"IT WON'T DO."
"I AM afraid it won't do, Marie! I wouldn't discourage you if I could
help it, but indeed I don't think it would do to risk it. You see the
strain was more severe than we thought at the time, and I fear that
after all our care, we let you get up too soon. I am afraid, my dear,
that it will never be a very strong back again."
"Then I must give up all thoughts of Tabriz."
"I think so. You see how these few and easy rides have hurt you.
How would you bear weeks of horseback travel with the roughest
accommodations, to say nothing of the work at the end? You would not
wish to go to be a burden upon busy hands when you get there?"
"No, but—" Marion broke down and cried bitterly.
For three years she had been training and disciplining herself for the
work of a foreign missionary.
There had been a good many changes in that time. Hector McGregor had
gone to his rest in his ninetieth year, beloved and honoured by all who
knew him. The lease expired with him; and though the duke offered to
renew it or to sell the land on the most favourable terms, Alick had
no desire to accept the offer. The farm was but a barren and stony one
at the best, and only his father's attachment to the old place could
have kept Alick on it so long. Then the duke offered him an agency,
but this, though profitable in a pecuniary point of view, did not
suit Alick any better. He loved travel. His eyes had long been turned
wistfully toward California, and the time seemed, now to have come for
him to gratify his longing for Western travel.
But what was to become of Aunt Barbara? Of course, if Alick was to
settle in California, she would go to him.
"But in the mean time, I must have a home somewhere, and something to
do in it," said Aunt Baby; "I can't be visiting all that time, you
know, my dear."
Then a bright thought occurred to Marion.
Why should not Auntie Baby keep house for Asahel? Asahel was unwilling
to break up the house in which poor Gerty had taken such pride, so long
as his business required him to stay in Rock Bottom. He had tried one
housekeeper after another, but every arrangement had fallen through so
far. Aunt Baby was a capital housekeeper, and a pleasant companion into
the bargain. Why should not she make a home for Asahel and Asahel for
her?
Marion mentioned the matter first to her mother, and then, with her
entire approbation, to Asahel. Asahel caught at the notion. It would
be delightful—the next thing to having mother herself. So the matter
was arranged, and Auntie Baby took up her abode in Rock Bottom,
finding great delight in her numerous family of nephews and nieces,
who all adopted her at once, and making herself as much loved in the
little community as poor Gerty had been disliked and dreaded. She was
sometimes a little disturbed by what she deemed her nephew's lavish
expenditure, and Asahel now and then remonstrated mildly at Aunt Baby's
little economies, but in general they jogged on together very nicely.
Other changes had taken place. Henry's theological course was
nearly finished. He had received a call to a new church and parish
in Colorado, and Stanley's wedding outfit was already in hand. The
middle boys were both away from home. Bram was studying medicine with
Doctor Fenn in Ivanhoe and attending lectures in New York. Frank, to
his own intense delight, had obtained an appointment as clerk and
junior botanist to some one of those exploring expeditions which are
continually being sent out by government, and was having all sorts of
delightful adventures and risks in the far North-west. The Scotchmen,
as they were still called, went over to Ivanhoe to school every day.
Betsy had developed into a charming young lady, with just enough of her
girlish oddities left to make her original and brilliant. She was quite
a model elder daughter when at home, but she was now at school in New
York, working hard at her music, which was still her favourite pursuit.
The Overbeck little ones were growing up, and a new little boy, as
Eileen called him, had dethroned Dotty from his proud position of King
Baby.
Marion had been gaining in all these years. She was now a somewhat
tall, well-developed girl, strikingly pretty and very elegant and
attractive. She had been at Round Spring for a year and a half, where
she had won golden opinions from teachers and schoolmates, and she had
been at Holford to help Auntie Baby break up. She had followed up her
water-colour painting with great success, and had sold two or three
pictures very well. She might have had an excellent position and a
large salary as teacher of painting, but she felt that she must stay at
home for the present.
It has been said once in this story that tanning runs in families, and
the same might be said of missionary work. The children of missionaries
almost always become missionaries themselves. Living as she did with
Doctor and Mrs. Campbell, hearing constantly all the particulars of
their work, reading letters from their pupils and from friends on the
field, moreover, living an earnest Christian life and desirous of doing
some special Christian work,—it was not strange that Marion's heart
should have turned toward the mission field. She had not talked much
about the matter, but it had never been out of her mind all through her
school and home life for two years past.
