XIX.
OCTOBER 1.
I Have had a charming summer with dear mother; and now I have the
great joy, so long deferred, of having her in my own home. Ernest has
been very cordial about it, and James has settled up all her worldly
affairs, so that she has nothing to do now but to love us and let us
love her. It is a pleasant picture to see her with my little darlings
about her, telling the old sweet story she told me so often, and
making God and Heaven and Christ such blissful realities. As I
listen, I realize that it is to her I owe that early, deeply-seated
longing to please the Lord Jesus, which I never remember as having a
beginning, or an ending, though it did have its fluctuations. And it
is another pleasant picture to see her sit in her own old chair,
which Ernest was thoughtful enough to have brought for her, pondering
cheerfully over her Bible and her Thomas a Kempis just as I have seen
her do ever since I can remember. And there is still a third pleasant
picture, only that it is a new one; it is as she sits at my right
hand at the table, the living personification of the blessed gospel
of good tidings, with father, opposite, the fading image of the law
given by Moses. For father has come back; father and all his
ailments, his pill-boxes, his fits of despair and his fits of dying.
But he is quiet and gentle, and even loving, and as he sits in his
corner, his Bible on his knees, I see how much more he reads the New
Testament than he used to do, and that the fourteenth chapter of St.
John almost opens to him of itself.
I must do Martha the justice to say that her absence, while it
increases my domestic peace and happiness, increases my cares also.
What with the children, the housekeeping, the thought for mother's
little comforts and the concern for father's, I am like a bit of
chaff driven before the wind, and always in a hurry. There are so
many stitches to be taken, so many things to pass through one's brain!
Mother says no mortal woman ought to undertake so much, but what
can I do? While Ernest is straining every nerve to pay off those
debts, I must do all the needlework, and we must get along with
servants whose want of skill makes them willing to put up with low
wages. Of course I cannot tell mother this, and I really believe she
thinks I scrimp and pinch and overdo out of mere stinginess.
DECEMBER 30.-Ernest came to me to-day with our accounts for the last
three months. He looked quite worried, for him, and asked me if there
were any expenses we could cut down.
My heart jumped up into my mouth, and I said in an irritated way:
"I am killing myself with over-work now. Mother says so. I sew every
night till twelve o'clock, and I feel all jaded out."
"I did not mean that I wanted you to do anymore than you are doing
now, dear," he said, kindly. "I know you are all jaded out, and I
look on this state of feverish activity with great anxiety. Are all
these stitches absolutely necessary?"
"You men know nothing about such things," I said, while my conscience
pricked me as I went on hurrying to finish the fifth tuck in one of
Una's little dresses. "Of course I want my children to look decent."
Ernest sighed.
"I really don't know what to do," he said, in a hopeless way.
"Father's persisting in living with us is throwing a burden on you,
that with all your other cares is quite too much for you. I see and
feel it every day. Don't you think I had better explain this to him
and let him go to Martha's?"
"No, indeed!" I said. "He shall stay here if it kills me, poor old
man!"
Ernest began once more to look over the bills.
"I don't know how it is," he said, "but since Martha left us our
expenses have increased a good deal."
Now the truth is that when Aunty paid me most generously for teaching
her children, I did not dare to offer my earnings to Ernest, lest he
should be annoyed. So I had quietly used it for household expenses,
and it had held out till about the time of Martha's marriage.
Ernest's injustice was just as painful, just as insufferable as if he
had known this, and I now burst out with whatever my rasped,
over-taxed nerves impelled me to say, like one possessed.
Ernest was annoyed and surprised.
"I thought we had done with these things," he said, and gathering up
the papers he went off.
I rose and locked my door and threw myself down upon the floor in an
agony of shame, anger, and physical exhaustion. I did not know how
large a part of what seemed mere childish ill-temper was really the
cry of exasperated nerves, that had been on too strained a tension,
and silent too long, and Ernest did not know it either. How could he?
His profession kept him for hours every day in the open air; there
were times when his work was done and he could take entire rest; and
his health is absolutely perfect. But I did not make any excuse for
myself at the moment. I was overwhelmed with the sense of my utter
unfitness to be a wife and a mother.
Then I heard Ernest try to open the door; and finding it locked, he
knocked, calling pleasantly:
"It is I, darling; let me in."
I opened it reluctantly enough.
"Come," he said, "put on your things and drive about with me on my
rounds. I have no long visits to make, and while I am seeing my
patients you will be getting the air, which you need."
"I do not want to go," I said. "I do not feel well enough. Besides,
there's my work."
"You can't see to sew with these red eyes," he declared.
"Come! I prescribe a drive, as your physician."
"Oh, Ernest, how kind, how forgiving you are?", I cried, running into
the arms he held out to me, "If you knew how ashamed, how sorry, I
am!"
"And if you only knew how ashamed and sorry I am!" he returned. "I
ought to have seen how you taxing and over-taxing yourself, doing
your work and Martha's too. It must not go on so."
