A Sevenfold Trouble E-Book

Grace Livingston Hill

• Herausgeber: Classica Libris
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Margaret, Weston, Johnnie, their father Thomas, their stepmother Sophia—the Moore family are living unhappy lives, with troubles sevenfold. Watch them grow as situations and good Christians help them find their way to the true path. A Christian story written by seven authors, including Grace Livingston Hill and Pansy.

Leseprobe

Grace Livingston Hill & Pansy

A SEVENFOLD TROUBLE

Copyright

First published in 1889

Copyright © 2019 Classica Libris

Preface

Do you know, dear friends, we feel like calling your special attention in some way to this story of ours? So many questions have been asked during its writing, that I am sure you do not fully understand.

In the first place, it is really and honestly written by seven people, and not by one person pretending to be seven different ones, as some of you have thought.

In the second place, it is an honest record of what we, who are all writers, and all very intimate friends, have seen and heard as we looked on at the lives of certain people in whom we are deeply interested.

We used to talk about these people when we sat together after the day’s work was done. “They don’t understand one another,” said one of the ministers, “else there wouldn’t be much trouble.”

“I think the little girl means better than she is supposed to,” said Grace.

“And I know the two boys are not half so mean as they are made out to be,” declared Paranete.

“They are like a great many people in this world,” interposed the other minister, “working at cross purposes; making failures of their lives, just because they do not try to put themselves in one another’s places.”

“Making failures, also, because they are trying to carry their own burdens without the help of the only real Helper,” said one of the ladies.

“O, yes! of course,” spoke out both ministers, “that is really the foundation source of their troubles, as of most others.”

Said Faye Huntington: “Let’s write a book about them! One that will help others, as well as them. We can tell their story but tell it in such a way that they won’t even recognize themselves; they will only know that it fits, somehow, and helps.”

“We might do that,” said Grace.

“We all know them so well; I’d like to write up the little girl and suggest to her what to do. If I did, I’d call her Margaret; I like that name.”

“It’s a good idea,” said the wife of one of the ministers. “I just long to give that mother a hint.

Said Pansy: “Let us do it. I like the thought. I’ll mother the whole thing, arrange the chapters, and plan out the work, if you will each take the people in whom you are most interested, and be as plain-spoken as will do, and be as helpful as you can.”

“Agreed,” said they all; and we have honestly and earnestly done it.

Because the family whom we knew so well, were not named Moore, and did not live in a town like the one described and did not name their children Margaret and Weston and Johnnie, they may not know that we mean them; but if they will see that the Moore family of whom we wrote made the same mistakes that they are making, and got out of trouble by the very road that they may take if they will, it is all we ask.

No, one thing more. Dear friends, every one, we call on you to help us. Read the book carefully, lend it to your friends, ask the Lord Jesus to make it helpful to every boy, or girl, or man, or woman who touches it; and may His blessing be upon us all in our effort to make less trouble and more sunshine in this world.

Your friends,

Pansy

Grace Livingston Hill

Paranete

Mrs. C. M. L.

Faye Huntington

C. M. L.

G. R. A.

Chapter 1

AN UNHAPPY HOUSEHOLD

Margaret was washing the dishes; making a vigorous clash and spatter, and setting down the cups so hard that had they been anything but the good solid iron-stone which they were, they would certainly have suffered under the treatment.

Margaret was noisy in all things, but today the usual vigor of movement was manifestly increased by ill humor. There was an ominous setting of a pair of firm lips, and all her face was in a frown. The knives and forks, when their turn came, seemed to increase her ire. She rattled and flung them about with such reckless disregard of consequences that there landed, presently, a lovely tricolored globe of foam in the center of John’s arithmetic; over which he was at this moment gloomily bending.

“Look here,” he said, half fiercely, half comically, “quit that, will you? This thing is dry enough, I know; but it will take more than soap suds to dampen it.”

“Take your book out of my way, then. What do you s’pose she would say to its being on the table and you bending double over it?”

“She may say just exactly what she pleases. It will stay on the table until I get ready to take it off.”

“O yes! you’re very brave until you hear her coming, and then you are as meek as Moses.”

