"TRUST."
"Alas! we can not draw habitual breath in the thin air
of life's supremer heights. We can not make each meal
a sacrament."--Lowell.
IT had seemed to Bethany, in the experience of that sunrise on Lookout
Mountain, she could never feel despondent again; but away from the
uplifting influences of the place, back among the painful memories of
the old home, she fought as hard a fight with her returning doubts as
ever Christian did in his Valley of Humiliation.
For a week since her return the weather had been intensely warm. It made
Jack irritable, and sapped her own strength.
There came a day when everything went wrong. She had practiced her
shorthand exercises all morning, until her head ached almost beyond
endurance. The grocer presented a bill much larger than she had
expected. While he was receipting it, a boy came to collect for the
gas, and there were only two dimes left in her purse. Then Jack upset a
little cut-glass vase that was standing on the table beside him. It was
broken beyond repair, and the water ruined the handsome binding of a
borrowed book that would have to be replaced.
About noon Dr. Trent called to see Jack. He had brought a new kind of
brace that he wanted tried.
"It will help him amazingly," he said, "but it is very expensive."
Bethany's heart sank. She thought of the pipes that had sprung a leak
that morning, of the broken pump, and the empty flour-barrel. She could
not see where all the money they needed was to come from.
"It's too small," said the doctor, after a careful trial of the brace.
"The size larger will be just the thing. I will bring it in the
morning."
He wiped his forehead wearily as he stopped on the threshold.
"A storm must be brewing," he remarked. "It is so oppressively sultry."
It was not many hours before his prediction was verified by a sudden
windstorm that came up with terrific force. The trees in the avenue were
lashed violently back and forth until they almost swept the earth. Huge
limbs were twisted completely off, and many were left broken and
hanging. It was followed by hail and a sudden change of temperature,
that suggested winter. The roses were all beaten off the bushes, their
pink petals scattered over the soaked grass. The porch was covered with
broken twigs and wet leaves.
As night dropped down, the trees bordering the avenue waved their green,
dripping boughs shiveringly towards the house.
"How can it be so cold and dreary in July?" inquired Jack. "Let's have a
fire in the library and eat supper there to-night."
Bethany shivered. It had been the judge's favorite room in the winter,
on account of its large fireplace, with its queer, old-fashioned tiling.
She rarely went in there except to dust the books or throw herself in
the big arm-chair to cry over the perplexities that he had always
shielded her from so carefully. But Jack insisted, and presently the
flames went leaping up the throat of the wide chimney, filling the room
with comfort and the cheer of genial companionship.
"Look!" cried Jack, pointing through the window to the bright reflection
of the fire in the garden outside. "Don't you remember what you read me
in 'Snowbound?'
'Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.'
This would be a fine night for witch stories. The wind makes such queer
noises in the chimney. Let's tell 'em after supper, all the awful ones
we can think of, 'specially the Salem ones."
As usual, Jack's wishes prevailed. Afterward, when Bethany had tucked
him snugly in bed, and was sitting alone by the fire, listening to the
queer noises in the chimney, she wished they had not dwelt so long on
such a grewsome subject. She leaned back in her father's great
arm-chair, with her little slippered feet on the brass fender, and her
soft hair pressed against the velvet cushions. Her white hands were
clasped loosely in her lap; small, helpless looking hands, little fitted
to cope with the burdens and responsibilities laid upon her.
The judge had never even permitted her to open a door for herself when
he had been near enough to do it for her. But his love had made him
short-sighted. In shielding her so carefully, he did not see that he was
only making her more keenly sensitive to later troubles that must come
when he was no longer with her. Every one was surprised at the course
she determined upon.
"I supposed, of course," said Mrs. Marion, "that you would try to teach
drawing or watercolors, or something. You have spent so much time on
your art studies, and so thoroughly enjoy that kind of work. Then those
little dinner-cards, and german favors you do, are so beautiful. I am
sure you have any number of friends who would be glad to give you
orders."
"No, Cousin Ray," answered Bethany decidedly; "I must have something
that brings in a settled income, something that can be depended on.
