NEW DUTIES.
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."--Ecc. 9:10.
"A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;--
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine."
GEORGE HERBERT.
Mis' Battis's "gumption" was a relief--conjoined, even, as it was, to a
mighty _inertia_--after the experience of Norah McGonegal's utter
incapacity; and her admission, _pro tempore,_ came to be tacitly looked
upon as a permanent adoption, for want of a better alternative. She
continued to seat herself, unabashed, whenever opportunity offered, in
the presence of the family; and invariably did so, when Mrs. Gartney
either sent for, or came to her, to give orders. She always spoke of Mr.
Gartney as "he," addressed her mistress as Miss Gartney, and ignored all
prefix to the gentle name of Faith. Mrs. Gartney at last remedied the
pronominal difficulty by invariably applying all remarks bearing no
other indication, to that other "he" of the household--Luther. Her own
claim to the matronly title she gave up all hope of establishing; for,
if the "relic'" abbreviated her own wifely distinction, how should she
be expected to dignify other people?
As to Faith, her mother ventured one day, sensitively and timidly, to
speak directly to the point.
"My daughter has always been accustomed to be called _Miss_ Faith," she
said, gently, in reply to an observation of Parthenia's, in which the
ungarnished name had twice been used. "It isn't a _very_ important
matter--still, it would be pleasanter to us, and I dare say you won't
mind trying to remember it?"
"'M! No--I ain't partic'ler. Faith ain't a long name, and 'twon't be
much trouble to put a handle on, if that's what you want. It's English
fashion, ain't it?"
Parthenia's coolness enabled Mrs. Gartney to assert, somewhat more
confidently, her own dignity.
"It is a fashion of respect and courtesy, everywhere, I believe."
"'M!" reëjaculated the relict.
Thereafter, Faith was "Miss," with a slight pressure of emphasis upon
the handle.
"Mamma!" cried Hendie, impetuously, one day, as he rushed in from a walk
with his attendant, "I _hate_ Mahala Harris! I wish you'd let me dress
myself, and go to walk alone, and send her off to Jericho!"
"Whereabouts do you suppose Jericho to be?" asked Faith, laughing.
"I don't know. It's where she keeps wishing I was, when she's cross, and
I want anything. I wish she was there!--and I mean to ask papa to send
her!"
"Go and take your hat off, Hendie, and have your hair brushed, and your
hands washed, and then come back in a nice quiet little temper, and
we'll talk about it," said Mrs. Gartney.
"I think," said Faith to her mother, as the boy was heard mounting the
stairs to the nursery, right foot foremost all the way, "that Mahala
doesn't manage Hendie as she ought. She keeps him in a fret. I hear them
in the morning while I am dressing. She seems to talk to him in a
taunting sort of way."
"What can we do?" exclaimed Mrs. Gartney, worriedly. "These changes are
dreadful. We might get some one worse. And then we can't afford to pay
extravagantly. Mahala has been content to take less wages, and I think
she means to be faithful. Perhaps if I make her understand how important
it is, she will try a different manner."
"Only it might be too late to do much good, if Hendie has really got to
dislike her. And--besides--I've been thinking--only, you will say I'm so
full of projects----"
But what the project was, Mrs. Gartney did not hear at once, for just
then Hendie's voice was heard again at the head of the stairs.
"I tell you, mother said I might! I'm going--down--in a nice--little
temper--to ask her--to send you--to Jericho!" Left foot foremost, a drop
between each few syllables, he came stumping, defiantly, down the
stairs, and appeared with all his eager story in his eyes.
"She plagues me, mamma! She tells me to see who'll get dressed first;
and if _she_ does, she says:
"'The first's the best,
The second's the same;
The last's the worst
Of all the game!'
"And if _I_ get dressed first--all but the buttoning, you know--she says:
"'The last's the best,
The second's the same;
The first's the worst
Of all the game!'
