Free The Pilgrim Song by Gilbert Morris Page B

“I hate for Daddy to work this hard. He’s got enough to do thinking about making wedding plans.”
    “I think this is more serious than usual,” Hannah said anxiously.
    Josh stubbornly shook his head. “That stock market goes up and down all the time. It’ll come back.”
    They had almost finished their meal when they heard the front door close.
    “There’s Dad now,” Jenny said.
    They all turned to look at the door, and as soon as Lewis entered, they could see that he was shaken. He stood behind his chair, his hands resting on the back, pale and holding himself up with great effort.
    “Is it bad?” Hannah said. “I’ve been listening to the news on the radio.”
    “Yes, it’s bad,” Lewis said, his face stiff and his voice hoarse.
    “What’s bad?” Kat piped up.
    Josh studied his father’s face and asked, “What’s happening, Dad?”
    “I think the crazy way this country’s been living lately has caught up with us, son. Everybody’s buying everything on credit and it has turned the economy upside down.”
    “But it’ll be all right, won’t it, Dad?” Jenny asked, looking to her father for reassurance. It frightened her to see him so troubled. He could barely keep his hands from trembling as he clung to the back of the chair.
    Lewis dropped his head for a moment, then looked up and said, “You’ll have to know about this. It’s worse than anything I could imagine.” He struggled to get the words out, and he looked at each one of them, misery written on his face. “You’ll find out sooner or later, but the truth is—I’ve lost everything!”
    The children all stared at him, shocked into silence. Joshwas the first to speak. “Well, I know it’s bad, but surely there must be something left.”
    “No. I’ve been as big a fool as the other fools out there. This white elephant of a house—I had to borrow up to the hilt to get into it, and we spent a fortune on it. All that we had was in stocks, and now they’re not worth the paper they’re written on.”
    “But they’ll go up again . . . won’t they?” Jenny asked nervously. The thought of a moneyless future terrified her. It was something she had never considered, and now her voice was unsteady. “Surely they’ll come up.”
    “I don’t think so.” Lewis’s voice sounded hopeless. “I blame myself for all this. We’ll lose this house and everything else.”
    Kat had been listening but only understood a little of the conversation. “You mean we’re going to be poor, Daddy?”
    Lewis Winslow looked at his youngest daughter. He swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. Finally he nodded and whispered, “That’s the way it’s going to be, Kat. We’re going to be poor!”
    ****
    Things were strangely quiet around the Winslow house after the bleak day that was already being called Black Thursday. It was not just a local phenomenon. The whole country had been shaken to its core. The big money men rallied to try to do something, but nothing worked permanently. From time to time there would be a slight rise in the market, but then that would be wiped out the next day.
    Each of the Winslows took this in his or her own way. Josh faced the problem by drinking. Jenny went out and bought new clothes. Kat spent her days as she always had, and Hannah grieved for her father. She knew he blamed himself for losing everything and tried to comfort him. She herself had difficulty coming to grips with the loss of money and property and spent a great deal of time in her room praying, mostly for her father.
    The servants, of course, were all shaken too, and they spent a lot of time discussing their future. Gerald Mason, the butler, summed it all up when he said bitterly, “We might as well get used to the idea of leaving this place.”
    Lewis was gone all day every day. Hannah understood that he was trying desperately to salvage something, but she saw him come in night after night pale and speechless. The news reports spoke of Black Monday,