“O, Master, let me walk with Thee
In lowly paths of service free;
Tell me Thy secret; help me bear
The strain of toil; the fret of care.”
—Washington Gladden.
The dream of Judith’s girlhood was coming true in a most unexpected
way; she did not go to boarding-school, but boarding-school came to
her in Bensalem; four days every week she studied at the parsonage
with Miss Marion, her cousin Don’s “brown girl”; the dinner was the
boarding-school part; often she was persuaded to stay to supper, and
sometimes there would be an excuse for her to remain over night.
Aunt Rody thought the excuses were much oftener than need be; she
said “it seemed” that something was always going on at the parsonage;
the parsonage was a worldly place with games, and company and music.
Cephas replied that the parsonage folks were not going out into the
world, but bringing the world in and consecrating it; she must not
forget that “God so loved the world.”
Aunt Rody retorted that He commanded his people not to love it,
anyway. In his slow way Cephas replied: “He never told His people not
to love it _His_ way.”
The worldliness was not hurting Judith; nothing was hurting the
little girl her mother left, when she shut her eyes upon all that
would ever happen to her.
How it happened that she went to boarding-school she never knew; she
knew Aunt Affy cried and could not sleep all one night, that for once
in his sweet-tempered life Uncle Cephas was angry, and as he told the
minister, “talked like a Dutch uncle to Rody”; she knew a letter came
from cousin Don to Aunt Rody herself, and that Aunt Rody did not
speak to anybody in the house, excepting innocent Joe, for three
whole weeks.
In spite of Aunt Rody, Agnes Trembly made new dresses from the
materials Miss Marion took Judith to New York to select, and a box of
school books was sent by express, and another box with every latest
thing in the way of school-room furnishing. A bureau in Miss Marion’s
room was placed at the disposal of her goods, and one corner of a
wardrobe was made ready for her dresses.
Still, with all her happy privileges, there was no place she called
home; she said: “Aunt Affy’s” and “the parsonage.”
Once, speaking of Summer Avenue, she said “home” unconsciously. She
rarely spoke of her mother. All her loneliness and desolation and
heartaches she poured out in her letters to cousin Don. He
understood. She never thought that she must be “brave” for him.
Nothing since her mother went away comforted her like her
boarding-school.
During one heart-opening twilight she confided to Marion about
casting lots in the Bible to find out if she would ever go to
boarding-school.
“What _did_ you find?” asked Marion.
If she were shocked she kept the shock out of her voice. She told
Roger afterward she was almost too shocked to speak.
“The queerest thing that meant nothing: ‘And a cubit on the one side
and a cubit on the other side.’”
“I am glad you found that,” said Marion, “I think God wanted to help
you by giving you that.”
“But it _didn’t_ help; how could it?”
“It helps me.”
“It doesn’t sound like a Bible verse; it is just nothing,” persisted
Judith.
“God’s words can never be ‘just nothing.’ Those words were something
to somebody, and they are a great deal to me. Do you remember
something Christ says about a cubit?”
“No; did he ever say anything?”
“He said this: _Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to
his stature?_ You were taking thought to add something to your life.
Your thought-taking has not done it,” said Marion, thinking that her
own thought-taking had added no cubit to her own life.
“No, indeed; I never should have thought of the parsonage
boarding-school. Who did think of it besides you, Miss Marion?”
“Several people who love you. If you had never thought of it, it
would have been thought of for you. In that same talk Christ told the
people: Your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these
things: _for_ your heavenly Father knoweth; that’s why we do not have
to think about the cubits. I think I’ll give Roger ‘_For_ your
heavenly Father’ for a text.”
“I am so glad,” said Judith, with radiant eyes, “I love that ‘cubit’
now.”
“So do I. I will certainly ask Roger to preach about our cubit.”
“But don’t let him put me in,” protested Judith. “I should look
conscious so everybody would know I was the girl. Jean Draper will be
sure to know.”
