Betty's Battles Part 10

And Betty goes to bed herself, depressed indeed.

But the next morning there is a short pencil-note from father. His knee is more comfortable, but the doctor fears it will be a long business. He is most anxious to hear what Mr. Duncan will do.

Reading the note to mother, who is not up yet, makes Betty rather later than usual, and she runs straight to the kitchen to hurry on the breakfast.

"Oh, Clara, the kettle not boiling yet, nor the porridge on--why, this is too bad! You are more behindhand than ever. Pray, how does this happen?"

"Don't know," mutters Clara, sulkily.

"But you ought to know. Come, make haste--a bundle of wood, quick! The children must leave in half an hour."

Betty bustles about, and manages to get some sort of meal ready in time.

Breakfast over, and the children gone to school, she returns to the kitchen.

Things cannot be allowed to go on like this. She must talk to Clara.

But what can she say? Clara is so used to scolding, that she cares nothing for it. No, she must try to reason with her; she must teach her to think.

Wise Betty! Perplexed and troubled, she turns into the now deserted sitting-room for a few moments, and asks the Lord to help her. Then she goes back.

"Clara," she begins, "I have to go out this morning to look after some of father's business. I shall have to go out a good deal, for the work must be done, and is not easy to do; indeed, I can't do it at all unless you help me."

Clara opens her eyes very wide at this.

"I see you wonder what I mean. You must help me by getting all your work nicely forward, and the dinner prepared before I get back. Now, just look at this kitchen; I don't believe it's been swept since the day before yesterday; has it, Clara?"

Clara is silent; and begins biting the corner of her ap.r.o.n sulkily.

"Why are you neglecting everything in this way? Come, answer me, Clara."

"Don't know; I'm upset, I s'pose."

"Well, what has upset you?"

"Master's accident, of course. I wouldn't care a bit if it was some folks--serve them right! But master, who never speaks a cross word to anyone, and always asks after mother--that it should happen to him! It isn't fair! I don't see what is to prevent _any_ of us getting our legs broken if he is to be smashed up in this way; and I'm that upset, I can't seem to settle to anything."

"But that is just what we've all got to learn to do--for father's sake.

And, Clara, I think G.o.d has sent us this trouble because we have all been so careless and thankless in the past. You've never really cared to do your work properly, I'm afraid; you've never felt any real responsibility about it----"

"Oh, how can you say that? I'm always at work, and never, never done!"

"That's just because you never think about your work; you don't ever take the trouble to arrange it; and you don't care a bit about neatness or cleanliness."

Clara raises the corner of the dirty ap.r.o.n from her mouth to her eyes.

"What's the good?" she whimpers. "I should get in a muddle again directly; my work isn't anything _but_ muddle!"

"But that's what it shouldn't be. You do your work as though you thought it wasn't worth doing at all."

"Don't think about it at all," mutters Clara.

"That's just it. My Grannie, she keeps her house as clean and tidy as a new pin, and yet always has time for everything. My Grannie says that all work is really beautiful if it is done for G.o.d. Did you never hear of the little servant who used to say she swept the floor for G.o.d, and cleaned the pots for G.o.d, too? G.o.d sees everything, you know.

"Then, again, you're sorry for father's accident; but why don't you show you're sorry by doing your work in the way father would like? Untidy rooms and careless, slipshod ways worry him dreadfully. Now, wouldn't it be nice if we could get all the house in apple-pie order, and ourselves into nice, tidy ways, before he comes out of the hospital? What a smile of thanks he would give us all round! Come, isn't that something worth trying for?"

"Hum! Don't see how it's going to be done," mutters Clara, looking round the untidy kitchen hopelessly. "We're just in a muddle everywhere."

"We can't get straight all of a minute, of course. But what I want us to do is to make a beginning. Ah, there's ten o'clock striking! I must go to Mr. Duncan with the books. Now, you will try--won't you, Clara?

You'll work for G.o.d, and to please father, and to help me; and, Clara,"

adds Betty, in a hurried whisper, "_do_ run upstairs and put your cap straight, and wash that great black s.m.u.t from your face--it's right across your nose."

CHAPTER VIII

THE CAPTAIN

Mr. Duncan offers to give Betty a third part of her father's usual earnings. The rent-collecting will occupy three long mornings in the week at least, and an hour or two of every evening must be spent over the books.

The sights and sounds of the district she has to collect for trouble Betty dreadfully. Some of the women look utterly weary and down-trodden; others again are always scolding and quarrelling. Then the poor, sickly children--and occasional glimpses of rough, drink-sodden men--haunt her mind. She has over a hundred houses to collect for, and it takes her the whole of the three mornings to get through them all.

How many stories of want and misery she has listened to before the week's work is over!

"My husband has taken to the drink again." "My father was knocked down by a van and carried to the hospital." "The children have all got the measles." "Mother's taken bad with bronchitis." "My husband hasn't done a stroke of work for three weeks." Are all the stories true? Betty has no means of knowing.

Sick at heart, she returns home and throws herself into a chair after each morning's work. A shabby, untidy room? Well, perhaps it is; but, Oh! how different from the homes she has just visited! How wrong she has been to grumble so in the past--how wicked to be discontented!

One day she returns in a specially humble frame of mind.

"My home could be made a really beautiful one if I only knew how to manage. But I don't. I'm very stupid, somehow. I try and try, but never seem to know what to do for the best.

"Have I made any difference at all, since I came home from Grannie's?

"Clara is a little better, perhaps--at least, her face is a shade cleaner; and I didn't notice more than two saucepans standing about, and--Oh! yes, the kettle was boiling this morning--I mustn't forget all that; but how rough the children are! How unreasonable Bob is at times!

Two or three evenings he has stayed out quite late. Father wouldn't like that--I wonder where he goes? Then, there's Lucy; nothing in the home seems to interest her. I do think it very selfish of her to spend so much time in reading, especially just now.

"When I first returned home, I thought everything was wrong; now I can see it isn't the home so much, it's the people in it. We're all spoiling it--and I'm helping to spoil it as well.

"What grand thoughts I had about making everything right all at once, and what a little I seem likely to do!"

All day Betty goes about her work in the same humble spirit, with a sense of failure strong upon her.

The excitement of father's accident is over now; they have settled down into their old grooves again. True, Betty has much extra work to do, but all the glory of fighting grand difficulties has died out of her life again.

Collecting rents is certainly a very depressing business; that is, in a poor, unthrifty neighbourhood. No, there is nothing splendid about it.