XII.
NOVEMBER 6.
AUNTY has put me in the way of doing that. I could not tell her the
whole story, of course, but I made her understand that Ernest needed
money for a generous purpose, and that I wanted to help him in it.
She said the children needed both music and drawing lessons, and that
she should be delighted if I would take them in hand. Aunty does not
care a fig for accomplishments, but I think I am right in accepting
her offer, as the children ought to learn to sing and to play and to
draw. Of course I cannot have them come here, as Ernest's father
could not bear the noise they would make; besides, I want to take him
by surprise, and keep the whole thing a secret.
Nov. 14.-I have seen by the way Martha draws down the corners of her
mouth of late, that I am unusually out of favor with her. This
evening, Ernest, coming home quite late, found me lolling back in my
chair, idling, after a hard day's work with my little cousins, and
Martha sewing nervously away at the rate of ten knots an hour, which
is the first pun I ever made.
"Why will you sit up and sew at such a rate, Martha?" he asked.
She twitched at her thread, broke it, and began with a new one before
she replied.
"I suppose you find it convenient to have a whole shirt to your
back."
I saw then that she was making his shirts! It made me both hot and
cold at once. What must Ernest think of me?
It is plain enough what he thinks of her, for he said, quite warmly,
for him--
"This is really too kind."
What right has she to prowl round among Ernest's things and pry into
the state of his wardrobe? If I had not had my time so broken up with
giving lessons, I should have found out that he needed new shirts and
set to work on them. Though I must own I hate shirt-making. I could
not help showing that I felt aggrieved. Martha defended herself by
saying that she knew young people would be young people, and would
gad about, shirts or no shirts. Now it is not her fault that she
thinks I waste my time gadding about, but I am just as angry with her
as if she did. Oh, why couldn't I have had Helen, to be a pleasant
companion and friend to me, instead of this old-well I won't say
what.
And really, with so much to make me happy, what would become of me if
I had no trials?
Nov. 15.-To-day Martha has a house-cleaning mania, and has dragged me
into it by representing the sin and misery of those deluded mortals
who think servants know how to sweep and to scrub. In spite of my
resolution not to get under her thumb, I have somehow let her rule
and reign over me to such an extent that I can hardly sit up long
enough to write this. Does the whole duty of woman consist in keeping
her house distressingly clean and prim; in making and baking and
preserving and pickling; in climbing to the top shelves of closets
lest haply a little dust should lodge there, and getting down on her
hands and knees to inspect the carpet? The truth is there is not one
point of sympathy between Martha and myself, not one. One would think
that our love to Ernest would furnish it. But her love aims at the
abasement of his character and mine at its elevation. She thinks I
should bow down to and worship him, jump up and offer him my chair
when he comes in, feed him with every unwholesome dainty he fancies,
and feel myself honored by his acceptance of these services. I think
it is for him to rise and offer me a seat, because I am a woman and
his wife; and that a silly subservience on my part is degrading to
him and to myself. And I am afraid I make known these sentiments to
her in a most unpalatable way.
Nov. 18.-Oh, I am so happy that I sing for joy! Dear Ernest has
given me such a delightful surprise! He says he has persuaded James
to come and spend his college days here, and finally study medicine
with him. Dear, darling old James! He is to be here to-morrow. He is
to have the little hall bedroom fitted up for him, and he will be
here several years. Next to having mother, this is the nicest thing
that could happen. We love each other so dearly, and get along so
beautifully together I wonder how he'll like Martha with her grim
ways, and Ernest's father with his melancholy ones.
Nov. 30.-James has come, and the house already seems lighter and
cheerier. He is not in the least annoyed by Martha or her father, and
though he is as jovial as the day is long, they actually seem to like
him. True to her theory on the subject, Martha invariably rises at
his entrance, and offers him her seat! He pretends not to see it, and
runs to get one for her! Then she takes comfort in seeing him consume
her good things, since his gobbling them down is a sort of tacit
tribute to their merits.
Mrs. Embury was here to-day. She says there is not much the matter
with Ernest's father, that he has only got the hypo. I don't know
exactly what this is, but I believe it is thinking something is the
matter with you when there isn't. At any rate I put it to you, my
dear old journal, whether it is pleasant to live with people who
behave in this way?
