ROTHA'S REFUGE.
The kitchen was all "redd up," as neat as wax; everything in its place;
and at the table stood Mrs. Purcell with her sleeves rolled up to her
elbows and her arms in a great pan, hard at work kneading bread. She
looked clean too, although her dress was certainly dilapidated; perhaps
that was economy, though a better economy would have mended it. So Rotha
thought. She did not at once start the business she had come upon; she
stood by the table watching the bread-making operation. Mrs. Purcell eyed
her askance. This woman had most remarkable eyes. Black they were, as
sloes, and almond shaped; and they could look darker than black, and
fiery at the same time; and they could look keen and sly and shrewd, and
that is the way they looked out of their corners at Rotha now, with an
element of suspicion. A little while without speech. She was kneading her
dough vigorously; the large smooth mass rolling and turning under her
strong wrists and fingers with quick and thorough handling.
"Isn't that rather hard work?" Rotha said.
"I think all work's hard," was the morose-sounding answer.
"Do you? But it would be harder not to do any."
"That's how folks looks at it. I'd rather eat bread than make it. There
aint no fun in work. I'd like to sit down and have somebody work for me.
That's what you've been doin' all your life, aint it?"
"Not quite," said Rotha gravely.
"Can you make bread?"
"No."
"Then I s'pose you think I'll make your bread for you while you are
here?"
"I do not think about it," said Rotha with spirit. "I have nothing to do
with it. My aunt sent me here. If you cannot keep me, or do not wish to
keep me, that is your affair. I will go back again."
"What did you come for?"
"I told you; my aunt was leaving home."
"Joe says, there's fish in the brook that'll jump at a fly made o'
muslin--but I aint that sort o' fish. I didn't engage to make no bread
for Mis' Busby when I come here."
"Shall I write to my aunt, then, that it is not convenient for me to stay
here."
"You can if you like, for it _aint_ convenient; but it's no use; for Mr.
Purcell don't care, and Mis' Busby don't care. I'll make all the bread
you'll eat; I guess."
"What do Mrs. Busby and Mr. Purcell not care about?"
"They don't care whether I make bread all day, or not."
"I hope it will not be for long," said Rotha, "that I shall give you this
trouble."
"I don't know how long it will be," said Mrs. Purcell, making out her
loaves with quick dexterity and putting them in the pans which stood
ready; "but I aint a fool. I can tell you one thing. Mis' Busby aint a
fool neither; and when she pays anybody to go from New York here in the
cars, it aint to pick her a bunch o' flowers and go back again."
Rotha was not a fool either, and was of the same opinion. This brought
her back to her business.
"If I stay a while, I shall want to get at some books to read," she said.
"Are there any in the house?"
"Books?" said Mrs. Purcell. "I've never seen no books since I've been
here."
"Where can I get some, then? Where are there any?"
"I don't know nothin' about books. I don't have no use for no books, my
own self. I don't read none--'cept my 'little blue John.'"
"Your 'little blue John'? What is that?"
"I s'pose you have a big one."
"I do not know what you mean."
"I don't mean nothin'," said the woman impatiently. "There's my 'little
blue John'--up on the mantel shelf; you can look at it if you want to."
Looking to the high shelf above the kitchen fireplace, Rotha saw a little
book lying there. Taking it down, she was greatly astonished to find it a
copy of the gospel of John, a little square copy, in limp covers, very
much read. More surprised Rotha could hardly have been.
"Why, do you like this?" she involuntarily exclaimed.
"Sometimes I think I do,"--was Mrs. Purcell's ambiguous, or ironical,
answer; as she carefully spread neat cloths over her pans of bread. Rotha
wondered at the woman. She was handsome, she had a good figure and
presence; but there was a curious mixture of defiance and recklessness in
her expression and manner.
"I see you have read it a good deal."
"It's easy readin',"--was the short answer.
"Do you like the gospel of John so much better than all the rest of the
Bible?"
"I don' know. The rest has too many words I can't make out."
"Well, I am very fond of the gospel of John too," said Rotha. "I think
everybody is,--that loves Christ."
"Do you love him?" Mrs. Purcell asked quickly and with a keen look.
"Yes, indeed. Do you?"
Mrs. Purcell laughed a little laugh, which Rotha could not understand. "I
aint one o' the good folks"--she said.
