Chapter 18 Lucy in Trouble
Chapter 18
Lucy in Trouble
Helen was now very happy. Walking in the steady light of Lucy’s example, she made fewer mistakes in judgment and was less easily led astray by her passion and impulsiveness. Charles, too, allowed himself to be guided by Lucy when he would listen to no other voice. And this was no small feat, for he was at that age when boys think it particularly manly to pick up all sorts of odd and questionable habits, to pepper their conversation with slang expressions, and defy authority and laugh at reproof. His mother quietly rejoiced in the gentle, refining influence now exerted over him, while she admired Lucy’s tact, her patience, her wonderful wisdom in her conversations with him.
One person, however, regarded Lucy with an unfriendly eye. This was Helen’s friend, Mary Anna. Things had never been right between the two since the conversation previously described. Not that Helen had unkind feelings toward her friend; but Mary Anna’s envious and selfish behavior on that occasion was a painful and embarrassing memory for her. Naturally, however, Helen had been drawn closer and closer to her cousin. This was due to the common ground they shared in that Christian race which they pursued together.
Mary Anna was full of worldly tastes, though she regarded herself as a Christian. She had not so learned to love Christ as to delight in giving up even innocent pleasures for His sake, and she knew little of the serenity and peace found in a life of faith. There are many uncomfortable Christians in this world. Mary Anna was one. She performed many religious duties because others did so and because she thought she must. Lucy and Helen, on the contrary, performed these same acts because it was their privilege to do so. With what cheerful eagerness we sometimes see a child run to offer a flower to her mother! But the same act is performed sluggishly with apparent difficulty when instead of the lively emotion of love, she is only obeying a command!
Poor Mary Anna was always doing something to appease her conscience, and this was made necessary by her so frequently doing something to torture it. Sometimes for weeks on end, she would lead a very worldly and thoughtless life; then she would have spasms of goodness, and nothing could be more ardent than her devotion. One day she was sure she did not deserve to be called a Christian, and on the next her mountain would stand strong, and she would say, “I shall never be moved!” Now there was doubtless a little true grace in her heart, but it was but a spark. A slight breath of temptation threatened its existence. But feeble as it was, Mary Anna tried to warm and animate herself thereby, and she kept wondering why she was always so cheerless and unfeeling.
And all this time the great Fountain of light and life was open to her. She only had to turn forever away from the contemplation of herself, to be enlivened, strengthened, and filled with all the fullness of Christ. How strange it would look to see a plant constantly watching its own growth, and chiding itself on account of its slow progress, when all it had to do was give itself up to the nurture of sun and rain, and the kindly influences of the soil where it was transplanted!
“I wish I had your happy disposition!” she said one morning to Lucy, as the two cousins entered the classroom. “But everything depends on temperament. I was born with a desponding temper, and I suppose there is no escaping it.”
Lucy wanted very much to infuse some of her own sunshine into this cloudy mind, but she hesitated because she felt young and inexperienced.
“I wasn’t born with a particularly happy disposition,” she said. “Actually, I think I used to suffer a great deal of either real or imagined misery.”
“And are you always happy now?”
“Always!” replied Lucy, emphatically.
“Oh, well, you have everything to make you happy. Your uncle’s family just adores you, and you have all sorts of pleasures and luxuries. Perhaps you would miss them a little if you lost them.”
Lucy was a little pained by these remarks. She felt that she could leave all these “pleasures and luxuries” cheerfully if it was necessary. Her happiness was built on less perishable objects.
“Oh, Mary Anna!” said Helen, “I wish you could only catch a little of Lucy’s faith! I wish you knew how very happy you might be if you would!”
Mary Anna sighed. This was one of her desponding days. She retired with a heavy heart to her desk, where amid her books she forgot her depression for a while. Indeed, she soon appeared cheerful and even happy. But Helen, who knew her well, knew that her friend’s mirth was only pretending, and the despondent expression was not long absent from her face.