While I have painted some very acceptable things, I never was cut out
for a teacher. I'd rather not attempt anything in which I can never be
more than third-rate. I've decided to study stenography. I am sure I can
master that, and command a first-class position. I have heard papa
complain a great many times of the difficulty in obtaining a really good
stenographer. Of the hundreds who attempt the work, such a small per
cent are really proficient enough to undertake court reporting."
"You're just like your father," said Mrs. Marion. "Uncle Richard would
never be anything if he couldn't be uppermost."
It had been nearly a year since that conversation. Bethany had
persevered in her undertaking until she felt confident that she had
accomplished her purpose. She was ready for any position that offered,
but there seemed to be no vacancies anywhere. The little sum in the bank
was dwindling away with frightful rapidity. She was afraid to encroach
on it any further, but the bills had to be met constantly.
Presently she drew her chair over to the library table, and spread out
her check-book and memoranda under the student-lamp, to look over the
accounts for the month just ended. Then she made a list of the probable
expenses of the next two months. The contrast between their needs and
their means was appalling.
"It will take every cent!" she exclaimed, in a distressed whisper. "When
the first of September comes, there will be nothing left but to sell
the old home and go away somewhere to a strange place."
The prospect of leaving the dear old place, that had grown to seem
almost like a human friend, was the last drop that made the day's cup of
misery overflow. The old doubt came back.
"I wonder if God really cares for us in a temporal way?" she asked
herself.
The frightful tales of witchcraft that Jack had been so interested in,
recurred to her. Many of the people who had been so fearfully tortured
and persecuted as witches were Christians. God had not interfered in
their behalf, she told herself. Why should he trouble himself about her?
She went back to her seat by the fender, and, with her chin resting in
her hand, looked drearily into the embers, as if they could answer the
question. She heard some one come up on the porch and ring the bell. It
was Dr. Trent's quick, imperative summons.
"Jack in bed?" he asked, in his brisk way, as she ushered him into the
library. "Well, it makes no difference; you know how to adjust the
brace anyway. He will be able to sit up all day with that on."
He gave an appreciative glance around the cheerful room, and spread his
hands out towards the fire.
"Ah, that looks comfortable!" he exclaimed, rubbing them together. "I
wish I could stay and enjoy it with you. I have just come in from a long
drive, and must answer another call away out in the country. You'd be
surprised to find how damp and chilly it is out to-night."
"I venture you never stopped at the boarding-house at all," answered
Bethany, "and that you have not had a mouthful to eat since noon. I am
going to get you something. Yes, I shall," she insisted, in spite of his
protestations. Luckily, Jack wanted the kettle hung on the crane
to-night, so that he could hear it sing as he used to. "The water is
boiling, and you shall have a cup of chocolate in no time."
Before he could answer, she was out of the room, and beyond the reach of
his remonstrance. He sank into a big chair, and laying his gray head
back on the cushions, wearily closed his eyes. He was almost asleep when
Bethany came back.
"The fire made me drowsy," he said, apologetically. "I was quite
exhausted by the intense heat of this morning. These sudden changes of
temperature are bad for one."
"Why, my child!" he exclaimed, seeing the heavy tray she carried, "you
have brought me a regular feast. You ought not to have put yourself to
such trouble for an old codger used to boarding-house fare."
"All the more reason why you should have a change once in a while," said
Bethany, gayly, as she filled the dainty chocolate-pot.
The sight of the doctor's face as she entered the room had almost
brought the tears. It looked so worn and haggard. She had not noticed
before how white his hair was growing, or how deeply his face was lined.
He had been such an intimate friend of her father's that she had grown
up with the feeling that some strong link of kinship certainly existed
between them. She had called him "Uncle Doctor" until she was nearly
grown. He had been so thoughtful and kind during all her troubles, and
especially in Jack's illness, that she longed to show her appreciation
by some of the tender little ministrations of which his life was so
sadly bare.
"This is what I call solid comfort," he remarked, as he stretched his
feet towards the fire and leisurely sipped his chocolate. "I didn't
realize I was so tired until I sat down, or so hungry until I began to
eat." Then he added, wistfully, "Or how I miss my own fireside until I
feel the cheer of others'."
The doubts that had been making Bethany miserable all evening, and that
she had forgotten in her efforts to serve her old friend, came back with
renewed force.
