"And you"ve got everythin" you want in the world?"
"Charity, Charity, that ain"t fair," Madge put in. "n.o.body has that; you haven"t, and I haven"t; why should Lois?"
""Cos she says she"s found "a city where true joys abound;" now let"s hear if she has."
"Quite true," said Lois, smiling.
"And you"ve got all you want?"
"No, I would like a good many things I haven"t got, if it"s the Lord"s pleasure to give them."
"Suppose it ain"t?"
"Then I do not want them," said Lois, looking up with so clear and bright a face that her carping sister was for the moment silenced. And I suppose Charity watched; but she never could find reason to think that Lois had not spoken the truth. Lois was the life of the house.
Madge was a handsome and quiet girl; could follow but rarely led in the conversation. Charity talked, but was hardly enlivening to the spirits of the company. Mrs. Armadale was in ordinary a silent woman; could talk indeed, and well, and much; however, these occasions were mostly when she had one auditor, and was in thorough sympathy with that one.
Amidst these different elements of the household life Lois played the part of the flux in a furnace; she was the happy accommodating medium through which all the others came into best play and found their full relations to one another. Lois"s brightness and spirit were never dulled; her sympathies were never wearied; her intelligence was never at fault. And her work was never neglected. n.o.body had ever to remind Lois that it was time for her to attend to this or that thing which it was her charge to do. Instead of which, she was very often ready to help somebody else not quite so "forehanded." The garden took on fast its dressed and ordered look; the strawberries were uncovered; and the raspberries tied up, and the currant bushes trimmed; and pea-sticks and bean-poles bristled here and there promisingly. And then the green growths for which Lois had worked began to reward her labour. Radishes were on the tea-table, and lettuce made the dinner "another thing;" and rows of springing beets and carrots looked like plenty in the future.
Potatoes were up, and rare-ripes were planted, and cabbages; and corn began to appear. One thing after another, till Lois got the garden all planted; and then she was just as busy keeping it clean. For weeds, we all know, do thrive as unaccountably in the natural as in the spiritual world. It cost Lois hard work to keep them under; but she did it.
Nothing would have tempted her to bear the reproach of them among her vegetables and fruits. And so the latter had a good chance, and throve.
There was not much time or much s.p.a.ce for flowers; yet Lois had a few.
Red poppies found growing room between the currant bushes; here and there at a corner a dahlia got leave to stand and rear its stately head. Rose-bushes were set wherever a rose-bush could be; and there were some balsams, and pinks, and balm, and larkspur, and marigolds.
Not many; however, they served to refresh Lois"s soul when she went to pick vegetables for dinner, and they furnished nosegays for the table in the hall, or in the sitting-room, when the hot weather drove the family out of the kitchen.
Before that came June and strawberries. Lois picked the fruit always.
She had been a good while one very warm afternoon bending down among the strawberry beds, and had brought in a great bowl full of fruit. She and Madge came together to their room to wash hands and get in order for tea.
"I have worked over all that b.u.t.ter," said Madge, "and skimmed a lot of milk. I must churn again to-morrow. There is no end to work!"
"No end to it," Lois a.s.sented. "Did you see my strawberries?"
"No."
"They are splendid. Those Black Princes are doing finely too. If we have rain they will be superb."
"How many did you get to-day?"
"Two quarts, and more."
"And cherries to preserve to-morrow. Lois, I get tired once in a while!"
"O, so do I; but I always get rested again."
"I don"t mean that. I mean it is _all_ work, work; day in and day out, and from one year"s end to another. There is no let up to it. I get tired of that."
"What would you have?"
"I"d like a little play."
"Yes, but in a certain sense I think it is all play."
"In a nonsensical sense," said Madge. "How can work be play?"
"That"s according to how you look at it," Lois returned cheerfully. "If you take it as I think you can take it, it is much better than play."
"I wish you"d make me understand you," said Madge discontentedly. "If there is any meaning to your words, that is."
Lois hesitated.
"I like work anyhow better than play," she said. "But then, if you look at it in a certain way, it becomes much better than play. Don"t you know, Madge, I take it all, everything, as given me by the Lord to do;--to do for him;--and I do it so; and that makes every bit of it all pleasant."
"But you can"t!" said Madge pettishly. She was not a pettish person, only just now something in her sister"s words had the effect of irritation.
"Can"t what?"
"Do everything for the Lord. Making b.u.t.ter, for instance; or cherry sweetmeats. Ridiculous! And nonsense."
"I don"t mean it for nonsense. It is the way I do my garden work and my sewing."
"What _do_ you mean, Lois? The garden work is for our eating, and the sewing is for your own back, or grandma"s. I understand religion, but I don"t understand cant."
"Madge, it"s not cant; it"s the plain truth."
"Only that it is impossible."
"No. You do not understand religion, or you would know how it is. All these things are things given us to do; we must make the clothes and preserve the cherries, and I must weed strawberries, and then pick strawberries, and all the rest. G.o.d has given me these things to do, and I do them for him."
"You do them for yourself, or for grandma, and for the rest of us."
"Yes, but first for Him. Yes, Madge, I do. I do every bit of all these things in the way that I think will please and honour him best--as far as I know how."
"Making your dresses!"
"Certainly. Making my dresses so that I may look, as near as I can, as a servant of Christ in my place ought to look. And taking things in that way, Madge, you can"t think how pleasant they are; nor how all sorts of little worries fall off. I wish you knew, Madge! If I am hot and tired in a strawberry bed, and the thought comes, whose servant I am, and that he has made the sun shine and put me to work in it,--then it"s all right in a minute, and I don"t mind any longer."
Madge looked at her, with eyes that were half scornful, half admiring.
"There is just one thing that does tempt me," Lois went on, her eye going forth to the world outside the window, or to a world more distant and in tangible, that she looked at without seeing,--"I _do_ sometimes wish I had time to read and learn."
"Learn!" Madge echoed. "What?"
"Loads of things. I never thought about it much, till I went to New York last winter; then, seeing people and talking to people that were different, made me feel how ignorant I was, and what a pleasant thing it would be to have knowledge--education--yes, and accomplishments. I have the temptation to wish for that sometimes; but I know it is a temptation; for if I was intended to have all those things, the way would have been opened, and it is not, and never was. Just a breath of longing comes over me now and then for that; not for play, but to make more of myself; and then I remember that I am exactly where the Lord wants me to be, and _as_ he chooses for me, and then I am quite content again."
"You never said so before," the other sister answered, now sympathizingly.
"No," said Lois, smiling; "why should I? Only just now I thought I would confess."
"Lois, I have wished for that very thing!"
"Well, maybe it is good to have the wish. If ever a chance comes, we shall know we are meant to use it; and we won"t be slow!"