“Ah! What can I do for her?” she thought. “I wish I could tell her how many real troubles Lucy has. Then her cheerfulness would puzzle her, I’m sure, and she would see how much it’s worth seeking.”
Everything seemed to be going on prosperously for Lucy, but one evening, as they all sat together working on various things, she suddenly fainted and fell from her chair. In a few moments, she recovered herself and would have resumed her lessons if her uncle had allowed it. But he looked at her anxiously and told her to go to bed at once. Lucy was preparing to go, when Helen, who had been quite agitated and alarmed, cried out reproachfully, “Oh, Lucy! it all comes of those everlasting shirts!”
“What everlasting shirts?” inquired Mrs. Whittier.
“Oh, Helen! How could you?” cried Lucy. She ran from the room, and Helen was hurrying after her but was held back by her father.
“Let your mother go after Lucy,” he said. “I want to know the meaning of all these ‘Oh, Lucy’s!’ and ‘Oh, Helen’s!’ Come! What is it all about?”
“Papa! You must not ask me! It is a secret of Lucy’s. I never meant to tell it. What I said just slipped out before I knew it.”
“Upon my word,” he replied, “it must be a mighty secret if you’re not allowed to repeat. But surely your mother knows about it?”
“No, Papa; Lucy would not allow me to tell Mama.”
“I hate mysteries,” said her father, “and, above all things, the secrets of schoolgirls. I’m sure there is something wrong here. It’s certainly strange for Lucy to confide in you, matters you deem it your duty to conceal from us!”
Quite thrown off her guard by hearing Lucy attacked, Helen proceeded to tell, most incoherently and eagerly, that Lucy had learned that her eldest brother John was going to sea and that her mother was killing herself by working at night on his clothes. After writing in vain to urge him not to go, Lucy was relieving her mother by making his shirts. She had bought, cut out, and made eleven, and was now at work on the twelfth. She had risen early and sat up late to do this, and she had begged Helen never to whisper a word on the subject.
During this story, her mother had returned to the parlor, looking grave and anxious, and Helen thought both her parents were hurt and displeased.
“Lucy has shown a great lack of confidence in us,” her father said. Her mother nodded in agreement.
Helen looked on in dismay. She felt that Lucy had done wrong, but it was an error of judgment, such a one as she might herself have fallen into. In fact, she was sure she would have done as Lucy had, in her position.
“Mama!” she said, encouraged by her reflections, “I’m sure you can’t blame Lucy for wanting to relieve her mother!”
“Certainly not. I greatly admire her devotion. But she knew I would cheerfully have had this work done for her, and her keeping it such a secret, proves that she knew she was doing wrong.”
“Oh, Mama! I told her you would have it done for her, but that always made her beg me to say nothing to you about it. She said she would be ashamed to have you do anything more for her family, after all you had done.”
“Nonsense!” cried Mr. Whittier.
“I would feel the same in her circumstances,” cried Helen. “And I know both you and Mama would have thought it presumptuous of Lucy to ask you to have John’s shirts made for him.”
Her father laughed. “Well, calm down! Calm down! I am not going to send Lucy to the stake, my dear.” But now Lucy, the very picture of sweetness and innocence, came back to plead her own case.
“I know I have done wrong, Uncle,” she said. “But at the time I didn’t see that I was wrong.”
Her uncle and aunt were touched by her tears and pale face. Her aunt drew her into a comfortable seat at her side, while Helen threw herself at her feet, and kissed her hands again and again.
“Foolish child!” said her uncle, patting her on the head. “Did you think your aunt would refuse to help you by having this sewing done?”
“No, Uncle, but—”
“But you thought she could not afford it?”
Lucy thought no such thing. She looked embarrassed and anxious.
“My dear Lucy,” he continued, “too much gratitude annoys me far more than too little could. You don’t need to feel so terribly burdened under the weight of what your aunt and I are doing for you. What is it, after all? A matter of a few dollars and cents?”
