TURNING A NEW LEAF.
And so Mrs. Blunt began a new life.
That afternoon when she went down with softened heart to her crowded and
somewhat dirty rooms, she looked round upon them with new eyes--eyes
that had been lightened by a ray from above. She scarcely knew it, and
yet, instead of gloomy half-patient, half-hopeless despondency, she
began to think even her poor little things might be able to be made
better.
The rest of her children were all at school, but they would soon be home
now. They must not find home more desolate than usual because mother had
had a rare treat.
She put the new loaf carefully away, it must not be touched till
to-morrow, and then she set on her kettle for tea and swept up the room.
How different it looked even with that little bit of care! Next,
deciding that she should just have time to clean the hearth, she set
about it with all speed, and was just putting away her pail when there
came a rush in the passage, and four or five children burst into the
room.
It was on her lips to say, "What a row you do make!" but another word
was already hovering there--Pattie's new word, "Jesus,"--and somehow
that word would not let the others pass it.
"Ain't tea ready? we're awful hungry, mother."
"Very soon, Jim. Just take Pattie and baby outside, will yer, while I
turn round a bit. It 'ull come all the sooner for letting me get it
without them hangin' on my skirts."
Jim saw the force of this argument, and with pretty good grace took the
little ones under his charge on the doorstep, while the mother turned to
the eldest girl with an unusually kind welcome.
"Come, Kittie," she said, "and help tidy up for father. I've been out to
tea, Kittie, and I've heard words as has made me wish to have a happier
home, and I want you to 'elp me do it."
Kittie, a well-grown but backward girl of twelve, rather stared at her
mother, but she recognized that the tone was different, and concluding
that her mother was in a good humour, as she called it, she hastened to
do as she was bid.
Tea was a favourite meal. Sometimes a little treacle or dripping was
added to the bread, and though the tea was nearly as colourless as it
was tasteless, still it was hot and occasionally sweet, and that was
something.
To-night a large stale loaf and some treacle was the fare, and as Kittie
bustled about to spread the cloth, Mrs. Blunt said again--
"Kittie, I've often grumbled at things bein' so terrible hard for us,
and about bein' so short of food and all, but instead o' that I'm goin'
to turn over a new leaf."
"A new leaf?" questioned the girl, pausing on her way to the cupboard.
"What do yer mean, mother?"
"I don't rightly know yet--if I did I'd tell yer. But one thing I do
know, Kittie. Young Mrs. Seymour, what's been so kind to me, says the
Saviour don't mean us to go worritin' all our days, but likes us best to
ask Him to 'elp us bear our troubles; and she says as He lightens hers
and He will mine. Well, if that's true, I'd like to try it, and
somehow, Kittie--I don't hardly like to so much as say it--but I feel a
deal happier and better, and as if I'd got some one to love as will
never fail me."
Mrs. Blunt's eyes were tearful by the time she had said all this, and
Kittie's watered in sympathy, though she did not fully understand her
mother.
"There's the kettle boilin'! Make the tea and call the little 'uns in.
What a mercy as we've got some treacle! That's 'cause the porridge cost
less nor the bread would ha' done. We saved a penny or more for dinner,
and every one had enough; and that's more'n we can say every day, ain't
it, Kittie?"
Kittie nodded. She was intent on filling the tea-pot. Then she went to
the door and began to call; but there was no need. Jim caught up the
baby, and there was a general rush to the table.
The father did not come home till six, so some bread was set aside for
him first of all, and then the mother divided what there was as equally
as she could, giving larger shares to the bigger children. Soon there
was nothing but empty plates, and then the elder children went into
different corners, or wherever they could be quietest, to learn their
home-lessons. Then mother quickly cleared away, and set the table
straight for the father. A meagre meal for a working man. She felt it
bitterly as she spread the few slices of bread on a plate, and put a
small bit of dripping in front of them. But as she looked she remembered
that there was the Lord who was to carry her burdens, and not herself,
and so she took courage again, though she could not at the moment see
any way out of the difficulty.
"It 'ull be better when I can make 'em the bread," she thought. "Fancy
saving two shillings a week!"
At this moment a knock came at the door, and on going to open it, she
found old Mrs. Seymour standing there with something in her hand.
"Mrs. Blunt," she said, "I guess you're wishin' as your husband had been
with us this afternoon to have such a nice tea, now weren't you?"
Mrs. Blunt's colour rose, and she could have cried, she thought. At last
she said, "Why, how could you know that, Mrs. Seymour?"
"I've had a husband myself, my dear, and a steady one too, like yours,
and so I've brought this bloater if you'll excuse it, just to make a
little relish for his tea. He isn't in, is he?"
"No," said Mrs. Blunt, "but----"
"No 'buts,' my dear. Just you cook it for him and tell him to ask no
questions about it, but enjoy it as much as we did our tea up yonder."
She was gone before Mr. Blunt could say another word, and when she
turned to the fire with her treasure, she thought she had never been so
happy.
But were these tears that were coursing each other down her cheeks? How
was that?
When her husband opened the door, expecting an untidy home and some dry
bread, what was his astonishment to be greeted by an unusually
cheerful-looking room, and a fragrant smell of frying fish.
His wife turned round with a smile.
"Here's a treat!" she said, "and you're to ask no questions, but enjoy
it. It ain't come out of our to-morrer's breakfast neither, so don't you
think it; and I didn't buy it neither; so here it is smoking hot, and
mind ye don't burn yerself."
