Chapter 2 Trouble Bearing Fruit
Chapter 2
Trouble Bearing Fruit
Lucy sauntered listlessly along, and at last threw herself down on the ground at the foot of a tree. It was a lovely, quiet evening. The crickets hummed cheerfully around her and the fresh, pure air was as full of life and cheer as they.
“I wish I were good!” she said to herself. “I wish I were a Christian! I wish I could help being irritable and selfish. Oh! I do wish I could be a Christian! But it’s no use. The more I try to be good, the worse I am. I hate to sew and work, and I love to read and study! Mother says the children are growing older, but so am I, and not learning anything hardly. But it’s wrong to grumble about it, I know. Oh! I do wish I were a Christian!” Though her energetic desires were silent, Lucy started as she heard an approaching footstep, as if caught in some guilty act.
It was her father. He sat down by her side, and for a little time both were silent. At last he said, “Your mother has been telling me that you are greatly interrupted and hindered in your studies. She feels troubled about it and so do I. But we must try to keep up our courage and hope for brighter days.”
“If Mother could spare me, I’d like to go away somewhere to school,” returned Lucy. “There’s a good school at Honeydale, and it wouldn’t cost much.”
“Mother would spare you,” he answered kindly, “but, my dear child, why not go to school here? Why leave home? Do you already dislike it here?”
“Of course not, Father. But Miss Wheeler says there’s no use coming to her any longer. She says,” she added, blushing, “that I’ve learned all she can teach in a village school.”
“You should have told me that,” he answered.
“There was no need, at first. Mother thought she could manage to give me time to study at home, and I thought it was going to be so nice. But she has to interrupt me. She can’t help it, and so I don’t learn anything at all.”
“Rebecca will soon leave school,” said her father. “Let me see! She’s two years older than you, isn’t she?”
“She’s nearly that; but you know she got behind because of her long sickness. That’s the reason I know more than she does.”
“That’s one reason,” he answered, smiling.
“Well, Father, when she leaves school, could you and mother spare me to go to Honeydale? I would work very hard and wear very simple clothes, and very soon I could teach school myself.”
“Dear child,” he said, “I certainly will not refuse to consider the question, at least.” He rose and walked slowly homeward. Lucy sat still with a beating heart. She was full of that hunger and thirst for knowledge that would not be satisfied, and for the moment it almost consumed her. She did not see the big drops on her father’s brow as he revolved her proposal in his mind, or hear the sighs that had forced them there.
“Sarah,” he said as he entered the house, “Lucy says she has learned all Miss Wheeler can teach her.”
“Yes,” she answered quietly, “I know. Miss Wheeler told me herself.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“You had enough cares already.”
“Could we possibly send her to Honeydale, do you think?” The mother cast her eye about the room.
“Is there anything we could sell?” she thought. “You can’t spare us,” said the old chairs, as her eye fell upon them. “There are too few of us now.”
“Where will you eat your dinner; how will you do your ironing, if I go?” asked the pine table.
“I must stay and rock the baby!” cried the cradle. “I’ve rocked all your babies for you patiently. Yes, I rocked you when you were a baby yourself. And now, would you turn me away?”
She sighed a little; then her patient heart took courage, and her imagination ran into her bedroom and looked in all her drawers to see what was there.
“Dear me!” it said, “what is there worth looking at here? Old, patched shirts, faded baby dresses and worn aprons, a collar you’ve had since Noah’s flood. Nobody would want them, even for free. And, for pity’s sake, what would you do without them?”
“You can’t think of any way it could be done?” said the father at last.
“No, not just yet, but perhaps I shall in time,” she said, determined to look at the bright side.
“If it were not for that debt, there’d be something to hope for,” he said.
“Yes, that debt! But one must have trouble. If we didn’t have that, we’d have something else.”
“A pleasant view of life!” he said bitterly.
“You’re not well tonight,” she said.
“I’d be well enough if I could see that child satisfied,” he returned.
Unobserved by her parents, for it was now quite dark, Lucy had entered the room, and heard the last few sentences. “A debt!” she thought. “How dreadful! No wonder father looks so careworn, and works so hard! And I have been worrying him about school!” She crept silently away to her room until her father called the family together for evening worship. As she knelt with the rest and listened to his prayer, she understood the secret care and sorrow veiled amid its petitions. As she bid him goodnight, she whispered, “Father, I think I won’t go away to school. I can get a good deal of time to study if I’m careful, and it’s just as well.” He kissed her more than once, not deceived by these generous words, but willing to gratify her for the time by seeming so.
“Well, we’ll let it rest for now,” he said. “And my precious child, remember it doesn’t matter how wise he is who has not learned Christ!”
“I know! I know!” she cried bitterly to herself. She lingered near him after the other children had retired.
“I don’t mean to disparage human wisdom,” he said. “But I would place heavenly wisdom so far above earthly.”
“I don’t remember the time when I didn’t place goodness first,” she answered timidly.
“And isn’t it time this feeling bears fruit?” he asked very tenderly.
“Oh, Father! Hasn’t it borne any fruit?” she asked, now bursting into tears.
“Don’t misunderstand me, darling,” he said, “I was only trying to lead you to say just what you said. We have watched you too long and with too much care not to notice that old things were passing away and all things becoming new, and I thought you would feel better to open your heart to us.”
“Yes, Father, I wish I could. But it was only a few hours ago when Mother called me from my books, I felt irritated. After that, I said to myself, ‘There’s no use! I’m not a Christian! Christians don’t feel like this!’”
“I wish that were true, my dear Lucy. But it’s not. Christians do feel like that. But they don’t allow themselves to remain in sin. They watch and pray, and struggle against it.”
“But it doesn’t do any good for me to do that,” said Lucy sadly. “I go right away and do wrong the moment I have resolved never to yield to temptation again.”
“Then go right back to your Savior and tell Him all about it, and beg Him to give you true and hearty sorrow and hatred of it.”
“I have, many times, but it’s no use.”
“And yet you have been growing more patient and gentle every day. Your mother has noticed it, and so have I. You may depend on it, that God never hears a prayer, however poor and imperfect, without answering it.”
Lucy felt cheered and encouraged by this assurance. She had long been groping about in the dark, wrapped in a reserve that was painful to both her parents and herself. Now the ice was broken. She would gladly have confided more, but this was needless. One glance had sufficed to show her father that the struggle against sin and the pursuit after God had begun, and he felt that he could safely leave her in His hands who “gives the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He asked her to kneel once more by his side. In a few solemn words, he gave himself and her to God, to be His and only His, forever. Then he retired for the night.
Lucy returned to her room, cheered and comforted. Many months ago, she had begun to hope that God had made her His child, but she had found little satisfaction in serving Him as long as she felt doubtful that He accepted her. She was prone to the tendency to give up, and in this, it assailed her disastrously. She had lacked that clear, distinct view of Christ as all in all, without which, even if there is religious life, there can be neither peace nor progress.
“Now I will go on with God’s help,” she thought, and from that hour she never faltered.