THE RAVENS.
MRS. REARDON was very reluctant to leave her husband on the following
day, notwithstanding his cheerful assurance of feeling much better
and stronger; but there was no help for it. The work had already been
delayed longer than she feared Mrs. Browne would approve of. Besides
which she really wanted the money which she expected to receive, in
order to procure several little necessaries of which they stood greatly
in need.
Before she went, she left strict injunctions with Polly, as to the due
administration of the small remaining portion of beef-tea, together
with many directions relating to her father, more especially if he
should be faint, or be ill during her absence, promising not to be gone
a moment longer than she could possibly help.
"Never fear," said Matthew, cheerfully. "The children will take good
care of me. I shall do very well. There is no need for you to hurry
yourself."
Mrs. Reardon went away with a heavy heart, nevertheless. But it was
heavier still when she came back, long before they had begun to expect
her, pale, weary, and empty-handed, and sitting down before the
fireless hearth, covered her face with her apron, and wept aloud.
For a few moments the children stood and watched her, thinking that
she had lost the bundle of work; and then, not knowing what to say to
comfort her, began to cry also.
The sound of their grief, together with the remembrance of her sick
husband, aroused the poor wife and mother to the necessity for
exertion. Well knowing that nothing is so hard to bear as suspense, she
told Matthew what had happened, for Mrs. Browne, as the reader already
knows, had made up her mind to give her no more work.
"If I understand rightly," said he, "the work is only kept back for a
time? Mrs. Browne will be glad to let you have it again when—"
"When you are better," interrupted his wife, quickly. "Yes, that must
have been what she meant. But how are you to regain your strength, and
get better without food to eat—leave alone nourishing food, such as the
doctor spoke of? What will become of us now that this hardhearted woman
has taken the bread out of our mouths!"
"It mayn't be for long," said Matthew, in a cheerful voice; "somehow I
don't think it will. And meanwhile, as the children were singing just
before you came in:
"'The Lord will provide.'
"What was the text you were learning, Bess?"
"Though He kill me, yet will I trust Him," answered the child.
"'Though He slay me,'" suggested her sister.
"It's all the same," said Bessie. "Isn't it, father?"
"Yes, it's all the same meaning. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust
Him.'"
"It needs a strong faith," said Mrs. Reardon, with a sigh, "to see
beyond the present darkness."
"It seems to me," replied her husband, "as if God gave us faith
according to our need. Try and sing your mother one or two verses of
that hymn, children. It will cheer her, maybe, as it did me just now."
The little pathetic voices rose up clear and sweet in obedience
to their father's commands, but they were very sad to listen to,
notwithstanding, owing to "the lump in their throats," of which Bessie
had before complained.
"Though troubles assail
And dangers affright.
Though friends shall all fail
And foes all unite:
Yet one thing secures us—
Whatever betide.
The Scripture assures us
The Lord will provide.
"The birds without barn
Or storehouse are fed,
From them let us learn
To trust for our bread.
His saints what is fitting
Shall ne'er be denied,
So long as 'tis written,
The Lord will provide."
"It's all very well," said Mrs. Reardon, shaking her head. "But we're
not saints; I wish we were."
"Yes; that knocked the wind out of me at first," answered her husband.
"But it's all the same, as Bessie says, whether we're called saints or
believers. Let's have the last verse, children:
"No fear or doubting
With Christ on our side,
We hope to die shouting,
'The Lord will provide!'"
Mrs. Reardon marked the flushed cheek and glittering eyes of the sick
man, and said no more.
All went on as usual that day, just as if nothing had happened. The
scanty meals were prepared and eaten; and then Mrs. Reardon took out
her sewing—she could never bear to be idle a moment—and began to look
over and mend some of her husband's clothes, wilfully blinding herself
to the fact that he would never wear them again.
As night drew on, Matthew became somewhat restless and feverish, but
would keep talking nevertheless.
"What should you say," asked he, "if I were to go away for a while on
pilgrimage?"
"That it was a good thing, Matthew, so long as you took your wife and
children with you, but not else."
