Even a harsh wind can sometimes blow good fortune

This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Dec. 20, 1941

‘Something pleasant may happen today,” so spoke Miss Letty Lee, that hardworking little optimist who makes a wish every time she sees a new moon, wears a flower on her coat, exercises her eyes to make them bright, searches her teacup for hint of good fortune; and no doubt in her childhood ate up all her crusts to make her hair curl. The bright eyes and the curly hair she has, but the good fortune and pleasant surprises have been long in coming.

Early in the morning on the day before Christmas, Letty Lee, on her way to the depot, wished she had put on her big coat. She did not like to wear the big coat, it had been too long in circulation and had begun to look like premeditated poverty. She knew she was smartly dressed in her suit and fur, but this was certainly bigcoat weather. It was a raw, rowdy day, with razor blades in the wind, and short-necked people hurrying down the street.

“I must not let myself feel poor,” Letty Lee said to herself, shivering a little, “and I feel sure that some day I will have my pupils back.” Miss Lee had been compelled to close her dancing school two years before for financial reasons. She seemed to get too many of the pupils whose parents are too poor or too rich to pay. Her recitals were always successful and well attended, but her income was uncertain. She closed the academy just in time. After all her bills were paid, she had exactly six dollars, but she certainly had good names on her books, and they were still on her books.

She went to live at the Y and received board and room there for the lessons she gave to the clubs. For the past six months she had been relieving the Travelers’ Aid in meeting the boats and trains. On that cold day when she rested in the doorway of the Red Cross Superfluities store to get her breath, she told herself again how lucky she was to have a good job.

“I really am part of the constructive forces of the world.” said Miss Lee, “I do help to unscramble the travelling public.” The wind seemed to grow more violent every minute. She watched it, fascinated, storm signals flying, signs rattling, awnings flapping. “Wind,” she said to herself, quoting a line from a poem, “In a lonely, laughterless game.” Letty Lee love the rhythm of a good sentence.

But there must be some good in the wind, she thought, all that energy cannot be in vain. If only we knew how use it, every bit of it … that seems to be the trouble with this world, there is too much unused energy. I’d like to write some verses about the wind.

Just then a dark blue car, long enough for an ambulance, drew into the curb, and a woman in a mink coat descended. She spoke to the driver, opened her purse and gave him some money, with elaborate and repeated directions. There was something familiar in the strident voice, which reminded Miss Lee of one of her toughest debtors who had indignantly refused to pay for her daughter’s tuition because her daughter had not done well. She seemed to think that Miss Lee was to blame for the girl having bow legs.

Then a strange thing happened. Something came rolling across the pavement, driven in circles by the wind. Letty Lee gasped when she saw it was money, real green money. She stopped its flight with her foot and picked it up. It was two bills — two $20 bills. Holding the money in her hand, she stepped forward to restore it to the owner; but at that moment the mink coat turned and there was mutual recognition. Mrs. Sleight turned away.

“Oh, Mrs. Sleight,” called Miss Lee, “wait just a moment.”

“I do not know you at all,” said Mrs. Sleight haughtily, “and have no desire to speak with you.” And with that she was gone, and Letty Lee stood, holding the money in her hand, staring after her.

Forty dollars! Just exactly the sum Mrs. Sleight owed her. “Well, well,” said Miss Lee gaily to herself with a new warmth in her veins; “it’s all right with me if we never speak again; our business is ended. I’ll mail her the receipt, and now for a glorious day — a day of enchantment — good old wind, you old magician. You’ve not only made a rich woman of me, but an honest woman of Mrs. Sleight … Now, I do wish I had my big coat. With $40 in my purse, I can wear an old coat without embarrassment.

When the station was cleared of travellers, Miss Lee looked back into the women’s room to be sure she hadn’t missed anyone, and there she saw a pale, middleaged woman, hunting distractedly through her purse. “Yes, indeed, I do want help,” she said in answer to Miss Lee’s inquiry. “I came in here to wait until you were through with the others. My sisters was her last week and you helped her. She said she’ll never forget your kindness.” Letty Lee actually blushed; she was not accustomed to praise. Then she noticed the little lunch basket and the woman’s tired face.

