91
March, 1942
THE K I NG ’ S BUSINESS
Top speed in a wheel chair! I had planned for so much,” he whispered, his face paling. “I had surrendered to my Lord. My body was His—my hands were His. I thought He would use them—when they were trained—in some big business for Him. Now, look at them! Look at me! I’ll be a parasite the rest of my life.” His bitter protest died, but his somber gaze rested on the top of the Stadium, long after Jim had left. The park was diamond-studded in the sun after the rain on the afternoon that Bill ,met Ethel Main on the sun porch. He had seen her often before, but had never spoken to her. For some reason, the sight of her had vaguely irritated him.' She was so perfect in her beauty' her dark blue eyes laugh ing from a pale face, the whole framed in softly curled, blonde hair. But it.wasn’t that that bothered him. There was a vitality in her smile, an animation in her face, despite its evi dent signs of recent illness, that made Bill realize his own helplessness more fully. Probably she had had an appen dectomy, Bill grumbled to himself. She could grin. In a couple of weeks she would be back with her crowd and none the worse for her sojourn in the hospital. “ It’s lovely after the rain,” the girl spoke suddenly, looking up from a notebook Bill had noticed she always h'ad with her. There were no other patients on the porch that afternoon, and Bill realized, with a little start, that she was speaking to him. , “Yes, it is,” he answered briefly.
Big Business A Story By KEN ANDERSON
T (HE BIG MAPLES of River Shore Park had built their lofty peaks as high as Bill’s window in the hospital. Below them, Where he could see it each time he was wheeled to the sun porch, stretched a wide carpet of green, patterned l u x u r i o u s l y by patches of lilies, a rock-garden, well- trimmed shrubbery and climbing vines. At the window, Bill’s mother, look ing beyond a sunny-haired girl in 'a wheel chair; had commented on the restful view from this room. “Yes, it’s beautiful, all right,” Bill had agreed. But there was no warmth in his voice, and his eyes had come back into the room where the smell of medicine and the monotony of white furnishings took the place of scented breezes and tranquil vistas. He need not tell Mom the reason he disliked the view outside, he thought. 1$ had been spoiled for him the first day when he had caught sight of the top bricks of the Stadium, hiding there behind tfie leafy trees. It was then that his despair at finding himself a cripple had hardened into bitterness, a bitterness that only grew with each day. • He knew every foot of the field in side that Stadium. Sometimes' he fancied he heard cheers and wondered whether it were all his imagination. The cheers had been for him once, and the sports pages had carried glowing accounts of his crushing the defensive ,tactics of some of the strongest foot ball linemen in the state, with his off- tackle smashes, center plunges, and end runs. He had been out of the iron lung a month now, after surviving one of the hardest attacks of infantile paralysis on the hospital’s records.. The nurses hadn’t given him the papers after his illness, but he had seen them and had read, with tightening lips and near despair in his dark eyes, the col umns about himself and his “tough break.” »Often the write-ups closed with: “Bill Castell- is known to his friends qs a spiritual devotee. At the time he was stricken, he was President of the Bible Club at the University. Intimate »friends say this is the im petus for the continual smile on Bill’s face, in spite of his difficulties.” Oh, yes, he could smile—even in the hos pital—when the 'reporters and his friends were around. You learned to
smile even when you lost the game. But during these hospital days the smile never reached his heart. That was hot with resentment. “Mom,” he had finally burst out one day to his mother, “why should God have let such a thing happen to me?” “Oh, Bill,” his mother cried, her eyes shadowing quickly, “don’t let yourself wonder at the hard things that come.” “Oh, I know I shouldn’t question God’s will. But it doesn’t Bill stopped..He shouldn’t worry Mom like this. She had enough troubles without his adding to them. But he unbur dened his heart to Jim, his chum, when he came in a little later in the afternoon and they were alone. “It isn't fair, Jim,”, he exclaimed. “I’ve lived a Christian life on the campus, and that wasn’t easy, as. you know. I’ve had every chance to be worldly. I could have been popular at dances and such. But I tried to live for Christ. I tried to do what was right by the Lord.” He gestured with his left hand, which was only partly paralyzed. "And this is what I get.” Jim was silent, unable to find any words in the face of Bill’s bitterness. “I wanted to be a great athlete, so I could have that much greater testi mony for Christ,” Bill went on in a hoarse voice. “And, now, I am noth ing.” “I—I don’t want to sound like I’m preaching, Bill,” Jim began hesitant ly, “but—well, we believe that God never makes mistakes. You haven’t forgotten that, have you? And—and, oh well, you know as well as I do that if we believe the Bible at all, we be lieve this life is short at best, com pared to the eternity we will have »with Him,” Jim stopped, confused. He was not accustomed to taking the lead where Bill was concerned
“That’s just it,” Bill broke in quickly. “Life is so short that we’ve got to go top speed in order to accomplish anything.
Bill had seen Ethel often before, b u t had never spoken to her.
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