T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
April, 1941
131
Mag fell back on the floor. Some one helped her up. But Howard had had enough. He closed up that night and .never went back. The chain of varied circumstances that wound themselves around Howard’s life after. his bartending experience brought him, by the new spring, to Los Angeles, to another aircraft factory. He did well in his work there. His finances had righted themselves. He had begun to correspond with Virginia. But How ard Mason was not happy. Drink- still held him—and deep within, a yearning for a place to anchor his dissatisfied soul but aggravated the haunting sense of guilt he had carried since boyhood days. Often that sense of guilt had been stifled with pleasure, sometimes it was nearly forgotten, but often, as now, it was acute and painful. All the while, down in San Diego, God was moving to fulfill His purposes. Virginia had been listening to a gospel radio program. She wanted Howard to hear it. She sent him a tract of the leader’s life. Howard read the leaflet. His heart was moved. Deep in his innermost be ing stirred an impulse toward something better than his life had known. More than anything else in all the world, he longed to get cleaned up and right with God. Long-forgotten thoughts of Bible school revived again. One evening he made his way to Sixth and Hope Streets, to the Bible Institute 1 of Los Angeles. He hesitated a moment at the curb. It would not do to enter a place like this with a cigarette in his mouth. He threw away the one he was smoking and pushed open the lobby door. The atmosphere inside was cheery enough, but the young man sensed in a moment that he did not belong there. He must get out before any one noticed him. He turned to go. “Anything I can do for you?” called a cheery voice from the desk. • It was too late now! Howard ap
proached the student who had called him and stammered a question about night school information. The student directed him to the. auditorium where, even then, the Dean was holding a class in doctrine. He had come this far, Howard thought; he might as well sample the doctrine. Never afterward could he remember what that lesson was about, but the Word of God had probed and stabbed his shrinking heart until, to ease the pain, he determined to follow God at any cost. Home he went, and down on his knees by his boarding-house bed. He prayed —prayed in agony that God would save his wretched soul and use him for His glory. Then the load of guilt was gone, the guilt he had carried through the years; the burden was lifted; evil hab its were broken. Joy filled his life. A garment of . praise had replaced the spirit of heaviness. From that night on, Howard haunted the Bible Institute, Sucking up the truth of God, as a bee sucks honey, storing it away in his soul, growing tremendously in grace, winning others to his new-found Lord. Summer found him on a night shift at the factory, living in the dormitory, and attending summer day school Classes. But through all the joy, there fil tered drops of sorrow. Virginia and little Charles—how he longed for them! How he prayed for them! Once Virginia wrote that she was teaching a Sunday- school class, that she could not go through life without God, as her par ents had. There was a breath of com fort in that; but the church was a modernistic one. How could she find spiritual food there ? Every few weeks, Howard made a trip to San Diego. He pleaded for reconciliation; but he pleaded in vain. Virginia would have none of it; and her people upheld her. Once she parted from him in a fit of anger. * She was insulted when he told her her teaching was not serving the Lord when she
they had gone on having good times together, the kind they both enjoyed. They had bought a little home in San Diego; Howard had had steady work, and Charles had come to gladden their hearts. All that was before the "Hill-Billy” act had come' into being, before they had quarreled, before Virginia had started this wretched divorce business. Now he had to support a son whom the court allowed him to visit twice a week. And now his job was gone! Virginia was to blame for that, How ard thought moodily as he sat alone in the dusk. He would not have been laid off at the plant, “but for the di vorce;” Larson had said so. The day after his work was finished, Howard rode' out to, a near-by beach. He had heard of a cafe there that needed a cook. He could cook. It would do no harm to investigate. The place looked all right on the out side, the usual beach resort cafe that catered to the fast type of sight-seers and vacationists Inside, if was dimly lit. There were booths at one side of the room, the customary slot machines for games of chance, and a bar with high stools where beer was served. But it was not too bad as such places go, and Howard took the job—he had bills to pay and a son to support. So the aimless months' dragged oh at the beer joint. Howard was pro moted to the office of bartender and drank with the. rest. ’mer was not too bad as a boss. In fact, he was ex tremely courteous when he was not drunk. But usually he was drunk; then he became a wizard at scheming and trickery, cutting “the drinks in half when his customers were too tipsy to know it. When Elmer was too drunk to work, his wife took charge. Mag was a little woman, educated, and re fined in spite of indulgence at the bar. She knew how to keep things running all right. But Howard began to get disgusted with the whole set-up—the noise and swearing, the lying and drunken brawls. His soul loathed it all even though he had become a part of it, and back in Texas two godly parents were praying. The climax came One night in late October. Howard had carried skinny little Elmer from behind the bar sev eral times that day and deposited him with force in one of the booths. But he had gone elsewhere to drink and re turned in a sad condition after mid night. He came in with murderous in tent, grabbed Mag by the throat, and choked her. < There was a deathly silence over the place. The half-dozen customers that were left were afraid to move. How ard, half-drunk himself, threw down his towel and jumped the counter. He pulled Elmer away and slapped him. “As long as I live, I won’t work for you again,” he exploded.
Howard began to get disgusted with the whole set-up. His soul loathed it all.
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