_THE HOUSE-RAISING._[1]
"In your patience possess ye your souls."--_Luke_ xxi. 19.
It grew colder and colder in Nettie's garret--or else she grew thinner
and felt it more. She certainly thought it was colder. The snow came,
and piled a thick covering on the roof, and stopped up some of the
chinks in the clapboarding with its white caulking; and that made the
place a little better: then the winds from off the snow-covered country
were keen and bitter.
Footnote 1: A festival common in America on the completion of a
house.
One morning Nettie went to Barry secretly in his room, and asked him to
bring the pail of water from the spring for her. Barry had no mind to
the job.
"Why can't mother do it," he said, "if you can't?"
"Mother is busy and hasn't a minute. I always do it for her."
"Well, why can't you go on doing it? You're accustomed to it, you see,
and I don't like going out so early," said Barry, stretching himself.
"I would, and I wouldn't ask you, only, Barry, somehow I don't think I'm
quite strong lately, and I can hardly bring the pail--it's so heavy to
me. I have to stop and rest ever so many times before I can get to the
house with it."
"Well, if you stop and rest, I suppose it won't hurt you," said Barry.
"_I_ should want to stop and rest too, myself."
His little sister was turning away, giving it up, when she was met by
her father, who stepped in from the entry. He looked red with anger.
"You take the pail, and go get the water!" said he to his son; "and you
hear me! Don't you let Nettie bring in another pailful when you're at
home, or I'll turn you out of the house. You lazy scoundrel! You don't
deserve the bread you eat. Would you let her work for you, when you are
as strong as sixty?"
Barry's grumbled words in answer were so very unsatisfactory, that Mr.
Mathieson in a rage advanced towards him with uplifted fist; but Nettie
sprang in between, and very nearly caught the blow that was meant for
her brother.
"Please, father, don't!" she cried;--"please, father, don't be angry!
Barry didn't think--he didn't----"
"Why didn't he?" said Mr. Mathieson. "Great lazy rascal! He wants to be
flogged."
"Oh, don't!" said Nettie: "he didn't know why I asked him, or he
wouldn't have refused me."
"Why did you, then?"
"Because it made my back ache so to bring it--I couldn't help asking
him."
"Did you ever ask him before?"
"Never mind, please, father!" said Nettie, sweetly. "Just don't think
about me, and don't be angry with Barry. It's no matter now."
"Who does think about you? Your mother don't, or she would have seen to
this before."
"Mother didn't know my back ached. Father, you know she hasn't a minute:
she is so busy getting breakfast in time; and she didn't know I wasn't
strong enough. Father, don't tell her, please, I asked Barry. It would
worry her so. Please don't, father."
"_You_ think of folks, anyhow. You're a regular peacemaker!" exclaimed
Mr. Mathieson, as he turned away and left her. Nettie stood still, the
flush paling on her cheek, her hand pressed to her side.
"Am I that?" she thought. "Shall I be that? O Lord, my Saviour, my dear
Redeemer, send Thy peace here!" She was still in the same place and
position when Barry came in again.
"It's wretched work!" he exclaimed, under his breath, for his father was
in the next room. "It's as slippery as the plague going down that path
to the water: it's no use to have legs, for you can't hold up. I'm all
froze stiff with the water I've spilt on me!"
"I know it's very slippery," said Nettie.
"And then you can't get at the water when you're there, without stepping
into it--it's filled chuck full of snow and ice all over the edge. It's
the most wretched work!"
"I know it, Barry," said Nettie. "I am sorry you have to do it."
"Why did you make me do it, then?" said he angrily. "You got it your own
way this time. But never mind; I'll be even with you for it."
"Barry," said his sister, "please do it just a little while for me,
till I get stronger and don't mind; and as soon as ever I can I'll do it
again. But you don't know how it made me ache all through, bringing the
pail up that path."
"Stuff!" said Barry. And from that time, though he did not fail to bring
the water in the morning, yet Nettie saw he owed her a grudge for it all
the day afterward. He was almost always away with his father, and she
had little chance to win him to better feeling.
So the winter slowly passed and the spring came. Spring months came, at
least; and now and then, to be sure, a sweet spring day, when all nature
softened; the sun shone mildly, the birds sang, the air smelt sweet with
the opening buds.
