Cross Patch | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 22, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 20.

"Cross Patch."

THIS is the nickname Helen's mates all gave her, and I'm sorry to say it was appropriate. She was interesting in many ways, but cross from morning till night, and though not in her teens, "crows feet" already disfigured her brows. A voice originally sweet was fast becoming shrill and discordant, and rosy lips, from a habit of pouting, protruded far too much for beauty. She wondered why other girls were greater favorites than herself; why her mother's most intimate friends soon become weary and indifferent towards her. Some of these ugly facts stared her in the face every day. Still she never stopped to reflect on the cause of such disagreeable effects, but fretted, fumed, and scolded because everybody was having nicer times than herself.

She had a darling blue-eyed sister, golden-haired, sunny-faced, with a nature so genial, and a disposition so lovable, her friends, young and old, called her "Sunbeam."

A regular duty of these two sisters was to wash up the breakfast and tea things each day, to relieve their mother, who was burdened with many cares, but deprived herself of their assistance at other times that they might attend school.

One March morning a heavy sleet covered the ground. After breakfast, as Eva was feeding the poultry, Helen looked out of the window and noticed her sister's happy countenance as she stood with her flock of white Leghorns and Chillagongs around her; some of the tamest were eating crumbs from her hand. Although a pretty sight, it roused Helen's envy, and her cross spirit vented itself in scolding. "You lazy girl! Out there playing with the chickens! Come right in to your work!" Eva made no reply—only continued to smile and scrape the dish she held in her hand. This was too much for "Cross Patch;" so she crept up behind Eva, and jerking her by the arm, exclaimed, "You naughty girl! Why don't you come in when I call you?" The plate was shivered to atoms—a small matter compared with the accident which befell poor Eva, for she slipped on the ice in such a manner as to dislocate her hip, and was carried into the house shrieking with pain. A surgeon was summoned, and all that love and skill could devise was done for her relief, but for hours her suffering was intense. This deplorable accident finally ended in a disease of the hip, by which poor Eva was rendered a cripple for life! You may rest assured that Helen was cured of her scolding; a terrible cure certainly, but a sure one. No one ever heard a cross word escape from her lips again; but tears often filled her eyes, and her perfect devotion to her injured sister was attested by many loving and delicate attentions. Helen hunted the woods for the earliest wild flowers; gathered baskets of tiny rocks, shells, lovely mosses, ferns and lichens; read and sang to Eva; caressed her tenderly as if trying (ah! so vainly!) to make amends for past unkindness. Helen could never be happy again. She wore a sad face, and her heart was sadder still, aching with bitter remorse and unavailing regrets.

The neighbors and school children clubbed together and purchased a comfortable invalid's chair for their little favorite Eva, and during the pleasant spring days Helen took a mournful pleasure in wheeling her sister around the yard under the lilacs, the rose bushes, the cherry and apple trees. Grateful smiles were her sweet reward, for Eva's was a forgiving heart, and though a daily sufferer during the few years she lived, the little invalid was ever patient and uncomplaining. Persons often remarked, "What a pity her bright young life should be thus overshadowed!" They could not see the darker, invisible cloud which brooded over Helen's spirit, Helen's home, Helen's life, and all the sad result of a needless display of ill-temper. Dear children, never scold! Never ill-treat a brother or sister. You know not the sorrow it may cause. Be "sunbeams" like Eva, if you would be loved, lovely and happy. "Let children love one another."—Canada Presbyterian.