American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Sunday schools -- United States -- Periodicals
"Well, we tried to make a way through the drift, but didn't succeed. My
brother said he thought he could shovel a path, but Mrs. Watson told
him she had lent her big shovel to Mr. Smith the day before, while his
was getting mended, and had only a little one for the fire. So all
there was to do was to get breakfast, and wait for some one to come and
dig as out of the drift, or rather, dig the drift away from us.
"We did pretty well for breakfast, only we hadn't any bread. 'I was out
of flour,' said Mrs. Watson, 'before I knew it, and Mr. Jones was to
bring me another barrel this morning, but I don't suppose he will come,
now that there is so much snow.' The turkey was there in the pantry, so
were the cranberries; Mrs. Watson let Fred and me help cook them for
dinner, and we tried to make the best of our condition, and think as
little as possible of the great wall of snow outside the house. But it
was hard work; every little while the tears would come into my eyes,
to think of my dear father and mother at home, not knowing how we were
snowed up in the little red farmhouse.
"A little while after breakfast we all sat down to have family worship,
and Mrs. Watson, taking down her big old Bible, read part of the sixth
chapter of John. I remember it now, just as well as I did years ago,
how she read about Jesus' feeding that great multitude, when they had
nothing to eat. And then how he told his disciples afterward what was
the best bread to have, and said, 'I am the bread of life: he that
cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst.'
"'Children,' said Mrs. Watson, when she had finished reading, 'Jesus
can give us the bread we eat, and the bread of life, just as well now
as he could then. Let us ask him for the two kinds.' And then we knelt
down, and she prayed very earnestly that God would not only give us the
bread that we needed then to eat, but would also give us the blessed
bread of life. And I am sure Fred and I prayed too.
"The dinner was a pretty good one, with the turkey and all, but we
missed the bread again. It is wonderful how much you do need that,
no matter what else you have. I had often thought, before that
Thanksgiving, that I could get along just as well without bread as with
it, if I had plenty of other things, but I saw, in just that one day,
how necessary it was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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