By this time, with a veil over my face, he had got me downstairs and
out into the air, which fanned my fiery cheeks and cooled my heated
brain. It seemed to me that I have had all this tempest about nothing
at all, and that with a character still so undisciplined, I was
utterly unworthy to be either a wife or a mother. But when I tried to
say so in broken words, Ernest comforted me with the gentleness and
tenderness of a woman.
"Your character is not undisciplined, my darling," he said. "Your
nervous organization is very peculiar, and you have had unusual cares
and trials from the beginning of our married life. I ought not to
have confronted you with my father's debts at a moment when you had
every reason to look forward to freedom from most petty economies and
cares."
"Don't say so," I interrupted. "If you had not told me you had this
draft on your resources I should have always suspected you of
meanness. For you know, dear, you have kept me-that is to say-you
could not help it, but I suppose men can't understand how many
demands are made upon a mother for money almost every day. I got
along very well till the children came, but since then it has been
very hard."
"Yes," he said, "I am sure it has. But let me finish what I was going
to say. I want you to make a distinction for yourself, which I make
for you, between mere ill-temper, and the irritability that is the
result of a goaded state of the nerves. Until you do that, nothing
can be done to relieve you from what I am sure, distresses and
grieves you exceedingly. Now, I suppose that whenever you speak to me
or the children in this irritated way you lose your own self-respect,
for the time, at least, and feel degraded in the sight of God also."
"Oh, Ernest! there are no words in any language that mean enough to
express the anguish I feel when I speak quick, impatient words to
you, the one human being in the universe whom I love with all my
heart and soul, and to my darling little children who are almost as
dear! I pray and mourn over it day and night. God only knows how I
hate myself on account of this one horrible sin!"
"It is a sin only as you deliberately and wilfully fulfill the
conditions that lead to such results. Now I am sure if you could once
make up your mind in the fear of God, never to undertake more work of
any sort than you can carry on calmly, quietly, without hurry or
flurry, and the instant you find yourself growing nervous and like
one out of breath, would stop and take breath, you would find this
simple, common-sense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears
could ever accomplish. Will you try it for one month, my darling?"
"But we can't afford it," I cried, with almost a groan. "Why, you
have told me this very day that our expenses must be cut down, and
now you want me to add to them by doing less work. But the work must
be done. The children must be clothed, there is no end to the
stitches to be taken for them, and your stockings must be mended-you
make enormous holes in them! and you don't like it if you ever find a
button wanting to a shirt or your supply of shirts getting low."
"All you say may be very true," he returned, "but I am determined
that you shall not be driven to desperation as you have been of
late."
By this time we had reached the house where his visit was to be made,
and I had nothing to do but lean back and revolve all he had been
saying, over and over again, and to see its reasonableness while I
could not see what was so be done for my relief. Ah, I have often
felt in moments of bitter grief at my impatience with my children,
that perhaps God pitied more than He blamed me for it! And now my
dear husband was doing the same!
When Ernest had finished his visit we drove on again in silence.
At last, I asked:
"Do tell me, Ernest, if you worked out this problem all by yourself?"
He smiled a little.
"No, I did not. But I have had a patient for two or three years whose
case has interested me a good deal, and for whom I finally prescribed
just as I have done for you. The thing worked like a charm, and she
is now physically and morally quite well.
"I dare say her husband is a rich man," I said.
"He is not as poor as your husband, at any rate," Ernest replied.
"But rich or poor I am determined not to sit looking on while you
exert yourself so far beyond your strength. Just think, dear, suppose
for fifty or a hundred or two hundred dollars a year you could buy a
sweet, cheerful, quiet tone of mind, would you hesitate one moment to
do so? And you can do it if you will. You are not ill-tempered but
quick-tempered; the irritability which annoys you so is a physical
infirmity which will disappear the moment you cease to be goaded into
it by that exacting mistress you have hitherto been to yourself."
All this sounded very plausible while Ernest was talking, but the
moment I got home I snatched up my work from mere force of habit.
"I may as well finish this as it is begun," I said to myself, and
the stitches flew from my needle like sparks of fire. Little Ernest
came and begged for a story, but I put him off. Then Una wanted to
sit in my lap, but I told her I was too busy. In the course of an
hour the influence of the fresh air and Ernest's talk had nearly lost
their power over me; my thread kept breaking, the children leaned on
and tired me, the baby woke up and cried, and I got all out of
patience.
"Do go away, Ernest," I said, "and let mamma have a little peace.
Don't you see how busy I am? Go and play with Una like a good boy."
But he would not go, and kept teasing Una till she too, began to cry,
and she and baby made a regular concert of it.
"Oh, dear!" I sighed, "this work will never be done!" and threw it
down impatiently, and took the baby impatiently, and began to walk up
and down with him impatiently. I was not willing that this little
darling, whom I love so dearly, should get through with his nap and
interrupt my work; yet I was displeased with myself, and tried by
kissing him to make some amends for the hasty, un pleasant tones with
which I had grieved him and frightened the other children. This
evening Ernest came to me with a larger sum of money than he had ever
given me at one time.
"Now every cent of this is to be spent," he said, "in having work
done. I know any number of poor women who will be thankful to have
all you can give them."