"Does God really care?" she asked herself again. Here was this man, one
of the best she had ever known, left to stumble along under the weight
of a living sorrow, the things he cared for most, denied him.
"Baxter Trent is one of the world's heroes," she had heard her father
say.
There were two things he held dearer than life--the honor of the old
family name that had come down to him unspotted through generations, and
his little home-loving wife. For fifteen years he had experienced as
much of the happiness of home-life as a physician with a large practice
can know. Then word came to him from another city that his only brother
had killed a man in a drunken brawl, and then taken his own life,
leaving nothing but the memory of a wild career and a heavy debt. He had
borrowed a large amount from an unsuspecting old aunt, and left her
almost penniless.
When Dr. Trent recovered from the first shock of the discovery, he
quietly set to work to wipe out the disgraceful record as far as lay in
his power, by assuming the debt. He could eradicate at least that much
of the stain on the family name. It had taken years to do it. Bethany
was not sure that it was yet accomplished, for another trial, worse than
the first, had come to weaken his strength and dispel his courage.
The idolized little wife became affected by some nervous malady that
resulted in hopeless insanity.
Bethany had a dim recollection of the doctor's daughter, a little
brown-eyed child of her own age. She could remember playing
hide-and-seek with her one day in an old peony-garden. But she had died
years ago. There was only one other child--Lee. He had grown to be a
big boy of ten now, but he was too young to feel his mother's loss at
the time she was taken away. Bethany knew that she was still living in a
private asylum near town, and that the doctor saw her every day, no
matter how violent she was. Lee was the one bright spot left in his
life. Busy night and day with his patients, he saw very little of the
boy. The child had never known any home but a boarding-house, and was as
lawless and unrestrained as some little wild animal. But the doctor saw
no fault in him. He praised the reports brought home from school of high
per cents in his studies, knowing nothing of his open defiance to
authority. He kissed the innocent-looking face on the pillow next his
own when he came in late at night, never dreaming of the forbidden
places it had been during the day.
Everybody said, "Poor Baxter Trent! It's a pity that Lee is such a
little terror;" but no one warned him. Perhaps he would not have
believed them if they had. The thought of all this moved Bethany to
sudden speech.
"Uncle Doctor," she broke out impetuously--she had unconsciously used
the old name--as she sat down on a low stool near his knee, "I was
piling up my troubles to-night before you came. Not the old ones," she
added, quickly, as she saw an expression of sympathy cross his face,
"but the new ones that confront me."
She gave a mournful little smile.
"'Coming events cast their shadow before,' you know, and these shadows
look so dark and threatening. I see no possible way but to sell this
home. You have had so much to bear yourself that it seems mean to worry
you with my troubles; but I don't know what to do, and I don't know
what's the matter with me--"
She stopped abruptly, and choked back a sob. He laid his hand softly on
her shining hair.
"Tell me all about it, child," he said, in a soothing tone. Then he
added, lightly, "I can't make a diagnosis of the case until I know all
the symptoms."
When he had heard her little outburst of worry and distrust, he said,
slowly:
"You have done all in your power to prepare yourself for a position as
stenographer. You have done all you could to secure such a position, and
have been unsuccessful. But you still have a roof over your head, you
still have enough on hands to keep you two months longer without selling
the house or even renting it--an arrangement that has not seemed to
occur to you." He smiled down into her disconsolate face. "It strikes me
that a certain little lass I know has been praying, 'Give us this day
our to-morrow's bread.' O Bethany, child, can you never learn to trust?"
"But isn't it right for me to be anxious about providing some way to
keep the house?" she cried. "Isn't it right to plan and pray for the
future? You can't realize how it would hurt me to give up this place."
"I think I can," he answered, gently. "You forget I have been called on
to make just such a sacrifice. You can do it, too, if it is what the
All-wise Father sees is best for you. Folks may not think me much of a
Christian. They rarely see me in Church--my profession does not allow
it. I am not demonstrative. It is hard for me to speak of these sacred
things, unless it is when I see some poor soul about to slip into
eternity; but I thank the good Father I know how to trust. No matter how
he has hurt me, I have been able to hang on to his promises, and say,
'All right, Lord. The case is entirely in your hands. Amputate, if it is
necessary; cut to the very heart, if you will. You know what is best.'"