In the first place all he talks about is his fancied disease. He gets
book after book from the office and studies and ponders his case till
he grows quite yellow. One day he says he has found out the seat of
his disease to be the liver, and changes his diet to meet that view
of the case. Martha has to do him up in mustard, and he takes kindly
to blue pills. In a day or two he finds his liver is all right, but
that his brain is all wrong. The mustard goes now to the back of his
neck, and he takes solemn leave of us all, with the assurance that
his last hour has come. Finding that he survives the night, however,
he transfers the seat of his disease to the heart, spends hours in
counting his pulse, refuses to take exercise lest he should bring on
palpitations, and warns us all to prepare to follow him. Everybody
who comes in has to hear the whole story, every one prescribes
something, and he tries each remedy in turn. These all failing to
reach his case, he is plunged into ten-fold gloom. He complains
that God has cast him off forever, and that his sins are like the
sands of the sea for number. I am such a goose that I listen to all
these varying moods and symptoms with the solemn conviction that he
is going to die immediately; I bathe his head, and count his pulse,
and fan him, and take down his dying depositions for Ernest's solace
after he has gone. And I talk theology to him by the hour, while
Martha bakes and brews in the kitchen, or makes mince pies, after
eating which one might give him the whole Bible at one dose, without
the smallest effect.
To-day I stood by his chair, holding his head and whispering such
consoling passages as I thought might comfort him, when James burst
in, singing and tossing his cap in the air.
"Come here, young man, and hear my last testimony. I am about to die.
The end draws near," were the sepulchral words that made him bring
his song to an abrupt close.
"I shall take it very ill of you, sir," quoth James, "if you go and
die before giving me that cane you promised me."
Who could die decently under such circumstances? The poor old man
revived immediately, but looked a good deal injured. After James had
gone out, he said:
"It is very painful to one who stands on the very verge of the
eternal world to see the young so thoughtless."
"But James is not thoughtless," I said. "It is only his merry way."
"Daughter Katherine," he went on, "you are very kind to the old man,
and you will have your reward. But I wish I could feel sure of your
state before God. I greatly fear you deceive yourself, and that the
ground of your hope is delusive."
I felt the blood rush to my face. At first I was staggered a good
deal. But is a mortal man who cannot judge of his own state to decide
mine? It is true he sees my faults; anybody can, who looks. But he
does not see my prayers, or my tears of shame and sorrow; he does not
know how many hasty words I repress; how earnestly I am aiming, all
the day long, to do right in all the little details of life. He does
not know that it costs my fastidious nature an appeal to God every
time I kiss his poor old face, and that what would be an act of
worship in him is an act of self-denial in me. How should he? The
Christian life is a hidden known only by the eye that seeth in
secret. And I do believe this life is mine.
Up to this time I have contrived to get along without calling
Ernest's father by any name. I mean now to make myself turn over a
new leaf.
DECEMBER 7.-James is my perpetual joy and pride. We read and sing
together, just as we used to do in our old school days. Martha sits
by, with her work, grimly approving; for is he not a man? And, as if
my cup of felicity were not full enough, I am to have my dear old
pastor come here to settle over this church, and I shall once more
hear his beloved voice in the pulpit. Ernest has managed the whole
thing. He says the state of Dr. C.'s health makes the change quite
necessary, and that he can avail himself of the best surgical advice
this city affords, in case his old difficulties recur. I rejoice for
myself and for this church, but mother will miss him sadly.
I am leading a very busy, happy life, only I am, perhaps, working a
little too hard. What with my scholars, the extra amount of housework
Martha contrives to get out of me, the practicing I must keep up if I
am to teach, and the many steps I have to take, I have not only no
idle moments, but none too many for recreation. Ernest is so busy
himself that he fortunately does not see what a race I am running.
JANUARY 16, 1838.-The first anniversary of our wedding-day, and like
all days, has had its lights and its shades. I thought I would
celebrate it in such a way as to give pleasure to everybody, and
spent a good deal of time in getting up a little gift for each, from
Ernest and myself. And I took special pains to have a good dinner,
particularly for father. Yes, I had made up my mind to call him by
that sacred name for the first time to-day, cost what it may. But he
shut himself up in his room directly after breakfast, and when dinner
was ready refused to come down. This cast a gloom over us all. Then
Martha was nearly distracted because a valuable dish had been broken
in the kitchen, and could not recover her equanimity at all. Worst of
all Ernest, who is not in the least sentimental, never said a word
about our wedding-day, and didn't give me a thing! I have kept
hoping all day that he would make me some little present, no matter
how small, but now it is too late; he has gone out to be gone all
night, probably, and thus ends the day, an utter failure.