Lucy allowed herself to be cheered by her uncle’s attempt to cheer her, and by her aunt’s and Helen’s caresses, but there remained a sore spot in her heart still. It amounted almost to physical pain. Full of refined and sensitive feeling, and the daughter of a man who lacked and would always lack abundance; how many embarrassments had she met with! How many still lay before her! And yet a queen, with a worldly and proud spirit, might have envied this young girl for the Christian fortitude and cheerful endurance with which, by its very discipline, Heaven was arming her.
“Which of the boys is John?” asked her uncle.
“He comes next to Hatty; he is about fourteen now. He got restless some time ago and wanted to go to sea but gave up on it when he found out how we all felt about it. But Arthur, who really seems older than John, has written to me about it since; and not many weeks ago, Mother wrote. She said she and Father had never been so tried and perplexed, but they had finally decided to let him go. It was after this that Arthur told me how hard Mother was working to get him ready, and how the labor and the anxiety had worn on her. I made him promise to tell me exactly how things went on at home. I know Father and Mother would try to keep all their trials and cares from me.”
“But this John; wasn’t he the little fellow who tried to black my boots? He surely is not fit to go to sea.”
“He has grown astonishingly fast since then, they say; and feels as big as a man.”
“But excuse me; if he isn’t a fool, he’s a rogue, I am sure. For he pretended to me, he thought himself made of dust, and I don’t know what other nonsense.”
Lucy laughed. “He is a real rogue,” she said, “and until you know him well, you wouldn’t know what to make of him.”
“Has he any really bad habits?”
“Oh no, sir! He’s only a little wild and restless. He’s a bright boy about some things, but he never liked going to school or confinement of any kind. Arthur says he told Father he felt crowded on the farm. He wanted more room.”
“I imagine he would find himself more ‘crowded’ in a hammock at sea. I’ll tell you what you may do—but wait, I’ll do it myself. It’s not safe for you to be sitting here, looking so pale. Go to bed, dear child, and I will write to your father about John. I’m sure we can devise something better for him than going to sea, for now, at least.”
Lucy thanked her uncle warmly and went to bed with one less care. Despite trying to leave John in the hands of God, she knew too much about the temptations and dangers of the life of a boy at sea, to be free from great concern on his account.
Helen saw clearly that her parents loved Lucy more than ever, since this little incident. As for herself, her head was full of imaginative plans.
What if she had a fortune left her? Wouldn’t it be delightful to send it all to Lucy’s hard-working father?
Suppose some rich old man should meet Lucy in the street, admire her lovely face, take the trouble to inquire into her history, and then suddenly die leaving her heiress to all his property? Stranger things had happened.
What if she herself should pack up a large box of clothes for those children and send it to Lucy’s mother?
This last idea, admittedly, had a matter-of-fact quality about it, hardly worthy of as brilliant an imagination as Helen’s. Her mother, while she smiled at the first ideas, thought favorably of the latter suggestion.
“But not now,” she added, as she saw Helen’s eager countenance. “For it would perhaps annoy Lucy, now that she has been so disturbed about those shirts. Pretty soon we’ll manage it to give her unmixed joy.”
“Will you let me make the things, Mama?
“I don’t think so. There is that poor girl that we heard of yesterday. She supports both herself and a blind mother by her sewing. I’ll give her this work.”
“Shall you do nothing yourself, then?”
“No, I think not.”
Helen looked disappointed.
“I don’t think there is much merit in giving things that it costs us no trouble to give,” she said.
“There is no need of merit in it; is there?”
“Why, no, not exactly. But I was thinking, Mama, that if you and I made the things ourselves, it would cost us some self-denial to do it, and—”
Her mother smiled.
“I see how it is,” she said. “You wish to earn a right to think highly of yourself.”
“Oh no, Mama! I don’t, indeed!”
“I will not argue that point with you, my dear. But tell me, what is your goal in preparing this box for your aunt?”
“Why, to relieve her from sewing so much, and to please both her and Lucy.”
