HOPE...NOT ASHAMED
She was a large, powerful woman, perhaps fifty-five years of age. Her manner was rough, and there was a hard, designing glint in her coal black eyes.
"She certainly could be the witch that people say she is," thought Hope, as a little chill ran down his spine. The very forbidding nature of the woman challenged Hope to do his best, but all to no avail. Doa Matilda responded to Hope's request with an emphatic "No!" and it was obvious that she meant it. Again and still again Hope tried to appeal to her humanitarianism, but each time ran into the same impenetrable wall of resistance
"Young man," she finally exclaimed, "my time is valuable even if yours is not."
Trying to end the interview on a friendly vein, Hope decided on another approach. "Dona Matilda, I appreciate your listening to me so patiently. I wish that you felt free to contribute to these fine projects I have mentioned; but if you do not, I respect your judgment. Perhaps, however, you would do me a personal favor. I am very thirsty and would greatly appreciate a drink of cold water."
"Certainly," and the woman's face had a faint trace of a smile, "just go through the door over there and straight through the next door to the kitchen. The maid there will take care of you."
Hope thanked her. Leaving his umbrella in the living room, he passed through the indicated door. The room through which he passed was without light, but he could just make out a door on the far side. Going to this door he found it locked. Just then he heard a door bolt click, so he tried the door again in the hope someone had opened the lock. Finding it still locked, he retraced his steps to the first door. It too was locked. Now he understood the noise he had heard a moment before. With a shock he realized that he was a prisoner. There in the semidarkness he could feel a chill creeping up his spine.
He knocked at the door. No response. "Doa Matilda," he called. Still no response. He pounded on the door, even rammed it with his shoulder. "Open the door!" he yelled. "Let me out of here."
Silence.
Suddenly he realized that the reputation of his forbidding hostess, coupled with his sudden incarceration in this dark room, was causing him to lose control. "Guess the best thing to do is to pray," he thought. Acting upon this thought, his composure returned almost immediately. "Now let's see," he counseled with himself, "there surely must be some way to get out of here."
His eyes soon grew accustomed to the semidarkness, and he took stock of the situation. The room was absolutely empty. The walls were of adobe. Hope knew that they would be two or three feet thick, so they offered no reasonable possibility of escape. He examined the doors. They were of solid oak, heavily built and well installed. No chance there. Where was the light coming from? He looked up. Yes, it was from the roof. It was made of clay tile laid on a bamboo plating which, in turn, rested on the rafters. This type of construction is common in Central America, and always admits a little light. Why, here was the avenue of escape - through the roof!
"But how can I ever get up there?" Hope questioned in despair. The walls of his prison were a good twenty feet high, perhaps more. Then he saw a possibility. Ringing the room were some long four-by-fours, the apparent purpose of which was to brace the unusually high walls. These heavy timbers formed a kind of oversize picture molding about seven feet above the floor. A second similar molding ringed the room perhaps another seven feet above the first. Hope studied the situation. He tried and found that he could just get his fingers over the first molding. With a prayer on his lips he drew himself up to where he could swing his leg over the timber. Somehow he worked himself into a lying position and then a squatting position on the molding. Here his agility and sense of balance as a former tap dancer stood him in good stead. Slowly, ever so slowly, with only the tiny crevices between the adobe bricks as hand holds, Hope stood up. To his relief he found that he could reach the second molding.
After a short rest he repeated the process, and Hope soon found himself squatting precariously on a four-inch wide molding some fourteen feet above the hard brick floor below. Carefully, so very carefully, he again inched his way up to a standing position. What a blessed relief it was to get his hands over the stout rafter above! Quickly he pushed a hand-opening in the bamboo plating. Then carefully, noiselessly he removed tile after tile, making a hole large enough for him to pass through. This time pulling himself up was easy, and in a moment he was standing in the light of day on the roof. How good it felt to fill his lungs with the fresh mountain air!
But this was to be enjoyed for only a moment. He still was on top of the roof of a house containing a most unfriendly individual! At any moment someone might appear with a rifle or shotgun. He needed to find a way to get off of that roof as quickly as he could.
As good fortune would have it, a slender coconut palm leaned gracefully over the edge of the roof only a few yards away. Hope had not climbed a coconut tree since his childhood, but he decided to try and quickly made his way to it. A glance about the patio revealed no one, so he shinnied down the long, tapering tree trunk, and a moment later was hurrying away from this house of witchcraft toward the pensin headquarters of his Ingathering team.
It was past noon, and his co-workers were waiting for him. "Hurry up, Hope, we're counting the morning receipts. How much did you Ingather?"
"Not a cent, fellows."
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