Dear me I it is easy to talk, and I do feel grateful to Ernest for
his thoughtfulness and kindness. But I am almost in rags, and need
every cent of this money to make myself decent. I am positively
ashamed to go anywhere, my clothes are so shabby. Besides, supposing
I leave off sewing and all sorts of over-doing of a kindred nature, I
must nurse baby, I suppose, and be up with him nights and others will
have their cross days and their sick and father will have his. Alas,
there can be for no royal road to a "sweet, cheerful, quiet tone of
mind!"
JANUARY 1, 1844.-Mother says Ernest is entirely right in forbidding
my working so hard. I own that I already feel better. I have all the
time I need to read my Bible and to pray now, and the children do not
irritate and annoy me as they did. Who knows but I shall yet become
quite amiable?
Ernest made his father very happy to-day by telling him that the
last of those wretched debts is paid. I think that he might have told
me that this deliverance was at hand. I did not know but we had years
of these struggles with poverty before us. What with the relief from
this anxiety, my improved state of health, and father's pleasure, I
am in splendid spirits to-day. Ernest, too, seems wonderfully
cheerful, and we both feel that we may now look forward to a quiet
happiness we have never known. With such a husband and such children
as mine, I ought to be the most grateful creature on earth. And I
have dear mother and James besides. I don't quite know what to think
about James' relation to Lucy. He is so brimful running over with
happiness that he is also full of fun and of love, and after all he
may only like her as a cousin.
FEB. 14.-Father has not been so well of late. It seems as if he kept
up until he was relieved about those debts, and then sunk down. I
read to him a good deal, and so does mother, but his mind is still
dark, and he looks forward to the hour of death with painful
misgivings. He is getting a little childish about my leaving him, and
clings to me exactly as if I were his own child. Martha spends a good
deal of time with him, and fusses over him in a way that I wonder she
does not see is annoying to him. He wants to be read to, to hear a
hymn sung or a verse repeated, and to be left otherwise in perfect
quiet. But she is continually pulling out and shaking up his pillows,
bathing his head in hot vinegar and soaking his feet. It looks so odd
to see her in one of the elegant silk dresses old Mr. Underhill
makes her wear, with her sleeves rolled up, the skirt hid away under
a large apron, rubbing away at poor father till it seems as if his
tired soul would fly out of him.
FEB. 20.-Father grows weaker every day. Ernest has sent for his other
children, John and Helen. Martha is no longer able to come here; her
husband is very sick with a fever, and cannot be left alone. No doubt
he enjoys her bustling way of nursing, and likes to have his pillows
pushed from under him every five minutes. I am afraid I feel glad
that she is kept away, and that I have father all to myself. Ernest
never was so fond of me as he is now. I don't know what to make of
it.
FEB 22.-John and his wife and Helen have come. They stay at Martha's,
where there is plenty of room. John's wife is a little soft dumpling
thing, and looks up to him as a mouse would up at a steeple. He
strikes me as a very selfish man. He steers straight for the best
seat, leaving her standing, if need be, accepts her humble attentions
with the air of one collecting his just debt and is continually
snubbing and setting her right. Yet in some things he is very like
Ernest, and perhaps a wife destitute of self-assertion and without
much individuality would have spoiled him as Harriet has spoiled
John. For I think it must be partly her fault that he dares to be so
egotistical. Helen, is the dearest, prettiest creature I ever saw.
Oh, why would James take a fancy to Lucy! I feel the new delight of
having a sister to love and to admire. And she will love me in time;
I feel sure of it.
MARCH 1.-Father is very feeble and in great mental distress. He
gropes about in the dark, and shudders at the approach of death. We
can do nothing but pray for him. And the cloud will be lifted when he
leaves this world, if not before. For I know he is a good, yes, a
saintly man, dear to and dear to Christ.
MARCH 4.-Dear father has gone. We were all kneeling and praying and
weeping around him, when suddenly he called me to come to him. I went
and let him lean his head on my breast, as he loved to do. Sometimes
I have stood so by the hour together ready to sink with fatigue, and
only kept up with the thought that if this were my own precious
father's bruised head I could stand and hold it forever.
"Daughter Katherine," he said, in his faint, tremulous way, "you have
come with me to the very brink of the river. I thank God for all your
cheering words and ways. I thank God for giving you to be a helpmeet
to my son. Farewell, now," he added, in a low, firm voice, "I feel
the bottom, and it is good!"
He lay back on his pillow looking upward with an expression of
seraphic peace and joy on his worn, meagre face, and so his life
passed gently away.
Oh, the affluence of God's payments! What a recompense for the poor
love I had given my husband's father, and the poor little services I
had rendered him! Oh, that I had never been impatient with him, never
smiled at his peculiarities, never in my secret heart felt him
unwelcome to my home! And how wholly I overlooked, in my blind
selfishness, what he must have suffered in feeling himself, homeless,
dwelling with us on sufferance, but master and head nowhere on earth!
May God carry the lessons home to my heart of hearts, and make the
cloud of mingled remorse and shame which now envelops me to descend
in showers of love and benediction on every human soul that mine can
bless!