"You must bring them afterwards, Mary. Why, even little Bessie knows
the way—Jesus, 'the way, the truth, and the life!' Old Marshall was
telling me about it a little while before he went. There was no fear of
our getting out of the right path, he said, so long as we kept near to
Christ. Nothing could be plainer than the directions he gave. I have
them all by heart.
"Nothing to do but to ask for Jesus' sake, and knock in Jesus' name,
and straightway the golden gates will be opened to let us in. No rent
to pay in those heavenly mansions, wife; no more death, neither sorrow
nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain. Read what it says
about it, Polly, at the end of the book; or, perhaps, mother will read
it. I don't seem able to wait while you spell out those words!"
Mrs. Reardon took the Bible, and read as well as she could for tears.
It was a long time since she had opened that holy book, but she
determined that it should never be so long again; and that, if God
would only spare her husband, they would read it together every day,
and begin, as he had said, "a new life."
Poor Matthew! The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak; and while
she still read to him of the heavenly Jerusalem, he fell into a sweet
sleep, and dreamed that he was already there.
After a time, Mrs. Reardon closed the book, and went on patching and
mending with a sad and touching diligence, while the children whispered
together as of old.
Presently there was a low tap at the door; so low that it had to be
repeated before Mrs. Reardon, who thought at first that it must be a
mistake, arose to open it. But there was no one there, only a parcel
directed to her in a large scrawling hand, with a paper bag placed
carefully on the top. If she had looked up instead of looking down the
wide staircase, which she never thought of doing, she might have seen a
pale girlish face leaning over the banisters, with a pitiful expression
in her large wistful eyes.
When Mrs. Reardon had gone in again and closed the door, the girl came
down a few steps and stood a moment, wet and weary as she was, to
listen to the joyful exclamations of the children, as their mother,
carefully opening the paper bag, took out the bunch of grapes, which
our readers may remember to have seen before.
"Oh, mother!" exclaimed Bessie. "How beautiful! What are they?"
"And see," added Polly, peeping into the parcel, "tea, and sugar, and
rice, and I don't know what besides!"
Mrs. Reardon did not reply. She was watching her sick husband eat the
grapes, and crying quietly the while for joy. How grateful they were to
his poor parched lips, and how he did enjoy them! It seemed as if he
could not eat them fast enough. After a time, however, he remembered
the children. They had never tasted, scarcely even seen, a grape
before, but nevertheless the poor little things would not touch above
one or two, and, when he insisted upon their taking more, gave them
quietly to their mother, who put them aside for him to eat in the night.
"Who could have brought them?" said Mrs. Reardon, wonderingly, as she
turned over the paper in which they had come, and once more examined
the direction.
"It would not be Mrs. Browne, I suppose!" suggested Matthew, who, what
with the sleep and the grapes, was feeling greatly refreshed.
Mrs. Reardon shook her head.
"I know who brought them," said Bessie, mysteriously.
"Who was it, Bess?"
"The ravens!" answered the child. "Don't you remember God sending them
to feed Elijah, and now He has sent them to feed us—only it does not
say that they brought Elijah any grapes."
"I almost forget the story," said her father. "Tell us about it, Bess."
"It isn't a story, father. It's in God's book."
And then in her childish way, Bessie went on to relate that touching
episode in the life of the prophet Elijah, when he dwelt by the little
brook Cherith that is before Jordan, and God commanded the ravens, and
they brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in
the evening, and he drank of the brook.
After which, she went on to tell of the poor widow of Zarephath (only
she could not recollect the name), who had nothing save a little meal
in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse, and was gathering two sticks
in order that she might go and dress it for herself and her son, that
they might eat it and die. And when Elijah bade her make him first a
little cake, and fear not, for the Lord would not suffer the meal to
waste, neither the cruse of oil to fail, she went and did according to
his word, and she, and he, and her house did eat many days, and the
barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according
to the word of the Lord, which He had spoken by Elijah.
"Bessie is right," said her father, when she had finished. "I do
believe that it must have been the ravens. Oh, wife, it seemed hard for
you to be able to trust God this morning. It will be easier next time."
"I think it will," replied Mrs. Reardon, softly. "At any rate, I am
sure that it ought."