Stepping Heavenward Part 21

"I hope, Martha, that you have not ordered much of this odious stuff!" I cried.

Martha replied that it was of the very first quality, and appealed to her father and Ernest, who both agreed with her, which I thought very unkind and unjust. I rushed into a hot debate on the subject, during which Ernest maintained that ominous silence that indicates his not being pleased, and it irritated and led me on. I would far rather he should say, "Katy, you are behaving like a child and I wish you would stop talking."

"Martha," I said, "you will persist that the b.u.t.ter is good, because you ordered it. If you will only own that, I won't say another word."

"I can't say it," she returned. "Mrs. Jones' b.u.t.ter is invariably good. I never heard it found fault with before. The trouble is you are so hard to please."

"No, I am not. And you can't convince me that if the b.u.t.termilk is not perfectly worked out, the b.u.t.ter could be fit to eat."

This speech I felt to be a masterpiece. It was time to let her know how learned I was on the subject of b.u.t.ter, though I wasn't brought up to make it or see it made.

But here Ernest put in a little oil.

"I think you are both right," he said. "Mrs. Jones makes good b.u.t.ter, but just this once she failed. I dare say it won't happen again, and mean while this can be used for making seed-cakes, and we can get a new supply."

This was his masterpiece. A whole firkin of b.u.t.ter made up into seed-cakes!

Martha turned to encounter him on that head, and I slipped off to my room to look, with a miserable sense of disappointment, at my folly and weakness in making so much ado about nothing. I find it hard to believe that it can do me good to have people live with me who like rancid b.u.t.ter, and who disagree with me in everything else.

Chapter 13

XIII.

MARCH 1.

AUNTY sent for us all to dine with her to-day to celebrate Lucy's fifteenth birthday. Ever since Lucy behaved so heroically in regard to little Emma, really saving her life, Ernest says Aunty seems to feel that she cannot do enough for her. The child has taken the most unaccountable fancy to me, strangely enough, and when we got there she came to meet me with something like cordiality.

"Mamma permits me to be the bearer of agreeable news," she said, "because this is my birthday. A friend, of whom you are very fond, has just arrived, and is impatient to embrace you.

"To embrace me?" I cried. "You foolish child!" And the next moment I found myself in my mother's arms!

The despised Lucy had been the means of giving me this pleasure. It seems that Aunty had told her she should choose her own birthday treat, and that, after solemn meditation, she had decided that to see dear mother again would be the most agreeable thing she could think of. I have never told you, dear journal, why I did not go home last summer, and never shall. If you choose to fancy that I couldn't afford it you can!

Well! wasn't it nice to see mother, and to read in her dear, loving face that she was satisfied with her poor, wayward Katy, and fond of her as ever! I only longed for Ernest's coming, that she might see us together, and see how he loved me.

He came; I rushed out to meet him and dragged him in. But it seemed as if he had grown stupid and awkward. All through the dinner I watched for one of those loving glances which should proclaim to mother the good understanding between us, but watched in vain.

"It will come by and by," I thought. "When we get by ourselves mother will see how fond of me he is." But "by and by" it was just the same.

I was preoccupied, and mother asked me if I were well. It was all very foolish I dare say, and yet I did want to have her know that with all my faults he still loves me. Then, besides this disappointment, I have to reproach myself for misunderstanding poor Lucy as I have done. Because she was not all fire and fury like myself, I need not have a.s.sumed that she had no heart. It is just like me; I hope I shall never be so severe in my judgment again.

APRIL 30.-Mother has just gone. Her visit has done me a world of good. She found out something to like in father at once, and then something good in Martha. She says father's sufferings are real, not fancied; that his error is not knowing where to locate his disease, and is starving one week and over-eating the next. She charged me not to lay up future misery for myself by misjudging him now, and to treat him as a daughter ought without the smallest regard to his appreciation of it. Then as to Martha, she declares that I have no idea how much she does to reduce our expenses, to keep the house in order and to relieve us from care. "But, mother," I said, "did you notice what horrid b.u.t.ter we have? And it is all her doing."

"But the b.u.t.ter won't last forever," she replied. "Don't make yourself miserable about such a trifle. For my part, it is a great relief to me to know that with your delicate health you have this tower of strength to lean on."

"But my health is not delicate, mother."

"You certainly look pale and thin."

"Oh, well," I said, whereupon she fell to giving me all sorts of advice about getting up on step-ladders, and climbing on chairs, and sewing too much and all that.

JUNE 15.-The weather, or something, makes me rather languid and stupid. I begin to think that Martha is not an entire nuisance in the house. I have just been to see Mrs. Campbell. In answer to my routine of lamentations, she took up a book and read me what was called, as nearly as I can remember, "Four steps that lead to peace."

"Be desirous of doing the will of another rather than thine own."

"Choose always to have less, rather than more."

"Seek always the lowest place, and to be inferior to every one."

"Wish always, and pray, that the will of G.o.d may be wholly fulfilled in thee."

I was much struck with these directions; but I said, despondently:

"If peace can only be found at the end of such hard roads, I am sure I shall always be miserable."

"Are you miserable now?" she asked.

"Yes, just now I am. I do not mean that I have no happiness; I mean that I am in a disheartened mood, weary of going round and round in circles, committing the same sins, uttering the same confessions, and making no advance."

"My dear," she said, after a time, "have you a perfectly distinct, settled view of what Christ is to the human soul ?"

"I do not know. I understand, of course, more or less perfectly, that my salvation depends on. Him alone; it is His gift."

"But do you see, with equal clearness, that your sanctification must be as fully His gift, as your salvation is?"

"No," I said, after a little thought. "I have had a feeling that He has done His part, and now I must do mine."

"My dear," she said, with much tenderness and feeling, "then the first thing you have to do is to learn Christ."

"But how ?"

"On your knees, my child, on your knees!" She was tired, and I came away; and I have indeed been on my knees.

JULY 1.-I think that I do begin, dimly it is true, but really, to understand that this terrible work which I was trying to do myself, is Christ's work, and must be done and will be done by Him. I take some pleasure in the thought, and wonder why it has all this time been hidden from me, especially after what Dr. C. said in his letter.

But I get hold of this idea in a misty, unsatisfactory way. If Christ is to do all, what am I to do? And have I not been told, over and over again, that the Christian life is one of conflict, and that I am to fight like a good soldier?

AUGUST 5.-Dr. Cabot has come just as I need him most. I long for one of those good talks with him which always used to strengthen me so. I feel a perfect weight of depression that makes me a burden to myself and to poor Ernest, who, after visiting sick people all day, needs to come home to a cheerful wife. But he comforts me with the a.s.surance that this is merely physical despondency, and that I shall get over it by and by. How kind, how even tender he is! My heart is getting all it wants from him, only I am too stupid to enjoy him as I ought.

Father, too, talks far less about his own bad feelings, and seems greatly concerned at mine. As to Martha I have done trying to get sympathy or love from her. She cannot help it, I suppose, but she is very hard and dry towards me, and I feel such a longing to throw myself on her mercy, and to have one little smile to a.s.sure me that she has forgiven me for being Ernest's wife, and so different from what she would have chosen for him.

Dr. Elliott to Mrs. Mortimer:

OCTOBER 4, 1838.

My dear Katy's Mother-You will rejoice with us when I tell you that we are the happy parents of a very fine little boy. My dearest wife sends "an ocean of love" to you, and says she will write her self to-morrow. That I shall not be very likely to allow, as you will imagine. She is doing extremely well, and we have everything to be grateful for. Your affectionate Son, J. E. ELLIOTT.

Mrs. Crofton to Mrs. Mortimer: