u rn e
D ite D r a i l o f t L P r e n c i
By Delnora M. Erickson
cooking class. Mary opened her purse to take out a handkerchief when the girl next to her said— “ Say, do you ever have nice perfume ,7—what’s the name of it?” “ I don’t know,” laughed Mary, “ it’s on this.” Opening her purse again she took out a tract and passed it around to the girls near her. Each of them sniffed the paper first, but most of them took time to read the printed words. “ Do you believe that?” asked one of them of Mary. “ I guess I do,” she said a little hes itatingly. “ I never had given it much thought before but ever since that paper came in the mail, I’ve begun to feel that I must be missing something important in not knowing Him.” “We all need Christ,” said Evie who had been close enough to the group to have the tract passed to her. “ I guess you’re right,” said Mary, but just then the teacher approached their table and the girls turned back to the food they were making. The trail of the perfume took a very unexpected turn the next week. Evie was sitting in the dentist’s office waiting to have her teeth checked. There were two women in the room and a small boy. One of the women sat across from Evie and kept leafing through a magazine. She had a puz zled expression on her face and every little while she seemed to turn back to the same place in the magazine. Evie realized that she had been star ing at the women so she turned away and busied herself with a book she had brought along. It was the woman’s turn next in the dentist’s chair but she wasn’,t gone long. In a few min utes she came back, put on her coat and gloves, then picking up the same magazine she opened it and taking a small piece of paper from between its pages she put it in her handbag. Evie fidgeted with excitement. She was certain from the faint odor that reached her nose that the small piece of paper was one of the tracts. “ Please God,” she prayed, as the (Continued on Page 29) T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
bered what he had told her about it when he came home. “ I went into a little perfume shop in Paris,” he said, “and asked the shopkeeper for a perfume that was suitable for a little girl with pigtails. He said a flower scent would be just the thing and showed me the bottle I sent you.” The name on the small bottle was “Muguet” and it smelled like the essence of all the pretty flow ers Evie had ever seen. She had used only a little of it and then sealed the bottle with wax so it wouldn’t evap orate. She had hoped to keep it for a long time. Now as she took the bottle from her dressing table and loosened the stop per she felt glad that she had a treas ured possession that she could use for the Lord. She put one tiny drop on each of the fifteen tracts, then she set the bottle back. “ They aren’t going to be able to resist these tracts,” thought Evie as she giggled to herself. Putting one tract in each envelope, she sealed the letters ready for mailing. The French perfume was stronger than most American varieties and had a way of clinging almost permanently to what ever it touched. The next day Evie bought stamps and sent the letters on their way with a prayer that God would be able to use the message to convict thé hearts of the girls who received them. Several days went by and Evie heard nothing about the tracts until one day in history class she was sure she smelled perfume. She looked on both sides of her but the students all seemed to be busy with the lesson. “ Someone’s carrying one of those tracts with her,” thought Evie, cer tain that her nose wasn’t deceiving her. She turned and looked behind her and just then Joyce put a small piece of paper to her nose. Then with a puzzled look on her face she read the words on the paper and handed it back to Janet with a smile. “ Good,” thought Evie, “ they are passing the tracts around and others are reading them.” The next scent of the trail was in
E VIE looked over the package of tracts that had just come in the mail. They were children’s tracts she had sent for with her own money, hoping they would help her do personal work with her school friends. Now with the tracts in her hands she wasn’t so sure. “ They probably won’t even read them,” she thought as she took the top pamphlet from the pile and read it herself. The “Way of Life” was made very plain in words boys or girls could understand. “ If I could just think of what to say when I give them out or some thing I could do that would interest them in reading them,” she thought. Not many of her school friends seemed interested in Christian things and it had been a problem on Evie’s heart for some time. A sudden inspiration sent her for envelopes, pen and ink, and the tele phone book. First of all she made a list of fifteen girls she -wanted to have the tracts. Then she looked their addresses up in the phone book. Some of them were hard to find because she wasn’t sure of their fathers’ names. Some she had to call up her friends to get, but she was careful not to say why she wanted them. She felt that the more mystery there was surround ing it the more chance her idea had of working. This done, she carefully addressed each envelope with a girl’s name and address. Now came the part that was going to be interesting. On her dress ing table stood a bottle of French per fume, a very cherished possession that had been sent her by her father sev eral years before when he was in France during the war. She remem- Page Fourteen
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