Read Online Where Two Ways Met by Grace Livingston Hill - Free Book Online

across the hall and took the receiver himself. “Yes?”
    Then a queer, excited voice began to speak.
    “Is this somebody who lives across from the preacher?”
    He had to ask over twice before he really gathered what was being asked.
    “You mean do we live across the road from the minister?” he asked.
    “That’s right. Will you please go cross an’ ask my girl’s teacher to come right away. My girl is dyin’ an’ she wants her teacher. She wants a prayer before she dies. Please go queek! She’s cryin’ awful bad.”
    “Who are you?” asked Paige calmly.
    “That don’t make no matter,” said the excited voice, which had now added tears and occasional frantic sobs to the conversation. “Just tell her Nannie wants her. She’ll know.”
    “But who is your child’s teacher? Is it the minister’s wife?”
    “Na, na!” came the sobbing voice. “No wife. She is his girl!”
    “You mean the minister’s daughter?”
    “Yah, yah, you get her queek?”
    “You mean you want the minister?”
    “No, no, I want my girl’s
teacher
! You get my girl’s teacher queek! My girl’s dyin’!” And the voice broke in hopeless sobbing.
    “All right! But you’ll have to tell me your name, and where you live.”
    “Tell her Nannie wants her,” sobbed the woman. “She’ll know.”
    “Wait a minute,” said Paige, as he signaled the cook. “Come here, Phoebe; see if you can find out who this is and just who it is she wants. She says her child is dying and she wants her teacher. If you can find out who she is and where she lives, perhaps you would know who her teacher is.”
    Grimly, Phoebe took the receiver. She was used to answering calls for help from the minister.
    “Yes? Who are you? Oh, Nannie Shambley’s mother? What do you say? Nannie is dying? Who said so? Have you had the doctor?”
    The words of the distressed woman came clearly from the instrument, and Paige heard them.
    “No, no doctor. We can’t have the doctor. We haven’t paid his bill yet.”
    “That’s nonsense!” said Phoebe crossly. “Any doctor would come to a dyin’ person whether his bill was paid or not.”
    “No, no!” came the wailing protest. “My husband says no! He can’t pay.”
    “All right,” said Pheobe grimly, “I’ll see what I can do.” She turned around grimly to explain.
    “It’s Mrs. Shambley. They’re awful poor people way out in the country, and her little girl is in June Culbertson’s Sunday school class, but Mrs. Shambley didn’t know how to get Miss June. She says they told her the Culbertson phone was out of order. I guess I’ll have to run across and tell Miss June. But I better stop and put the potatoes in the oven first. Your ma and pa’ll be pretty hungry after that long cold ride.”
    “Where did they go, Phoebe?”
    “Oh, they went up to that old Mr. Marshall’s funeral. You know he useta be an elder in the church over here, and then he moved up to live with his son, the other side of Bryson Centre, and he had a stroke a few weeks ago and has just died. I wouldn’t wonder if Dr. Culbertson went, too. If he did, I don’t see how Miss June’s gonta get to that little Nannie, if she really is dyin’. If her father took the car, she won’t have any way to get there. But I’ll run over and give her the message anyway, after I get the potatoes in the oven.”
    “Oh, said Paige pleasantly, “don’t hurry, Pheobe, I can run over and give the message. I should think we ought to do something about a doctor, too, if it’s really a matter of life and death.”
    “Well, yes, mebbe,” said Phoebe. “I expect your mother would say so ef she was here.”
    “I’ll see,” said Paige, as he hurried out and over to the pretty little stone house his mother had pointed out as being the abode of the new minister.
    It was June herself who opened the door, looking like a little girl, in a simple blue gingham dress and a white apron, with the sunshine on her bright hair.
    “I am Paige