I feel a good deal disappointed. Besides, when I look back over this
my first year of married life, I do not feel satisfied with myself at
all. I can't help feeling that I have been selfish and unreasonable
towards Ernest in a great many ways, and as contrary towards Martha
as if I enjoyed a state of warfare between us. And I have felt a good
deal of secret contempt for her father, with his moods and tenses,
his pill-boxes and his plasters, his feastings and his fastings. I do
not understand how a Christian can make such slow progress as I do,
and how old faults can hang on so.
If I had made any real progress, should I not be sensible of it?
I have been reading over the early part of this journal, and when I
came to the conversation I had with Mrs. Cabot, in which I made a
list of my wants, I was astonished that I could ever have had such
contemptible ones. Let me think what I really and truly most want
now.
First of all, then, if God should speak to me at this moment and
offer to give just one thing, and that alone, I should say without
hesitation,
Love to Thee, O my Master!
Next to that, if I could have one thing more, I would choose to be a
thoroughly unselfish, devoted wife. Down in my secret heart I know
there lurks another wish, which I am ashamed of. It is that in some
way or other, some right way, I could be delivered from Martha and
her father. I shall never be any better while they are here to tempt
me!
FEBRUARY 1.-Ernest spoke to-day of one of his patients, a Mrs.
Campbell, who is a great sufferer, but whom he describes as the
happiest, most cheerful person he ever met. He rarely speaks of his
patients. Indeed, he rarely speaks of anything. I felt strangely
attracted by what he said of her, and asked so many questions that at
last he proposed to take me to see her. I caught at the idea very
eagerly, and have just come home from the visit greatly moved and
touched. She is confined to her bed, and is quite helpless, and at
times her sufferings are terrible. She received me with a sweet
smile, however, and led me on to talk more of myself than I ought to
have done. I wish Ernest had not left me alone with her, so that I
should have had the restraint of his presence.
FEB. 14.-I am so fascinated with Mrs. Campbell that I cannot help
going to see her again and again. She seems to me like one whose
conflict and dismay are all over, and who looks on other human beings
with an almost divine love and pity. To look at life as she does, to
feel as she does, to have such a personal love to Christ as she has,
I would willingly go through every trial and sorrow. When I told her
so, she smiled, a little sadly.
"Much as you envy me," she said, "my faith is not yet so strong that
I do not shudder at the thought of a young enthusiastic girl like
you, going through all I have done in order to learn a few simple
lessons which God was willing to teach me sooner and without the use
of a rod, if I had been ready for them."
"But you are so happy now," I said.
"Yes, I am happy," she replied, "and such happiness is worth all it
costs. If my flesh shudders at the remembrance of what I have
endured, my faith sustains God through the whole. But tell me a
little more about yourself, my dear. I should so love to give you a
helping hand, if I might."
"You know," I began, "dear Mrs. Campbell, that there are some trials
that cannot do us any good. They only call out all there is in us
that is unlovely and severe."
"I don't know of any such trials," she replied.
"Suppose you had to live with people who were perfectly uncongenial;
who misunderstood you, and who were always getting into your way as
stumbling-blocks?"
"If I were living with them and they made me unhappy, I would ask God
to relieve me of this trial if He thought it best. If He did not
think it best, I would then try to find out the reason. He might have
two reasons. One would be the good they might do me. The other the
good I might do them."
"But in the case I was supposing, neither party can be of the least
use to the other."
"You forget perhaps the indirect good one may in by living with
uncongenial, tempting persons. First such people do good by the very
self-denial and self-control their mere presence demands. Then, their
making one's home less home-like and perfect than it would be in
their absence, may help to render our real home in heaven more
attractive."
"But suppose one cannot exercise self-control, and is always flying
out and flaring up?" I objected.
"I should say that a Christian who was always doing that," she
replied, gravely, "was in pressing need of just the trial God sent
when He shut him up to such a life of hourly temptation. We only know
ourselves and what we really are, when the force of circumstances
bring us out."