The man sat down in great wonder, first at the nice supper provided for
him, and secondly at his wife's tone.
She, however, took no more notice, but shut herself in the next room
with the little ones, where she quickly undressed them and put them to
bed. When she returned again, the other children had gone out to play in
the street, and Kittie was clearing away her father's tea.
The father sat by the fire smoking, and turned round on his wife's
entrance to look in her face, as if to see if there were a change there.
But he saw nothing particular that he could fix upon, and he resumed his
pipe in silence.
"Come, Kit," said Mrs. Blunt, "you and me 'ull get to that mending.
Jim's wearin' his best trousers 'cause we ain't done it."
"But I don't know how," said Kittie, none too willingly.
"Then I'll show yer. Come, Kit, be a good girl and do yer best. You've
been taught yer needle, that's one good thing."
"I wish I could leave school," grumbled Kit, as she fumbled in her
pocket for her thimble; "there's lots o' girls as young as me has
left."
"Of course they 'ave! Them as is quick at their learning can leave
sooner. I've telled you that a hundred times, but ye see ye haven't
taken what I said."
"I can't do no better," answered Kittie, "the lessons is so terrible
hard."
"Well, well," answered the mother, more patiently than usual, "perhaps
the Lord can help you in your troubles as well as me. We'll see about
it. You and me has a deal to learn, Kittie."
Kittie knew that. She was always being told "she had a deal to learn."
The daily pressure on her mother, that would have been so lightened
could she have left school, made the subject return again and again to
worry her. Inattentive and careless, she thought she could do no better,
and hopelessly gave the whole matter up as a bad job.
But when the mending was done, and she laid herself down in her little
bed in the corner of her mother's room, behind the screen of a large
towel-horse, which served as her bedroom, she began to think the matter
over in rather a new light.
What had her mother meant when she said, "perhaps the Lord would help
her to do better in her lessons"?
Was there any help in such a thing as that? And who was this "Lord" of
whom her mother spoke?
Kittie had perceived that things had been brighter for the last day or
two, and if this had anything to do with this "Lord," of whom her mother
seemed to expect something, she too would like to understand the whole
matter.
Long she lay awake, thinking. Sleep seemed to have left her eyelids. Her
brothers came in from the street, and she watched through the open door
her mother helping them to their rough little beds in the front room.
By-and-by the hubbub was over, and quiet sank down upon the whole of
them.
Her father must be dozing, she supposed, as he said not a word, and her
mother was unusually silent too. The click of her needle and the sharp
rap of her scissors on the bare table were the only sounds inside the
room. Outside the noisy roar went on as usual: the crying children, the
scolding mothers, the cries of the fish and fruit sellers, the
organ-grinders--everything just as usual.
Presently her mother spoke. "Husband, I've been a thinkin' there must be
something in them Seymours as is different from most folks."
"Like enough," he answered.
"There's a big print Bible or somethin' stuck up over old Mrs. Seymour's
ironing-board. What should ye think that might be for, now?"
"I don't know, I'm sure; you'd a deal better ask her if y'er so
curious."
Mrs. Blunt was busy on her own thoughts, and pursued, without noticing
her husband's implied rebuke--
"'Cause if that's what makes 'em different, I'd like to be different
too."
"Bide as ye are. Don't you be taking up fine notions. Ye've enough to do
to mind us all, without doin' as other folks does."
"I wonder where our Bible's been put to," his wife went on, without
regarding him.
Her husband did not answer. He was half inclined to be vexed at his
wife's persistency, but he remembered the brightened room this evening,
the absence of scolding, and the nicely-cooked fish, so he took refuge
in silence.
Mrs. Blunt got up, put away her work, and began searching on the top
shelf of a cupboard which filled one corner.
At last she got down from the chair on which she had been standing, and
Kittie could hear her blowing the dust from something.
"Here 'tis," she said, in a satisfied tone. "I knew as 'twas somewheres.
Supposin' you and me was to read a bit every night?"
"Not I," said the man. "If you've took up with new notions, keep 'em to
yerself. I'm goin' to step out a bit. This 'ere room's stiflin'."
His wife's countenance fell, and when the door banged behind him, she
opened the book with a sigh.
Kittie from her corner could just see her mother's face--such a weary,
thin face. She was thinking so, when, after turning over a good many
pages, her mother began to read out in a subdued voice. Kittie was so
surprised that she listened, and these were the words she heard--
"Behold, there came a leper and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, if Thou
wilt Thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched
him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was
cleansed."
Kittie lost the next few sentences while she said to herself, "Then the
'Lord' as mother spoke on means Jesus! I didn't know that. And people is
asking Him to do something for 'em, and He seems quite willin'. I wonder
if He'd be willin' to help poor little Kittie a bit? Well, what comes
next?"
"Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him."
Her mother ceased reading, and leant her head on her hand, while Kittie,
strange thoughts running in her mind, began to wish she could go to this
Lord to obtain help as these people had. She must get that book and see
what more it said. At any rate of this she was certain, that the Lord
Jesus answered to both those applicants, "_I will_." He did not say "no"
to either, and if she could only find out how to speak to Him, she too
might get what she needed. With this comforting thought, and with the
light of a new hope dawning in her heart, little Kittie fell asleep.
She did not yet know that He was close to her all the time, and that His
ear was ever ready to hear if she spoke to Him.
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