CHAPTER V.
The captain was carrying a basket. Lulu asked if she might know what was in it.
“Yes,” he said; “it contains a few delicacies for a poor sick woman whom we are going to see.”
They had been pursuing a path running parallel with the highway, and which had led them into a wood, but now the captain turned aside into another, leading to a hut standing some distance back from the road.
“Is it in that little cabin she lives?” asked Lulu.
“Yes; a poor place, isn’t it? hardly occupying so much space as one of our parlors. And there is quite a large family of children.”
“I’m sorry for them; it must be dreadful to live so,” said Lulu, her tones full of heartfelt sympathy. “But, papa, what makes them so poor?”
“I suppose they had no early advantages of education—they are very ignorant at all events—but the principal trouble is idleness and drunkenness on the part of the husband andfather. It makes it very difficult to help them too, as he takes every thing he can lay his hands on and spends it for drink.”
“Oh, I can never, never be thankful enough that my father is so different from that!” cried Lulu, with another glad, loving look up into his face.
He only smiled in return and pressed the hand he held, for they had now reached the door of the cabin and it was instantly opened by one of the children, who had seen their approach from the window.
One room, that to which they were admitted, served for kitchen, living room and bedroom, and with a loft overhead and a shed behind, comprised the whole house.
The first object that met their eyes on entering was the sick woman lying on a bed in one corner; the first sound that saluted their ears her hollow cough. She was very pale, and so emaciated that she seemed to be nothing but skin and bone.
“How are you this morning, Mrs. Jones?” the captain asked in kindly sympathizing tones, as he drew near the bed and took the bony hand she feebly held out to him.
“P’raps a leetle better, cap’n,” she answered pantingly. “I slep’ so good and warm under these awful nice blankets you sent fur Chris-mus; an’ the jelly an’ cream an’ t’other goodies—oh,but they was nice! I can’t never pay you fur all yer goodness—no, nor the half o’ it; but the good Lord—he’ll make it up to you somehow or other.
“An’ ye’ve brung yer leetle gal to see me? that’s kind, Mandy, set the cheer fur the gentleman—we ain’t got but one, cap’n—an’ find somethin’ fur her to set on, Mandy.”
“There, I cayn’t talk no more, me breath’s clean gone.”
“No, you shouldn’t try to talk,” the captain said, taking the chair that “Mandy” had set for him after wiping the dust from it with a very greasy, dirty apron. “And don’t trouble yourself, Amanda, to find a seat for my little girl; she is used to this one and likes it better than any other, I believe,” he added with a tenderly affectionate smile into Lulu’s eyes as he drew her to his knee.
“Yes, that I do,” returned Lulu, emphatically, glancing proudly from her father to Amanda, who stood regarding them in open-mouthed astonishment.
“Well, I never!” she ejaculated the next moment. “Wouldn’t I be s’prised out’n a year’s growth ef pap should act that a-way to me? And I shouldn’t like it nuther; the furder I kin git away from the likes o’ him the better, I think, so I do.”
The mother turned her face away with a groan.
“’Tain’t no fault o’ hern, cap’n,” she said; “ef Bijah wur like ye, sir, the childer’d be glad enough to git clost to him.”
“Yes; love begets love,” he said. Then taking up his basket, which he had set on the floor beside his chair; “I have something here for you and should like to see you eat some of it now.”
“What is it, cap’n?” she asked as he handed her a large china cup filled with something white, creamy, and very tempting in appearance.
“They call it Spanish Cream,” he answered. “I think you will find it good; and these lady-fingers, just fresh from the oven when I started will go nicely with it,” he added, setting a plate of them down on the bed beside her.
“Lady-fingers?” she repeated; “what’s them? I never hearn on ’em afore.”
“Sponge cakes,” he said; “they are very light and neither rich nor tough; so I think you may eat freely of them without fear of harm.”
“They’re mighty nice, cap’n,” she said when she had tasted them; “an’ this here creamy stuff—I never tasted nothin’ better. It wuz awful kind o’ ye to fetch ’em, but I haint got no appetite no more, an’ so ye mustn’t think hard o’ me that I don’t eat hearty of ’em.”
“Oh, no, certainly not,” he said.
“Shall I empty them things and wash ’em, ma?” asked Amanda, drawing near the bed and looking with longing eyes at the dainty food.
“Yes; but don’t you uns eat ’em clean up from yer sick mother that cayn’t eat yer bacon an’ corn bread and taters.”
“No; just a mite to see what ther like,” returned the girl, dipping up a huge spoonful of the cream and hastily transferring it to her widely-opened mouth; while a little crowd of younger children, who, from the farther side of the room, had been staring in silent curiosity at the captain and Lulu, burst out all together, “Gimme some, gimme some, Mandy; ye shan’t have it all, so ye shan’t.”
“No; ye cayn’t none on ye have none; it’s all fer yer poor sick ma, and ye’d orter to be ’shamed to be axin’ fer it,” returned Amanda sharply.
“Let them have a taste all around,” said the captain kindly. “I’ll have some more made and sent over by the time your mother wants it. But don’t wash the things; just empty them and put them back in the basket.”
“Yes, Mandy, ye might break ’em; put ’em back jes so,” panted the invalid from the bed.