No doubt she worked all the better for having set this definite aim
before herself. She learned all her lessons with a view to teaching
them to others, and so she went to the bottom of every one and left no
unexplored ground behind her. She omitted no opportunity of practicing
teaching and succeeded very well, and she was skilful in all sorts of
household work. Auntie Baby was wont to boast that her darling could do
everything needful to make a stocking from the time the wool came off
the sheep to the final "toeing off;" and that is what few lasses can
say nowadays. She could make her own dresses and her father's shirts,
and "run" all sorts of sewing-machines. Butter and cheese-making she
had learned on the old farm under Auntie Baby's skilful teaching, and
she was a very excellent cook. All these accomplishments would be so
many helps to Marion's usefulness in the mission field.
But there was one great hindrance—a hindrance of which she was herself
dimly aware, though she resolutely turned her eyes away and forgot it
as far as she could. That hindrance was the state of her health. She
was not very strong. Ever since her fall into the old hemlock, her back
had been somewhat weak, and she was subject to severe pain in back and
head if she walked or rode too much. It was a subject to which she
did not like to allude. She never complained, and the question, "Does
your back ache?" always annoyed her. By dint of constant care, she got
on in school and at home very comfortably, and was not often laid by
more than a day at a time. Perhaps there was something of Marion's old
self-will in the way she resolutely shut her eyes to this hindrance.
She could not bear to see it, and so she would not see it.
But the time came when the matter must be decided. A teacher was wanted
for one of the Persian schools, and the place was offered to Marion.
She might have a month in which to decide, and would not be obliged to
go under six months, which would give her ample time to make all her
preparations and learn something of the language.
Of course the matter was talked over in the family in all its bearings.
It came very hard upon Eileen and Auntie Baby to think of parting with
their only girl, but they both felt that Marion must decide the matter
for herself. Amity was sure that Marion would never be well enough to
endure the journey, but she said very little. Doctor and Mrs. Campbell
both thought Marion remarkably well qualified for the place if—there it
was again—if she were only strong enough.
"Certainly she was the last person I should have picked out for the
purpose when I first knew her," said Uncle Duncan.
"It was a grand thing for Marion, coming to the valley," replied
Christian. "It was the making of her. But she had not a fair chance to
show what was in her at home. She was badly spoiled."
"How spoiled?"
"By being regularly trained into selfishness. Barbara meant well, as
she always does, but she made a great mistake, or so it seems to me.
Instead of training Marion to wait upon others and to find her pleasure
in so doing, she made herself a slave to Marion. To one so brought
up, nothing better could have happened than to be thrown into a large
family of good-natured people and made to stand on her own merits. Poor
child! She must have suffered dreadfully in the disenchanting process.
She was so firmly convinced of her own superiority."
"It was a very successful process. Marion is as little self-conscious
at present as any girl I ever saw."
It was Asahel who made the first practical suggestion:
"Marie wants to try her strength. The teacher in the Jones district
has given out. The school-house is three miles off. Let Marion teach
the last three weeks of the school, riding over on the old pony in the
morning and back at night. That will be a pretty fair trial of her
strength. If she stands that, she may think of the other thing."
"A very good idea," pronounced Doctor Campbell. "The road is a safe
one, and the pony a nice, easy goer. It will be a very good test in
more ways than one."
Marion accepted the test with enthusiasm. She was fond both of teaching
and riding, and she had a special interest in the Jones district. For
a week or two she enjoyed her rides very much, and said quite honestly
that they did not hurt her at all. Then she began to lie down a little
before tea, to go to bed pretty early, and to gratify her friends in
the district by accepting invitations to stay all night.
She persevered to the end of the quarter and rode home as usual, but
she went to bed directly after tea, and did not get up again for a week.
Doctor Campbell attended on her, but made no allusion to the subject
which he knew was filling her mind. He saw that she was passing through
a great and severe struggle, but he thought she would fight it out
better without any human interference. He was right.
Marion was fighting a battle with her old self-will, possibly, too,
with her old desire of doing some great thing which should reflect
honour on herself.
At last, one morning, she called the doctor into her room. She told
him all her desires and all her hindrances, concealing nothing and
answering all the doctor's trying questions as honestly as she knew
how. The examination was a close and searching one, and the doctor's
decision is recorded in the first part of this chapter:
"It won't do, Marion. I am very sorry both for your sake and that of
the cause, but I dare not give you any encouragement."
It was no wonder that Marion cried bitterly. She wept for no light
affliction. It was a sore trial to give up her cherished plan, to have
made herself ready for a race, and then to be forbidden to run.
Doctor Campbell stood by in silence. He saw that her grief was very
great, and he did not try to administer comfort till the first violence
of it should have spent itself.
"I hope I am not self-willed," said Marion, at last, through her tears.
"I don't mean to be."
"I don't think you are, my child."