"But you might love him, still," said Rotha, drawn on to continue the
conversation, she hardly knew why, for she certainly believed the woman's
last assertion.
"The folks that love him are good folks, aint they?"
"They ought to be," said Rotha slowly.
"Well, that's what I think. There's folks that _say_ they love him, and I
can't see as they're no better for it. _I_ can't."
"Perhaps they are trying to be better."
"Do you think Mis' Busby is?"
The question came with such sharp quickness that Rotha was at a loss how
to answer.
"She says she do. I aint one o' the good folks; and sometimes I tells Joe
I'm glad I aint."
"But Mrs. Purcell, that is not the way to look at it. I have seen other
people that said they loved Christ, and they lived as if they did. They
were beautiful people!"
Rotha spoke with emphasis, and Mrs. Purcell gave her one of her sideway
glances. "I never see no such folks," she returned cynically.
"I am very glad I have," said Rotha; "and I know religion is a blessed,
beautiful truth. I have seen people that loved Jesus, and were a little
bit like him in loving other people; they did not live for themselves;
they were always taking care of somebody, or teaching or helping
somebody; making people happy that had been miserable; and giving,
everywhere they could, pleasure and comfort and goodness. I have seen
such people."
"Where did they live?"
"In New York."
"Was they in Mis' Busby's house?"
"Not those I was speaking of."
"When I see folks like that, I'll be good too," was Mrs. Purcell's
conclusion.
"But you love this little book?" said Rotha, recurring to the thumb-worn
little volume in her hand.
"I didn't tell you I did."
"No, but I see you do. I should think, anybody that liked the gospel of
John, would want to be like what it says."
"I didn't tell you I didn't."
"No," said Rotha, half laughing. "I am only guessing, and wishing, you
see. Mrs. Purcell, will you take some water up to my room?"
The woman's brows darkened. "What for?" she asked.
"To wash with. The water I took up this afternoon was for putting my room
in order,--basin and pitcher and washstand, and wiping off dust. I want
water, you know, every day for myself."
"The water's down here--just out o' that door."
"But I cannot wash down here."
"I don't know nothin' about that, whether you can or whether you can't.
That's where us washes. If you want to do it up stairs, there's nothin'
to hinder you."
"Except that somebody must carry up the water."
"That's not _my_ business," said the woman. "You can take that pail if
you want to; but you must bring it down again. That's my pail for goin'
to the pump."
Rotha hesitated. Must she come to this? And to doing _everything_ for
herself and for her own room? For if carrying up the water, then surely
all other services beside. Providing water was one of the least. Was it
come to this? She must know.
"Then you will not take care of my room for me, Mrs. Purcell?" she asked
quietly.
"Mis' Busby didn't write nothin' about my takin' care o' rooms," said
Mrs. Purcell; "without they was empty ones. I've got you to take care of;
I can't take o' your room too. You're strong and well, aint you, like
other folks?"
Rotha made no reply. She stood still, silent and indignant, both at the
impertinence of the woman's speech and at the hardness of her aunt's
unkindness. The shadow of the prospect before her fell upon her very
gloomily and chill. Mrs. Purcell it was safest not to answer. Rotha
turned, took up the pail and went to the pump.
And there she stood still She set down her pail, but instead of pumping
the water, she laid hold of the pump handle and leaned upon it What ever
was to become of her? Must she be degraded not only to menial
companionship but to manual labour also? Once no doubt Rotha had been
familiar with such service; but that was when she was a child; and the
years that had passed since then and the atmosphere of Mrs. Mowbray's
house had ripened in her a love of refinement that was almost fastidious.
Not only of innate refinement, which she knew would not be affected, but
of refinement in all outward things; her hands, her carriage, her walk,
her dress. Must she live now to do things which would harden her hands,
soil her dress, bend her straight figure, and make her light step heavy?
