Category Archive:inspiration

      One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
      There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
      While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
      In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”
      The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
      Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling–something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
      There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
      Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
      Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
      So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
      On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.
      Where she stopped the sign read: “Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”
      “Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.
      “I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”
      Down rippled the brown cascade.
      “Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
      “Give it to me quick,” said Della.
      Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.
      She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation–as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value–the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
      When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends–a mammoth task.
      Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
      “If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do–oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?”
      At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
      Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”
      The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two–and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
      Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
      Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
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nothing to do with it . . .

I was a tad frantic this morning – made several phone calls to folks I thought could help – none were able to do so.

You see, I work for a “secure” facility. Our doors are kept locked. We all have keys to enter the premises.

We all do – until this morning. We all do – except for me. You see, I somehow had lost my keys. It’s a pretty recognizable set of keys, too – kept on a purple carabiner (snap tool, I think the Guardsmen call it) with a long tailed rust colored suede leather fob. I use that so I can spot it, or feel it easily, you see.

So, phone calls were made to my pastor asking him to go to the church to look there – to Lessa to ask her to check my house – to Ladybug to ask her to look around where I had parked this morning when I picked up TAT – to the school where I had dropped off TAT – to hubby moose to ask him to check the house when he goes home for lunch . . . I even went out to look in this lot – but knew it was kind of hopeless because the plow had come earlier and if it was in the snow, I would not be able to find it until the next thaw (oh, in about three months or so).

Finally I could stand it no longer . . . I drove to the school myself to check – then went in to tell them what I was doing in case someone called about some strange lady wandering amongst the cars in the lot. No keys.

I drove towards home – stopping at our cluster mailbox – kicked around the snow in front of it where I had stopped last night to check the mail. (thankfully, the city plow hits our street last on the list so the snow was just thick – and cold – and WET!)

Then I drove into our driveway, parking where hubby moose generally parks. Wait – what is that poking up out of the snow? Could it be? Yes!!! It was – my keys – actually, the long tailed suede fob!

Called everyone to let them know – well, except Lessa – she has gone back to bed by now, I’m sure – I’ll call her sometime after noon.

When I came back to work bearing keys held high – everyone said “you’re LUCKY!”

Nope, friends, LUCK had NOTHING to do with it. Prayer had EVERYTHING to do with it.

I believe in a Sovereign God who cares even about such a thing as lost keys. He allowed me to find them. And, it was thanks to the prayers of my pastor and his family and myself. The inablity to sit still at this desk a moment longer which led me home to find them – yup, I attribute that to His Sovereignty.

Praise the Lord!