A MISSIONARY MOTHER by Lida F. Scott

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 6, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 10.

A MISSIONARY MOTHER.

By Lida F. Scott

(Concluded.)

“WELL, well,” Mrs. Gerry is saying, prying thru the bowed shutters, “if there isn’t Mrs. Palmer starting off with the two children, and the girl, too, bag and baggage, leaving the house alone, I declare. Lunch baskets, too, and the babies carrying their own little sacks, looking as fresh and happy as the spring morning. What! such unheard-of intimacy springing up between her and the reserved little Mrs. Royce!”

Mrs. Royce came out as if she were expecting them, bringing her oldest child with her. They entered a trolley-car at the corner, leaving poor Mrs. Gerry just as curious as she could be.

It was not a long ride to a beautiful, wooded park, which they entered. The children were delighted. Golden-haired Grace and dark-haired Florence jumped up and down like a funny little parrot in the menagerie. But it was different with Charlie Royce, who had lost much of the spontaneity of childhood. He looked with wistful eyes on the pair and then down at his spotless white clothes, and concluded, evidently, that running and jumping were out of the question. Mrs. Palmer called Grace and Florence to her side, and, taking from her satchel two dark gingham aprons, she prepared the children for play.

“Now, dears, you know mama does not care about these clothes. Do just as you like.”

And when they were ready they ran up a green bank, fell on the grass, rolled and tumbled, buoyant with health and delighting in the fresh air and exquisite surroundings.

“It is wonderful,” remarked Mrs. Palmer, watching her children proudly and enjoying by sympathy the frolic almost as much as they did, “how nature, if left to herself, will exercise every muscle of the body. Now just watch the variety of postures. What mountains of strength we would be by this time if we had not been repressed and hampered by the unwritten laws of society, and had continued to follow nature’s ways! I would feel, if I curbed those spirits, as tho I were setting myself above God, virtually saying that I know better than the Creator what is good for my children. O, the Lord has been teaching me, in these little ones, glorious lessons, one of which is, ‘Be still, and know that I am God’! If I can only keep my lips sealed, my hands off, except when necessary to check the evil, I feel that I am doing what He wants me to do. I want to see and know what God’s ways are, and beware of taking the lead when He is already in the forefront.”

“Charlie,” said Mrs. Royce, “why don’t you run and play too?”

“I would get my clothes all dirty, mama.”

“Never mind,” replied the mother with tears in her eyes, “never mind your clothes; they can be washed.”

“They’re too tight, mama; I’d tear them all to pieces if I leaned over much.”

“That’s so; how wrong it is in me! O Charlie, I am so sorry; I have spoiled your day! Mama will buy you a pair of overalls just as soon as she can get to the store.”

Charlie looked up into his mother’s face, his own worn and pale, with a sort of wondering surprise; then it lighted up and smiled. It was a mockery of a smile for a child.

“Look here, mama, look at me,” cried Florence, flushed with pleasure, “look at me!” And when all eyes were fixed on her, the beautiful little head was placed in a soft mound, and before Mrs. Royce could lift her hands in terror, the little three-year mite had turned a somersault.

“Why, won’t she hurt herself?” gasped Mrs. Royce.

“O, no!” replied Mrs. Palmer. “They both do that and perform all sorts of acrobatic feats each night before retiring. They are used to it.”

Before she could recover from her surprise, they were both tumbling somersaults one after another, stimulated, no doubt, by the surprise they had occasioned. Then Mrs. Royce laughed heartily, so heartily that she surprised herself, for life had become such a burden to her of late years that she seldom thought of laughing. It occurred to her for the first time then that her laughing muscles were growing rusty from disuse. Her jaws ached, but her heart was bleeding.

“This is the most comical thing I ever saw. Why, Charlie, here you are six years old, and I don’t believe you could do that yourself! Poor boy! I never did allow my children much freedom. Why, it never occurred to me to plan for their pleasure and profit. I always considered myself too busy.”

“After all,” replied Mrs. Palmer, “what in heaven or earth is more important than training up a child in the way he should go? Why should we give the dressing of our bodies, the ordering of our houses, and the care of flowers, the first place in importance, and the training of a little soul the second? Alas! the world is turned upside down, is it not?”

“Let us go over this way,” one suggested; “the children will enjoy looking at the animals.”

Then they sauntered down the shaded path among the pines, and the children were talking “animals” as fast as their tongues could fly, with joyful anticipation. Just then a squirrel darted across the road.

“What is that?” cried Florence.

“A squirrel, dear. You know that mama has told you about the little squirrels.” Whereupon Florence planted her baby feet firmly and refused to go any nearer.

“No, I don’t want to see the squirrel.”