For how long? If she had known it would be only for a month, Rotha would
have laughed at it, and played with it; instead of any such comforting
assurance, she had a foreboding that she was to be left in Tan field for
an indefinite length of time. She tried to reason herself out of this,
saying to herself that she had really no ground for it; in vain. The sure
instinct, keener than reason in taking evidence, forbade her. She stood
in a sort of apathy of dismay, looking into the surrounding shrubbery and
noting things without heeding them; feeling the sweet, still spring air,
the burst of fresh life and the opening of fresh promise in earth and
sky; hearing the birds twitter, the cocks crowing, and noticing that
there was little else to even characterize, much less break, the silent
peace of nature. In the midst of all this what she felt was revulsion
from her present surroundings and companionship; and it was at last more
to get out of Mrs. Purcell's near neighbourhood than for any other reason
that she filled her pail and carried it up stairs to her room. She was
half glad now that it was so far away from the kitchen. If she could but
take her meals up there! She filled her pitchers; but did not immediately
go back with Mrs. Purcell's pail. She sat down at the window instead, and
crossing her arms on the sill, sat looking out, questioning the May why
she was there?
Oddly enough, it seemed as if the May answered her after a while. The
beauty, the perfectness, the loveliness, the peace, held perhaps somewhat
the same sort of argument with her as was addressed by the Lord himself,
once upon a time, to his servant Job. Here there was no audible voice;
yet I think it is still the same blessed Speaker that speaks through his
works, and partly the same, or similar, things that he says. Could there
be such order, such beauty, such plain adaptation, regularity and system,
in one part of the works and government of God, and not in another. And
after all it was He who had sent Rotha to this place and involved her in
such conditions. Then surely for some reason. As the gentleness of the
spring air is unto the breaking of winter's bands, and the rising of the
sap is unto the swelling of the buds and by and by the bursting leaf,
must it not be so surely a definite purpose with which she had been
brought here? What purpose? Were there bands to be broken in her soul's
life? were buds and leafage and flower to be developed in her character,
for which this severe weather was but a safe and necessary precursor? It
might be; it must be; for it is written that "all things work together
for good to them that love God." Rotha grew quieter, the voice of the
spring was so sweet and came so clear--"Child, trust, trust! Nothing can
go wrong in God's management." She heard it and she felt it; but Rotha
was after all a young disciple and her experience was small, and things
looked unpromising. Some tears came; however she was comforted and did
trust, and resolved that she would try to lose none of the profiting she
might anyway gain.
And, as she had now so few books to be busy with, might she not be meant
to find one such great source of profiting in her Bible?
She drew it to her and opened her little "Treasury." What ever could she
do now without that? It gave her a key, with which she could go unlocking
door after door of riches, which else she would be at a loss to get at.
She opened it at the eighth chapter of Romans and looked at the 28th
verse.
"We know, that all things work together for good to them that love God--"
But things that come through people's wickedness?
She went on to the first reference. It was in the same chapter. "Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ?"
Well, nothing, and nobody. And if so, that love standing fast, surely it
was guaranty enough that no harm should come. Tears began to run, another
sort of tears, hot and full, from Rotha's eyes. Shall a child of God have
that love, and know he has it, and worry because he has not somewhat
else? But this was not exactly to the point. She would look further.
What now? "We glory in tribulation," said the apostle; and he went on to
say why; because the outcome of it, the right outcome, was to have the
heart filled with the love of God, and so, satisfied. How that should be,
Rotha studied. It appeared that trouble drove men to God; and that the
consequence of looking to him was the finding out how true and how
gracious he is; so fixing desire upon him, which desire, when earnest
enough and simple enough, should have all it wanted. And cannot people
have all this without trouble? thought Rotha. But she remembered how
little she had sought God when her head had been full of lessons and
studies and books and all the joys of life at Mrs. Mowbray's. She had not
forgotten him certainly, but her life did not need him to fill any void;
she was busied with other things. A little sorrowfully she turned to the
next reference. Ge. 1. 20. Joseph's comforting words to the brothers who
had once tried to ruin him.
"As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good,--"
Rotha's heart made a leap. Yes, she knew Joseph's story, and what
untoward circumstances they had been which had borne such very sweet
fruit. Could it be, that in her own case things might work even so? Her
aunt's evil intention do her no harm, but be a means of advantage? "All
things shall work for good"--then, one way or the other way, but perhaps
both ways. Yet she was quite unable to imagine _how_ good could possibly
accrue to her from all this stoppage of her studies, separation from her
friends, seclusion from all the world at the top of an empty house, and
banishment to the society of Joe Purcell and his wife. To be sure, things
were as dark with Joseph when he was sold for a slave. Rotha's heart was
a little lightened. The next passage brought the water to her eyes again.
