Your ShelfYour Projects

FORBEARING

2%

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 14, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 27.

Read the full edition

FORBEARING.

By Sidney Dayre

"WHAT is the matter, Jessie? You have been going around for I don't know how long with your forehead all tied up into a knot, and your mouth down at the corners. And your voice is tuned to match."
Jessie's growls, frowns, and pouts lightened only a little as she answered,—
"Why, Aunt Lucy, I'm hunting for my skate-key."
"And will it come any the sooner for such a face and tune?"
"No ma'am, of course not. But I'm so angry with Herbert, you see. He borrowed it of me yesterday, and did not give it back to me, and now I can't find it and I can't find him. He's the most careless boy in the world. I'll never lend him a thing of mine as long as I live. There he is now—going off coasting with those boys. Herbert! Herbert!"
Jessie threw up the window and called loudly and angrily after him. He turned back at the sound of her voice.
"Don't speak crossly to him, dear," said Aunt Lucy, earnestly. "Remember, words can never be called back when once spoken."
"But I have lost so much time," said Jessie. "And I have so little time out of school. How can I help scolding him?"
"If you are sure you cannot help it," said her aunt, smiling, "suppose you go into another room and let me speak to him. You will be glad of it afterwards, dear."
"But I think it would really do him good to get a scolding," said Jessie, as she rather unwillingly turned to leave the room.
"But I am sure it would do you no good to give it to him," said Aunt Lucy.
She met Herbert as he hurried up to the open window.
"Jessie wants her skate-key," she said.
"Where is she?" he asked, with some trepidation. "I do believe, Aunt Lucy—" he felt quickly in one pocket and then another. "Yes, I do declare, I haven't got it! I lent it to Jack Staples, and forgot to get it again. Won't I catch it from Jessie, though! I'm ever so sorry."
"Run away, now, but do try to be more thoughtful, my boy."
"I will. And I'll stand all she says to me when I get home without saying a word back," said Herbert, as he turned slowly away.
Jessie came into the room with her things on to go out.
"I'm glad you didn't see him, Jessie," said her aunt, "for he lent the key to someone else, and I'm afraid you will lose your skating this afternoon."
Jessie's face grew darker than before.
"I wish I had seen him," she said, angrily. Then added, "But I shall see him after a while."
"Yes," said Aunt Lucy, "he said he would bear anything you might say to him."
Jessie's face changed a little at this.
"He deserves anything I can say," she said, after a pause.
"Perhaps so. But are you not glad you have not yet said anything you would wish to take back?"
Jessie looked as if she felt doubtful about that.
"When you are as old as I am," said Aunt Lucy, "you will look back with great thankfulness upon every harsh and angry word you forced yourself not to say; and oh, dear child! with such bitter regret upon every word in which you have sinned against those who love you."
"Why, Aunt Lucy," said Jessie, struck by her earnest manner, "I don't believe that you have spoken many words that you regret now."
"Yes, indeed, dear, plenty which I wish now that I could recall. But I never can. You never can. When the ugly words are once out of your mouth, they are free to do their ugly work of stinging and wounding. And they pour out so fast when we are angry—so fast, from lips which ought to open only to bless with words of sweetness and loving-kindness."
Jessie began thinking ruefully of the many sharp things she had said to her brother, provoked by his really very trying habits of carelessness and forgetfulness.
"Herbert forgets things so often," she said.
"Yes, most boys do. And I don't mean to excuse them, for they certainly are as much under obligation to correct that fault as any other. But we must learn to forbear with one another in love, dear. When I was a girl, Harry, my brother, was quite as much of a trial to me as Herbert is to you, for he had the same headlong, scatter-brain ways, but withal as loving and generous as Herbert always is. I remember one day he was going down town, and I specially desired him to take a note to one of my friends. It was to ask her to come right over to tell me about a hard lesson I was preparing for examination, in which I had little time to spare. How vexed I was when at the last moment he rushed out of the house in his usual hasty manner, and a few minutes afterward I saw that he had left my note behind."
"Just like Herbert," said Jessie.
"I was more angry with him than I would like to tell you now. I had to go myself, and reached my friend's just after she had gone out for the afternoon. I think that if I had had a little time my ugly feeling toward him would have cooled. But just as I was settled again to my puzzling examples he appeared at the door with a bright face, entirely forgetful of my grievance against him, holding something behind him."
"Guess what I've got,' he said."
"His unconsciousness aroused my anger anew, and I poured it out upon him without restraint, using, I believe, every hateful word I could think of. All the brightness went out of his face as he listened quietly until I had finished, and then, without a word in reply, turned and went away."
"It was not until the next day, when I was in a pleasant humor, that he came to me, saying he was sorry for having disappointed me, and explaining why he ran away in such haste. 'I just caught a glimpse of Mr. Bray, the old florist from Hillsdale,' he said. 'He had a load of plants, and I ran a race after him to get you one of these, for, as he only comes once in the season, I knew it would be my last chance.'"
"The dear fellow had heard me speak of a rare plant I wanted, and had spent all his pocket-money to get it for me as a surprise. You can easily imagine my shame and humiliation. I have thought of the little incident many a time since when tempted to hasty words or actions."
"But, Aunt Lucy, how can we help speaking angrily when people are so provoking?"
"Only through the grace of Christ, dear. Even King David had to pray: 'Keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile!' Our little member, the tongue, is the hardest of all to manage, and we are told that no man can tame it—only its great Maker can hold it in check. I am sure, dear," with a caressing pat on the little girl's head, "that you will be ready to forgive Herbert by the time he comes back."
Jessie still felt doubtful about it as she saw some of her friends going by with their skates, and longed to join them. But she took her sled, and succeeded in having such a merry time that before she reached home she had almost forgotten her vexation, and had to think twice before she could recall why she had been so angry with Herbert.
"I wonder why he doesn't come home," said Aunt Lucy, an hour afterwards, as the winter twilight began to close in.
Jessie watched from the window in growing uneasiness as she perceived her aunt's anxiety. In the quiet waiting there came into her mind a few lines of a poem she had often heard read:—
"So many little faults we find, We see them, for not blind Is love. We see them, but if you and I Perhaps remember them some by and by, They will not be Faults then—grave faults—for they and we Have such a little way to go—can be Together such a little while along the way, We will be patient while we may."
The darkness became deeper as she still watched—watched until the quiet was broken, not by Herbert's light step, and cheery shout, but by the tramp of men who carried him. The sled on which he had been sliding had come into violent collision with a passing sleigh, and Herbert had been seriously injured.
Many days passed before any promise of recovery was held out, and Jessie never forgot the time in which she waited to learn whether it had been ordered that she and her brother should no longer walk together along the way which she had so often shadowed by her evil temper and uncontrolled speech. And in what fervency of thanksgiving she remembered that her latest words to Herbert had not been the angry ones she had been so ready to utter.
"Days change so many things, yes, hours. We see so differently in suns and showers. Mistaken words to-night May be so cherished by to-morrow's light, We may be patient, for we know There's such a little way to go." —Sidney Dayre, in Interior.