Grandmother Elsie Part 15

Elsie met her father in the entrance hall on his return. "Ah, papa," she said, looking up smilingly into his face, "I think you will have to rescind your order."

"In regard to what?" he asked, stopping to lay a hand lightly on her shoulder, while he smoothed her hair caressingly with the other.

"The week of entire rest you bade me take."

"No; there is to be no recall of that order."

"But our poor injured guest, father? injured in the n.o.ble effort to save the life of another!"

"He shall have every care and attention without any a.s.sistance from you; or Rose either; at least for the present."

"But, dear papa, to have you worn out and made ill would be worse than anything else."

"That does not follow as an inevitable consequence, and you may safely trust me to take excellent care of number one," he said, with playful look and tone.

"Ah, papa, there is not the least use in your trying to make me believe there is any selfishness in you!"

"No, I presume not; you have always been persistently blind to my many imperfections. Well, daughter, you need not be troubled lest I should waste too much strength on the poor captain. I do not imagine him to be an exacting person, and we have enough efficient nurses among the servants to do all the work that is needful. My part will be, I think, princ.i.p.ally to cheer him, keep up his spirits, and see that he is provided with everything that can contribute to comfort of mind and body. I must leave you now and go to him. I advise a drive for you and your mamma as soon as you can make ready for it; the air is delightfully clear and bracing."

"Thank you, papa; the advice shall be followed immediately so far as I am concerned, and the order carefully obeyed," she answered, as he moved on down the hall.

The smile with which the captain greeted Mr. Dinsmore's entrance into the room where he lay in pain and despondency was a rather melancholy one.

"My dear sir, I feel for you!" Mr. Dinsmore said, seating himself by the bedside, "but you are a brave man and a Christian, and can endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ!"

There was a flash of joy in the sufferer's eyes as he turned them upon the speaker, "That, sir, is the most comforting and sustaining thing you could have said to me! Through what suffering was the Captain of our salvation made perfect! And shall I shrink from enduring a little in His service? Ah no! And when I reflect that I might have been killed, and my dear children left fatherless, I feel that I have room for nothing but thankfulness that it is as well with me as it is."

"And that some good will be brought out of this trial we cannot doubt,"

Mr. Dinsmore said; "for 'we know that all things work together for good to them that love G.o.d, to them who are the called according to His purpose.'"

"Yes; and 'I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.' 'We glory in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of G.o.d is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.'"

"What a wonderful book the Bible is!" remarked Mr. Dinsmore meditatively; "what stores of comfort and encouragement it contains for all in whatever state or condition! 'The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.'"

"Yes; how true it is, Mr. Dinsmore, that 'it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps'! I had so fully resolved to return to-day to my vessel, and now when may I hope to see her? Not in less than six weeks, the doctor tells me."

"A weary while it must seem in prospect. But we will do all we can to make it short in pa.s.sing and prevent you from regretting the necessity of tarrying with us for so much longer time than you had intended," Mr.

Dinsmore answered in a cheery tone.

"Your great kindness is laying me under lasting obligations, Mr.

Dinsmore," the captain responded, with glistening eyes, "obligations which I shall never, I fear, have an opportunity to repay."

"My dear sir, I am truly thankful to have it in my power to do what can be done to alleviate your sufferings and restore the health and vigor you so n.o.bly sacrificed for another. Beside, what Christian can recall the Master's a.s.surance that He will consider any kindness done to any follower of His as done to Himself, and not rejoice in the opportunity to be of service to a fellow-disciple, be it man, woman, or child?"

"Yes, And the King shall answer and say unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'"

"Ah, captain, don't talk of obligation to one who has a recompense such as that in view!" Mr. Dinsmore said, a smile on his lip, a glad light in his eye.

The captain stretched out his hand and grasped that of his host. "What cause for grat.i.tude that I have fallen into the care of those who can appreciate and act from such motives!" he exclaimed with emotion.

"You are the hero of the hour, my friend," Mr. Dinsmore remarked after a short silence. "I wish you could have seen the faces of my wife, daughter, and granddaughter when they heard of the n.o.ble, unselfish, and courageous deed which was the cause of your sore injuries."