“Now I say, Mag, that’s mean in you, when you know well enough that all I’m after is to try to keep the peace.”

“Peace! there isn’t enough of that article left in this house to make it worthwhile to try to save it. I’m sick to death of the whole thing.” And the knives bumped about against a plate in the dish-pan with such force that the plate rebelled and flew into three pieces in its rage.

“There goes another dish!” exclaimed West, from the window corner where he was busily whittling, “that makes the seventeenth this week, doesn’t it? Mag, you are awful, and no mistake.”

Then Margaret’s face flamed and her angry words burst their bounds: “I wish you would just mind your own business, Weston Moore! You think because you are eighteen months and seven days older than I, that you can order me around like a slave.”

“Whew! bless my eyes! How you do blaze out on a fellow! Who thought of ordering you around? I should as soon think of ordering a cyclone. I was only moralizing on the sweet and amiable mood you were in, and the nice comfortable times we have in this house.”

“Well, you may let my moods alone if you please; and my dishes too. I’ve a right to break them all if I choose, for all you. I’d rather blaze up in a rage, than be an everlasting tease and torment, like you.”

“Father’ll have a word to say about the dishes, I fancy, my lady; you might now and then think of him: he isn’t made of gold, I s’pose you know, and dishes cost money.”

“I do think of him a great deal oftener than you do, you great lazy, whittling, whistling boy! If it wasn’t for him I’d run away, and be rid of her and you, and all the other nuisances, dishes and all.”

She paused in her clatter long enough to dash away two or three great tears which were plashing down her hot red cheeks.

“As to that,” said the whittler, as he slowly closed his jack-knife, “perhaps you better seriously consider it. I’m not sure but it would be more comfortable for all concerned; especially the dishes.” Then he spied the tears; and seizing upon the dish towel which had been angrily flung across the back of a chair, he rushed toward his sister, exclaiming: “Here, let me wipe away those briny drops.”

Margaret’s hands were in the dishwater again, but she drew them forth all dripping with the greasy suds, and brought the right one with a resounding slap, about the curly head of the mocking boy.

Just how he would have received it will not be known; for the sudden jerk backwards of the left arm, came against the full dish pan, already set too near the edge of the table, and over it went, deluging table, floor, and Margaret’s dress not only, but pouring a greasy flood over the rows of bread tins carefully covered, and set in a sheltered comer for the dough to rise.

Margaret’s exclamation of dismay was suddenly checked, and the angry color flamed back into her eyes as the door leading into the hall opened, and a woman appeared on the scene.

A tall, pale woman in a plain, dark, close-fitting calico dress, without a collar, and with dark, almost black hair combed straight back from a plain face. She gave a swift glance at the confusion, and took in the situation.

“Quarreling again! I might have known it. Were you three ever together in your lives, without it? John, let the book alone until it dries; if it had not been on the kitchen table where I told you never to have it, the dishwater wouldn’t have ruined it. And the bread too! I declare! This is too bad!” These last words came in detached sentences as the extent of the misfortune grew upon her.

A quick snatch of the carefully tucked cloth, now holding little pools of dishwater, a comprehension of the utter ruin of the many loaves of bread, and she turned upon the wrathful girl:

“Margaret, go upstairs this minute, and don’t venture down again until you are called. I’m sure I wish you need never come.”

“You can’t begin to wish it as I do.” This was Margaret’s last bitter word as she shot out of the door.

John stood dolefully surveying his soaking arithmetic, and his great sheet of now ruined examples, carefully worked out. The woman was already tucking up her calico dress ready for work, but she had a message for him.

“Now you go somewhere; don’t let me see you until dinner time. And mind, I shall tell your father you have disobeyed me again.”

As for Weston the tease, he had slipped swiftly and silently from the room with the entrance of the mother.

Yes, she was their mother. At least, she was their father’s wife, though none of the three had ever called her by the name of mother. A curious position she held in the home, bound by solemn pledge to do a mother’s duty by these three children, yet receiving from none of them a shred of the love, or respect, or true obedience, which the name mother ought to call forth.

Poor Mrs. Moore! I do hope you are sorry for her. Sorry for the children, are you? Well, so am I. Indeed it is true, they every one need pity and help. The question is, Will they get what they need?

Upstairs, angry Margaret made haste to remove her much soiled dress, eyes dashing, and cheeks burning the while. Something more than the scenes we watched in the kitchen had to do with Margaret’s mood.

A green and prickly chestnut bur came whizzing into the room, landing in the middle of her bed.

It called forth an angry exclamation. Here was some more of that tormenting West’s work. She would not stand it! She made a rush for the window, but a low, merry laugh stopped her. This was not West’s laugh.

“Well,” said Hester Andrews, from under the chestnut-tree, “can you go?”

“No; of course I can’t. I should think you might know without asking. Do I ever go anywhere now days?

“It is just too mean for anything!” declared Hester. “What reason does she give this time?”

There was a peculiar emphasis on the word “this,” which was meant to indicate that here was only one of the numberless times in which Margaret Moore had been shamefully treated. Margaret answered the tone as well as the words.

“Oh! father says he can’t have me out so late in the evening; it isn’t the thing for a little girl, and he doesn’t approve of sail boats, anyway. As if I didn’t know where all that stuff came from!”

“The idea! I declare, it’s a perfect shame. Wouldn’t you like to see your own mother keeping you at home from places, and treating you like a baby, or a slave, as she does?”

“Don’t you speak my mother’s name the same day you do hers” said Margaret, with fierce voice and flashing eyes.

“Well, I’m sure I don’t wonder that you feel so,” was Hester’s soothing answer. “I’m just as sorry for you as I can be; I wonder sometimes that you don’t run away. Everyone says it comes harder on you, because you are a girl: the boys can keep out of her sight. O Mag! I’m so sorry you can’t go. If your mother were only here, what lovely times we could have.”

And this was the help which Margaret’s most intimate friend brought her! In point of fact, these two knew no more of what the mourned mother would have done, than did the squirrels up in the chestnut-tree. She had been lying in the cemetery for a year when Hester Andrews’ family moved into the town, and Margaret was only a busy little elf of not quite six, when she received with gleeful laughter her mother’s last kiss. Could she know how the mother would treat the thirteen-year-old girl’s longings for sail boats and evening parties?

Downstairs, Mrs. Moore left to solitude and bitter thoughts, worked with swift, skilled fingers, and set lips. Not long alone; someone came to help her—a sister, married, and living at ease in a lovely home a few streets away; a younger sister who was sorry, so blindly and unwisely sorry for the elder’s harder lot, that she could not keep back her words of indignant sympathy.

“It’s a shame!” she said, “just a burning shame, the way you are treated by those children. The idea of your being down on your knees mopping up the musses which they have made, on purpose to vex you. If I were you, Sophia, I wouldn’t endure it another day. It is a wonder to me that their father permits such a state of things. Henry and I were speaking of it last night.”

“Their father doesn’t know the half that goes on,” Mrs. Moore said, speaking quickly in defense of her husband. “What is the use? We live in an uproar all the time, as it is. And after all, Emma, they are his children.”

“I don’t care. You are his wife. You owe something to yourself respect. Henry thinks so too; he thinks it is a shame. Why do you go on the floor and clean after them? Isn’t that girl as able to mop up her dishwater as you are?” Mrs. Moore wrung the wet, greasy cloth with a nervous grip, letting some of the soiled drops trickle down her arm, in her haste, and answered with eyes that glowed:

“To tell the truth, I would scrub the floor after her all day, for the sake of getting her out of my sight for an hour.”

And this was the help Mrs. Moore received.

Chapter 2

FRENZY AND REMORSE

Meanwhile she—not the one in the kitchen, but Margaret—was busy as forty million bees with her thoughts. Not one of a dozen lunatics did more wild thinking than this raving girl. Had she—of the kitchen—come in just then, there would have been a scene more tempestuous than ever disturbed a dozen dish-pans. Fortunately, the disaster below was too widespread and serious to permit the stepmother’s absence. Margaret was left severely alone to manage her own mental world. She managed it after this fashion:

“I hate her; I hate her; I h-a-t-e her. I wish she’d never come here. What’d we want of her? ’Zif she could fill my mother’s place! Wish there was spooks, and one of ’em would come and haunt ’er and haunt ’er till she was scared out of her senses, and would pick up her duds and get out of this house. What business has she got here in my mother’s house, using my mother’s things and talking and acting zif she’d always been here and owned everything? commanding me to go here and there in my mother’s house and stay till she calls me! Guess I’ll do as she says! Let her come in now if she dares, and command me, and I’ll throw this book at her head.

