The May Flower, and Miscellaneous WritingsStowe, Harriet Beecher
General
The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
And now look you well at that mother. Six months ago she had a husband,
whose earnings procured for her both the necessaries and comforts of
life; her children were clothed, fed, and schooled, without thoughts of
hers. But husband-less, friendless, and alone in the heart of a great,
busy city, with feeble health, and only the precarious resource of her
needle, she has gone down from comfort to extreme poverty. Look at her
now, as she is to-night. She knows full well that the pale, bright-eyed
girl, whose hollow cough constantly rings in her ears, is far from well.
She knows that cold, and hunger, and exposure of every kind, are daily
and surely wearing away her life. And yet what can she do? Poor soul!
how many times has she calculated all her little resources, to see if
she could pay a doctor and get medicine for Mary--yet all in vain. She
knows that timely medicine, ease, fresh air, and warmth might save her;
but she knows that all these things are out of the question for her. She
feels, too, as a mother would feel, when she sees her once rosy, happy
little boy becoming pale, and anxious, and fretful; and even when he
teases her most, she only stops her work a moment, and strokes his
little thin cheeks, and thinks what a laughing, happy little fellow he
once was, till she has not a heart to reprove him. And all this day she
has toiled with a sick and fretful baby in her lap, and her little
shivering, hungry boy at her side, whom Mary's patient artifices cannot
always keep quiet; she has toiled over the last piece of work which she
can procure from the shop, for the man has told her that after this he
can furnish no more; and the little money that is to come from this is
already portioned out in her own mind, and after that she has no human
prospect of support.
But yet that woman's face is patient, quiet, firm. Nay, you may even see
in her suffering eye something like peace. And whence comes it? I will
tell you.
There is a Bible in that room, as well as in the rich man's apartment.
Not splendidly bound, to be sure, but faithfully read--a plain, homely,
much-worn book.
Hearken now while she says to her children, "Listen to me, dear
children, and I will read you something out of this book. 'Let not your
heart be troubled; in my Father's house are many mansions.' So you see,
my children, we shall not always live in this little, cold, dark room.
Jesus Christ has promised to take us to a better home."
"Shall we be warm there all day?" says the little boy, earnestly; "and
shall we have enough to eat?"
"Yes, dear child," says the mother; "listen to what the Bible says:
'They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; for the Lamb which
is in the midst of the throne shall feed them; and God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes.'"
"I am glad of that," said little Mary, "for, mother, I never can bear to
see you cry."
"But, mother," says little Henry, "won't God send us something to eat
to-morrow?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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