Chance of a Lifetime by Grace Livingston Hill

fixing up the mortgage, all right. I’m going to pay off the other,” Alan finished, finding great relief in saying the words, his voice ringing with a soft triumph. “But I thought maybe you’d like to look over this guy that’s coming—if he comes.”
    “I sure would!” said Bill dryly. “Suppose you just beat it out the back way, kid, and leave me in charge? Anybody else here? Joe? All right! Let him stay. He can look after the customers. Where is he? I’ll give him his orders. You beat it! Don’t go to your house, the guy might chase ya and try to annoy ya. I’ll tell ya. Go down and see that Washburn girl ya had out riding this morning. Nothing like a lady to make a good getaway behind. I’ll call ya there if I need ya. All righty now, run along.”
    Something in Bill’s kindly tone stung Alan. He turned with a flash of fraternity in his eyes.
    “Cut it, Bill. I’m not a quitter! I’ll stay here and face it out. I just thought you might like to look him over for future reference if he came.”
    “I sure would!” said Bill fervently. “But I mean what I say. I’ll handle this. What you don’t say can’t do no harm, see? I’d like to get this guy unawares. You’re no quitter, of course, but in this case, it’s better to get outta sight, see? We may need this lad’s fingerprints. Remember we’ve had a burglary last night. The fact that he didn’t get away with much doesn’t cut any ice. We wanna catch that bird and keep an eye on him, and we can keep him less suspicious with you outta the way. Beat it, kid. Them’s orders!”
    He slapped Alan on the back with a brotherly grin, and he could make no further protest.
    Alan went out the back door of the store and walked slowly across the back lots and through the meadow till he came to the Washburns’s back fence, which he vaulted. Sherrill was out in the garden, picking red raspberries, and he joined her and began to help.
    “Sherry, I’ve just had such a marvelous answer to prayer that it’s knocked me silly!” he said, as he stooped to pull off the coral globules and drop them into the china bowl she had given him.
    Sherrill turned shining eyes upon him and began to laugh.
    “Is that all the faith you had, Alan?” she asked. “It’s knocked you silly? Then why did you pray if you didn’t have any faith?”
    “I don’t know!” said Alan sheepishly. “I was desperate. I’d reached the limit.”
    “I read a little book the other day that said God has sometimes to bring us to the limit before He can get us to come to Him at all.”
    “Well, I guess that’s right,” said the boy humbly. “I was just proud of the way I was going to handle my father’s business all alone. And then, when there came along something I couldn’t manage and didn’t know a thing to do, I was all up a tree. I didn’t think of praying till I got in a hole. I thought I could manage everything myself. I had no end of schemes for it, till they all failed flat. Then, when I prayed, the telephone rang the answer right in my ear. So I jumped, and several minor answers walked right into the store afterward. I mean it, Sherry! I’m astonished! I didn’t know answers to prayer ever came off the bat like that.”
    “I think,” said Sherrill wisely, shaking her bowl to get more berries into it, “that God would probably give us answers like that every day if we lived close enough to Him so He could. Why, most of the time, I imagine we wouldn’t even hear the answers if He gave them; we keep so far away and so full of ourselves. But Alan”—her voice was soft, almost shy—”I have a feeling that God is opening up big things for you. I think you are growing a lot. I think He is leading you, getting you ready for some great work for Him, some place of power and influence for the kingdom.”
    “Looks like it,” said Alan almost glumly, remembering suddenly, “leaving me here in this little hole of a town in a hardware store! Fat chance I’ve got to go