sight couldn’t
follow the activity of their occupation. Beyond the senses so easily
staggered by strong drink there was a man endeavoring to come forth and
claim his own. In far, subliminal, unexplored regions of the personality
that man was forever at work. I could see him at work. He was at work
when the flesh had reached the end of its short tether, and reeled back
from its brief and helpless efforts to enjoy. He was at work when the
sore and sodden body could do nothing but sit in lumbering idleness. He
was at work when the glazed eye could hardly lift its stare from a spot
on the floor.
That was why tobacco no longer afforded solace, nor reading distraction,
nor an exchange of anecdotes mental relaxation. I don’t mean to say that
we indulged in none of these pastimes, but we indulged in them slightly.
On the one hand, they were pale in comparison with the raw excitement our
appetites craved; and on the other, they offered nothing to the spirit
which was, so to speak, aching and clamorous. Apart from the satisfaction
we got from sure and regular food and sleep, our nearest approach to
comfort was in a kind of silent, tactual clinging together. None of us
wanted to be really alone. We could sit for hours without exchanging
more than a casual word or two, when it frightened us to have no one else
in the room. The sheer promiscuity of bed against bed enabled us to sleep
without nightmares.
The task of chumming up had, therefore, been an easy one. So little was
demanded. When a new-comer had been shown the ropes of the house there
was not much more to do for him. One could only silently help him to find
his lost identity as one was finding one’s own.
“That’s about all there is to it,” Andrew Christian observed when I had
said something of the sort to him. “You can’t push a man into the kingdom
of heaven; he’s got to climb up to it of his own accord. There’s no
salvation except what one works out through one’s own sweat and blood.”
He gave me one of his quick, semi-humorous glances. “I suppose you know
what salvation is?”
I replied that I had heard a great deal about it all my life, but I was
far from sure of what it entailed in either effort or accomplishment.
“Salvation is being normal. The intuitive old guys who coined language
saw that plainly enough when they connected the idea with health.
Fundamentally health is salvation and salvation is health—only perfect
health, health not only of the body, but of the mind. Did it ever strike
you that health and holiness and wholeness are all one word?”