Mrs. Nathaniel Conklin

“ Then I shall go out into the world, or go back to Aunt Affy. I do not mean to be too proud—” with a quiver of the lip.
“Only just proud enough. You are exactly that. Let us live in peace this winter, and then your nineteenth birthday may do its worst for us all.”
“You will not be serious,” she answered, with vexed tears; “my life is a great deal to me.”
“It is a great deal to us all, dear. Work and be patient, and you will have as happy an ending as any story you write.”
“My children end as children,” she said, with a quick laugh. “I shouldn’t know what to do with them if they grew up.” ”

“ Roger Kenney, are you going there for the money?” asked Uncle Cephas, with solemnity.
“You know better than that,” replied Roger, angrily.
“The heart of man is deceitful. There’s a great difference in the salary. But there’s a difference in the man. You’ve grown some since you came here seven years ago.”
“Uncle Cephas, I think you are wicked,” protested Judith, with tearful vehemence. “If you don’t know Roger better than that you do not know him at all.”
“You don’t know men,” insisted the elder of the Bensalem church. “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.” ”

“ Judith’s guilty fingers snatched her needle, and she began stitching a black strip to a brown strip as Aunt Rody had expressly forbidden her to do.
“They don’t have to stay in the Wilderness,” replied Aunt Affy, “their own naughtiness kept them there.”
“H’m,” sniffed the voice across the hall. “I think some people who behave pretty well are kept in the Wilderness.”
“I like wild places,” said Judith, forgetting her ball again.
“And naughtiness, too,” snapped Aunt Rody.
“Oh, we all like that,” laughed Marion; “Aunt Rody, I am coming in there to tell you a story.” ”

“ I think I have grown old since you saw me; life has grown old if I have not. I know from the letters of Roger and Judith that you are just the same. Unless you are just the same I would not care to see you again. Your old friend, Don.”
She opened a drawer and laid the letter away; she would understand the rest of it when she was not in such a tumult. Did Roger know he was coming home? Judith had not told her. Had he told no one but herself? Did he expect her to tell the others? She had to take her eyes and burning cheeks down stairs, but she did not have to speak of her letter yet. ”

“ Marion looked ashamed; frightened at herself, and ashamed.
“How could I be so proud?”
“Oh, we all can,” said Aunt Affy, smiling. “And this brings me to my own story.”
“The new Bible,” said Judith, eagerly.
“One day I asked our Father to bring some one to me; my life has never been a going out, for Rody could never spare me, it has been a bringing in, instead; then I came in here and read about Judah and Simeon, and waited. The waiting is always a part of it.” ”

“ Aunt Rody had a way of bringing her work and sitting somewhere near when Marion came; the girl’s vivacity, and gossip of village folks, gossip in its heavenliest sense, attracted the hard-visaged, hard-handed, sharp-tongued old woman.
An afternoon with Marion Kenney was to the old woman, who never read stories, what a volume of short stories is to other people; stories, humorous, pathetic, and always with a touch of the best in life. ”

“ Sometimes, people say things will happen if we don’t pray; perhaps they will, it is not for me to say they will not, but the happening will not be in answer to prayer, and that has a joyfulness of its own, that nobody knows except the One who answers and the one who prays. That is a joy too great to be told. Sometimes, I know that I have been as happy over an answered prayer as I can be. And I can be very happy,” Aunt Affy said, with happy tears shining in her eyes. ”

“ I wish you would come to school to me; do you suppose you could?” asked Marion with a sudden and joyous inspiration.
“O, Miss Marion,” was all the girl could reply for very gladness.
“We will plan about it, Roger and I. If you can come and stay all day and study, and take music lessons, three or four days a week, it will be better than boarding-school for you, and more than you can think for me. You have been on my mind, but I didn’t dare propose anything; I knew Aunt Affy would not be allowed to have her way.” ”

“ Unless we forgive, our hearts grow hard; she could not forgive; she has said that she does not know how to forgive. Only in forgiving do our hearts grow like God’s heart. He is always forgiving.”
“I forgave somebody once,” remembered Judith; “mother,” with a start, “I do not always forgive Aunt Rody when she is ugly to me; if I do not will I have a hard heart?” ”