"It isn't only giving up this particular work," said Marion, after
another pause, during which she was trying to regain her composure.
"But it seems so dreadful to have to be an invalid all my life, just
good for nothing."
"It is sad to be an invalid, certainly," replied Doctor Campbell;
"but I don't think you have that to fear. If you are careful to
avoid needless exposure and over-exertion, I think you may keep very
comfortable. Moreover, if you were a good deal of an invalid, you need
not be useless on that account. A great deal of the best work of the
world has been done by invalids."
"Why, Uncle Duncan! I am sure I always thought that sickness and
uselessness were one and the same thing. Mrs. Wheelwright, who was
our matron at Round Springs for a time, used to say that health was
everybody's first duty, and that sick people were only cumberers of the
ground."
"Mrs. Wheelwright was a goose, or more probably a parrot," answered
the doctor, with some heat. "I suppose she repeated what she had
heard from somebody else. It is undoubtedly true that nobody has
the right recklessly or needlessly to expose his health; but as to
its preservation being one's first duty in all cases, that is simple
nonsense. Health, like other things, must be 'kept on the altar,' as
Father Hollenbeck says, you know—that is, it must be held ready for
sacrifice, like everything else, at the call of duty. What would Mrs.
Wheelwright say of a soldier, for instance, who made it his first duty
to take care of his own health?"
"Or a mother with a sick child?" said Marion.
"Or a minister or doctor in time of pestilence, or an army-surgeon, or
any one else who is anxious and determined to do his duty in that state
of life to which it has pleased God to call him? It is your duty to
keep well if you can, but to hold your health, your time and money, and
all your other gifts at the command of your Master."
"Mr. Hausen and Mrs. Wheelwright had an argument about that very
thing," said Marion. "He said just what you do—that it was sometimes a
duty to disregard one's health. But Mrs. Wheelwright said it could be
nobody's duty to be sick."
"That was not the point. Nobody ever said it was a duty to be sick,
that I know of."
"And she said habitual invalids were useless cumberers of the
ground—good for nothing themselves and selfish hinderers of other
people. Do you think that is true?"
"No, Marion, not necessarily. I must say that I have seen more
selfishness among well people than I have ever met with among invalids.
Some invalids are selfish and exacting, no doubt, and so are many who
have not their excuse. As to their being useless cumberers of the
ground, do you call Miss Nightingale such a cumberer?"
"No, indeed."
"And yet she has been more or less an invalid all her life. So was
Robert Hall, the preacher and Doctor Dalton, the famous chemist;
Stephenson and Watt, the great engineers, were both subject to dreadful
headaches, and Mr. Watt to such fits of hypochondria that his friends
feared he would destroy himself. Both the great princes of Orange were
sickly men. The one who was king of England suffered so from asthma
that he was often unable to lie down for days together. John Knox was
never strong; neither was Melanchthon, nor Tyndale, nor Henry Martyn;
Thierry, the historian, never stood on his own feet, nor did the least
thing for himself for twenty years and more. Your favourite King Alfred
was always a great sufferer."
"That is a long list," said Marion, much interested and forgetting her
own trouble for the moment. "How did you come to find out about all
these people, Uncle Duncan?"
"Partly to console a lady as I have been consoling you. I met her at
the springs last summer, and one day I found her in great grief over a
letter her husband had just received. It seems he had been called to
a parish in the country, but after he had accepted the call came this
letter, saying that the church understood that his wife was a permanent
invalid, and as they always expected their pastor's wife to take the
lead in all sorts of good works, they must withdraw their call."
"They must be a nice people," said Marion.
"I think myself he had an escape, but you can imagine how his wife
would feel. She had no prospect, as she thought, of being anything but
a hindrance and a trouble all her life. So I made out this list—only
much more at length—to comfort her."
"But, after all, Uncle Duncan, it is a great disappointment," said
Marion. "I did so want to do the Master's work."
"And has any one said you should not, my dear lassie?"
"It seems so. It seems as if he had rejected me."
"Not at all. It is not rejecting your services to give you other work
than that you have picked out for yourself. Do you remember long ago
how offended you were because I wanted you to do the work and let
Auntie Baby sit with Therese?"
"Yes; and what an affair I made of it when I got my own way!"
"Exactly; and a good many other persons have got into trouble because
they were determined to have their own way in spite of all hindrances.
If you are willing to work, you will have work enough to do. What
better place do you want than that of a daughter at home?"
"No better; only that it is so easy."
"I would not trouble myself about that. Depend upon it, my dear, any
faithful, self-denying Christian life involves plenty of hardness.