And our lunatic, at that, sprang like a tiger to the little stand near her bed and, seizing a small Bible, struck a defiant attitude, facing the door, her eyes flashing fire, her hand clutching the trembling little book and drawn back to its utmost as though making ready to deal a deadly blow the moment the first sound was heard approaching her room.

“Let her come now, and—” At that the door opened enough to disclose an eye, when the enraged girl, thinking it belonged to her, hurled the book with all her pent-up power. Then came a shrill cry of pain, a backward heavy fall upon the stairs, and, “You’ve put my eyes out; oh! I can’t see; I’m killed; help!” followed by quick steps from the kitchen and sharp words.

“Now see what you’ve done to your brother! What if you’ve killed Weston and you’ll be hanged for it? What’ll you think, then, you wicked girl? What you think your mother’d say if she was here and had seen you trying to kill your own brother! My lady, if you hav’n’t got yourself into trouble now!” said the mother, lifting the groaning Weston and giving his face a searching look to make sure that a really blind boy was not added to her misfortunes. “Just a little more, my lady, and instead of this black and blue spot on his nose you’d a put his two eyes out, and then your father’d seen to you, and he will as it is. Come, don’t stand there, shaking your head at me. Shut the door, and don’t let me hear a sound from you. Your father’ll settle with you,” and she pulled the door sharply to and locked Margaret in and turned to dispose of Weston.

That person, however, in spite of his wounds, gathered himself up and got away, preferring to bear the pain rather than try the treatment of his step-mother with the usual accompaniment of a lecture on the evils of mischief and the punishment sure and sudden to follow.

West had really meant no mischief in this case, but rather to extend a bit of sympathy to his imprisoned sister, with what result the reader now knows.

If Margaret was frenzied before it was now frenzy and wretchedness combined. What if she had indeed forever blinded her brother?

“I wish I was dead—yes, dead, dead! then I’d see if she could torment me. Oh! if I had put his eyes out; poor West! poor West! what if he did tease me? He meant it for fun, and—but—I won’t be teased—teased too, when I’m washing her greasy dishes! West’d no business to come up squinting into my room to see how mad I looked. I thought it was her old eye there at the crack, and I almost wish it had been, and I had knocked her down stairs and let her see how it feels to be hit once, hard. Doesn’t she keep hitting me every time she can with her hateful old tongue till I’m so mad I could scream? Oh! oh I What shall I do? I wish I was a bird, I’d fly this very minute; or even a grasshopper, and I’d jump out of this hateful room and out of her sight, if I jumped into the well and drowned myself.”

And Margaret looked from her window and saw a swallow. It skipped through the air and then would dart down the chimney and twitter and leap out again, and away it would whirl after its kind.

Margaret would really have exchanged her humanity, nay, her very soul, to be a mere chimney swallow and twitter a day or month and then be no more forever! She even envied an ugly toad that at that moment was vainly trying to get over a small root rising across its path. Anything to be away from her!

Ah! if only her auntie would just then drive up and stop under her window and see her there, and say, “Come, Margie, put on your hat; make ready quick, I’ve come to take you to spend the winter with me. I know your father will say yes!”

Oh! why couldn’t it be for her this once, as books often have it in the story, “I go away from her and never see her again, and live with good Aunt Cornelia, and she pet me and not scold my life out of me, and not always make me wash the dishes, and let me have nice things to wear, and never say ‘Margaret, my lady, I’ll tell your father?’ Then after two or three years perhaps I’d come home, riding in uncle’s carriage like a fine young lady, and I don’t know whether I’d speak to her or not. But oh! Auntie won’t come, or anybody, but that old thing.”