He pushed the long tray of dishes farther on the table, and, rising
suddenly, walked over to the book-shelves nearest the chimney. After
several moments' close scrutiny, he took out a well-worn book.
"Ah, I thought it was here," he remarked. "I want to read you a passage
that caught my eyes in here once. I remember showing it to your father."
He turned the pages rapidly till he found the place. Then seating
himself by the lamp again, he began to read:
"It came to my mind a week or two ago, so full an' sweet an' precious
that I can hardly think of anything else. It was during them cold,
northeast winds; these winds had made my cough very bad, an' I was shook
all to bits, and felt very ill. My wife was sitting by my side, an'
once, when I had a sharp fit of it, she put down her work, an' looked at
me till her eyes filled with tears, an' she says, 'Frankie, Frankie,
whatever will become of us when you be gone?' She was making a warm
little petticoat for the little maid; so, after a minute or two, I took
hold of it, an' says, 'What are 'ee making, my dear?' She held it up
without a word; her heart was too full to speak. 'For the little maid?'
I says. 'An' a nice, warm thing, too. How comfortable it will keep her!
Does she know about it yet?'
"'Know about it? Why, of course not,' said the wife, wondering. 'What
should she know about it for?'
"I waited another minute, an' then I said: 'What a wonderful mother you
must be, wifie, to think about the little maid like that!'
"'Wonderful, Frankie? Why, it would be more like wonderful if I forgot
that the cold weather was a-coming, and that the little maid would be
a-wanting something warm.'
"So, then, you see, I had got her, my friends, and Frankie smiled. 'O
wife,' says I, 'do you think that you be going to take care o' the
little maid like that an' your Father in heaven be a-going to forget you
altogether? Come now (bless him!), isn't he as much to be trusted as you
are! An' do you think that he'd see the winter coming up sharp and cold,
an' not have something waiting for you, an' just what you want, too?
An' I know, dear wifie, that you wouldn't like to hear the little maid
go a-fretting, and saying: "There the cold winter be a-coming, an'
whatever shall I do if my mother should forget me?" Why, you'd be hurt
an' grieved that she should doubt you like that. She knows that you care
for her, an' what more does she need to know? That's enough to keep her
from fretting about anything. "Your heavenly Father knoweth that you
have need of all these things." That be put down in his book for you,
wifie, and on purpose for you; an' you grieve an' hurt him when you go
to fretting about the future, an' doubting his love.'"
Dr. Trent closed the book, and looked into his listener's thoughtful
eyes.
"There, Bethany," he said, "is the lesson I have learned. Nothing is
withheld that we really need. Sometimes I have thought that I was tried
beyond my power of endurance, but when His hand has fallen the heaviest,
His infinite fatherliness has seemed most near; and often, when I least
expected it, some great blessing has surprised me. I have learned, after
a long time, that when we put ourselves unreservedly in His hands, he
is far kinder to us than we would be to ourselves.
'Always hath the daylight broken,
Always hath he comfort spoken,
Better hath he been for years
Than my fears.'
I can say from the bottom of my heart, Bethany, Though he slay me, yet
will I trust him."
The tears had gathered in Bethany's eyes as she listened. Now she
hastily brushed them aside. The face that she turned toward her old
friend reminded him of a snowdrop that had caught a gleam of sunshine in
the midst of an April shower.
"You have brushed away my last doubt and foreboding, Uncle Doctor!" she
exclaimed. "Really, I have been entertaining an angel unawares."
The old clock in the hall sounded the half-hour chime, and he rose to
go.
"You have beguiled me into staying much longer than I intended," he
answered. "What will my poor patients in the country think of such a
long delay?"
"Tell them you have been opening blind eyes," she said, gravely.
"Indeed, Uncle Doctor, the knowledge that, despite all you have
suffered, you can still trust so implicitly, strengthens my faith more
than you can imagine."
At the hall door he turned and took both her hands in his:
"There is another thing to remember," he said. "You are only called on
to live one day at a time. One can endure almost any ache until sundown,
or bear up under almost any load if the goal is in sight. Travel only to
the mile-post you can see, my little maid. Don't worry about the ones
that mark the to-morrows."