"It is very mortifying and painful to find how weak one is."
"That is true. But our mortifications are some of God's best
physicians, and do much toward healing our pride and self-conceit."
"Do you really think, then, that God deliberately appoints to some of
His children a lot where their worst passions are excited, with a
desire to bring good out of this seeming evil? Why I have always
supposed the best thing that could happen to me, instance, would be
to have a home exactly to my mind; a home where all were forbearing,
loving and good-tempered, a sort of little heaven below."
"If you have not such a home, my dear, are you sure it is not partly
your own fault?"
"Of course it is my own fault. Because I am very quick-tempered I
want to live with good-tempered people."
"That is very benevolent in you," she said, archly.
I colored, but went on.
"Oh, I know I am selfish. And therefore I want live with those who
are not so. I want to live with persons to whom I can look for an
example, and who will constantly stimulate me to something higher."
"But if God chooses quite another lot for you, you may be sure that
He sees that you need something totally different from what you want.
You just now that you would gladly go through any trial in order to
attain a personal love to Christ that should become the ruling
principle of your life. Now as soon as God sees this desire in you,
is He not kind, is He not wise, in appointing such trials as He knows
will lead to this end?"
I meditated long before I answered. Was God really asking me not
merely to let Martha and her father live with me on sufferance, but
to rejoice that He had seen fit to let them harass and embitter my
domestic life?
"I thank you for the suggestion," I said, at last.
"I want to say one thing more," Mrs. Campbell resumed, after another
pause. "We look at our fellow-men too much from the standpoint of our
own prejudices. They may be wrong, they may have their faults and
foibles, they may call out all that is meanest and most hateful in
us. But they are not all wrong; they have their virtues, and when
they excite our bad passions by their own, they may be as ashamed and
sorry as we are irritated. And I think some of the best, most
contrite, most useful of men and women, whose prayers prevail with
God, and bring down blessings into the homes in which they dwell
often possess unlovely traits that furnish them with their best
discipline. The very fact that they are ashamed of themselves drives
them to God; they feel safe in His presence, and while they lie in
the very dust of self-confusion at His feet they are dear to Him and
have power with Him."
"That is a comforting word, and I thank you for it," I said. My heart
was full, and I longed to stay and hear her talk on. But I had
already exhausted her strength. On the way home I felt as I suppose
people do when they have caught a basketful of fish. I always am
delighted to catch a new idea; I thought I would get all the benefit
out of Martha and her father, and as I went down to tea, after taking
off my things, felt like a holy martyr who had as good as won a
crown.
I found, however, that the butter was horrible. Martha had insisted
that she alone was capable of selecting that article, and had ordered
a quantity from her own village which I could not eat myself and was
ashamed to have on my table. I pushed back my plate in disgust.
"I hope, Martha, that you have not ordered much of this odious
stuff!" I cried.
Martha replied that it was of the very first quality, and appealed to
her father and Ernest, who both agreed with her, which I thought very
unkind and unjust. I rushed into a hot debate on the subject, during
which Ernest maintained that ominous silence that indicates his not
being pleased, and it irritated and led me on. I would far rather he
should say, "Katy, you are behaving like a child and I wish you would
stop talking."
"Martha," I said, "you will persist that the butter is good, because
you ordered it. If you will only own that, I won't say another word."
"I can't say it," she returned. "Mrs. Jones' butter is invariably
good. I never heard it found fault with before. The trouble is you
are so hard to please."
"No, I am not. And you can't convince me that if the buttermilk is
not perfectly worked out, the butter could be fit to eat."
This speech I felt to be a masterpiece. It was time to let her know
how learned I was on the subject of butter, though I wasn't brought
up to make it or see it made.
But here Ernest put in a little oil.
"I think you are both right," he said. "Mrs. Jones makes good butter,
but just this once she failed. I dare say it won't happen again, and
mean while this can be used for making seed-cakes, and we can get a
new supply."
This was his masterpiece. A whole firkin of butter made up into
seed-cakes!
Martha turned to encounter him on that head, and I slipped off to my
room to look, with a miserable sense of disappointment, at my folly
and weakness in making so much ado about nothing. I find it hard to
believe that it can do me good to have people live with me who like
rancid butter, and who disagree with me in everything else.