Fresh Every Hour / Detailing the Adventures, Comic and Pathetic of One Jimmy Martin, Purveyor of Publicity, a Young Gentleman Possessing Sublime Nerve, Whimsical Imagination, Colossal Impudence, and, Withal, the Heart of a Child.

by John Peter Toohey

“If there are any such girls here tonight,” pleaded the evangelist, “let me hold out to them the helping hand of service. Let me beg them, with all the sincerity of my nature, to give heed to the warning I have sounded. Let me ask them to picture the little home back yonder with the empty chair that’s always waiting for the daughter who has gone out to beat her fragile wings against the candle’s flame. Let them picture again the little mother with the soft, grey eyes. They were so bright and lively once, but now there is an anxious look in them. There is sadness in her heart, too, a heavy sadness, but she tries to be brave for the sake of him who sits so gloomily by the fire-place and aches for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is gone.

“Let me entreat you to bring the roses back to mother’s pale cheeks again if there are any of you here. Let me plead with you, out of a full heart, to bring the laughter back to father’s lips and the smile back to his care-worn face. Let me urge you to fly from the stifling air of the playhouse back to the clean, open spaces where the fair winds blow, where love and tender solicitude await you and where life is real and earnest and not an empty, foolish dream. We will pray for guidance and when we have finished I will ask all those who wish to be consecrated anew to come down the aisles and clasp my hand in a pledge of fealty to the service of Him whom they have forgotten for a while in the fretful rush of selfish living. Let us pray.”

Down on his knees went the Rev. “Billy” Williams and as thousands in the great audience bowed their heads once more he prayed fervently that everyone present who was unworthy at heart might see the light and embrace again with the simple faith of childhood the eternal truths of religion. The “Keep Moving” girls bowed their heads with the others, and if Jimmy had been a little closer he might have noticed that here and there a rouged face was stained with tears and that hard lines around the mouths of one or two of the bolder spirits had been softened as if by some subtle alchemy beyond the ken of mortal mind.

The prayer over, the evangelist sprang to his feet and raised his hand. The great choir, in instant response to his signal, began to softly sing, “Lead, Kindly Light.” At a perfectly timed moment toward the end of this most exquisite of hymns his voice sounded above the pianissimo phrasing of the massed singers and carried, with penetrating clarity, to the far end of the hushed auditorium.

“Won’t someone make the break with the past,” he exhorted. “Won’t someone be the first to lead the strayed sheep into the vineyard of the Lord?”

A tall, thin man with scraggly white hair and a pale ascetic face stood up about fifteen rows back from the platform and slid out into the nearest aisle. He bent his head as if breasting a heavy wind and his cheeks suddenly flamed at the consciousness of the thousands of eyes which were turned on him as he slouched awkwardly down toward “Billy” Williams, who had stepped from the platform and who was now standing at the end of the aisle. The evangelist reached out his hand and the tall man grasped it as he made a quick dive for a handkerchief and dabbed at his face. He mumbled something under his breath.

“Don’t be ashamed to cry, brother,” said the evangelist, putting his arm affectionately around the other’s shoulder. “Tears at a time like this are drops of God’s dew that will wash your soul as clean as morning roses.” And then he addressed the audience as the last notes of the hymn were sung by the choir. “Who’ll join our brother at the mercy seat,” he shouted. “Who’ll be the next to heed the glad tidings?”

There was a movement and a scraping of feet in every section of the building and presently men and women of all ages and all conditions began coming down the aisle to be greeted by “Billy” Williams and shunted aside into the open space designed for the reception of converts. There they stood, most of them with drooped heads and many of them crying. There were a few who held their heads up and their shoulders back and who stood four-square to all the curious glances directed toward them. On their faces were brave smiles and there was about them the air of spiritual elation that was inspiring to those who noted it.

Jimmy Martin’s emotions had been subjected to a severe grilling during the concluding portion of the preacher’s sentimental appeal and he had lost a little of his self-reserve and customary complacency during the prayer. When the first of the converts came struggling down the aisle and had begun to weep a little, the press agent found himself, for the first time in many years, struggling to hold back the tears that came unbidden into his own eyes. When the others had followed the spell was broken and he looked furtively about to see if anyone had noticed that he had been trembling on the verge of weakness. He thought once more of the mission which had brought him into this alien atmosphere and he directed his attention to the benches occupied by the young women for whom he was acting as a somewhat remote escort.

The converts were coming down the aisles now in little groups of three and four and the evangelist was keeping things at fever heat with loudly voiced exhortations. He leaned toward the “Keep Moving” girls and made a personal plea to them.