FIRESIDE SAINTS
Atan early age St Dolly showed the sweetness of her nature by her tender love for her widowed father, a baker, dwelling at Pie Corner, with a large family of little children. It chanced that with bad harvests bread became so dear that, of course, bakers were ruined by high prices. The miller fell upon Dolly’s father, and swept the shop with his golden thumb. Not a bed was left for the baker or his little ones. St Dolly slept upon a flour sack, having prayed that good angels would help her to help her father. Now sleeping, she dreamt that the oven was lighted, and she felt falling in a shower about her raisins, currants, almonds, lemon peel, flour, with heavy drops of brandy. Then in her dreams she saw the fairies gather up the things that fell and knead them into a cake. They put the cake into the oven, and dancing round and round, the fairies vanished, crying, “Draw the cake, Dolly—Dolly, draw the cake!” And Dolly awoke and drew the cake, and, behold, it was the first twelfth cake, sugared at the top, and bearing theimages of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Now this cake, shown in the window, came to the king’s ear; and the king bought the cake, knighted the baker, and married Dolly to his grand falconer, to whom she proved a faithful and loving wife, bearing him a baker’s dozen of lovely children.
St Patty was an orphan, and dwelt in a cot with a sour old aunt. It chanced, it being bitter cold, that three hunters came and craved for meat and drink. “Pack!” said the sour aunt, “neither meat nor drink have ye here.” “Neither meat nor drink,” said Patty; “but something better.” And she ran and brought some milk, some eggs, and some flour, and, beating them up, poured the batter in the pan. Then she took the pan and tossed the cake over; and then a robin alighted at the window, and kept singing these words—One good turn deserves another. And Patty tossed and tossed the cakes; and the hunters ate their fill and departed. And next day the hunter-baron came in state to the cot; and trumpets were blown, and the heralds cried—One good turn deserves another; in token whereof Patty became the baron’s wife, and pancakes were eaten on Shrove Tuesday ever after.
St Norah was a poor girl, and came to England to service. Sweet-tempered and gentle, she seemed to love everything she spoke to. And she prayed to St Patrick that he would give her a good gift that would make her not proud but useful: and St Patrick, out of his own head, taught St Norahhow to boil a potato. A sad thing, and to be lamented, that the secret has come down to so few.
St Betsy was wedded to a knight who sailed with Raleigh and brought home tobacco; and the knight smoked.But he thought that St Betsy, like other fine ladies of the court, would fain that he should smoke out of doors, nor taint with ’bacco-smoke the tapestry. Whereupon the knight would seek his garden, his orchard, and in any weather smokesub Jove. Now it chanced as the knight smoked St Betsy came to him and said, “My lord, pray ye come into the house.” And the knight went with St Betsy, who took him into a newly-cedared room, and said, “I pray, my lord, henceforth smoke here: for is it not a shame that you, who are the foundation and the prop of your house, should have no place to put your head into and smoke?” And St Betsy led him to a chair, and with her own fingers filled him a pipe; and from that time the knight sat in the cedar chamber and smoked his weed.
St Phillis was a virgin of noble parentage, but withal as simple as any shepherdess of curds and cream. She married a wealthy lord, and had much pin-money. But when other ladies wore diamond and pearls, St Phillis only wore a red and white rose in her hair. Yet her pin-money brought the best of jewellery in the happy eyes of the poor about her. St Phillis was rewarded. She lived until fourscore, and still carried the red and white rose in her face, and left their fragrance in her memory.
St Phœbe was married early to a wilful, but withal a good-hearted husband. He was a merchant, and would come home sour and sullen from ’change. Whereupon, after much pondering, St Phœbe in her patience set to work and, praying the while, made of dyed lambswool a door-mat. And it chanced from that time, that never did the husband touch that mat that it didn’t clean histemper with his shoes, and he sat down by his Phœbe as mild as the lamb whose wool he had trod upon. Thus gentleness may make miraculous door-mats!
St Sally, from her childhood, was known for her inner-most love of truth. It was said of her that her heart was in a crystal shrine, and all the world might see it. Moreover, when other women denied, or strove to hide their age, St Sally said, “I am five-and-thirty.” Whereupon next birthday St Sally’s husband, at a feast of all their friends, gave her a necklace of six-and-thirty opal beads; and on every birthday added a bead, until the beads mounted to four-score and one. And the beads seemed to act as a charm; for St Sally, wearing the sum of her age about her neck, age never appeared in her face. Such, in the olden time, was the reward of simplicity and truth.
A very good man was St Becky’s husband, but with his heart a little too much in his bottle. Port wine—red port wine—was his delight, and his constant cry was—bee’s-wing. Now as he sat tipsy in his arbour, a wasp dropped into his glass, and the wasp was swallowed, stinging the man inwardly. Doctors crowded, and with much ado the man’s life was saved. Now St Becky nursed her husband tenderly to health, and upbraided him not; but she said these words, and they reformed him:—“My dear, take wine, and bless your heart with it—but wine in moderation: else, never forget that the bee’s wing of to-day becomes the wasp’s sting of to-morrow.”
St Lily was the wife of a poor man, who tried to support his family—and the children were many—by writing books.But in those days it was not as easy for a man to find a publisher as to say his paternoster. Many were the books that were written by the husband of St Lily; but to every book St Lily gave at least two babes. However, blithe as the cricket was the spirit that ruled about the hearth of St Lily. And how she helped her helpmate! She smiled sunbeams into his ink bottle, and turned his goose pen to the quill of a dove! She made the paper he wrote on as white as her name, and as fragrant as her soul. And when folks wondered how St Lily managed so lightly with fortune’s troubles, she always answered, that she never heeded them, fortroubles were like babies, and only grew the bigger by nursing.
St Fanny was a notable housewife. Her house was a temple of neatness. Kings might have dined upon her staircase! Now her great delight was to provide all things comfortable for her husband, a hard-working merchant, much abroad, but loving his home. Now one night he returned tired and hungry, and, by some mischance, there was nothing for supper. Shops were shut; and great was the grief of St Fanny. Taking off a bracelet of seed pearl she said, “I’d give this ten times over for a supper for my husband.” And every pearl straightway became an oyster, and St Fanny opened—the husband ate—and lo! in every oyster was a pearl as big as a hazel nut; and so was St Fanny made rich for life.
St Florence, by her works, had her lips blessed with comforting, and her hands touched with healing; and she crossed the sea, and built hospitals, and solaced, and restored. And so long as English mistletoe gathers beneath it truthful hearts, and English holly brightenshappy eyes, so long will Englishmen, at home or abroad, on land or on the wave—so long, in memory of that Eastern Christmas, will they cry—God bless St Florence! Bless St Nightingale!
St Jenny was wedded to a very poor man; they had scarcely bread to keep them; but Jenny was of so sweet a temper that even want bore a bright face, and Jenny always smiled. In the worst seasons Jenny would spare crumbs for the birds, and sugar for the bees. Now it so happened that one autumn a storm rent their cot in twenty places apart; when, behold, between the joists, from the basement to the roof, there was nothing but honeycomb and honey—a little fortune for St Jenny and her husband, in honey. Now some said it was the bees, but more declared it was the sweet temper of St Jenny that had filled the poor man’s house with honey.
Saint Jenny
Saint Jenny
Saint Jenny