“He will not let it be a girl. He will make it somebody who was
superstitious, and anxious, and did not trust God, nor know how to
learn his will. Trust Roger for that. I always know when he puts
people in, for we talk it over together; he puts me in so often that
I am accustomed to being made a text of; and his own mistakes and
failures are in all the time.”
“I thought mine were,” acknowledged Roger’s attentive and
appreciative listener.
“And Uncle Cephas is sure his are in,” laughed Marion. “I think it is
only the outside of us that isn’t alike.”
Very often Judith was allowed to sit in the study with her books and
writing.
Mr. Kenney told her that she never disturbed him, that he would be
disturbed if she were not there with her books and table in the
bay-window.
“Ask me a question whenever you like,” he said one day.
But her questions were kept for Miss Marion. The year went on to
Judith in household work, in study, in church work and “growing up”
with the village girls; Nettie Evans and Jean Draper were her chief
friends. The year went on to Marion. June came; the new minister and
his sister had been a year in Bensalem.
Marion told him that his sermons were growing up, because his boys
and girls were growing up.
In this year Marion Kenney had discovered Aunt Affy.
She said to her one afternoon in the entry bedroom: “I was hungry to
find you; I knew I wanted somebody. I knew you were in the world,
because if you were not in the world, I should not be hungry for you.”
“‘If it were not so, I would have told you,’” said Aunt Affy, in the
confident tone in which she always repeated the Lord’s own words.
Judith heard the words: the wonderful words, and in her fashion, made
a commentary upon them: when things were not so, and couldn’t be so,
God told you, so that you needn’t be too disappointed; he wouldn’t
let you hope too long for things _and build on them_—that is, if you
were not wilful about them. You might think just a little while about
a thing, and not be silly about it, and if it were not so you would
soon find out. She had found out about boarding-school—only she had
been pretty bad about that all by herself, and did not deserve to
have Miss Marion for a teacher.
_Was Miss Marion paid?_ She had never thought of it until this moment.
It was “rag carpet afternoon.” Judith coaxed Aunt Rody to allow her
to take her half-finished ball and pile of rags up garret again,
after Miss Marion came, but Aunt Rody sternly refused: “When I was a
little girl I did my stent, company or no company. You can see Miss
Kenney after you are through.”
“But I am so slow,” sighed the rag-carpet sewer.
“Be fast, then,” was the grim advice.
Judith and her carpet rags were on the floor of the entry between the
two bed-rooms; Aunt Rody was sitting in her bed-room in a rocker
combing her long gray hair; the door of Aunt Affy’s room opposite was
open; Aunt Affy was seated in her rocker mending the sleeve of a coat
for Cephas; Marion Kenney in her privileged fashion had come into the
back yard and knocked at the open entry door.
Lifting her head, Judith saw her in the rush-bottomed chair; she had
thrown her hat aside, her face was toward Aunt Affy.
Marion Kenney was Judith’s ideal; she was such a dainty maiden, with
brown hair and brown eyes, the most bewitching ways, and so true.
It was happiness enough for Judith to sit or stand near her to watch
and to listen; and, this afternoon, she had to sit in the entry far
away from her and sew carpet rags.
“Aunt Rody,” called Marion across the hall, in an audacious voice,
“may Judith bring her ball and rags in here?”
“Affy doesn’t want that room cluttered up,” was the slow, ungracious
response.
“Oh, yes, I do,” said Aunt Affy, eagerly. “I like it cluttered up.”
“Go then, Judith,” was the severe permission; “you are all children
together, I verily believe.”
With a merry “Thank you” Marion sprang to help gather the rags, and
deposited them and Judith on the rag carpet between herself and Aunt
Affy.
If it had not been for the rags and the ball that grew so tediously,
there would have been nothing in the world for Judith to wish for.
“Aunt Affy, I brought a question to-day, as I always do,” began
Marion, and Judith’s fingers stayed that she might hear the question
and the answer.
