One said "She didn't know;" another said "Nothing." "I stop my ears," said a third. Mr. Folke laughed.
"That would not do for a peacemaker," he said. "Don't you know what makes machinery work smoothly?"
"Oil!" cried Jane.
"Oil to be sure! One little drop of oil will stop ever so much creaking and groaning and complaining, of hinges and wheels and all sorts of machines. Now, people's tempers are like wheels and hinges. But what sort of oil shall we use?"
The girls looked at each other, and then one of them said, "Kindness."
"To be sure! A gentle word, a look of love, a little bit of kindness, will smooth down a roughened temper or a wry face, and soften a hard piece of work, and make all go easily. And so of reproving sinners. The Psalmist says, 'Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head.' But, you see, the peacemaker must be righteous himself, or he hasn't the oil. Love is the oil—the 'love of Jesus.'"
"Mr. Folke," said Nettie, timidly, "wasn't Jesus a peacemaker?"
"The greatest that ever lived!" said Mr. Folke, his eyes lighting up with pleasure at her question. "He made all the peace there is in the world, for He bought it, when He died on the cross to reconcile man with God. All our drops of oil were bought with drops of blood."
"And," said Nettie, hesitatingly, "Mr. Folke, isn't that one way of being a peacemaker?"
"What?"
"I mean, to persuade people to be at peace with Him?"
"That is the way above all others, my child; that is truly to be the 'children of God.' Jesus came and preached peace; and that is what His servants are doing, and will do, till He comes. And 'they shall be called the children of God.' 'Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.'"
Mr. Folke paused, with a face so full of thought, of eagerness, and of love, that none of the children spoke, and some of them wondered. And before Mr. Folke spoke again, the superintendent's little bell rang, and they all stood up to sing. But Nettie Mathieson hardly could sing; it seemed to her so glorious a thing to be that sort of a peacemaker. Could she be one? But the Lord blessed the peacemakers; then it must be His will that all His children should be such; then He would enable her to be one! It was a great thought. Nettie's heart swelled with hope and joy and prayer. She knew whose peace she longed for first of all.
Her mother had now come to church, so Nettie enjoyed all the services, with nothing to hinder. Then they walked home together, not speaking much to each other, but every step of the way pleasant in the Sunday afternoon light, till they got to their own door. Nettie knew what her mother's sigh meant, as they mounted the stairs. Happily, nobody was at home yet but themselves.
"Now, mother," said Nettie, when she had changed her dress and come to the common room, "what's to be for supper? I'll get it. You sit still and read, if you want to, while it's quiet. What must we have?"
"There is not a great deal to do," said Mrs. Mathieson. "I boiled the pork this morning, and that was what set your father up so; that's ready; and he says there must be cakes. The potatoes are all ready to put down—I was going to boil 'em this morning, and he stopped me."
Nettie looked grave about the cakes.
"However, mother," she said, "I don't believe that little loaf of bread would last, even if you and I didn't touch it; it is not very big."
Mrs. Mathieson wearily sat down and took her Testament, as Nettie begged her; and Nettie put on the kettle and the pot of potatoes, and made the cakes ready to bake. The table was set, and the treacle and everything on it, except the hot things, when Barry burst in.
"Hallo, cakes!—hallo, treacle!" he shouted. "Pork and treacle—that's the right sort of thing. Now we're going to live something like."
"Hush, Barry, don't make such a noise," said his sister. "You know it's Sunday evening."
"Sunday! well, what about Sunday? What's Sunday good for, except to eat, I should like to know?"
"O Barry!"
"O Barry!" said he, mimicking her. "Come, shut up, and fry your cake. Father and Lumber will be here just now."
Nettie hushed, as she was bidden; and as soon as her father's step was heard below, she went to frying cakes with all her might. She just turned her head to give one look at Mr. Lumber as he came in. He appeared to her very like her father, but without the recommendation which her affection gave to Mr. Mathieson. A big, strong, burly fellow, with the same tinges of red about his face that the summer sun had never brought there. Nettie did not want to look again.
She had a good specimen this evening of what they might expect in future. Mrs. Mathieson poured out the tea, and Nettie baked the cakes; and perhaps because she was almost faint for want of something to eat, she thought no three people ever ate so many griddle cakes before at one meal. In vain plateful after plateful went upon the board, and Nettie baked them as fast as she could; they were eaten just as fast; and when finally the chairs were pushed back, and the men went downstairs, Nettie and her mother looked at each other.
