FullReads

The friends at parting the next morning shook hands warmly, and promised a frequent renewal of their resumed intercourse. Nor was the bill for twenty dollars, which the minister found in his hand, at all an unacceptable addition to the pleasures of his visit; and though the November wind whistled keenly through a dull, comfortless sky, he turned his horse’s head homeward with a lightened heart.

* * * * *

“Mother’s sick, and I’m a-keeping house!” said a little flaxen-headed girl, in all the importance of seven years, as her father entered the dwelling.

“Your mother sick! what’s the matter?” inquired Mr. Stanton.

“She caught cold washing, yesterday, while you were gone;” and when the minister stood by the bedside of his sick wife, saw her flushed face, and felt her feverish pulse, he felt seriously alarmed. She had scarcely recovered from a dangerous fever when he left home, and with reason he dreaded a relapse.

“My dear, why have you done so?” was the first expostulation; “why did you not send for old Agnes to do your washing, as I told you.”

“I felt so well, I thought I was quite able,” was the reply; “and you know it will take all the money we have now in hand to get the children’s shoes before cold weather comes, and nobody knows when we shall have any more.”

“Well, Mary, comfort your heart as to that. I have had a present to-day of twenty dollars–that will last us some time. God always provides when need is greatest.” And so, after administering a little to the comfort of his wife, the minister addressed himself to the business of cooking something for dinner for himself and his little hungry flock.

“There is no bread in the house,” he exclaimed, after a survey of the ways and means at his disposal.

“I must try and sit up long enough to make some,” said his wife faintly.

“You must try to be quiet,” replied the husband. “We can do very well on potatoes. But yet,” he added, “I think if I bring the things to your bedside, and you show me how to mix them, I could make some bread.”

A burst of laughter from the young fry chorused his proposal; nevertheless, as Mr. Stanton was a man of decided genius, by help of much showing, and of strong arms and good will, the feat was at length accomplished in no unworkmanlike manner; and while the bread was put down to the fire to rise, and the potatoes were baking in the oven, Mr. Stanton having enjoined silence on his noisy troop, sat down, pencil in hand, by his wife’s bed, to prepare a sermon.

We would that those ministers who feel that they cannot compose without a study, and that the airiest and pleasantest room in the house, where the floor is guarded by the thick carpet, the light carefully relieved by curtains, where papers are filed and arranged neatly in conveniences purposely adjusted, with books of reference standing invitingly around, could once figure to themselves the process of composing a sermon in circumstances such as we have painted. Mr. Stanton had written his text, and jotted down something of an introduction, when a circumstance occurred which is almost inevitable in situations where a person has any thing else to attend to– the baby woke. The little interloper was to be tied into a chair, while the flaxen-headed young housekeeper was now installed into the office of waiter in ordinary to her majesty, and by shaking a newspaper before her face, plying a rattle, or other arts known only to the initiate, to prevent her from indulging in any unpleasant demonstrations, while Mr. Stanton proceeded with his train of thought.

“Papa, papa! the teakettle! only look!” cried all the younger ones, just as he was again beginning to abstract his mind.