DORA'S GIFT | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 24, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 46.

DORA'S GIFT.

"You don't mean me to believe, Emily, that all these tall girls are yours? One, two, three, four—my! what a lot!"

"We pass for Mrs. Brown's 'boys and girls,' Uncle Phil. You see, we have to attend to her business, escort her around, and do what there are no boys here to do."

"And what sort of business can you attend to, I'd like to know?" asked Uncle Phil, with all a man's scorn of a woman's business head.

"Em is my man of business," said the gentle, ladylike mother. "No, not the tallest; that is Julia. She is our member of society; she entertains our company, and is to the family what a drawing room is to a house."

"She is our decorative art society, too," added Emily. "She paints and embroiders and sings in the choir."

"They are just slandering me, Uncle Phil," cried Julia. "Look at my forefinger, and you will see who is the seamstress of the family."

"What is the matter with Daisy's fingers?" asked Uncle Phil, who, by the way, had been abroad while these girls were growing up, and had now come back to make a home for himself.

"Oh, I'm the housekeeper, and I've just been preserving strawberries; that's where my finger tips get their rosy color! You'd better speak me fair, uncle, if you want your bread buttered on both sides while you are here."

Uncle Phil leaned back in his chair, and surveyed the party with admiring eyes. Without being particularly handsome, they were delightful-looking girls. Erect, vigorous, graceful, blooming, and full of fun, they gave proof of being a well-raised, healthy, charming quartet of daughters.

"Well, Sister Emily," he said presently, "lump them now and say what you will take for them. I'll give a fair price for the lot."

"*Kohinoors as thick as hailstones couldn't buy one of them," said the proud mother.

"But you haven't told me what this small woman is good for," said Uncle Phil, pinching the pink tip of Dora's ear.

"Dora? What is Dora's forte? Why, I don't know; but we could not do anything without Dora."

And the girls looked at their uncle as if they feared he might be weak minded to ask such a question.

"There," said merry Dora, "I told you I didn't have any gifts. I can't sing, nor paint, nor embroider, nor even entertain company."

"But she can always be the dearest dear of a Dora that ever was," said the sister on the other side of Dora, giving her a troublesome squeeze. And Dora seemed highly satisfied with this explanation.

But of course the weather in this family was not all summer weather. Uncle Phil found after a while that they had their ups and downs like other people. They disagreed with one another, and felt cross about it. They tried to do things and failed sometimes. Jellies wouldn't always jell; dresses wouldn't always fit. In short, "the briers besetting every path" pricked the feet of these sweet lassies in their turn, from day to day, as they do the feet of all earth's travelers.

And then Uncle Phil found out what was Dora's gift. It had been dawning on him for some time; but one day he startled the family by saying, "Sister Emily, Dora is the most gifted child you've got."

It was, as I said, a rainy day. "Of course it had to rain," Julia had said grimly, as they gathered in the breakfast room. "As I wanted to go on horseback with uncle, I might have known it would rain."

"It is well you have an escort who will wait till a clear day," said Dora, who was busy

pulling up the blinds to the top pane, that they might get all the light there was to be had.

"Ah, what a nice little blaze!" said Uncle Phil, limping around to the grate. "Which of you knew I had rheumatism this morning?"

"Dora always keeps a little pile of wood and shavings hid away for a morning like this," Julia said, leaving the window and coming to warm her cold nose by the cheerful glow.

The mother entered with a cloud on her usually placid brow.

"Bridget is sick, girls—not able to get out of bed."

"How lucky that it rains!" cried Dora. "No visitors, no going out; we can be busy bees to-day without molestation. Sit down and keep Uncle Phil from getting cross, mother, while we go and scratch up a little breakfast."

In a very short time a comfortable breakfast was on the table, everybody chatting pleasantly, and not a frown to be seen. It was at this moment that Uncle Phil announced his discovery that Dora was the most gifted child in the family.

"Proof positive, I have made a bit of toast without scorching the edges," said Dora with a mocking little bow.

"No," said Uncle Phil gravely, in answer to the questioning eyes fixed upon him all around the table; "but Dora has that rare treasure, the gift of pleasantness—of being pleasant herself and making other people feel so, no matter what is going on. I am sure that was the kind of woman the apostle was thinking of when he said it didn't matter about plaiting the hair and putting on gold ornaments if a woman had that sweet, bright, quiet, unselfish spirit that God so approves."

And then all eyes fixed upon the speaker filled up suddenly with loving tears, and everybody seemed trying to kiss blushing Dora first.

"Yes," said the mother softly, "pleasantness—that is just my Dora's gift."—Selected.