The High Calling

by Charles M. Sheldon

He went back into the library and sat down by Louis and put his arm around his shoulder and reasoned with him as he had never in all the campaign reasoned with a political acquaintance for the purpose of winning his friendship. He showed the boy clearly what it meant to lose an education, what a handicap it would be to him all his life if he did not have the schooling and culture that history and language and science stood ready to give. He pictured to Louis the tremendous advantages that go with education in the social life of the world and cited numerous instances in the range of his own experience to show Louis what a prize he was throwing away at the age of sixteen if he deliberately threw away the riches of mental power for the dirt of lust and mammon. He got hold of Louis as he never had before, because he divined the really impure and foolish motive the boy had for going into business, and as the minutes ticked into hours Louis gradually became convinced of certain things which he had only vaguely entertained so far.

In the first place he began to have a feeling that his father did care for him tremendously after all. Paul's absorption in politics for the last year had been so deep that, as has been said, he had neglected the boy's interests and had not paid attention to his frequent complaints and appeals. But now that the matter was squarely met, Louis knew from what he caught of the telephone dialogue that his father was neglecting a very important political affair to spend the entire evening with him. The thought added to the feeling he began to have of his father's real character. Then Louis had all his life had the greatest respect for his father's intellectual life and regarded it with admiration. He was fond of quoting him and there was no one in Milton who read Douglas's editorials more regularly and carefully than Louis.

And added to all the rest that influenced him that night was the shame he began to feel that his father knew his real motive for wanting to leave the school and make money. He had become fascinated and led away by a certain set in the High School and he wanted to go with them, wear expensive clothes, frequent society functions and spend freely and get the reputation of a generous and even lavish giver. This he could not do with the allowance his father gave him, and he chafed under it foolishly. He had not supposed his father would detect his underlying motive in his longing to quit school and go into business. Now that he realised his father did understand he felt ashamed to continue his plea as he had first made it. At the end of the evening together, a certain definite agreement was reached between father and son.

Louis agreed to continue his studies for another year and do his best with those branches he found most difficult where he was not allowed to choose electives. His father agreed to study with him in a regular course, helping him through hard places, practically being his tutor and agreeing to give him all the time he needed in the evening. "And why not?" Paul kept asking almost with a sob as he noted the glow that was creeping back into Louis's eye, the glow of a new interest in study. "Why not? What shall it profit the reformer if he reforms the whole state and loses his own children? I don't believe that even high-flown Patriotism requires such a sacrifice as that."

When Louis went up to bed tears were on his cheeks and a choking in his breast. His father had simply said, "My boy, I want you to be a man. Your mother and I have prayed for you all these years. We believe you will not disappoint us. Don't forget God, Louis. You need to pray to overcome this great temptation of impure thinking. The gates of Hell are close by that sort of life. Not even your father and mother can spare you from ruin that way. You have got to fight it out yourself. God helping you."

Paul looked up at the clock and saw it was after midnight, but on a venture he called up the committee room at the State House. A night janitor answered and informed him that the committee had been gone for over an hour.

He went upstairs and found Esther in her sewing room, her face pale and troubled, traces of tears on her cheeks and such a look of real fear on her face that Paul exclaimed, "Esther! What is it?"

She turned to her table and picked up a package of postcards and with a shudder of loathing held them out to Paul.

He took them and saw at a second's glance that they were the vulgar, coarse, suggestive and even indecent photographic postcards which this great civilised, supposedly Christian, government even yet allows to pass through the post office and be displayed and sold at every news stand and book store in the country.

"They dropped out of Louis's coat when I began to mend it this evening. And there was worse. He or some other boy had written this vile thing." Esther handed it to Paul what she had found. Paul read it and his face grew white and stern. Esther sat down and put her head on her arms and almost shrieked.