October 1929
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
480
saintly men and women of all ages that these worldly amusements interfere with and interrupt our perfect com munion with and union with Christ our Saviour. It is my testimony, who stand before you, that they were harmful to my spiritual life, and so I refused them, though brother Angus cast me out—” Donald brought himself up with a start. He had not meant to tell so much. The slip of a girl ,sat finishing the last end of that fearful banana concoction with downcast eyes, and not a word to say. As for Miss Althea, if she had had any skirts to gather about her and pass by on the other side she would have done so, Donald believed; but, he quickly added to himself, her skirts were just kilts. True infidel a ttire ! 1 . . “Come on, freshman,” she said to the slip, and they left with never another word to Donald, who rubbed his cheerful red head ruefully as he thought of how Aunt Margot would have rejoiced to come to him. He thought of Joseph and how his hard life had suddenly changed in Genesis 41: “And it came to pass at the end of two full years that Pharaoh dreamed.” W ell! It was three full years since he had been away from Aunt Margot. Then he caught himself up and repeated, “Rejoice in the Lord always”! until he was smiling, although it was eleven o’clock and the night clerk had not come yet to relieve him. It must have been a week later that Donald received a word from the office of the President of the University that Mr. Jeremiah Lynch Snowdon desired to see him. And who, he inquired, was Mr. Jeremiah Lynch Snow don ? “My poor Scotch herring!” ejaculated Lawrence. “Mon pauvre petit! Don’t you know the oldest and rich est trustee of the university? Where is your letter of introduction, my son? His daughter is a freshman this year. Pals with Althea Hitchcock Sumner a lot.” Oh, the father of “the slip” ! Perhaps he was to be hauled before the board for feeding her a Nero’s Night Mare. Well, he had not invented the atrocities and he never recommended them! He knocked at an imperial Egyptian-looking door. Might almost be the Pharaoh’s! He waited in a chair whose upholstery and framework savored of the splendor of ancient kings. He was led through a confusing lot of adjoining rooms and busy secretaries to a very quiet, sim ply furnished office where sat an extremely agreeable- looking elderly man. He regarded Donald Donaldson with a grave smile. “My mother was a Scotch woman,” he remarked with out preamble. “She belonged to the kirk and believed as you do. You see, I know all about you. By the way, sit down, Donald.” Donald sat on the nearest solid substance he could find. “My daughter Margaret told me about you and I have made inquiries. I had just said to my family at dinner a month or so ago, that I wished I could find a real old-fashioned Christian lad for a certain work that I want done, so when Margaret met you it seemed, as she said, like a leading of Providence.” Donald continued to gaze at him, and he to regard Donald with the grave smile. “We are in need of a Christian woman like ‘Aunt Margot’ as well, and we can use a Christian boy like your self to better ends than serving those banana nightmares to a generation that would be a lot better off if they were eating good porridge.” When Donald tried to tell Lawrence about it he re fused to credit it.
house mother had been chosen because she would not be able to interfere in certain unwelcome ways, but he gave no sign. “The Omegas, and the Chis, and the Betas, have ¡had the same notification, and so we have all agreed to ’keep a regular rented chaperone, and share her turn about between us, and we’ll all four contribute twenty-five dollars a month to her support, one hundred altogether, you know. She must have white hair and be old-fashioned looking and have awfully good manners, and I _ tell the girls we ought to have someone who is unfamiliar with this whole combination out here, do you see, not too wise. Now do you know of anyone?” Know of anyone? Couldn’t Aunt Margot just live beautifully on that sum, and wouldn’t Angus probably send her out—glad to be rid of another burden! Aunt Margot with her white hair and pink cheeks! The thought of a home with her again, and of again eating her scones and muffins and seeing a tea cozy made his eyes brighten though he spoke with his usual diffidence before girls. ■“My aunt could come from Scotland,” he said bash fully. Explanations and questions followed—the thing was actually being arranged, then! “Of course, at all theater parties we should buy your aunt’s ticket,” offered Althea generously. “But—but my aunt does not like the playhouse, neither here nor anywhere,” said Donald with embarrassed brusqueness. Miss Sumner raised her eyebrows and Don ald observed that they were plucked and a mere thread like line of darkness. “We should need her always at dances away from the sorority house,” she remarked with some asperity. “That’s just what we want her for, and to go to the beach parties so that we could be out as late as we like.” ’ “She would not lend her face to dancing parties,” murmured Donald sadly, giving the button he had been twisting a final wrench that jerked it off. “And why not?” asked the slip of a girl with a soft gentleness that strove to quiet his unrest and Althea s irritation. “Because she’s a Christian, Miss——” He did not know her name and Althea failed to supply it. She was eating straight through the Strata of marron cream, banana and black walnut ice cream as if she was indignant about something or other. “And does being a Christian prevent one from doing these things?” Distress was evident in the dark eyes. “Of course no t!” from Althea. “ ‘I f any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,’ ” from Donald. “That’s from the Bible, isn’t it?” queried the little stranger softly, and added this question, “How do you interpret it?” Donald forgot himself now. He was in his element. He leaned both hands on the detested marble slab, and, as he admitted afterwards, he just “held forth.” “To be a Christian is to be in Christ. To be in Christ is to find all your joy in Him because in Him we live and move and have our being. He is the vine, we are the branches. If we are to bring forth much fruit and so be His disciples we must lead the abiding life. The sap of the vine must have free access into and through us; else we become dry and dead branches, to be cut off and cast away. God always does this. Christ says, ‘My Father is the husbandman.’ When something interferes with that union it must be removed. Now, it’s the testimony of
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