A VISIT FROM GRANDMOTHER.
The summer began very early that year, and it was the hottest summer
that Poppy had ever known. Even at the end of May and the beginning of
June the heat was so great that it made people ill and tired and cross.
Poppy's mother, who was never able to leave her bed, felt it very much.
The court was close and stifling, and the old window in the small
bedroom would only open a little way at the bottom, so that very little
air could get into the room, and the poor woman lay hour after hour
panting for breath, and almost fainting with the heat.
It was no easy time for Poppy. The neighbours were still very kind, but
the heat made them unable to do as much as before, and somehow
everybody's temper went wrong with the hot weather, and there was a good
deal of quarrelling in the court. Mrs. Brown quarrelled with Mrs. Jones
about something, and Ann Turner would not speak to Mrs. Smith because
she had offended her about something else, and once or twice there were
angry voices in the court, which troubled the poor sick woman. And when
the neighbours came in to see her they would pour out the history of
their grievances, and this worried and distressed her a good deal.
The babies, too, felt the hot weather very much. They were seven months
old now, but they were poor sickly little creatures, quite unable to
roll about the floor like other babies of that age, and needing almost
as much nursing and care as they had done when they were first born.
Poppy did her very best for them and for her mother, but she was only a
child after all, and she could not keep them as clean as they ought to
have been kept, nor the house as tidy and free from dirt as it used to
be when her mother was able to look after it, and sometimes poor Poppy,
brave though she was, felt almost inclined to give up in despair.
There was one day when she was very much cast down and troubled. It was,
if possible, a hotter day than the ten very hot days which had gone
before it. And it was everybody's washing-day. The court was filled with
clothes, steaming in the hot sun, and shutting out what little air might
possibly have crept down to the rooms below. But there seemed to be no
air anywhere that sultry day.
Poppy's mother was very much worn and exhausted, and Enoch and Elijah
did nothing but cry. Hour after hour they cried, not a loud, angry
scream, such as strong babies might give, but a weak, weary wail, which
went on, and on, and on, till Poppy felt as if she could bear it no
longer.
She left them on the bed for a few minutes beside her mother, and ran
downstairs to make a cup of tea and a piece of toast for mother's
dinner. They lived on bread and tea now, for they had nothing but what
they got from the parish, and if the neighbours had not been very kind,
and brought them in little things from time to time, even the parish
money would not have been enough to keep them from starving.
When Poppy went downstairs she had a little quiet cry. There was so much
to do, and somehow that hot day it seemed impossible to do it. She knew
that the house was untidy, and the babies needed washing, and there were
dirty clothes waiting to be made clean, and cups and plates and basins
standing ready to be washed up. And it seemed too hot and tiring to do
anything.
Poppy went to the window for a minute, and putting her fingers in her
ears that she might not hear the wail of the babies, she stood looking
up at the strip of blue sky, which she could just see between the houses
of the court. How pure and lovely it looked! And God lived somewhere up
there Poppy knew. And God loved her--Poppy knew that, too. Her mother
said He had sent His dear Son to die for her--the only Son He had--He
had sent Him to die on the cross, that she might go to live with Him in
heaven. God must love her very much to do that, Poppy said to herself.
She thought she would ask God to help her that hot day,--if He loved her
she was sure He would feel sorrow for her, now that she was so tired and
had so much to do.
So, looking up at the blue sky, Poppy said aloud, 'O God, please help
me, for I'm very tired, and I don't know how ever to get everything
done, and please make me a good girl; for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.'
Would God hear her prayer? Poppy asked herself, as she came away from
the window; she wondered very much if he would. And, if He did hear her,
how would the help come? It was not likely that He would send one of the
neighbours in to help her, for they were all too busy with their washing
to have much time to spare. There were the angels, _they_ were God's
servants, and Poppy had learnt at school that they came to help God's
people; but she had never heard of an angel washing up cups and saucers,
or cleaning a house, or nursing a baby, and that was the help Poppy
wanted just then. Well, she had prayed to God, and mother said God
always heard prayer; she would wait and see.
Poppy filled the kettle, and was trying to put a few things in order in
the untidy kitchen when there came a knock at the door. Poppy started.
Could some one be coming to help her? The neighbours never knocked--they
opened the door and walked in--and Poppy thought the angels would not
knock, for her teacher told her they could come in when the door was
shut. Who could it be?
She went to the door and opened it, and there she found an old woman
with a large market-basket on her arm, who wanted to know if Mrs.
Fenwick lived there. Yes, that was her mother's name, Poppy said.
Whereupon the old woman came in, put down her basket, and then seized
Poppy and gave her a good hearty kiss on both her cheeks.
'Why, you're John Henry's bairn,' she said, 'and as like him as two pins
is like each other.'
It was grandmother, dear old grandmother, who had come from her home far
away in the country to see her son's wife and children, and to do all
she could to help them. And grandmother had not been long in the house
before Poppy felt sure that God had sent her, and that she was just the
help the poor child so much needed.
Poor old grandmother! she was hot and tired and dusty, and she had been
travelling in the heat for many hours on that hot summer's morning. She
sat down on a chair by the door, fanning herself with her red cotton
pocket handkerchief, and kissing Poppy again and again, as she called
her 'my lad's bonny bairn,' and told her that she was the very picture
of what her father was when he was her age, and how her John Henry was
the best scholar in all Thurswalden School, and she felt sure his bairn
must be a clever little girl too.