"There's only one left, mother," said Nettie.
"And he has certainly eaten half the piece of pork," said Mrs. Mathieson. "Come, child, take something yourself; you're ready to drop. I'll clear away."
But it is beyond the power of any disturbance to take away the gladness of a heart where Jesus is. Nettie's bread was sweet to her, even that evening. Before she had well finished her supper, her father and his lodger came back. They sat down on either side the fire, and began to talk of politics, and of their work on which they were then engaged, with their employers and their fellow-workmen; of the state of business in the village, and profits and losses, and the success of particular men in making money. They talked loudly and eagerly; and Nettie had to go round and round them to get to the fire for hot water, and back to the table to wash up the cups and plates. Her mother was helping at the table, but to get round Mr. Lumber to the pot of hot water on the fire every now and then, fell to Nettie's share. It was not a very nice ending of her sweet Sabbath day, she thought. The dishes were done and put away, and still the talk went on as hard as ever. It was sometimes a pleasure to Nettie's father to hear her sing hymns of a Sunday evening. Nettie watched for a chance, and the first time there was a lull of the voices of the two men, she asked softly,
"Shall I sing, father?"
Mr. Mathieson hesitated, and then answered,
"No,—better not, Nettie: Mr. Lumber might not find it amusing;" and the talk began again.
Nettie waited a little longer, feeling exceedingly tired. Then she rose and lighted a candle.
"What are you doing, Nettie?" her mother said.
"I am going to bed, mother."
"You can't take a candle up there, child! the attic's all full of things, and you would certainly set us on fire."
"I'll take great care, mother."
"But you can't, child! The wind might blow the snuff of your candle right into something that would be all a-flame by the time you're asleep. You must manage without a light somehow."
"But I can't see to find my way," said Nettie, who was secretly trembling with fear.
"I'll light you then, for once, and you'll soon learn the way. Give me the candle."
Nettie hushed the words that came crowding into her mouth, and clambered up the steep stairs to the attic. Mrs. Mathieson followed her with the candle till she got to the top, and there she held it till Nettie had found her way to the other end where her bed was. Then she said "Good night!" and went down.
The little square shutter of the window was open, and a ray of moonlight streamed in upon the bed. It was nicely made up: Nettie saw that her mother had been there and had done that for her, and wrought a little more space and order among the things around the bed. But the moonlight did not get in far enough to show much more. Just a little of this thing and of that could be seen; a corner of a chest, or a gleam on the side of a meal-bag: the half-light showed nothing clearly except the confused fulness of the little attic. Nettie had given her head a blow against a piece of timber as she came through it; and she sat down upon her little bed, feeling rather miserable. Her fear was that the rats might visit her up there. She did not certainly know that there were rats in the attic, but she had been fearing to think of them, and did not dare to ask, as well as unwilling to give trouble to her mother; for if they did come there, Nettie did not see how the matter could be mended. She sat down on her little bed, so much frightened that she forgot how tired she was. Her ears were as sharp as needles, listening to hear the scrape of a rat's tooth upon a timber, or the patter of his feet over the floor.
For a few minutes Nettie almost thought she could not sleep up there alone, and must go down and implore her mother to let her spread her bed in a corner of her room. But what a bustle that would make! Her mother would be troubled, and her father would be angry, and the lodger would be disturbed, and there was no telling how much harm would come of it. No; the peacemaker of the family must not do that. And then the words floated into Nettie's mind again, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." Like a strain of the sweetest music it floated in; and if an angel had come and brought the words straight to Nettie, she could not have been more comforted. She felt the rats could not hurt her while she was within hearing of that music; and she got up and kneeled down upon the chest under the little window, and looked out.
It was like the day that had passed, not like the evening. So purely and softly the moon-beams lay on all the fields and trees and hills, there was no sign of anything but peace and purity to be seen. No noise of men's work or voices; no clangour of the iron foundry which on week-days might be heard; no sight of anything unlovely; but the wide beauty which God had made, and the still peace and light which He had spread over it. Every little flapping leaf seemed to Nettie to tell of its Maker; and the music of those words seemed to be all through the still air—"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." Tears of gladness and hope slowly gathered in Nettie's eyes. The children of God will enter in, by-and-bye, through those pearly gates, into that city of gold "where they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light."
"So He can give me light here—or what's better than light," thought Nettie. "God isn't only out there, in all that beautiful moonlight world—He is here in my poor little attic too; and He will take just as good care of me as He does of the birds, and better, for I am His child, and they are only His beautiful little servants."