“Okay, and isn’t this goal achieved by the plan I propose? You see it is not a question of merit at all. The question is, how can we do the most good? Not, how can we gain the most honor for ourselves?”
“Then there never can be any merit in you giving, Mama. You have only to put your hand in your pocket and take out the money.”
“Well,” returned her mother, smiling, “I ought to be thankful that the money is there when I want it, and that I have the heart to give it away when it is needed. But let me tell you, for your comfort, that I must deny myself every hour the pleasure of relieving others, as I would like to do.”
“But, Mama, doesn’t the Bible urge us to do other things for the poor, than just give them money?”
“Undoubtedly, my dear Helen. We were speaking now of only one case. You are confined by your studies at school and home for a very large part of each day, and you absolutely need to be refreshed and have some exercise during every spare moment. Otherwise, I would allow you to make as many garments as you chose. But you must wait, in patience, until the proper time comes. There will be some merit in that, my dear.”
“Well, then, when I leave school I’m going to spend all my time sewing for poor people and fitting up boxes of clothes for them. And I will send cartloads of nice, comfortable things, to old women, poor sickly girls, and neglected little children!”
Her mother would not curb her youthful enthusiasm by even a look of dissent or doubt. Her father now threw down his paper and called Helen to come to him. “When I was a young man,” he said, “I heard some friends of mine speaking of a young lady in the neighborhood; and one of them said to me, ‘Whittier, you are a good-looking fellow. Why don’t you deliver the damsel from the hands of the cross old lady who has charge of her? She is an heiress, it is said.’
“Now, I had a notion in my young head that heiresses were, of necessity, proud, heartless, and worldly, so I took no notice of the conversation, although I unavoidably listened to it.
‘“They say this aunt is a stingy old soul, who won’t let the poor girl spend a penny. But at night, when the old lady is in bed, she sits up and makes garments for the poor in the neighborhood with her own hands.’
“Several of the young men laughed and shrugged their shoulders. For my part, I thought such a maiden, without a penny in her pocket, would be a richer treasure to me than many others, with their weight in gold at my disposal and as it happened, I met, admired, and loved her, and even asked her to become my wife.”
“And what did she say, Papa?”
“You can ask her yourself,” he answered, pointing to the corner where her mother sat, smiling and shaking her head at him.
“Oh, Mama!” cried Helen, throwing herself on her knees at her mother’s feet, and kissing the hands which so many years ago had done these works of mercy. “How I love you! How glad I am that Papa married you!”
She could find no other words with which to express her surprise and gladness.
“My dear Helen, you must not think of my beloved aunt as a ‘stingy old soul!’ That was just the folly of those young men, you know!”
Her father looked affectionately at them both and even got up to kiss one of those hands Helen was holding.
The influence of this hour followed Helen through life. Again and again, when denying herself a passing pleasure for the sake of administering to the wants of others, the image of her mother, an unworldly, loving young girl, came and stood as it were by her side, smiled on her at her task, and made it sunshine in the very depths of her heart!
“I must tell you one thing, however,” added her mother, “of some importance. Before your father ‘met, admired, and loved me,’ every cent I owned, except a small sum in the hands of Miss Prigott, was lost at sea. All my property, with that exception, was invested clumsily, so that even the insurance had not been renewed when it should have been. The very day after the insurance ran out, my worldly wealth sank like lead in the mighty waters.”
“That’s the best part of the story!” cried Helen “I’m so glad papa married you for yourself, and not your money!”
“You’re a romantic little thing,” said her father. “What do you suppose people live on who haven’t money?”
Helen did not know; nor did she much care. “How did Miss Prigott come to have your money, Mama?”
“Oh, it happened like this. At the time of my downfall, she was very kind. She came and stood by me when other friends grew cool. I shall never forget it. She even offered to divide her property with me. But of course, I could not allow her to do that.”
“I hope I’ll learn to like her after this, Mama.”
“I hope so too, my dear. With all her oddities, she is a generous, kind-hearted woman and her life has been full of
trouble.”