Again Tessa was spending the night with Miss Jewett; Sue Greyson had
chatted away half the evening, and it was nearly eleven before Tessa
could put both arms around her friend and squeeze her.
"I am hungry for a talk with you, you dear little woman, every thing is
getting to be criss-cross with me nowadays; I'm so troubled and so
wicked that I almost want to die. You wouldn't love me any more if you
could know how false I am. All my life I have been so proud of being
true," she added bitterly, "I despise myself."
"Is that all?"
Miss Jewett was leaning back in her little rocker. Almost before she
knew it herself, Tessa had dropped upon the carpet at her feet.
"I have come to learn of you, my saint."
"What have you come to learn, my sinner?"
"I'm confused--I'm bewildered--I'm all in a tangle. People say, 'pray
about it'; you say that yourself; and I do pray about all the trials in
my life and yet--I can not understand--I am groping my way, I am blind,
walking in the dark. Do you know that I believe that praying for a thing
is the hardest way in the world to get it? I would rather earn it a
thousand times over; I know that you think me dreadfully wicked, but do
not stop me, let me pour it all out; hard praying, never ceasing, night
and day, is enough to wear one out soul and body, because you _must_
expect to get what you ask for, and if you do not after praying so long
the disappointment is heart-breaking. There now! I have said it and I
feel better. I have no one except you to talk to and I wouldn't dare
tell you how wicked I am. About something I have prayed with all my
strength--I will not be ashamed to tell you--I know you will understand;
it is about loving somebody. I have been so ashamed and shocked at
girls' love-stories and I wanted one so true and pure and unselfish and
beautiful, and I have prayed that mine might be that, and I have tried
so hard to make it that, and yet I get into trouble and break my own
heart, which is nothing at all, and more than break some one else's
heart and do as much harm as Sue Greyson does, who is as flighty as a
witch! I would rather go without things than pray years and years and be
disappointed every day, or go farther and farther into wrong-doing as I
do; I don't believe that the flightiest and flirtiest of your girls does
as much harm as I do, or is as false to herself as I am! And I have been
so proud of being true!"
"My _dear_ child."
"Is that all you can say to comfort me?"
"Why do you pray?"
"Why do I pray?" repeated Tessa in surprise. "To get what I want, I
suppose."
"I thought so."
"Isn't that what you pray for?"
"Hardly. I pray that I may get what God wants."
"Oh," said Tessa with a half startled, little cry.
"I fear that you are having a hard time over something, child."
"If you only knew--but you wouldn't believe in me any longer; neither
would father, or Dine, or Gus, or any one who trusts me; I will not tell
you; I have lost all faith in myself."
"Thank God for that!" exclaimed the little woman brightly.
"I am too sore and bruised to be thankful; I feel, sometimes, as if I
could creep into a dark corner and cry my heart out. I could bear it if
I were the only one, but to think that I must make somebody's heart ache
as mine does! I thought all my prayers would prevail to keep me from
making mistakes."
"Perhaps you have been trying to _earn_ your heart's desire by heaping
up prayers, piling them up higher and higher, morning, noon, and night,
and you have held them up to God thinking that He must be glad to take
them; I shouldn't wonder if you had even supposed that you were paying
Him overmuch--you had prayed enough to get what you want some time ago."
"That is true," answered Tessa, emphatically. "I have felt as if He were
wronging me by taking my prayers and giving me so little in return. I
believe that I have thought my prayers precious enough to pay for any
thing. I paid my prayers, and I am disappointed that I have not my
purchases."
"Then your faith has been all in your _prayers_."
"Yes; I was sure that I could not go wrong because I prayed so much."
"And your faith has been in your _faith_."
"And neither my faith nor my prayers have kept me from being false. Oh,
it has been such hard work!"
Tessa's face was drawn as if by physical pain.
"I was thinking in the night last night that I did not believe that
Hannah, or Elizabeth, or Huldah, or Persis, or Dorcas ever prayed more
fervently or unceasingly than I have; I have builded on my _faith_, no
wonder that the first rough wind has shaken my foundation! Ever since
Felix Harrison years ago called me a flirt, I have prayed that I might
be true; and to-night I am as false as Sue Greyson."
"Through an experience once, long ago, I learned to pray that the will
of God might be done in me, even although I must be sifted as wheat."
"I am not brave enough for that. Oh, Miss Jewett, I am afraid that God
is angry with me; and I have meant to be so true."
"Do you remember the time that the disciples forgot to take bread?"
"Yes, but that is not like me."
"I think it is--just like you."
"Then tell me."
"It was one time when Jesus and the disciples were alone on board the
ship; He had been deeply grieved with the Pharisees, sighing in His
spirit over them, for they had tempted Him with asking of Him a sign
from heaven. A sign from heaven! And He had just filled four thousand
hungry people with seven loaves and a few small fishes!
"By and by He began to talk to the disciples; speaking with authority,
perhaps, it even sounded severe to them as He charged them to beware of
the leaven of the Pharisees.
"Then they began to talk among themselves: what had they done to be thus
bidden to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees? _Leaven_ reminded them
of bread! Oh, now they knew! They had but one loaf in the ship; they had
forgotten to bring bread with them; perhaps the Lord was hungry and knew
that they had not enough for Him and for themselves. It may be that He
overheard them reasoning among themselves, or perhaps, forward Peter
asked Him if He were rebuking them for forgetting the bread; for as soon
as He knew what was troubling their simple hearts, how He talked to
them! Seven questions, one after another, He asked them, ending with:
_How is it_ that ye do not understand?
"And you are like them, child. The Lord has suffered you to be led into
trouble that He may teach you something about Himself and you fall down
at His feet bemoaning yourself; you forget Him and the great lessons He
has to teach you and think only of yourself and some little thing that
you missed doing; you missed it, blinded with tears in your eagerness to
do right, you _meant_ to be so good and true, and because you made a
mistake in your blindness and eagerness, you think Him such a harsh,
unloving Father that all He cares to do is to punish you! Trust Him,
Tessa! Don't moan over a loaf of bread forgotten before Him who has love
enough, and power enough to give you and somebody beside a thousand
thousand loaves. Do not grieve Him by crying out any longer, 'Do not
punish me; I _meant_ to be so good?'"
Tessa's head kept its position. When she raised it, after a long
silence, she said: "I will not think so any more; you don't know what I
suffered in thinking that He is punishing me."
"'How is it that ye do not understand?'"
"Because I think about my own troubles and not of what He is teaching
me," said Tessa humbly.