Nettie's fear was gone. She prayed her evening prayer, and trusted herself to the Lord Jesus to take care of her; and then she undressed herself and lay down and went to sleep, just as quietly as any sparrow of them all, with its head under its wing.
"O day of rest and gladness!
O day of joy and light!
O balm of care and sadness,
Most beautiful, most bright!
On thee the high and lowly,
Through ages join'd in tune,
Sing, Holy, Holy, Holy,
To the great God Triune."
CHAPTER III.
NETTIE'S GARRET
"I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."—Psalm xxiii. 4.
Nettie's attic grew to be a very pleasant place to her. She never heard the least sound of rats; and it was so nicely out of the way. Barry never came up there, and there she could not even hear the voices of her father and Mr. Lumber. She had a tired time of it down stairs.
The first afternoon was a good specimen of the way things went on. Nettie's mornings were always spent at school; Mrs. Mathieson would have that, as she said, whether she could get on without Nettie or no. From the time Nettie got home till she went to bed she was as busy as she could be. There was so much bread to make and so much beef and pork to boil, and so much washing of pots and kettles; and at meal-times there was often cakes to fry, besides all the other preparations. Mr. Mathieson seemed to have made up his mind that his lodger's rent should all go to the table and be eaten up immediately; but the difficulty was to make as much as he expected of it in that line; for now he brought none of his own earnings home, and Mrs. Mathieson had more than a sad guess where they went. By degrees he came to be very little at home in the evenings, and he carried off Barry with him. Nettie saw her mother burdened with a great outward and inward care at once, and stood in the breach all she could. She worked to the extent of her strength, and beyond it, in the endless getting and clearing away of meals; and watching every chance, when the men were out of the way, she would coax her mother to sit down and read a chapter in her Testament.
"It will rest you so, mother," Nettie would say; "and I will make the bread just as soon as I get the dishes done. Do let me! I like to do it."
Sometimes Mrs. Mathieson could not be persuaded; sometimes she would yield, in a despondent kind of way, and sit down with the Testament, and look at it as if neither there nor anywhere else in the universe could she find rest or comfort any more.
"It don't signify, child," said she, one afternoon when Nettie had been urging her to sit down and read. "I haven't the heart to do anything. We're all driving to rack and ruin just as fast as we can go."
"Oh no, mother," said Nettie, "I don't think we are."
"I am sure of it. I see it coming every day. Every day it is a little worse; and Barry is going along with your father; and they are destroying me among them, body and soul too."
"No, mother," said Nettie, "I don't think that. I have prayed the Lord Jesus, and you know He has promised to hear prayer; and I know we are not going to ruin."
"You are not, child, I believe; but you are the only one of us that isn't. I wish I was dead, to be out of my misery!"
"Sit down, mother, and read a little bit; and don't talk so. Do, mother! It will be an hour or more yet to supper, and I'll get it ready. You sit down and read, and I'll make the shortcakes. Do, mother! and you'll feel better."
It was half despair and half persuasion that made her do it; but Mrs. Mathieson did sit down by the open window and take her Testament; and Nettie flew quietly about, making her shortcakes and making up the fire and setting the table, and through it all casting many a loving glance over to the open book in her mother's hand, and the weary, stony face that was bent over it. Nettie had not said how her own back was aching, and she forgot it almost in her business and her thoughts; though by the time her work was done her head was aching wearily too. But cakes and table and fire and everything else were in readiness; and Nettie stole up behind her mother and leaned over her shoulder—leaned a little heavily.
"Don't that chapter comfort you, mother?" she whispered.
"No. It don't seem to me as I've got any feeling left," said Mrs. Mathieson.
It was the fourth chapter of John at which they were both looking.
"Don't it comfort you to read of Jesus being wearied?" Nettie went on, her head lying on her mother's shoulder.
"Why should it, child?"
"I like to read it," said Nettie. "Then I know He knows how I feel sometimes."
"God knows everything, Nettie."
With that Mrs. Mathieson cast down her book and burst into such a passion of weeping that Nettie was frightened. It was like the breaking up of an icy winter. She flung her apron over her head and sobbed aloud; till, hearing the steps of the men upon the staircase, she rushed off to Barry's room, and presently got quiet, for she came out to supper as if nothing had happened.