When the children had quieted down, Capt. Raymond, taking a Testament from his pocket, asked if he should read a few verses.
“Yes, sir; oh yes, ef yer ain’t in too big a hurry. Please read about the blood; the blood that kin wash a sinner bad as me, clean nuff to git to heaven; them verses runs in my mind all the time. The Lord above knows I’ve need nuff o’ that washin’.”
“Yes,” he said, “we all need it more than any thing else; for in no other way can we be saved from the wrath to come! There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved!”
Then turning over the leaves of his Testament he read: “But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
“If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
“And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. This then is the message that we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth; but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
“Yes, yes; them’s the blessed words!” she cried, clasping her hands and raising her eyes to heaven. “Oh, if I only knowed ’twas fer me, me that hasn’t never tried to serve him, and now cayn’t do nothin’ but lie here and suffer!”
“If you bear your sufferings patiently it will be acceptable service to Him,” the captain answered. “He pondereth the hearts; he sees all the motives and springs of action. And he will not let you have one pain, one moment of distress that is not for your good—making you fit for a home with him in heaven—if you give yourself to him in love and submission, and try earnestly to learn the lessons he would teach you.
“But never forget that salvation can not be earned and deserved either by doing or enduring: it is God’s free, unmerited gift, bought for his chosen ones by the blood and righteousness of Christ. He offers them to us, and if we accept the gift, God will treat us as if they were actually our own: as if we had been sinless like Jesus, and had died the dreadful death that he died in our stead.”
“I—I don’t seem to see it quite plain yet,” she said; “please, sir, ask Him to show me jest how to do it.”
The captain willingly granted her request, kneeling by the bed; Lulu by his side.
His prayer was short, earnest and to the point; his language so simple that the poor sick woman, ignorant though she was, understood every word.
She thanked him in tremulous tones and with eyes full of tears.
“I hain’t got long to stay,” she whispered, faintly, “but I hope I’m ’bout ready now, fer I’ve tried to give myself to Him. I wish I’d know’d you years back, cap’n, and begun to serve Him then.”
Lulu seemed to have lost her gay spirits and walked along quite soberly by her father’s side as they went on their homeward way.
“Papa,” she asked, with a slight tremble in her voice, “is that woman going to die?”
“I think she has not many days to live, daughter,” he answered with a sigh, thinking how doubly forlorn her children would be without her.
“Then I’m very, very sorry for ‘Mandy’ and the others; it’s so hard for children to have their mother die!”
“And you know all about it by sad experience, my dear little daughter,” he responded, bending a tenderly compassionate look upon her as she lifted her eyes to his.
“Yes, papa; and so do Max and Gracie.”
“Do you remember your mother?” he asked.
“Not just exactly how she looked, papa; but oh, I’ve never forgotten how nice it was to have her to love, and to love us. Papa, I don’t believe she had a temper like mine, had she?”
“No, daughter; she was very amiable, very sweet and lovely in disposition. As I have already told you several times, you inherit your temper from me.”
“Papa, I’d never know you had a bit of a temper. Oh, do you think I can ever get to be like you in controlling mine?”
“Certainly, dear child. Can you think I would be so cruel as to punish you for its indulgence if I did not think you could control it?”
“No, papa; I know you’d never be cruel to me or any body.”
Then going back to the former topic of discourse. “It’ll be a great deal worse for those children to lose their mother than it was for us to lose ours (though ours was so, so much nicer), for they won’t have a good father left like we have. But O papa, it did seem so dreadful when you had to leave us and go off to sea so soon after mamma was buried.”
“Yes,” he replied, in moved tones, “dreadful to me as well as to my children!”
“But that’s all over now, and we can have you with us all the time; and in a dear, sweet home of our own,” she cried, joyously.
“And a new mamma who is very sweet and kind to my once motherless children, I think.”
“Yes, papa, she is; and it’s very nice to have such a pretty, gentle lady to—to do the honors of the house. That’s what people call it, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he returned, laughing in an amused way.
“And I s’pose you’re a good deal happier than you would be without her?”
“Indeed, I am! very much happier.”
Lulu felt a burning desire to ask if he had loved her mother as dearly as he did this second wife, but did not dare venture quite so far. She asked another question instead.
“Papa, did you give those children shoes and stockings?”
“What put it into your head that I did?” he queried in turn.
“Oh, I saw they all had good ones on, and I don’t believe their father ever bought them for them.”
“No; and I fear they’ll soon go for liquor.”
“Papa, I have a woolen dress that’s most out at the elbows; Mamma Vi said I’d better not wear it any more. May I get Christine or Agnes to patch it and give it to one of those Jones children? I think it would be about big enough for one of them.”
“You may get Christine to show you how tomend it and then you may give it to the little girl.”
“But—I—I don’t like to sew, papa, and I’m sure Christine would be willing to do it.”
“I presume she would, but, daughter, I want you to learn both how to do such work neatly, and what pleasure may be found in self-denying exertion for others. I am not laying a command upon you, however, but it will gratify me very much if, of your own free will, you will do what I desire.”
“Papa, I will,” she said, after a moment’s struggle with herself, “for I love to please you, and I just know you know what is best for me.”
“That’s my own dear little girl,” he said, smiling down at her.