23
B u s i n e s s
T h e
K i n g ’ s
January 1932
ÇjÙarf loÇtfearl wUlt 0 u r YOUNG READERS . . . By FLORENCE NYE WHITWELL
Ellen had never forgotten these words of her father. They were, perhaps, at the root of her indifference to what people thought. For, unlike the sensitive William, Ellen went on her sunny, undeviating way, and she had been heard to announce that, like Gallio, she cared for none of those things. This independence had made her very popu lar at high school, and she was being named already as a possible candidate for class vice-president. Ellen was not exactly pretty; but she had brown hair, blue eyes, and real roses in her cheeks, and her sweetness of expression made her lovely to look upon. She was staying with her father, who had been ill in one of the cabins of the Mountain Club. She attended the nearest school, getting up at dawn and taking a long bus ride to do so. William’s father was a mining engineer who had been forced to leave Arizona when copper dropped in value. He was prospecting in this gold-bearing quartz region of the Sierras and was living for the winter in what Ellen and all the young people considered the most fascinating log cabin in California, with the bark still upon the logs. It was not a cabin, either, but a house with electric lights, and a bath tub, of course! But the fireplace was so very enor mous that the entire debating club could get in front of it and plan out the winter’s program while the corn popper was popping and the apples were sizzling on their strings. William was liked, but not loved. He deferred too much to the opinions of others, his classmates thought. “ Why don’t you tell the kids where to get off?” de manded Fred, time and again. Fred’s father was superin tendent of the Sierra Mine, and Fred lacked much of the cultural background that had surrounded Ellen and W il liam. This fact had drawn the latter two together. And as these three, Ellen, William, and Fred, were the only young people at the Mountain on the Butte, as it was called, there was more or less of a situation. Several weeks later, William was walking through the pines. It was a lovely section of the Sierra Mine’s prop erty and was of interest to him only because he had heard his father recently say: “ If I could only open up that northwest corner out there! I know there’s gold in it. And I have a man in Pitts burg just waiting to come in on it! But, as every one knows, that belongs to the Sierra Mines.” “ ‘As every knows’ !” William said half aloud as he walked. “ That’s what people think!” he went on to him self, his mind reverting to Fred. Then a thought suddenly came to him. “ What if my father were being held up here by what people think ?” He stumbled over a stump and sat down on it to tie up his shoe. And then, because he was troubled, he did not get up, but sat with his chin in his hand, thinking. “ Father’s money is getting low,” he said to himself, “ and Mother is worried.” His thoughts turned to his friend, Ellen. She was never worried— she had not been anxious, even when her father was in such danger in the Far East. Why not ? William knew the answer. She herself would say she trusted in the dear Lord. William wished his family were like that. There would be less gloom about the family breakfast
THE SNARE The fear o f man bringeth a snare; but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe ” (Prov. 29:25). ] | ^ auline had returned from a visit to the north with a story. Constance must write i t ! Pauline’s cousin Ellen must be immortalized. And so, to please Pauline, this tale was written. * * * “We don’t want you for president, William.” “ Why not?” “ Because you’re too afraid of what people think,” Fred flung out. “ So is everybody.” “ It’s right to be afraid— sometimes,” Ellen remarked. The boys listened. Ellen was slightly older than Wil liam and Frederick; and besides, she had lived in Europe and in the Orient with her father, who had spent his life up to now, unearthing various buried cities of the ancient world, in the interest of research. Ellen’s mother was dead, and she herself was her father’s sole companion. This had given her an older way of speaking. Added to this, she had traveled by airplane from Paris to Vienna; she had been up in a dirigible in Germany; and she and her fearless father had been close to several exciting skirmishes and small battles in the Near East. All these experiences she was engagingly ready to re late. Of'course the wisdom of a girl like this was not to be lightly rejected! So Fred asked more quietly: “ When is it right to be afraid of what people think?” “ When we are wrong, and they are right,” replied Ellen briefly, with the general effect of making a bright retort. Ellen and William walked away together. The tall pine trees were soughing over their heads in the autumn winds. They looked up at the white peaks of the High Sierras, where the snow lay in folds o f dazzling white ness and blue shadow. How high they towered above them! They drew in deep breaths of the high mountain air, and wished for the hundredth time that they were through with high school so they could live out of doors. “ Does Fred want the presidency of the debating club for himself?” William queried a little wistfully, after a while. “ I don’t know,” answered Ellen dubiously. “ You ought to have it, and he knows it, and I am going to tell him so.” “ You’re the right sort, Ellen!” exclaimed William, I’ll say I ’m lucky to have you for a friend.” A moment later, he made this addition: “ I— I’d like to hear you talk about Christ at Young People’s next Sunday— if knowing Him makes any one into a friend like you.” Ellen laughed without any embarrassment. She knew that loyalty was one of her strong points, for her father had trained her in this. “ So many girls, in their desire for popularity, become insincere. Nobody knows where they really stand. Oh, Ellen, be genuine! Genuine people are so rare!”
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