From the Improvement Era, March 1942 –

Ways Without Means

By Seth Harmon

The room was bare save for several rows of chairs, a wheezy organ and a speaker’s stand. The opening hymn ended as ragged as the dog-eared hymn books from which it was sung. Then Glenn Davis, the leader, got up.

“Any new business?” A long silence followed.

“Business?” Lew scoffed. “The only business left for this dead outfit is the burial. And that had better not cost any money!”

Several of the girls giggled. Glenn rapped for order. Linda jumped up, her eyes flashing. “I challenge that statement.”

“Look around,” Lew drawled. “I ask you, doesn’t this place resemble a funeral or something?’

Linda wilted. “Yes, it does. But what can we do without — without . . . ?”

“Money.” As usual the group’s treasurer spoke the final word.

“We might wash the windows,” Teeny Ellis piped up. He always made ridiculous suggestions like that. He stepped over now and wiped a tell-tale finger-mark across one smudgy pane. Then he sat down.

“I don’t suppose window drapes would help much,” Marie mused aloud. “Mother made hers for the sun-porch by splitting some of her bleached flour bags lengthwise and stenciling a border. Pretty, too.”

“This old floor reminds me of Dad’s store room before he oiled it,” Dave chuckled between yawns. “One going over with discarded oil covered up all the worn places though.”

The talk might have rambled on and on like that except for Linda. For some time her pencil had been scratching. Now she got up and announced :

“As president of this group I’m scheduling a special meeting for next Saturday morning in this room. Will the following new committees please report at that time? Teeny Ellis — window-washing — and bring a pail and wiping cloths. Marie, you’re in charge of draperies. I’ll appoint others later to bring flour bags and help you out. You, Dave, will need a brush.”

“Hey, what is this?”

“Now, Linda, you don’t really mean . . . !”

“If you think I’m going to ruin my clothes . . . !”

Glenn pounded for order. Linda still had the floor:

“Ethel, your dad’s a painter. Ask him for all the left-over dabs of paint he can’t use — any color will do. Denny, bring your tool-kit. Madge, you’re in charge of art work.”

The outcome of Linda’s “brain-storm” was little less than a miracle. The drab Sunday school room was completely transformed without a cent of cost. Nobody had realized how much sunlight the soiled windows kept out; how much homier home-made drapes could make them look.

The dingy floor took on new life. Scars disappeared from chairs and woodwork under a coat of paint. Pictures clipped from magazines looked quite artistic when mounted on squares of white paper and tacked on bare walls.

Denny helped put up a hat-shelf along the rear wall. Discarded clothes hangers were brought and hung from a wooden bar under the shelf. They automatically did away with unsightly piles of wraps on the chairs during meetings.

Madge outdid her artistic self, making several colored wall-maps of Bible lands. She copied smaller maps on big squares of wrapping paper from the butcher-shop. Youngsters in the Sunday school printed in the place-names as part of their lesson assignment.

Ethel painted a square of shabby fiber-board with flat black paint to make a blackboard. Serviceable erasers she made by tacking scraps of felt around small blocks of wood. Torn pages of hymn books were mended, and covers of tough manila wrapping paper stitched over them.

“Looks as if your committee really got going finally,” the superintendent complimented Linda at Sunday school. “But how did you manage without any money?”

Linda and her helpers exchanged knowing glances.

“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” Lew decided, “even when there aren’t any means.”