Poor Rosie | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Poor Rosie | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ronnie Puckett
01/17/23
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POOR ROSIE

Rosie Wilmot walked slowly across the lawn, idly swinging her tennis racquet. Her head ached. Well, just a little. Not as badly as she’d made out, but she’d needed an excuse to escape.
George offered to escort her back to the house, but she wanted to be alone.

Glancing back at the tennis court she saw that Maisie was now partnering George in the mixed doubles. The score-board showed they were one game ahead. They played well together.
If only George would transfer his romantic attentions to her friend! Rosie was fed up with his determined pursuit of herself. In fact, she was fed up with a lot of things.

She’d had enough of tennis parties, tea parties, dinner parties, outings to the theatre, outings to the sea-side... the endless social round.
Something had to change, or she’d go crazy.

Rosie’s mother was in the drawing room of their beautiful mansion, taking afternoon tea alone.
“Mama, I need to get a job!” the girl announced, flopping into an armchair.
Lady Wilmot lowered her teacup. “Calm down, dear. Would a drink of tea help?”
Rosie shook her head. “Please, Mama, I’m serious about this.”
“But darling, you have no need to earn money. What’s brought this on all of a sudden?”
“I’m fed up. Bored. Tired of doing nothing.”
Her mother frowned. “Nothing? Good gracious! You’ve been playing tennis all afternoon. Then there’s the midsummer ball at the weekend. You have a very full social life. What more could a lively eighteen-year-old want?”
“I want,” said Rosie with an exasperated sigh, “to do something useful.”
“But you’re not qualified for any kind of work, my dear,” Lady Wilmot pointed out. “Besides, it’s not the accepted thing for women of our social position to go out to work.” She pursed her lips. “I hate to think what your father would say.”
“But some of my friends have nice little jobs. This is 1926, Mama, not 1826!”
“Enough of that, Rosie!”

It was no good. Her mother just did not understand. But, with a toss of her curly head, the girl made up her mind. Somehow she would find a way to change her pointless way of life.

The next day she took a taxi into town.
After buying herself a new hat, she walked across the park, and into an unfamiliar street. A notice-board outside a chapel caught her eye. The bold lettering read: “Jesus said, ‘I have come that they may have life.’” John 10: 10.
Rosie stood gazing at the words. Life? What kind of life?
Then she spotted some smaller print below. “Volunteers needed for our soup kitchen. Please call at the manse if interested.”
Volunteering! Surely her mother couldn’t object to that. Did she not do some herself during the Great War, organising groups of women to knit socks and gloves for the troops?
Going to the manse door, Rosie lifted the knocker.

Moments later she was seated in a cosy lounge, listening to the minister’s wife telling her all about soup kitchens. She soon warmed to the kindly woman.
But Mrs Cooper looked uncertainly at her pretty visitor in the expensive silk dress.
“The work would consist of very menial tasks at first,” she cautioned. “Like washing dishes, scrubbing trestle tables, peeling potatoes.”
Rosie lifted her chin. “I’m willing to try.”
“But why? You don’t look –”
“I need a purpose in life,” the girl cut in. “Something to help others. A life that’s nothing but fun can be dead boring.”
The woman smiled and agreed she could start with a two-day trial.
“Before I go,” Rosie said less confidently. “I –er – could you please explain the text on the notice-board?”
Mrs Cooper’s face lit up. “Well, my dear, it means that because Jesus died and rose again, he can give us new life now and forever.”
She could see the girl didn’t understand.
“Would you be able to come to our morning meeting next Sunday? My husband will be preaching. He’ll explain the Gospel much better than I can.”
“Yes, I’ll come,” said Rosie. “I want to know more about Jesus. I really do.”

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