She did not know how to ask Marion’s questions, but she did know how
to understand something of Aunt Affy’s answers. In her spiritual and
intellectual appreciation she was far ahead of anyone’s knowledge of
her. She had a talent for receptivity and, girl as she was, for
discipline.
“If you had read the Bible through forty times, as Aunt Affy has, you
would know all the answers,” said Judith.
“Forty times,” repeated Marion, in amazement.
“I did not tell her; she found it out,” replied Aunt Affy, with
humility; “I read my mother’s Bible, and Judith found dates and
numbers in the back of it, so I had to tell her it was the number of
times I had read it through.”
“You were as young as I when you began,” said Marion.
“I was twenty; I felt so alone somehow, that year, I yearned for it.
I read it through in less than a year, then I began again, and next
year again, now it is second nature; I should be lost without it.”
“What _is_ second nature?” asked the girl on the floor, among the
carpet rags.
“It is something that is so much a part of yourself,—that comes after
you have your first nature—that it is as much your nature as if you
were born first so,” answered Aunt Affy with pauses for clearness.
“You feel as if you were born the second time, and it would be as
hard to get rid of as though you were born the first time with it.”
“Carpet rags will never be my second nature,” sighed Judith, picking
up a long, red strip. “I wish reading the Bible would.”
“Aunt Affy, it is only this,” began Marion, again, flushing a little
with the effort of bringing her secret into spoken words. “I want
somebody to do good to; I have my class in Sunday school, and that is
a great deal, but it doesn’t satisfy—and there must be somebody; if
it were not so, I wouldn’t be so hungry to do it. I say it with all
humility; I know there is something in me to give, and it is growing.
But I don’t know how to find somebody.”
Judith’s fingers dropped the long, red strip; it would be a story to
hear Aunt Affy tell Miss Marion how to find somebody.
“Then, you are just ready to hear my story.”
“I knew you had it; I saw it in your face.”
“It is one of the true stories, the stories as true as Bible stories,
that you and I are living every day.”
How Judith’s face glowed. Was _she_ living a true story? As real as
the Bible stories?
“God helps and hears now, as quickly, as willingly, as sufficiently,
as he did in the old Bible times; we live in the new Bible times. I
heard a woman once wishing for a _new_ Bible, the old Bible seemed
written so long ago, and about people who lived so long ago. We are
making a new Bible; our life is a new Acts of the Disciples.”
And she was in it? How could Judith think of carpet rags? Unless
carpet rags were in it, too.
“I like that,” said Marion, “for Acts has been called the Gospel of
the Risen Lord, and we know He _is_ risen, and with us in the Holy
Spirit.”
Aunt Affy was silent a moment; like Judith her fingers stayed and
would not work.
“Yes,” she said, too satisfied to say another word.
“Aunt Affy’s Bible is full of marks and dates,” said Judith, “as if
she were writing her new Bible in her old one.”
“Now I’ll tell you how I found somebody. I wanted somebody to give
to, as you do. I felt full of good things to give. The village was
more full of young people then; now the boys go to the city, or away
off somewhere, then they stayed and married village girls. There were
people enough, but I did not know how to find the one willing to take
something from me. So I prayed about it: my giving, and the somebody.
The first thing I learned when I began to live in the Bible was to
pray about everything as Bible folks did—I wanted to do all the right
things they did, and shape my life as near to God as some of them
did.”
Aunt Affy never talked as naturally as when talking to girls; she
felt that step by step she had been over their ground. As Rody said,
Affy had never grown up. A woman apart from the world, she lived a
wide life; every day her clear vision swept from childhood to old
womanhood.
“Before the answer came I read in the Old Testament (for all these
things happened for our sakes, the New Testament tells us, throwing
light on the old stories), three verses in the first chapter of
Judges. How I studied it. And how much for myself I found in it—and
for you. Joshua was dead; the children of Israel had no human
counsellor, so ‘they asked the Lord.’ They knew he would speak to
them as plainly as Joshua had. They had work to do, as you and I
have; God’s own planned work. They asked who should go up first to
the work; the Lord said: Judah. That was plain enough. As plain as he
says to you: ‘Marion, do this.’”