“Come out to the restaurant,” she said, “and we’ll have a bite of breakfast, and talk it over. I’m free for two hours now.”

“It’s about my son,” said Mrs. Perth. “He is in the army here, in the Canadian Scottish. He is a good boy, too, and has been my comfort these years since his father died. He is engaged to a girl whose family live just beside us — she is just as dear to me as my own daughter, and we are all glad about her and Georgie. She came in to the city to be near him while he’s here.

“He wanted to get married as soon as she came, but Jean said no, he must go away free and she would wait for him — that’s the kind she is. I’ll show you her picture, and you’ll see how sensible and calm and good she is. But last week, when my sister was here, she saw Georgie in a restaurant with a girl, and it wasn’t Jean. She was a painted hussy, with a little hat perched on the top of her head — with her hair in curls like rows of sausages, her mouth as red as a sword’s cut, and dangling earrings and all. But my sister never let on she was there. It made her fair sick.”

“She has intended to go to see Jean, for she knows how fond we are of her, but she hadn’t the heart to do it. When she went home she wrote all this to me and I couldn’t rest day or night for thinking of it, so I came to see if I could do anything. I just came on impulse and I seem to have lost Jean’s address, and now I don’t know what to do now I am here.

“If I find Jean, she’ll certainly wonder why I came, for she knows that money is scarce with us. The drought, you know, and the hot winds took everything. But I sold a cow to get my expense money. I’d do more than that to save Georgie. I gave him to his country’s service gladly, but I can’t see him nabbed up by some good-for-nothing who would break his heart. Jean is working in a restaurant — I forget the name, but I think it is something to do with nuts.”

“Now, then,” said Miss Lee, when they had eaten, “I’ll get a car and take you to my room in the ‘Y’. You need sleep more than anything else and I’ll take over your burden from here.”

“But dear Miss Lee,” said Georgie’s mother, “I don’t want to be a burden to you. You’ve paid for my breakfast, and cars cost money.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said the Travelers’ Aid cheerfully, “I am a woman of means. You must sleep of your fatigue now and be ready for the Christmas party tonight — it is the event of the year, and it’s the Canadian Scottish we are having tonight; so isn’t that a pleasant coincidence?”

When Miss Lee located the restaurant and asked to speak to Miss Jean Jessup, she was told that Miss Jessup was having the afternoon off, was going to the beauty parlour, and wouldn’t be in again until the day after Christmas.

“Good for you, Jean,” said Miss Lee as she hung up. That’s the spirit! Don’t let your heart break — Georgie or no Georgie. And now I wonder, she went on to herself, will Georgie come to the party, and if he does, which girl will he bring?

Mrs. Perth did not awaken until the room was dark. She found a woolly gown on the foot of her bed, and a pair of slippers, the same soft blue. A further surprise came when a friend of Miss Lee’s came in to wave her hair and give her a face massage. At 8 o’clock, fully recovered from her journey, she sat in a chair near the door where, she could watch the boys as they arrived. She looked 10 years younger that she had that morning at the station.

“Wouldn’t it be terrible,” she thought, “if Georgie brought the hussy with him … I can’t pretend, like my sister, that I haven’t seen them. He’s my boy, no matter who he’s with or what he’s done, and I still believe he’ll listen to me.” Mrs. Perth had never seen so many uniforms or lovely dresses in her life, and still a steady stream was coming through the doors. Some were moving down the stairs, where an orchestra was playing for the dancers.

Suddenly Miss Lee, who was watching her, heard a cry from her friend. Corporal George Perth was arriving, but who was that with him? His mother rose uncertainly and stared at his companion. There she was, with a little hat on her curly head, the dangling earrings and the red mouth, but a smile that no cosmetic could change.

“Jean, my bonnie Jean,” cried Georgie’s mother. “Oh, Jean, what a fright I’ve had, and I never though of it being you ….”

When she left for home the day after Christmas, Mrs. Perth tried to tell Miss Lee what was in her heart. “What would I have done without you, I hate to think. You know, there is something magical about you, Miss Lee, you make this come out right.”

“Well, it all began with the wind,” laughed Miss Lee. “You see, it robbed you last summer, and dried up your crop; but today it tried to make amends. Even the wind repents a bit at Christmas.”