And she strained her eyes out the window, looking up and down the road, wishing she were old enough to be engaged, or something, and someone would come with a ladder and carry her off to some island of the sea—no matter if one of the Fiji.

Then a thought struck her “I’ll run away. I’ll make a rope of my bedclothes as I’ve read they do when the house is on fire, and let myself down, and be gone where they’ll never find me, and go and take care of myself, and then she’ll see what she’s done, and father’ll hate the very sight of her, and wish she was dead too.”

And the excited girl began to measure with her eye the height of her window from the ground, to see if she couldn’t safely jump; then she started toward the bed to tie the clothes for a rope, when her eye fell upon the leaf of her Bible, at her feet, that was torn from its place as it struck against the partly opened door where West’s eye had appeared.

It seemed to look up with a pleading gaze.

She stooped and took it up tenderly; then went to the door for the Bible. It was not there. It had probably swept through the crack out upon the stairway. In vain she tried to open the door. It was locked. Margaret was a prisoner, and this torn leaf her only seeming companion and friend.

May be it could speak some word to her poor stormy spirit.

She read: “Come unto me,” the other portion was torn out, except “find rest.”

How strange it seemed, those words, “Come,” and, “find rest.” Rest! rest! Oh! if she could have rest. Then came that scene in the Sunday- school, when her teacher, after all the class was gone, drew her to her arms and whispered, “Now, Maggie, won’t you—for Jesus’ sake at least—won’t you be patient and good to your new mother?” and the little Bible was presented, and several passages marked, and these very words, “Come,” etc. Ah! that scene. It was the last between Margaret and her teacher. The angels came soon after and carried the faithful Miss Barrett to the skies.

Margaret remembered it all now, and how she promised to be good and patient for Jesus’ sake. Then she burst into a flood of bitter weeping.

Falling upon her bed, she continued to sob till in weariness and sheer exhaustion she sank into a troubled but deep sleep.

The dream of battle, blood and groans that came to Margaret was at length broken by a fierce blast of wind, accompanied by thunder and frequent lightning flashes. A wild storm had burst from the sky almost as suddenly and madly as that from her lips.

She started up in terror, yet defiant as though still in strife with someone, and that one her step-mother. Fiercely she gazed, expecting to hear her cold, sharp words. But the room was still and dark as death. Then came a flash, and her eye fell upon her stand, and she thought she saw a salver with bread and a cup of milk, possibly other edibles; then all was black as night. Now another brighter flash, setting the room aflame, revealing her father near the bed with sad, but tender face.

“O, papa!” she cried out, “is it you, papa? I thought—I—where? Don’t let her; don’t let her; you won’t; oh! I will be good; I promised Miss Barrett—I—O papa, take me!”

“My daughter, there! there! be quiet. It can all be well if you will.”

“I? papa, I? but she! what shall I do? I can’t, I can’t, she won’t let me, she hates me—she hates us all, I know she does. The neighbors all say so—”

“My child you must—”

“Oh! they do, papa; you don’t hear what we do; and they say she said we should all be bound—”

“Hush, Mar—”

“—out,” finished Margaret with a great effort. “O, papa! I want to go away from her. Take me somewhere?”

“From me, too?”

“Can’t we all go, papa? Anywhere, anywhere, and be just as we used to. I’ll take care of the house and be good and patient as Miss Barrett said I must; and you’ll come up from the mill and find the dinner all ready, and everything so nice, and a good fire, and the boys good—oh! won’t you, papa? only don’t—oh! don’t let her ever, ever, ever come where we are. Oh! I—I—I—” and the child clung convulsively to her father, while peal after peal of thunder followed blinding flashes till the house seemed about to fall.

And then the clouds rained a tempest, until it seemed to Margaret that a second flood was upon the earth—and all because of herself. God seemed angry with her; the storm was his words. Maybe the house would fall with the next flash or be burned up and all be consumed, may be the end of all things was near, and soon she would stand at His bar to give account for that day’s doings. What should she say? What if it should appear that she was not so bad a stepmother, after all, and that if she, Margaret, had tried to be good and patient as she promised Miss Barrett, her home would have been happy and her papa’s face would not have been so sad. Oh! if she could but begin that awful day again, she would do better, no matter how sharp “she” might be to her, and—

At that instant there came into the room such a light and terrific explosion that Margaret dropped back upon the bed as if shot. A groan escaped her, and all was still save the quiver as of one in dying agonies.