O how sweet it ran!
"Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these
forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know
what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or
no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with
manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he
might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live."--De.
viii. 3, 4.
"_Suffered thee to hunger_." Poor Rotha! the tears ran warm from her
eyes, mingled but honest tears, in which the sense of _her_ wilderness
and _her_ hunger was touched with genuine sorrow for her want of trust
and her unwillingness to take up with the hidden manna. Yet she believed
in it and prayed for it, and was very sure that when she once should come
to live upon it, it would prove both sweet and satisfying. Ah, this was
what she had guessed; there were changes to be wrought in herself,
experiences to be attained, for the sake of which she had come to this
place. Well! let the Lord dispose things as seemed to him best; she would
not rebel. She would hope for the good coming. The next verse was one
well known.
"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."--Ps.
xlvi. 1.
Yes, Rotha knew that. She went on, to Jeremiah's prophecy concerning a
part of the captive Jews carried away to Babylon. And truly she seemed to
herself in almost as bad a case.
"Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Like these good figs, so will I
acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent
out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. For I
will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to
their land; and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will
plant them, and not pluck them up. And I will give them an heart to know
me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their
God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart."--Jer. xxiv.
5-7.
Rotha bowed her head upon her book. I am content! she said in herself.
Let the Lord do even this with me, and take the way that is best. Only
let me come out so!--
But the next wonderful words made her cry again. They cut so deep, even
while they promised to heal so wholly.
"And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them
as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call
on my name, and I will hear them; I will say, It is my people; and they
shall say, The Lord is my God."--Zach. xiii. 9.
If Rotha's tears flowed, her heart did not give back from its decision.
Yes, she repeated,--I would rather be the Lord's tried gold, even at such
cost; at any cost. Must one go through the fire, before one can say and
have a right to say, "The Lord is my God"? or does one never want to say
it, thoroughly, until then? But to be the Lord's pure gold I cannot miss
that. I wonder if Mrs. Mowbray has been through the fire? Oh I know she
has. Mr. Southwode?--I think he must. I remember how very grave his face
used to be sometimes.
Here Rotha's meditations were interrupted. She heard steps come clumping
up the stairs, and there was a tap at her door.
"Prissy's got supper ready," said Mr. Purcell. "I've come up to call
you."
With which utterance he turned about and went down the stairs again.
Rotha gave a loving look at her Bible and "Treasury," locked her door,
and followed him.
"It's quite a ways to the top o' the house," remarked Mr. Purcell. "It'd
be wuss 'n a day's work to go up and down every meal."
"Nobody aint a goin' up and down every meal," said his wife. "_I_ aint, I
can tell you."
"How am I to know, then, when meals are ready?" Rotha asked.
"I don' know," said Mr. Purcell; and his wife added nothing. Rotha began
to consider what was her best mode of action. _This_ sort of experience,
she felt, would be unendurable.
The table was set with coarse but clean cloth and crockery. I might say
much the same of the viands. The bread however was very good, and even
delicate. Besides bread and butter there was cold boiled pickled pork,
cold potatoes, and a plate of raw onions cut up in vinegar. Mr. Purcell
helped Rotha to the two first-named articles.
"Like inguns?"
"Onions? Yes, sometimes," said Rotha, "when they are cooked."
"These is rareripes. First rate--best thing on table. Better 'n if they
was cooked. Try 'em?"
"No, thank you."
"I knowed she wouldn't, Joe," said Mrs. Purcell, setting down Rotha's cup
of tea. "What us likes wouldn't suit the likes o' her. She's from the
City o' Pride. Us is country folks, and don't know nothin'."
"I've a kind o' tender pity for the folks as don't know inguns," said Mr.
Purcell. "It's _them_ what don't know nothin'."
"She don't want your pity, neither," returned his wife. "I'd keep it, if
I was you. Or you may pity her for havin' to eat along with we; it's
_that_ as goes hard."
"You are making it harder than necessary," said Rotha calmly, though her
colour rose. "Please to let me and my likings or dislikings alone. There
is no need to discuss them."
After which speech there was a dead, ominous silence, which prevailed
during a large part of the meal. This could not be borne, Rotha felt. She
broke the silence as Mrs. Purcell gave her her second cup of tea.
"I have been thinking over what you said about calling me to meals. I
think the best way will be, not to call me."