“ My only trouble is, and it is a real trouble, that God did not care for my purpose, or my prayers; that he has let them go as if they never entered into his mind; I thought they were in his heart as well as mine.”
“They are, Deary,” said Aunt Affy, wiping her eyes; “He will not let one of them go.”
“But He did not do anything with them. He did not love my plan, and my prayers,” said Judith, wearily.
“Do you remember one time when Jesus was on the earth, a man, clothed and in his right mind, sat at Jesus’ feet? He had so much to be thankful for; no man ever had so much. ”

“ Flowers and weeds began to grow in the cellar of Becky’s house; it’s only a big green hole now. Cephas wanted me to use her things; he said Becky would like it, and I knew she would. He comforted me and I comforted him. Rody didn’t like that, and sent him away. We comfort each other now, and always will. Rody can’t hinder everything. Why, child, don’t have such big eyes over my story. Becky has been happy all these blessed years, and Cephas and I talk over old times and look forward to new times; and, we would like to build a house over Becky’s cellar if Rody didn’t fume so. ”

“ As he returned to his house in peace, a seer met him, and said, ‘For this thing wrath is upon thee from the Lord.’”
“‘For this thing,’” repeated Judith. “For inquiring of the Lord, learning his will, and then believing the voice of the four hundred who gave him his own way. Oh, dear, I wish those four hundred would never speak.”
“There is but one way to silence them; listen to God’s voice above them all.”
“But it is so hard,” cried Judith, impetuously.
“Do not choose the easy way of obedience. ”

“ Nettie had marked the precious words in her Bible with the date of her accident, and another date: the day when she became a member of the Shut-In Society.
The Open Window had come in to-night’s mail; Nettie had been counting the hours until mail time, and laughed a joyful little laugh all to herself when she heard her father say to her mother in the hall below: “It’s mail time, and I must go to the office to-night, storm or no storm; Nettie will not sleep a wink unless she has her magazine.” ”

“ The girl’s eyes filled, and her lips trembled; was it that she had done?
“It’s time to set the table,” were Aunt Affy’s next words, in an unconcerned tone, polishing her glasses with a corner of her white apron. That small, clean old kitchen; how Judith loved it. She loved every kind of work that was done in it, even the wash-tubs, the smell of the suds was exhilarating, and baking and ironing days were her delight. Every nerve and muscle responded to the call to labor. ”

“ After that how could she feel faint-hearted?
“O, Judith,” said Aunt Affy, meeting her on the piazza, “how did you know I couldn’t do without you any longer? Joe has gone for the doctor; Rody has had another spell.”
In her own little room that night the girl knelt on the strip of rag carpet, and, with her head buried in the pink and white quilt, prayed that the voices of her self-will might be lost in the voice of the Holy Spirit. The coming back was even harder than she feared; Mr. King had not told her God’s truth when he said: “His way is always easier than we think.” ”

“ With all her twenty-one years, Marion Kenney was girlish enough to give a swift, shy look the length of the rooms to the long mirror between the windows in the front parlor. But picturesque was only—picturesque.
“I don’t see what a girl has to dress herself in furbelows for,” he went on, ardently, and with evident embarrassment, “when there’s nothing more becoming than the housekeeping costume; you are as bewitching in that red sweeping-cap as in your most fashionable headgear.” ”

“ Every day brings its own answer; your daily bread and God’s daily will come together; his bread gives us strength to do his will. Will mother’s little girl remember?”
“Yes,” said Judith gravely; “and when you see me forgetting you must remind me. Will it be wrong if I say ‘daily will’ when I say ‘daily bread’?”
“Not wrong,” answered her mother, smiling, “only that it comes in the prayer before daily bread.” ”

“ It is the own that makes the difference,” replied the girl-wife contentedly, nodding and smiling out the window to the man in shirt-sleeves and leather apron who stood in the doorway of the shop talking to the minister on horseback.
How could she ever tell Judith that Bensalem was gossiping about her staying at the parsonage?
“Your work is your own; it comes to be your own, whatever it is. Every girl cannot marry a blacksmith, Jean, and have a small home of her own.” ”

