CHAPTER ONE

“LORD, HELP ME,” John Avery Whittaker said under his breath as he sat down once again at the oak desk in his study. His plea for help had an uncharacteristic edge to it. He had been trying to assemble the questions for a Bible contest he was hosting at his shop, Whit’s End, later that evening, but one interruption after another conspired to keep him from his work. Three phone calls, a door-to-door salesman, the postman, and a pesky fly that kept dive-bombing for his nose pushed the normally affable man to the limits of his patience.

He glanced around his study suspiciously, wondering what would interrupt him next. Maybe one of the many bookshelves would suddenly collapse, or the window shade would violently flap upward, or a leg on the desk chair would break. It felt to him as if the very silence of the room might scream, if only to ruin his concentration. He stroked his bushy white mustache and waited. Nothing happened.

Satisfied that he could resume his work, Whit (as he was best known) opened his Bible to find a verse in the book of James. He accidentally opened a couple of pages past it and found himself looking at a verse in the first letter of Peter, chapter two, verse 21. It said simply:

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

He stared at the verse with an unexplainable feeling that the words there were significant. After a moment he dismissed the feeling then turned to the book of James.

The doorbell rang.

“I knew it,” Whit groaned. He sat still as if afraid that if he moved, the bell might ring again. He secretly hoped whoever it was would go away. The doorbell rang again. Whit sighed, stood up, and gently moved the curtain aside on a window that gave him a clear view of the front porch. A man stood on the steps, dressed in worn, dirty clothing. He had greasy, matted hair that looked as if it hadn’t been washed or combed in a long time. Frowning at the work yet to be done on his desk, Whit went down the stairs to the door. It was the last straw—the last interruption he would tolerate—and he yanked the door open as if to warn whoever it was that he wasn’t in a mood to be trifled with.

The stranger looked at Whit with a startled expression, as if he didn’t expect anyone to answer the door. Whit gazed at him, not sure what to make of someone who looked so bad, then asked, “Can I help you?”

The stranger coughed nervously. “I’m out of work, sir, and thought you might know of someone who’s hiring. Maybe to do some odd jobs…”

“I’m really sorry,” Whit replied, “but I don’t know of anything offhand. Try the shops downtown.” He slowly began to close the door.

“Anything at all,” the man said as he struggled to smile. “Just point me in the right direction.” His teeth appeared yellow behind the gray stubble on his face. The lines around his eyes seemed to point like arrows at their redness.

Whit tried to imagine who he’d send a man in this condition to, but he couldn’t think of anyone. “I wish I could help you,” he said. “I really don’t know of anyone who’s hiring. And I don’t have anything around here that needs done. I’m sorry. I hope you find something.”

“Thanks anyway,” the man said as he turned to leave. Whit closed the door and went back up to his study. He was about to start working again but first yielded to the temptation to look out the window. The man had walked down the sidewalk to the street and now stood as if he couldn’t decide which way to turn.

Whit let the curtain fall back into place. He felt a pang of guilt. He could have offered the man something temporary at Whit’s End, he knew. There were floors to be swept, windows to be washed, dishes to be cleaned. Even around the house, Whit could have paid the man a few dollars to rake the leaves. A list formed in Whit’s mind of all the things he could have done for the stranger but didn’t think about at the time because he had to get the questions for the Bible contest finished.

It’s not too late, Whit thought and leapt to his feet. He tossed aside the curtains and reached for the window, preparing to throw it open and call for the man to come back. His fingers were clasped around the latch when he saw the sidewalk and street were empty. The man was gone.

With a heavy heart, Whit sat down at his desk and slowly returned to the Bible contest questions. There were no other interruptions that afternoon.

Tom Riley, Whit’s best friend, arrived as planned at 5:30 to pick Whit up for the evening’s activities at Whit’s End.

“Ready?” Tom asked in his gentle, folksy accent as Whit climbed into the passenger side of the car.

“I think so,” Whit answered. “How did it go at the shop this afternoon?”

Tom pulled the car out of the driveway and into the street. “No particular problems,” he said. “Except you might want to take a look at the train set. The Baltimore and Ohio keeps coming off the tracks. It won’t be too long before they all come apart.”

“I’ll look at it later tonight,” Whit said, knowing his friend was trying to make a point. You need help, is what Tom Riley was really saying behind his comment about the train set. Whit knew it was true. Apart from sporting the county’s largest running train set, Whit’s End also had an ice-cream parlor, a library, a theater, and dozens of rooms filled with interactive displays. It was little wonder that Whit’s End had become one of the most popular places for the children in Odyssey to play. But the success of the shop made it hard for Whit to keep up with all the things needing taken care of, and harder still for him to find the right kind of people to work there.

Employees came and went quickly. Whit was never satisfied with any of their work. He figured he could do it all better himself. Tom had said just the other day that Whit was being “too picky.” Maybe he was right, Whit thought. In all of Odyssey, Tom was the only one Whit trusted in the shop. Earlier in the afternoon Tom had kept an eye on things while Whit worked on the Bible contest questions.

“You can’t do it all,” Tom said. “And I can’t keep helping you. I have a farm to run.”

“I know, Tom, and I’m grateful.” Whit watched the evening light explode blues, yellows, and oranges behind the houses and, in the distance, the larger buildings of downtown Odyssey. They were approaching the edge of McAlister Park, where the autumn leaves spread like a carpet over the playing fields and under large collections of trees. Tom would have to drive around the edge of the park for another mile before reaching the Victorian-style building housing Whit’s End.

Tom adjusted the shoulder strap on his overalls. “There was one peculiar thing that happened today,” Tom said.

“Oh?” Whit’s thick white eyebrows lifted and nearly blended with the wild, white hair on the top of his head.

Tom nodded. “A man I’d never seen before came in to Whit’s End. He was a little shabby-looking, like he hadn’t had a bath or changed his clothes in a long time.”

Whit thought of the man who had come to his door that afternoon. “Did he say anything?”

“That’s what was so odd. I thought he was going to ask for a handout, but he didn’t. He just sat in one of the booths for a while and drank some water. He showed an interest in the posters for the Bible contest tonight, but didn’t say anything else. After a while, he left.”

Whit scrubbed his chin thoughtfully and felt the pang of guilt again. He should have done something for the man. “Sounds like the same man who came to my door this afternoon. I’m ashamed to say I was so preoccupied with the Bible contest, I didn’t offer to help him. I feel bad about it now.”

Tom shook his head. “Funny you should mention it,” he said. “I kept thinking to myself that I should give the man some food, but I got so busy with the kids that I never did it. He was gone before I realized.”

“So much for good intentions,” Whit said.

They reached the front of Whit’s End where kids were already lined up to take part in the Bible contest. Whit grabbed his Bible and stack of questions from the front seat and didn’t think again about the stranger—until later that evening when the stranger would be all he’d think about.