Elsie's Widowhood

Lester Leland had been heard from, was well, and wrote in so hopeful a strain that the heart of his affianced grew light and joyous. She was almost ashamed to find she could be so happy without the dear father so lately removed.

Her mother reassured her on that point: it was right for her to be as happy as she could; it was what her papa would have highly approved and wished; and then in being so and allowing it to be perceived by those around her, she would add to their enjoyment.

"We are told to 'rejoice in the Lord always,'" concluded the mother, "and a Christian's heart should never be the abode of gloom and sadness."

"Dear mamma, what an unfailing comfort and blessing you are to me and to all your children," cried the young girl. "Oh, I do thank God every day for my mother's dear love, my mother's wise counsels!"

It was very true, and to mamma each one of the six – or we might say seven, for Edward did the same by letter – carried every trouble, great or small, every doubt, fear, and perplexity.

No two of them were exactly alike in disposition – each required a little different management from the others – but attentively studying each character and asking wisdom from above, the mother succeeded wonderfully well in guiding and controlling them.

In this her father assisted her, and she was most careful and decided in upholding his authority, never in any emergency opposing hers to it.

"Mamma," said Harold, coming to her one day in her dressing-room, "Herbie is in trouble with grandpa."

"I am very sorry," she said with a look of concern, "but if so it must be by his own fault; your grandpa's commands are never unreasonable."

"No, I suppose not, mamma," Harold returned doubtfully, "but Herbie is having a very hard time over his Latin lesson, and says he can't learn it: it is too difficult. Mamma," with some hesitation, "if you would speak to grandpa perhaps he would let him off this once."

"Do you think that would be a good plan?" she asked with a slight smile. "Herbert's great fault is lack of perseverance; he is too easily discouraged, too ready to give up and say 'I can't.' Do you think it would be really kind to indulge him in doing so?"

"Perhaps not, mamma; but I feel very sorry to see him in such distress. Grandpa has forbidden him to leave the school-room or to have anything to eat but bread and milk till he can recite his lesson quite perfectly. And we had planned to go fishing this afternoon, if you should give permission, mamma."

"My son," she said with an affectionate look into the earnest face of the pleader, "I am glad to see your sympathy and love for your brother, but I think your grandpa loves him quite as well and knows far better what is for his good, and I cannot interfere between them; my children must all be as obedient and submissive to my father as they are to me."

"Yes, mamma, I know, and indeed we never disobey him. How could we when papa bade us not? and made him our guardian, too?"

Mrs. Travilla sat thinking for a moment after Harold had gone, then rose and went to the school-room.

Herbert sat there alone, idly drumming on his desk, the open book pushed aside. His face was flushed and wore a very disconsolate and slightly sullen expression.

He looked up as his mother came in, but dropped his eyes instantly, blushing and ashamed.

"Mamma," he stammered, "I – I can't learn this lesson, it's so very hard, and I'm so tired of being cooped up here. Mayn't I go out and have a good run before I try any more?"

"If your grandpa gives permission; not otherwise."

"But he won't; and it's a hateful old lesson! and I can't learn it!" he cried with angry impatience.

"My boy, you are grieving your mother very much," she said, sitting down beside him and laying her cool hand on his heated brow.

"O mamma, I didn't mean to do that!" he cried, throwing his arms about her neck. "I do love you dearly, dearly."

"I believe it, my son," she said, returning his caress, "but I want you to prove it by being obedient to your kind grandpa as well as to me, and by trying to conquer your faults."

"Mamma, I haven't been naughty – only I can't learn such hard lessons as grandpa gives."

"My son, I know you do not mean to be untruthful, but to say that you cannot learn your lesson is really not the truth; the difficulty is not so much in the ability as in the will. And are you not indulging a naughty temper?"

"Mamma," he said, hanging his head, "you don't know how hard Latin is."

"Why, what do you mean, my son?" she asked in surprise; "you certainly know that I have studied Latin."

"Yes, mamma, but wasn't it easier for you to learn than it is for me?"

"I think not," she said with a smile, "though I believe I had more real love for study and was less easily conquered by difficulties; and yet – shall I tell you a little secret?"

"Oh yes, ma'am, please do!" he answered, turning a bright, interested face to hers.

"Well, I disliked Latin at first, and did not want to study it. I should have coaxed very hard to be excused from doing so, but that I dared not, because my papa had strictly forbidden me to coax or tease after he had given his decision; and he had said Latin was to be one of my studies. There was one day, though, that I cried over my lesson and insisted that I could not learn it."

"And what did grandpa do to you?" he asked with great interest.

"Treated me just as he does you – told me I must learn it, and that I could not dine with him and mamma or leave my room until I knew it. And, my boy, I see now that he was wise and kind, and I have often been thankful since that he was so firm and decided with me."

"But did you learn it?"

"Yes; nor did it take me long when once I gave my mind to it with determination. That is exactly what you need to do. The great fault of your disposition is lack of energy and perseverance, a fault grandpa and I must help you to conquer, or you will never be of much use in the world."

"But, mamma, it seems to me I shall not need to do much when I'm a man," he remarked a little shamefacedly; "haven't you a great deal of money to give us all?"

"It may be all gone before you are grown up," she said gravely. "I shall be glad to lose it if its possession is to be the ruin of my sons. But I do not intend to let any of you live in idleness, for that would be a sin, because our talents must be improved to the utmost and used in God's service, whether we have much or little money or none at all. Therefore each of my boys must study a profession or learn some handicraft by which he can earn his own living or make money to use in doing good.

"Now I am going to leave you," she added, rising, "and if you do not want to give me a sad heart you will set to work at that lesson with a will, and soon have it ready to recite to your grandpa."

"Mamma, I will, to please you," he returned, drawing the book toward him.

"Do it to please God, your kind heavenly Father, even more than to make me happy," she answered, laying her hand caressingly on his head.

"Mamma, what is the text that says it will please Him?" he asked, looking up inquiringly, for it had always been a habit with her to enforce her teachings with a passage of Scripture.

"There are a great many that teach it more or less directly," she said; "we are to be diligent in business, to improve our talents and use them in God's service; children are to obey their parents; and both your grandpa and I have directed you to learn that lesson."

"Mamma, I will do my very best," he said cheerfully, and she saw as she left the room that he was really trying to redeem the promise.

An hour later he came to her with a very bright face, to say that grandpa had pronounced his recitation quite perfect and released him from confinement.

Her pleased look, her smile, her kiss were a sweet reward and a strong incentive to continuance in well-doing.

CHAPTER X

"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."

    – Isaiah 8:20.

Some years before this Elsie had built a little church on the plantation, entirely at her own expense, for the use of her dependents and of her own family when sojourning at Viamede. The membership was composed principally of blacks.

A few miles distant was another small church of the same denomination, attended by the better class of whites; planters and their families.