“ I will not stand in his way.”
“For pity’s sake, Roger, don’t think you must do anything,” cried Marion, dismayed; “let her alone. He will take care of himself.”
“I shall certainly let her alone. He is so artless that he will be taken care of. It is like him to stumble into the best thing in the universe and then wonder how he ever got it.”
“I hope you don’t call Meadow Centre one of the best things,” retorted Marion.
“It’s a good place for a man to make something of himself; he is writing sermons that will make a stir somewhere. ”

“ As she stood in the church doorway, waiting for Aunt Rody, who always had something to tell, or something to ask in the crowd in the aisle, she overheard a loud whisper behind her: “Oh, that’s Judith Mackenzie. She has come to stay with the Sparrow girls. Her mother was their niece. Father died long ago; mother last winter.” To escape further details, the listener stepped forward and down one step; there was a stir and some one stood beside her, a tall young man, not like any one else in Bensalem: she knew without raising her eyes that he was the new minister. ”

“ I hate Bensalem,” she burst out with anger and contrition.
“What has Bensalem done now?”
“Nothing unusual. Will you tell Marion I am going—home to stay to-night? Martha will come and help her in the housekeeping.”
“Judith, has any one hurt you?”
“No,” said Judith, smiling with the tears starting; “you are all too kind.”
“Is it for Aunt Affy you are going? Judith, you cannot deceive me.”
“No; I do not think I can. I am going for Aunt Affy’s sake, Roger.”
“Because she misses you?”
“Yes, because she misses me, and needs me. People think and say—she is not taking good care of me. ”

“ The small parlor was in its usual pretty order; in the sitting-room were a flower stand, and a canary’s cage; Mrs. Lane preferred the sitting-room, but with her instinct that “company” should have the best room, Jean had urged her into the parlor, drawing down the shades a little that the sunlight should not fade the roses in the new carpet.
“Judith is the craziest girl about doing things,” replied Jean; “she is ambitious, and she thinks she must earn money. I told her you wrote for a paper that was full of business for women, and could tell her what to do.” ”

“ The gate swung to, there was a step on the flagged path; with her hands dripping, she flew up the kitchen stairs; on the landing she waited, breathless, to hear what Aunt Rody would say.
The step was in the kitchen, there was a pause,—Aunt Rody must be uncovering the bread; a smothered exclamation, then a quick, angry voice: “That Joe! He’s always doing something underhanded. He’s too fond of eating; I will not say one word, but he shall not have any of this graham bread, or the next, if I can help it. ”

“ Marion answered; “I don’t see how people can help being like their letters.”
“Or their letters like them?” corrected Judith.
“Then how is it we are disappointed in people?” Mr. King questioned; “is it only our lack of insight?”
“People change,” said Marion, with slow emphasis; “if we were with them all the time we would see the little changes that lead the way to the great changes. People are even disappointed in themselves; I am.” ”

“ X. THE LAST APPLE.
“God loves not only a cheerful giver, but a cheerful
worker as well.”
—Fletcher Reade.
That afternoon as Nettie was slowly rousing herself from her afternoon nap in her chair, she heard a low, joyful exclamation under her windows.
“Oh, lovely. Mrs. Evans, it’s like—a poem.”
Then a light flashed over the pale face, and Nettie lifted herself forward to look, and to speak.
“O, Judith, I wanted you to see them. You do love pretty things so.”
Judith came through the shed, and up the narrow rag-carpeted stairs to the open door of Nettie’s chamber. ”

“ I make castles about grown-up things. When I make an air-castle I am never a little girl, but a big girl, fifteen or eighteen, and that kind of things happen; the kind of things that happen to girls in books. Is that silly?”
“No; it is only not wise. It spoils to-day, and to-day is too good to be spoiled. God has made to-day for us, and we slight his gift by passing it by and trying to find out the things that will happen to us to-morrow. Suppose you would not read the children’s books Cousin Don sent you, but coax him to give you grown-up books.”
“I couldn’t be so mean,” said Judith warmly. ”