Faith Gartney's GirlhoodWhitney, A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train)
General
Faith Gartney's Girlhood
Whitney, A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train)
Teenage girls -- Juvenile fiction
One day, Aunt Faith had twisted her foot by a slip upon the stairs, and
was kept at home. Glory, of course, was obliged to remain also, as Miss
Henderson was confined, helpless, to her chair or sofa.
Faith Gartney and the minister walked down the pleasant lane, and along
the quiet road to the village church, together.
Faith had fresh, white ribbons, to-day, upon her simple straw bonnet,
and delicate flowers and deep green leaves about her face. She seemed
like an outgrowth of the morning, so purely her sweet look and fair
unsulliedness of attire reflected the significance of the day's own
newness and beauty.
"Do you know," said Mr. Armstrong, presently, after the morning greeting
had passed, and they had walked a few paces, silently, "do you know that
you are one of Glory's saints, Miss Faith?"
Faith's wondering eyes looked out their questioning astonishment from a
deep rosiness that overspread her face.
The minister was not apt to make remarks of at all a personal bearing.
Neither was this allusion to sainthood quite to have been looked for,
from his lips. Faith could scarcely comprehend.
"I found her this morning, as I came out to cross the field, sitting on
the doorstone with her Bible and a rosary of beautiful, small, variously
tinted shells upon her lap. I stopped to speak with her, and asked leave
to look at them. 'They were given to me when I was very little,' she
said. 'A lady sent them from Rome. The Pope blessed them!' 'They are
very beautiful,' I said, 'and a blessing, if that mean a true man's
prayer, can never be worthless. But,' I asked her, 'do you _use_ these,
Glory?' 'Not as she did once,' she said. She had almost forgotten about
that. She knew the larger beads stood for saints, and the smaller ones
between were prayers. 'But,' she went on, 'it isn't for my prayers I
keep them now. I've named some of my saints' beads for the people that
have done me the most good in my life, and been the kindest to me; and
the little ones are thoughts, and things they've taught me. This large
one, with the queer spots, is Miss Henderson; and this lovely
rose-colored one is Miss Faith; and these are Katie Ryan and Bridget
Foye; but you don't know about them.' And then she timidly told me that
the white one next the cross was mine. The child humbled me, Miss Faith!
It is nearly fearful, sometimes, to get a glimpse of what one is to some
trustful human soul, who looks through one toward the Highest!"
Faith had tears in her eyes.
"Glory is such a strange girl," said she. "She seems to have an instinct
for things that other people are educated up to."
"She has seized the spirit of the dead Roman calendar, and put it into
this rosary. Our saints _are_ the spirits through whom God wills to send
us of His own. Whatever becomes to us a channel of His truth and love we
must involuntarily canonize and consecrate. Woe, if by the same channel
ever an offense cometh!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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