"There's that house-raising to-morrow, Nettie," said Mrs. Mathieson;
"it's been on my mind this fortnight past, and it kills me."
"Why, mother?"
"I know how it will be," said Mrs. Mathieson: "they'll have a grand
set-to after they get it up, and your father'll be in the first of it;
and I somehow feel as if it would be the finishing of him. I wish almost
he'd get ill--or anything to keep him away. They make such a time after
a house-raising."
"Oh, mother, don't wish that," said Nettie; but she began to think how
it would be possible to withdraw her father from the frolic with which
the day's business would be ended. Mr. Mathieson was a carpenter, and a
fine workman, and always had plenty of work, and was much looked up to
among his fellows.
Nettie began to think whether _she_ could make any effort to keep her
father from the dangers into which he was so fond of plunging. Hitherto
she had done nothing but pray for him: could she do anything more, with
any chance of good coming of it? She thought and thought, and resolved
that she must try. It did not look hopeful; there was little she could
urge to lure Mr. Mathieson from his drinking companions; nothing except
her own timid affection and the one other thing it was possible to offer
him--a good supper. How to get that was not so easy; but she consulted
with her mother.
Mrs. Mathieson said she used in her younger days to know how to make
waffles[2], and Mr. Mathieson used to think they were the best things
that ever were made: now, if Mrs. Moss, a neighbour, would lend her
waffle-iron, and she could get a few eggs, she believed she could manage
it still.
Footnote 2: _Waffles_, a species of sweet cake used on such
festivals in America.
"But we haven't the eggs, child," she said; "and I don't believe any
power under heaven can get him to come away from that raising frolic."
Nor did Nettie. It was to no power _under_ heaven that she trusted. But
she must use her means. She easily got the iron from Mrs. Moss. Then she
borrowed the eggs from Madame Auguste, who in Lent-time always had them;
then she watched with grave eyes, and many a heart-prayer the while, the
mixing and making of the waffles.
"How do you manage the iron, mother?"
"Why, it is made hot," said Mrs. Mathieson, "very hot, and buttered; and
then, when the batter is light, you pour it in and clap it together, and
put it in the stove."
"But how can you pour it in, mother? I don't see how you can fill the
iron."
"Why, you can't, child; you fill one half, and shut it together: and
when it bakes it rises up and fills the other half. You'll see."
The first thing Nettie asked when she came home from school in the
afternoon was, if the waffles were light?
She never saw any look better, Mrs. Mathieson said. "But I forgot,
child, we ought to have cinnamon and white sugar to eat on them. It was
so that your father used to admire them; they won't be waffles without
sugar and cinnamon. I'm afraid he'll think----but I don't believe you'll
get him home to think anything about them."
Mrs. Mathieson ended with a sigh. Nettie said nothing; she went round
the room, putting it in particularly nice order, then set the table.
When all that was right, she went up to her garret, and knelt down and
prayed that God would take care of her and bless her errand. She put the
whole matter in the Lord's hands; then she dressed herself in her hood
and cloak, and went down to her mother. Mr. Mathieson had not come
home to dinner, being busy with the house-raising; so they had had no
opportunity to invite him, and Nettie was now on her way to do it.
"It's turned a bad afternoon; I'm afraid it ain't fit for you to go,
Nettie."
"I don't mind," said Nettie. "Maybe I'll get some sugar and cinnamon,
mother, before I come back."
"Well, you know where the raising is; it's out on the Shallonway road,
on beyond Mrs. August's a good bit."
Nettie nodded and went out; and as the door closed on her grave, sweet
little face, her mother felt a great strain on her heart. She would have
been glad to relieve herself by tears, but it was a dry pain that would
not be relieved so. She went to the window and looked out at the
weather.
"Lord, Thy children guide and keep,
As with feeble steps they press
On the pathway rough and steep,
Through this weary wilderness.
Holy JESU, day by day
Lead us in the narrow way.
"There are stony ways to tread;
Give the strength we sorely lack.
There are tangled paths to thread;
Light us, lest we miss the track.
Holy JESU, day by day
Lead us in the narrow way."