Mr. Moore bent over his child, begging her to speak just one little word to her father, but answer came only from the raging storm.

Chapter 3

CALM AFTER THE STORM

The morning dawned clear and bright; the skies gave no token of the fierce storm which had raged. Nature, calm and smiling, seemed to have forgotten the tempest of the previous night. The air was pure and sweet, the grass and foliage had put off their dustiness and were fresh and green in the sunlight. Yet there were many evidences of the strength of the storm. Wrecks were visible—from the despoiled home of a pair of robins, to the forest trees which lay prostrate, having yielded to the power of the tempest. On the shore of the little lake lay a wrecked sail-boat; the very boat in which Margaret, but for her step-mother’s wisdom, would have gone out for an evening’s pleasure. And her friends? Hester? Oh! God was merciful, and this morning Hester lay weak and faint upon her bed; thankful for her own deliverance from what had seemed certain death, and wondering if, after all, Margaret was not glad that she had not been allowed to join the sailing party, shuddering to think how it might have turned out, had there been two instead of one to be saved from drowning. As for Margaret herself, she too lay upon her bed, worn and weary. The storm of passion had indeed spent itself, as had the tempest in the physical world, and Margaret had been the victim of both. Dr. Perkins came, and looked very grave, though to Margaret he spoke cheerfully, saying,

“You must keep yourself quiet, and I trust we shall have you up and around soon.”

To Mr. and Mrs. Moore he said:

“Your daughter has received a severe nervous shock. The thunder-bolt which struck the tree in the yard, affected her. It is often the case that persons out of the path of the electric fluid receive a shock, and I should say that there was considerable previous mental excitement.”

At this last remark Mr. Moore gave a little start of surprise and alarm; however, he calmed himself as the doctor went on: “Probably it was occasioned by fear of the storm. I judge your daughter to be of a highly excitable temperament, and counsel you to avoid all exciting topics, and keep her as quiet as possible, but of course in a quiet home like this there is little occasion for giving words of caution about excitement. Margaret is fortunate in having a mother’s tender care; that is what she needs more than anything else. I will look in occasionally, though, as I have suggested, rest and quiet will do more for her than medicine.”

Whether these severe thrusts were given consciously or not, Mrs. Moore could not determine, though in her peculiar state of mind she was inclined to think that his remarks had double meaning, and were intended, too, as a rebuke. The truth, however, was, that Dr. Perkins was a comparatively new-comer, and was quite unacquainted with the previous history of his patient’s family; but, all the same, the thrust struck home, and had a sharp edge.

The kitchen was very quiet that morning. Mrs. Moore went swiftly but quietly about the work. The boys were hushed; and stepping softly, tried to help, but when the school-bell rang they were glad to escape from the “gloomy old house.”

“Tender care!” Mrs. Moore repeated when she was left alone. “I can’t be a hypocrite!” Did you ever notice how often people make that statement as an excuse for not doing their duty? “I can’t pretend to love the little minx when I sometimes almost hate her! I can and will do my duty towards my husband’s children. But as for loving any of them, that is out of the question. They have not treated me in a way to win love. I can get along with the boys, but Margaret! If her father could afford it, I would persuade him to send her away to school. But I know what he would say: that our schools here are first-class, and that home is the proper place for a young girl. What a perfect whirlwind she is! Who would have dreamed it! A regular tornado when her temper is up. I do not know but she will be too much for me. It would be rather humiliating not to be able to manage a child like that, when I ranked among the first as to discipline when I taught in the district schools. Ten o’clock! I must go now and give her the beef tea the doctor ordered. I suppose I might as well make up my mind to wear myself out for them. Certainly I will never shirk my duty.”

Mrs. Moore carefully prepared the prescribed nourishment.

Taking from the top shelf of the china closet a dainty china cup, and from a drawer below a solid silver spoon which had belonged to Margaret’s mother, she was about to go up-stairs when Weston appeared, having returned for a forgotten school-book.