"How'll you get down then?" inquired Mrs. Purcell sharply.
"I will come when I am ready."
"But I don't keep no table a standin'. 'Taint a hotel. If you'll eat when
us eats, you can, as Joe and Mis' Busby will have it so; but if you aint
here when us sits down, there won't be no other time. I can't stand
waitin' on nobody."
"I was going to say," pursued Rotha, "that you can set by a plate for me
with whatever you have, and I'll take it cold--if it is cold."
"Where'll you take it?"
"Wherever I please. I do not know."
"There aint no place but the kitchen."
Rotha was silent, trying to keep temper and patience.
"And when I've got my room cleaned up," Mrs. Purcell went on with
increasing heat, "I aint a goin' to have nobody walkin' in to make a muss
again. This room's my place, and Mis' Busby nor nobody else hasn't got no
right in it. I aint a goin' to be nobody's servant, neither; and if folks
from the City o' Pride comes visitin' we, they's got to do as us does. I
never asked 'em, nor Joe neither."
"Hush, hush, Prissy!" said her husband soothingly.
"I didn't--and you didn't," returned his wife.
"But Mis' Busby has the house, and it aint as if it warn't her'n; and the
young woman won't make you no trouble she can help."
"She won't make me none she _can't_ help," said Mrs. Purcell. "Us has to
work, and I mean to work; but us has got work enough to do already, and I
aint a goin' to take no more, for Mis' Busby nor nobody. You're just
soft, Joe, and you let anybody talk you over. I aint."
"You've got a soft side to you, though," responded Joe, with a calm
twinkle in his eye. "I'd have a rough time of it, if I hadn't found
_that_ out."
A laugh answered. The sudden change in the woman's lowering face
astonished Rotha. Her brows unknit, the lines of irritation smoothed out,
a genial, merry, amused expression went with her laugh over to her
husband; and the talk flowed over into easier channels. Mr. Purcell even
tried after his manner to be civil to the stranger; but Rotha's supper
choked her; and as soon as she could she escaped from the table and the
onions and went to her room again.
Evening was falling, but Rotha was not afraid any more. Her corner room
under the roof seemed to her now one of the safest places in the world.
Not undefended, nor unwatched, nor alone. She shut and locked her door,
and felt that inside that door things were pleasant enough. Beyond it,
however, the prospect had grown very sombre, and the girl was greatly
disheartened. She sat down by the open window, and watched the light fade
and the spring day finish its course. The air was balmier than ever, even
warm; the lights were tender, the shadows soft; the hues in earth and sky
delicate and varied and dainty exceedingly. And as the evening closed in
and the shades grew deeper, there was but a change from one manner of
loveliness to another; till the outlines of the tulip tree were dimly
distinguishable, and the stars were blinking down upon her with that
misty brightness which is all spring mists and vapours allow them. Yes,
up here it was pleasant. But how in the world, Rotha questioned, was she
to get along with the further conditions of her life here? And what would
she become, she herself, in these coarse surroundings of companionship
and labour? Either it will ruin me, or it will do me a great deal of
good, thought she. If I do not lose all I have gained at Mrs. Mowbray's,
and sink down into unrefined and hard ways of acting and feeling, it will
be because I keep close to the Lord's hand and he makes me gentler and
purer and humbler and sweeter by all these things. Can he? I suppose he
can, and that he means to do it. I must take care I put no hindrance. I
had better live in the study of the Bible.
Very, very sorrowful tears and drooping of heart accompanied these
thoughts; for to Rotha's fancy she was an exile, for an indefinite time,
from everything pleasant in the way of home or society. When at last she
rose up and shut the window, meaning to strike a light and go on with her
Bible study, she found that in the disagreeable excitement of the talk at
supper she had forgotten to provide herself with lamp or candle. She
could not go down in the dark through the empty house to fetch them now;
and with a momentary shiver she reflected that she could not get them in
the night if she wanted them. Then she remembered--"The darkness and the
light are both alike to Thee." What matter, whether she had a lamp or
not? The chariots of fire and horses of fire that made a guard round
Elisha, were independent of all earthly help or illumination. Rotha grew
quiet. As she could do nothing else, she undressed by the light of the
stars and went to bed; and slept as sweetly as those who are watched by
angels should, the long night through.