But it is no sign that you are to give up the missionary work because
you cannot go abroad. There is plenty to be done for it at home. Now
I think you are tired enough, and had better lie down and have a good
long rest. Try to take up the cross honestly, my child. It is the only
way. 'If thou bear the cross, the cross also will bear thee.'"
And Marion did try, and succeeded. It was very hard to give up her
cherished plans—hard to lay aside and say farewell to the object which
had occupied her so long, to take up with such a quiet and unobserved
part after looking forward to a position so much more conspicuous. But
she knew where to look for help, and she looked and found it.
Her mother's words on hearing the decision brought her her first
comfort:
"I can't help being thankful, Marion, my dear—not that you are
disappointed, of course, but that I am not to lose you. I did feel as
if I wanted my daughter at home."
So Doctor and Mrs. Campbell went back to Syria, whither Mrs. Andrews
meant to follow them as soon as she had seen Stanley settled. Her own
health was quite re-established, and her heart yearned toward her own
work. Therese had had thoughts at one time of going, too, but it was
not to be. Mrs. Tremaine met with an accident about the time old Madam
Duval died which made her a cripple for the rest of her life. Kitty
sent at once for Therese, who fell into her own place in the family,
not to leave it again.
And Marion settled down quietly at home, helping her mother, teaching
Amity's little ones, and painting pictures, by the sale of which she
supported a little girl in the school she once expected to teach. But
other work has come to her of late. Two or three years ago she received
a letter from Doctor Campbell in which occurred the following paragraph:
"Poor Mrs. Brown, who has been languishing so long, is released at
last. She leaves two dear little girls of eight and six years old. Mr.
Brown wants to send them home for their education, but neither he nor
his wife has any near friends, and he does not know what to do with
them, as they are too young to trust in school. Can you think of any
one who would take them and give them a home and an education? Perhaps
there may be some one in Holford. Mr. Brown is not rich, of course, but
he is able to provide for his children at any reasonable rate. They are
dear little things, and well trained so far."
Marion read this letter to her father in his office at the tannery.
He smiled when he heard of the children, but made no remark.
Two or three days afterward, he called Marion who was busy up-stairs
with Eileen and Asa, who scorned the baby name of Dotty:
"Come, Marie, isn't school almost out? I am going to ride over toward
Smith's Green to measure some bark, and I want your company."
"Can't I go, grandfather?" asked Asa, jumping up.
"Next time, perhaps; I want Marion to-day. Come, Marie, let them go for
this time."
"The children seem to be getting on pretty well, don't they?" said Mr.
Van Alstine, when they were fairly on their way and driving through the
woods.
"Oh yes, very well, only I am afraid they get rather too much teaching
for their good."
"Then you could manage two or three more?"
"Yes, a dozen if I had them. Why?"
"I was thinking of those little girls Duncan speaks of. Your mother and
I were talking the matter over last night. You see there is abundance
of room in this great old nest now so many of our brood are away
scratching for themselves, and two children would help to fill it up
again. Besides, I know you have always longed for missionary work."
Marion's heart beat almost too fast for speech. She had thought of the
same thing more than once.
"Of course all the teaching and most of the care would fall on you,"
continued Mr. Van Alstine. "What do you say? Do you feel able to
undertake it?"
"I think so," answered Marion. "I am pretty well nowadays."
"And you would like it?"
"Yes, indeed, I should. But, father, wouldn't such young children be a
trouble to you and mother?"
"When did you ever know either of us troubled with children, my girl?"
"I could take Cousin Helen's old room for the nursery, you know, and
the little back parlour would be the school-room again, as it used to
be. How natural it would seem!"
"I see you have it all arranged. We'll talk it over again with your
mother, and we will see what can be done."
In the course of a few months the two little Browns were comfortably
settled in the valley and favourites with everybody.
Then came another petition. Would Miss McGregor receive another pupil,
the daughter of an American missionary in Persia, who had also lost her
mother? So Marion's little school grew till she had five pupils; more
she would not take. Betsy enters into the scheme with enthusiasm, and
is professor of music in the little seminary.
Marion's little school is now a flourishing institution, and bids fair
to be established on a permanent basis.
One of her early day-dreams has been realized, so that she is quite
independent in point of funds.
A year or two ago, an elder brother of her poor father found Alick in
California, and of course, being both Scotchmen and McGregors, they
at once set to work to find out how they were related. David McGregor
learned for the first time that he had a niece living who was a very
nice young woman. He at once sent her a present of a sealskin jacket
and an alarmingly heavy chain of California gold, and dying not long
after, left her a moderate fortune. So that our heroine is really at
last the heiress of McGregor.