From that time there was a gentler mood upon her mother; Nettie saw, though she looked weary and careworn as ever, there was now not often the hard, dogged look which had been wont to be there for months past. Nettie had no difficulty to get her to read the Testament; and of all things, what she liked was to get a quiet hour of an evening alone with Nettie, and hear her sing hymns. But both Nettie and she had a great deal, as Mrs. Mathieson said, "to put up with."
As weeks went on, the father of the family was more and more out at nights, and less and less agreeable when he was at home. He and his friend Lumber helped each other in mischief. The lodger's rent and board had been at first given for the household daily expenses; but then Mr. Mathieson began to pay over a smaller sum, saying that it was all that was due; and Mrs. Mathieson began to suspect that the rest had been paid away already for brandy. Then Mr. Mathieson told her to trade at Jackson's on account, and he would settle the bill. Mrs. Mathieson held off from this as long as it was possible. She and Nettie did their very best to make the little that was given them go a good way: they wasted not a crumb nor a penny. By degrees it came to be very customary for Mrs. Mathieson and Nettie to make their meal of porridge and bread, after all the more savoury food had been devoured by the others; and many a weary patch and darn filled the night hours because they had not money to buy a cheap dress or two. Nettie bore it very patiently. Mrs. Mathieson was sometimes impatient.
"This won't last me through the week, to get the things you want," she said one Saturday to her husband, when he gave her what he said was Lumber's payment to him.
"You'll have to make it last," said he gruffly.
"Will you tell me how I'm going to do that? Here isn't more than half what you gave me at first."
"Send to Jackson's for what you want!" he roared at her; "didn't I tell you so? and don't come bothering me with your noise."
"When will you pay Jackson?"
"I'll pay you first!" he said, with an oath, and very violently. It was a ruder word than he had ever said to her before, and Mrs. Mathieson was staggered for a moment by it; but there was another word she was determined to say.
"May do what you like to me," she said, doggedly; "but I should think you would see for yourself that Nettie has too much to get on with. She is getting just as thin and pale as she can be."
"That's just your fool's nonsense!" said Mr. Mathieson; but he spoke it more quietly. Nettie just then entered the room.
"Here, Nettie, what ails you? Come here. Let's look at you. Ain't you as strong as ever you was? Here's your mother says you're getting puny."
Nettie's smile and answer were so placid and untroubled, and the little colour that rose in her cheeks at her father's question made her look so fresh and well, that he was quieted. He drew her within his arms, for his gentle, dutiful little daughter had a place in his respect and affection both, though he did not often show it very broadly; but now he kissed her.
"There!" said he; "don't you go to growing thin and weak without telling me, for I don't like such doings. You tell me when you want anything." But with that Mr. Mathieson got up and went off out of the house; and Nettie had small chance to tell him if she wanted anything. However, this little word and kiss were a great comfort and pleasure to her. It was the last she had from him in a good while.
Nettie, however, was not working for praise or kisses, and very little of either she got. Generally her father was rough, imperious, impatient, speaking fast enough if anything went wrong, but very sparing in expressions of pleasure. Sometimes a blessing did come upon her from the very depth of Mrs. Mathieson's heart, and went straight to Nettie's; but it was for another blessing she laboured, and prayed, and waited.
As the summer passed away, it began to grow cold, too, up in her garret. Nettie had never thought of that. As long as the summer sun warmed the roof well in the day, and only the soft summer wind played in and out of her window at night, it was all very well, and Nettie thought her sleeping-chamber was the best in the whole house, for it was nearest the sky. But August departed with its sunny days, and September grew cool in the evening; and October brought still sunny days, it is true, but the nights had a clear sharp frost in them; and Nettie was obliged to cover herself up warm in bed and look at the moonlight and the stars as she could see them through the little square opening left by the shutter. The stars looked very lovely to Nettie, when they peeped at her so in her bed out of their high heaven; and she was very content.
Then came November; and the winds began to come into the garret, not only through the open window, but through every crack between two boards. The whole garret was filled with the winds, Nettie thought. It was hard work managing then. Shutting the shutter would bar out the stars, but not the wind, she found; and to keep from being quite chilled through at her times of prayer, morning and evening, Nettie used to take the blanket and coverlets from the bed, and wrap herself in them. It was all she could do. Still, she forgot the inconveniences; and her little garret chamber seemed to Nettie very near heaven, as well as near the sky.
But all this way of life did not make her grow strong or rosy; and though Nettie never told her father that she wanted anything, her mother's heart measured the times when it ought to be told.