“Here!” he said, “let me take that up.” Relinquishing the tray, she said, “Now, take care! Don’t break that cup!”

“Bother!” exclaimed West as the door closed behind him. “Does she think a fellow can’t do anything right? I suppose she imagines I’ll smash it purposely! She must have a remarkably good opinion of me. If she would let us use the front stairs instead of this old steep, narrow, crooked ladder way, there would be less danger for necks as well as cups.”

Meantime Margaret had been lying in a sort of dreamy tranquility, perhaps induced in part by the doctor’s potion. Too weak to think much, she was only dimly conscious that there were dishes to wash; and wondered a little if “she” would not rather wash them herself, than to have her, Margaret, around in her way? She remembered, with a nervous shudder, the last time she washed the dishes, and wondered what became of that bread; it all seemed so long ago! Was it only yesterday? Then came the memory of the storm, and she recalled her father’s face as the lightning flashes revealed its sadness; poor father! She opened her eyes and let them rest upon the portrait of her own mother which hung at the foot of her bed. For the first time in her life that face seemed to wear a look of reproof. “She looks just as if I had been very wicked I” thought the child. “But, O, mother I you cannot know what a hard time your Margaret is having with her! She doesn’t love me one bit!” Then it seemed to Margaret as though the lips moved and whispered, “But for your father’s sake, can’t you be patient?”

“I will try,” she said aloud, as if answering a spoken message. Did someone whisper that motto, “For Jesus’ sake?” Something like peace came into the child’s heart; the unrest and anger, the rebellion and willfulness of the last few months seemed about to give way to better feelings; a ray of hope had entered into one of the almost despairing hearts of that apparently ill-assorted family. And soothed and quieted, the child fell into a light slumber, broken by West’s entrance with the tray. Margaret roused herself to take the refreshment.

“Are you lonesome?” asked West, by way of entertaining the invalid.

“Not very; I’ve been thinking!”

“Whew! That’s new business, isn’t it?” Margaret smiled faintly. “West, suppose I had died last night; do you suppose she would have cared?”

“O, Mag! don’t talk of that.”

“But I might have died; people do—and I wouldn’t want to die and have folks glad I was out of the way. I’ve been an awful trouble; and made father unhappy; I mean to turn over a new leaf; when I get down-stairs I mean to be very patient and good to her. Of course I don’t love her, and I don’t suppose I ever shall, but while I am a little girl I will mind her, and be pleasant, all the time.”

“Mag, you can’t do it!”

“Yes, I think I can; I know I have an awful temper, but people do get good, sometimes. One day Miss Barrett said that— Say, West, don’t you wish we were all Christians?”

The conversation was becoming too serious for Weston, so he answered, “See here! the doctor said you mustn’t talk. Just take this last spoonful and I’ll go. I declare, I almost forgot that I was in a hurry.”

Margaret obediently drained the cup, saying as she lay back upon her pillow:

“Wasn’t it nice of her to send it in that cup? And one of mother’s spoons, too!”

“O well,” said West, “I suppose she was afraid you would bite one of hers, so she sent this instead!” and thus Margaret’s softened feelings had a bitter turn given to them.

“What did she say?” asked Mrs. Moore as Weston re-appeared below stairs.

“Nothing to tell of,” said West carelessly, as he went out the door.

“Nothing to tell of!” repeated the poor woman, “just as I supposed, they say things when they are together that would not do to tell of. I know they hate me; but I am determined to do my duty.” And Mrs. Moore set her lips more firmly, and worked with feverish haste.

Little did Weston think that by his careless reply he had widened the river that already flowed between this mother and daughter.

He did not think Margaret’s remark about the cup and spoon worth repeating, and never dreamed that just that little sentence would have helped to bridge the chasm, nor did he mistrust how his own words could be misconstrued. He had not meant to convey the thought that the conversation had been private, but that it had been insignificant, so lightly did he look upon Margaret’s repentance and resolutions of amendment; surely the way was being ill prepared for Margaret’s unaccustomed feet! Must the child make a path for herself, climbing the mountains of difficulty? Will she lose herself in the darkness which will sometimes surround her, or because of the crookedness of the pathway? Will she be dismayed and discouraged because of the heights to be surmounted? Yet Margaret seemed to be reaching out for the Hand that can make straight the crooked places. Oh! if only she would rest upon One who has the power to make even the mountain become as a plain!