"And then she keeps telling me 'her little sister never behaved like me.'
I asked her where her little sister was, and she said she'd gone over
Jordan. I'm glad of it! I wish Mahala would go too!"
Mrs. Gartney smiled, and Faith could not help laughing outright.
Hendie burst into a passion of tears.
"Everybody keeps plaguing me! It's too bad!" he cried, with tumultuous
sobs.
Faith checked her laughter instantly. She took the indignant little
fellow on her lap, in despite of some slight, implacable struggle on his
part, and kissed his pouting lips.
"No, indeed, Hendie! We wouldn't plague you for all the world! And you
don't know what I've got for you, just as soon as you're ready for it!"
Hendie took his little knuckles out of his eyes.
"A bunch of great red cherries, as big as your two hands!"
"Where?"
"I'll get them, if you're good. And then you can go out in the front
yard, and eat them, so that you can drop the stones on the grass."
Hendie was soon established on a flat stone under the old chestnut
trees, in a happy oblivion of Mahala's injustice, and her little
sister's perfections.
"I'll tell you, mamma. I've been thinking we need not keep Mahala, if
you don't wish. She has been so used to do nothing but run round after
Hendie, that, really, she isn't much good about the house; and I'll take
Hendie's trundle bed into my room, and there'll be one less chamber to
take care of; and you know we always dust and arrange down here."
"Yes--but the sweeping, Faithie! And the washing! Parthenia never would
get through with it all."
"Well, somebody might come and help wash. And I guess I can sweep."
"But I can't bear to put you to such work, darling! You need your time
for other things."
"I have ever so much time, mother! And, besides, as Aunt Faith says, I
don't believe it makes so very much matter _what_ we do. I was talking
to her, the other day, about doing coarse work, and living a narrow,
common kind of life, and what do you think she said?"
"I can't tell, of course. Something blunt and original."
"We were out in the garden. She pointed to some plants that were coming
up from seeds, that had just two tough, clumsy, coarse leaves. 'What do
you call them?' said auntie. 'Cotyledons, aren't they?' said I. 'I don't
know what they are in botany,' said she; 'but I know the use of 'em.
They'll last a while, and help feed up what's growing inside and
underneath, and by and by they'll drop off, when they're done with, and
you'll see what's been coming of it. Folks can't live the best right
out at first, any more than plants can. I guess we all want some kind
of--cotyledons.'"
Mrs. Gartney's eyes shone with affection, and something that affection
called there, as she looked upon her daughter.
"I guess the cotyledons won't hinder your growing," said she.
And so, in a few days after, Mahala was dismissed, and Faith took upon
herself new duties.
It was a bright, happy face that glanced hither and thither, about the
house, those fair summer mornings; and it wasn't the hands alone that
were busy, as under their dexterous and delicate touch all things
arranged themselves in attractive and graceful order. Thought
straightened and cleared itself, as furniture and books were dusted and
set right; and while the carpet brightened under the broom, something
else brightened and strengthened, also, within.
It is so true, what the author of "Euthanasy" tells us, that exercise of
limb and muscle develops not only themselves, but what is in us as we
work.
"Every stroke of the hammer upon the anvil hardens a little what is at
the time the temper of the smith's mind."
"The toil of the plowman furrows the ground, and so it does his brow
with wrinkles, visibly; and invisibly, but quite as certainly, it
furrows the current of feeling, common with him at his work, into an
almost unchangeable channel."
Faith's life purpose deepened as she did each daily task. She had hold,
already, of the "high and holy work of love" that had been prophesied.
"I am sure of one thing, mother," said she, gayly; "if I don't learn
much that is new, I am bringing old knowledge into play. It's the same
thing, taken hold of at different ends. I've learned to draw straight
lines, and shape pictures; and so there isn't any difficulty in sweeping
a carpet clean, or setting chairs straight. I never shall wonder again
that a woman who never heard of a right angle can't lay a table even."