“O, the squirrel wouldn’t hurt you, dear! See, he’s run up the tree. He heard us coming, so ran away.”

But the child still refused. Mrs. Palmer stooped down, placed her arm about the chubby figure, and explained carefully and patiently the nature of squirrels to the little mind, which, as the truth was grasped, began to yield, slowly and fearfully.

“Carry me, Martha,” she said, “won’t you? Won’t you, Martha?”

And Martha, the colored girl, with a sweet Christian face, whom the children loved, lovingly lifted the little form into her arms and carried her over the doubtful spot in the road. Mrs. Royce regarded the scene with interest, so differently would she have managed.

“You seem to be able to enter into your children ’s difficulties and to see things from their point of view.”

“Isn’t that what the Saviour is doing for us all the time, dealing so mercifully as He does with our shortcomings?”

“True.”

“The commonest things, we should not forget, are often new to the child mind. For my part, I’m afraid of snakes. I don’t suppose I should be if I knew more about their habits, and could distinguish a garter snake from an adder. So my baby simply has not a clear conception of a squirrel, and her instinct of self-preservation asserts itself. Not very different in principle from the big folks, is it? It affords a good opportunity to drop in a lesson in natural history. Why should not mothers watch for these opportunities, anticipating them by storing their own minds with the needed facts?”

“Well, well, I am beginning to see that child culture is an art, one of the fine arts, indeed the finest of arts. Even a sculptor, standing before a block of marble, uses all his might of mind and strength of soul to chisel out the beautiful story of his thoughts. And when he gets thru, what is it?—Marble. Yet he is praised, feted, and sonneted. The mother, tho a greater artist if she puts her soul into the work, may die in obscurity, unthanked, unpraised, yet how superior is her work! The angel choirs are singing the praises of that noble, faithful mother, and a crown, a glorious crown, is awaiting her; for she has helped to mold and fit a soul for eternity. Which would I rather be?—A mother. It has come to me now more forcibly than ever before, and I mean to put my soul into the work, with God’s help, and make amends for the past, and make plans for the future. Thank the Lord for a faithful friend.”

After the lunch and a review of the caged animals, they returned home.

The weeks passed. Mrs. Gerry watched sharply and critically the changes taking place at the Royce’s. No longer were weary hours spent over embroidery and tucks and ruffles for the little frocks. There was a reform in the kitchen as well. Preserves, jams, and jellies took a subordinate place in Mrs. Royce’s affections; and pies, cookies, and all those feeders of bad tempers and quarrels, were ruled off the table. The lace curtains were taken down with less mathematical precision as to time this year; but the children all had overalls, and waterproofs for out-of-door sports on rainy days, and rubber boots to splash in the puddles. The back yard, indeed, took a turn for the worse. Dainty flower beds were now tended by busy children with rake and shovel and hoe, mother superintending, but permitting them to enjoy the fruit of their own hands.

How Mrs. Gerry did sputter about it all, greatly disapproving, until she saw the remarkable change for the better in the children! There was much less quarreling, and the children began, under a mother’s patient training and example, to speak even politely. They grew fat, and their cheeks as red as peaches; their bare feet spread and grew sturdy and brown; their bare heads caught the gold from the sun and reflected its glory, and the children, all three, actually became goodly to look upon.

Then, in this world of change, there came a change over Mrs. Gerry as well. She grew quiet and reserved. She began to notice the children with less loftiness of spirit, and to admire their little ways. The children took to her better also, and even the baby crept into her lap once or twice.

One day Mrs. Gerry put on a simpler dress than was her custom for making calls, and went in to see Mrs. Palmer.

During the first half hour she seemed absent-minded and purposeless. Then she burst out:—

“O Mrs. Palmer, I have been doing you such an injustice! I have been talking about you, and calling you a crank, and”—she choked down a sob. “There was really nothing one could say against you, but I did my best to injure you. But I’ve changed my mind. How you have transformed those Royce children is the talk of the neighborhood.”

“Not I, but the dear Lord did it all. As to the injury, never mind about that, dear.”

“If you would only get angry, I would not feel half so bad. God must abhor me. I hate myself.” And her pride just then had a terrible fall, for

she wept, notwithstanding her feeble efforts to abstain. She felt the pride, that had been as indispensable to her artificial nature as the backbone to her body, begin to melt away, until she thought she would collapse; and she did—that artificial Mrs. Gerry went all in pieces, and never got put together again.

Mrs. Palmer spoke words of comfort and encouragement, and they knelt down together and prayed, both prayed, and when they arose from their knees you could not have found your gossipy neighbor, for she was dead, and there stood in her place a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Springfield, Mass. LIDA F. SCOTT.