Mrs. Moore stopped in the midst of her preparations for dinner, and, leaning against the kitchen table, read a note which a boy bad just left at the door.

It was from her sister, and ran thus:

Dear Sophia,

Henry has just sent up word that in consequence of some break of the machinery he will have the rest of the day off. He will come up with the carriage, in about an hour, and take us out to mother’s for the afternoon. I suppose you can lock up, or tie up, those young animals of yours so that they will keep out of mischief while you are away. If it were not for yesterday’s performance I would suggest that we take Margaret along, but I presume you will enjoy the afternoon better without her; be sure you are ready.

In haste, Emma

Out to the old home! It had been such a long time since she had been there! She was actually pining for a sight of the home faces. It seemed as though a draught from the spring under the hill would cool her fevered brain; and as if to rest in the old arm-chair would calm her troubled heart. Mrs. Moore was not a woman of much sentiment or imagination, yet as she stood there twisting the note in her fingers, she seemed to catch the odor of the white lilies that bordered the garden path, and hear the hum of the bees about the hives in the orchard. She could see mother bringing out the old-fashioned gold-band china, in honor of their coming, and could guess at the list of good things with which the supper-table would be spread. O yes! it would be delightful if only she could go: but it was out of the question, of course. Such things were not for her nowadays. Stern duty stood in the way. If Margaret were well—but, even then, she was not sure that she could go. According to late developments the children could not get along peaceably even when she was in the next room. Emma and Henry would be disappointed, but that could not be helped.

She walked over to the stove and threw the note into the fire, saying as she did so, “Now if only they would come and go before Thomas comes home, he need know nothing about it.”

You see this woman was capable of making a sacrifice for the sake of what she considered her duty, without making a fuss about it, or parading the fact. Some of us are not equal to that! But she failed, in that she lost her serenity of manner and gave quick impatient replies; and, when John upset a glass of milk at the dinner-table she sent him away, his dinner unfinished. Then, when West, very unwisely considering the circumstances, remarked that he “hated baker’s bread,” she said “that both he and his mater deserved to have only baker’s fare, and for all effort she would make in the future they might eat it,” adding, “I do not consider it my duty to make bread to throw away!”

Upon this West followed his brother, leaving his plate uncleared. Forgetting Margaret and the quiet enjoined, he banged the door as he went out, causing his father to look up in troubled surprise; it was such an uncommon thing for Weston to be out of temper. He did not come home as usual at four o’clock; neither did he appear at tea-time; and at nine o’clock his father was asking, not for the first time,

“Where can the boy be?”

Chapter 4

A TRIP WEST

When Weston banged the door as he left the dining-room, he had no idea what he was going to do. He only knew he was tired of “that woman,” and wanted to get away from her as fast as possible. As he was walking down a narrow street, he met one of his school-friends, Rob Stewart.

“What’s the matter?” asked Rob, seeing his friend’s face had lost its usual cheerful appearance. “Have you been eating vinegar?”

“No,” said Weston, “but I’ve been eating some bread just as sour, and she is just—” Here he paused, perhaps for lack of a word, and perhaps because he realized that he was talking to a mere acquaintance of his father’s wife.

“I know,” said Rob sympathetically, “but she can’t be worse than my aunt. She won’t let me do a thing, and keeps scolding me all the time. But I’ve got a plan.”

“What?” asked Weston.

“I’ve just been reading a book Tom Morton lent me, called ‘The Step-son’s Revenge,’ and it’s about a boy that had a horrid step-mother, you know, just like—all of ’em, and he ran away, and sailed around Cape Horn to California, through lots of dangers, and all that, and then he turned miner, and got—oh! ever so rich; and came back, and lived in a magnificent house, with a carriage and horses, and everything, and wouldn’t have a thing to do with his step-mother, and she died, bemoaning her wicked life. Wasn’t that fine?”