“_How_ does he say it to me?”
“In two ways. First by giving you something to give. Then giving you
the longing to find somebody, to give to.”
“Yes,” said Marion, in a full tone.
“With the permission he gave a promise.”
“I _like_ a promise to work on; I feel so sure,” said Marion,
brightly.
“This promise was: Behold I have delivered the land into his hand. It
is given to him, still he must go and get it; he must work and get
it. God does not often put ready-made things into our hands; if he
did we would not be co-workers.”
Judith understood. Aunt Affy would not have thought of telling these
things to Judith.
“That is his way of working for us, working _in_ us. His work does
not interfere with our work, only makes our work sure and strong. We
speak the words; he keeps them from falling to the ground. Judah was
the strongest tribe; he had been made ready for pioneer work; the
first thing he did was to speak to Simeon, his brother, and say: Come
with me. He found somebody to work with him. But he had to go first.
He chose Simeon. We may choose somebody to work with us.”
“But, Aunt Affy, I meant somebody to work _for_,” replied Marion, who
had a mission to somebody.
“There is nobody in the world to work _for_; it is always somebody to
work with. We are all co-workers with God. The somebody you wish to
find is a co-worker, too. Why not? Has God chosen only _you_ for His
work?”
Marion looked ashamed; frightened at herself, and ashamed.
“How could I be so proud?”
“Oh, we all can,” said Aunt Affy, smiling. “And this brings me to my
own story.”
“The new Bible,” said Judith, eagerly.
“One day I asked our Father to bring some one to me; my life has
never been a going out, for Rody could never spare me, it has been a
bringing in, instead; then I came in here and read about Judah and
Simeon, and waited. The waiting is always a part of it.”
“Why?” asked Judith impatiently.
“Because God says so; that is the best reason I know. And my somebody
came. Somebody to help in the work planned for both of us. And the
happy thing about it (one of the happy things) was that the somebody
started to come to me before I began to ask. Sometimes, people say
things will happen if we don’t pray; perhaps they will, it is not for
me to say they will not, but the happening will not be in _answer to
prayer_, and that has a joyfulness of its own, that nobody knows
except the One who answers and the one who prays. That is a joy too
great to be told. Sometimes, I know that I have been as happy over an
answered prayer as I _can_ be. And I can be very happy,” Aunt Affy
said, with happy tears shining in her eyes.
“This somebody was not anybody new, or strange, or very far off; when
I thought about it there was no surprise in it; it was somebody who
had been coming to meet me a long while—in preparation. Then, we were
ready to be co-workers in a very simple way, making no stir, but I
trust our work together will not prove hay or stubble in the last
day. It was somebody I chose myself; we do a great deal of our own
choosing. But it was God’s work and God’s workers, like Judah and
Simeon. There was prayer first, and Judah using his knowledge and
judgment. No wonder God could keep his promise; they helped him keep
his promise, as you and I do. Do you remember what Andrew did after
Jesus called him and asked him to spend that day with him? ‘_He first
findeth his own brother._’”
“My only brother _is_ found,” said Marion. “Now some one else may be
‘first.’”
“And I haven’t any,” said listening Judith. “But I have my cousin
Don; I wonder about him.”
“We each have our own; whoever we find is our own. This is our own
world,” Aunt Affy replied in her happy voice.
Marion’s question was answered. Aunt Affy always understood what was
surging underneath her restless, foamy current of talk.
Since she had known Aunt Affy she had grown quieter; she had come to
Bensalem “in a fume,” she told Aunt Affy, and the air, or
“something,” was making things look different.
Aunt Affy smiled her wise, sweet smile; she knew the time came to
girls when things had to “look different.”