"Don't mention it!" exclaimed the captain, a manly flush suffusing his face; "who could stand by and see a fellow-creature perish without so much as stretching out a helping hand?"

In the weeks that followed Captain Raymond won golden opinions from those with whom he sojourned, showing himself as capable of the courage of endurance as of that more ordinary kind that incites to deeds of daring; he was always patient and cheerful, and sufficiently at leisure from himself and his own troubles to show a keen interest in those about him.

After the first week he was able to take possession of an invalid-chair, which was then wheeled into the room where the family were wont to gather for the free and unconstrained enjoyment of each other's society.

They made him one of themselves, and he found it a rare treat to be among them thus day after day, getting such an insight into their domestic life and true characters as years of ordinary intercourse would not have given him. He learned to love them all--the kind, cheerful, unselfish older people; the sweet-faced, gentle, tender mother; the fair and lovely maiden, lovely in mind and person; the brave, frank, open-hearted lads, and the dear, innocent little ones.

He studied them all furtively and with increasing interest, growing more and more reconciled the while to his involuntary detention among them.

Oftentimes they were all there, but occasionally one of the grandparents or the mother would be away at Roselands for a day or two, taking turns in ministering to Mrs. Conly, and comforting and cheering her feeble old father.

"You have no idea, my dear sir," the captain one day remarked to his host, "how delightful it is to a man who has pa.s.sed most of his life on s.h.i.+pboard, away from women and children, to be taken into such a family circle as this! I think you who live in it a highly favored man, sir!"

"I quite agree with you," Mr. Dinsmore said "I think we are an exceptionally happy family, though not exempt from the trials incident to life in this world of sin and sorrow."

"Your daughter is an admirable mother," the captain went on, "so gentle and affectionate, and yet so firm; her children show by their behavior that their training has been very nearly ii not quite faultless. And in seeing so much of them I realize as never before the hards.h.i.+p of the constant separation from my own which my profession entails, as I ask myself, 'If I were with them thus day after day, should I find them as obedient, docile, and intelligent as these little ones? Will my Max be as fine a lad as Harold or Herbert? Can I hope to see Lulu and Gracie growing up into such lovely maidenhood as that of Miss Violet?"

"I sincerely hope you may be so blessed, captain," Mr. Dinsmore said, "but much will depend upon the training to which they are subjected. There is truth in the old proverb, 'Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.'"

"Yes, sir; and a higher authority says, 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.' But my difficulty is that I can neither train them myself, nor see that the work is rightly done by others."

"That is sad, indeed," Mr. Dinsmore replied with sincere sympathy. "But, my dear sir, is there not strong consolation in the thought that you can pray for them, and that 'the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much'?"

"There is indeed, sir!" the captain said with emotion. "And also in the promise, 'I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a G.o.d unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.'"

CHAPTER X.

"One Pinch, hungry, leanfac'd villain."

--_Shake._

Captain Raymond's two little daughters were at this time in a village in one of the Northern States, in charge of Mrs. Beulah Scrimp, a distant relative on the mother's side.

Mrs. Scrimp was a widow living in rather genteel style in a house and upon means left her by her late husband. She was a managing woman, fond of money; therefore glad of the increase to her income yielded by the liberal sum Captain Raymond had offered her as compensation for the board and care of his motherless little girls.

She had undertaken Max also at first, but given him up as beyond her control; and now, though continuing to attend school in the town, he boarded with the Rev. Thomas Fox, who lived upon its outskirts.

Mrs. Scrimp was a woman of economies, keeping vigilant watch over all expenditures, great and small, and employing one servant only, who was cook, housemaid, and laundress all in one, and expected to give every moment of her time to the service of her mistress, and be content with smaller wages than many who did less work.

Mrs. Scrimp was a woman of theories also, and her pet one accorded well with the aforementioned characteristic. It was that two meals a day were sufficient for any one, and that none but the very vigorous and hard-working ought to eat anything between three o'clock in the afternoon and breakfast-time the next morning.

That was a rule to which neither Max nor Lulu could ever be made to submit; but Grace, the youngest, a delicate, fragile child, with little force of will, had no strength or power to resist, so fell a victim to the theory; each night went supperless to bed, and each day found herself too feeble and languid to take part in the active sports in which her stronger sister delighted.