Part 6 (1/2)
However, Mrs. Ashford knew that, whatever the trouble was, it would all come out sooner or later, for Marty always told her everything. So she merely said,
”Well, as it is so bleak to-day and you have a cold, perhaps it would be just as well for you not to go out.”
Marty, disinclined to play, took one of her ”Bessie Books” and sat down by the window. Though so cheerless out-doors, with the wind whistling among the leafless trees and blowing the dust about, that sitting room was certainly very cosey and pleasant.
Marty's ”pretty mamma,” as she often called her, in her becoming afternoon gown of soft, dark red stuff, sat in a low rocker in front of the bright fire busy with her embroidery and softly singing as she worked. Freddie, on the rug at her feet, played quietly with a string of b.u.t.tons. The only sounds in the room were Mrs. Ashford's murmured song and an occasional chirp from the canary. But all at once this cheerful quietness was broken by loud sobbing.
Poor Marty had been so unhappy the last two days, and now added to what she felt to be the meanness of appropriating that missionary penny, was the disappointment of not being at the meeting, for she was longing to be there, though not feeling fit to go. Besides, it was a great load on her mind that she had not told her mamma how she got the chair, nor what was the reason she did not want to go to the meeting. And now she could endure her wretchedness no longer.
”What's the matter, Marty?” exclaimed Mrs. Ashford, much startled. ”Are you ill? Is your throat sore? Come here and tell me what ails you?”
”Oh, mamma, I'm very, very wicked,” sobbed Marty, and running to her mother's arms she tried to tell her troubles, but cried so that she could not be understood.
”Never mind, never mind,” said her mother soothingly. ”Wait until you can stop crying and then tell me all about it.”
Freddie was dreadfully distressed to see his sister in such a state and did all he could to comfort her, bringing her his horse-reins and a whole lapful of building-blocks, and was rather surprised that they did not have the desired effect.
When Marty became quieter she told the whole story of the dolls' chair and the missionary penny. ”That's the reason I didn't want to go to the meeting,” she said. ”I don't feel fit to 'sociate with good missionary children. I'm so sorry and so ashamed. I wish I had let the penny stay in the box and the chair stay in the store.”
”We cannot undo what is done,” said her mother gravely. ”We can only make all possible amends and try to do better in future. You can replace the penny this evening, and this lesson you have had may teach you to be more self-denying. You know you cannot spend all your money for trifles and yet have some to give away. If you want to give you must learn to do without some things. But, Marty, if it is going to be so difficult to devote some of your money to missions, you had better just give up the attempt and go back to your old way of doing.”
”Oh, no, no!” exclaimed Marty earnestly. ”Please let me try again. I know I'll do better now, and I do want to help in missionary work.”
”Well,” said Mrs. Ashford, ”just as you wish. I don't like to see you beginning things and giving them up so soon, but at the same time I don't think you need feel obliged to give to these things whether you want to or not.”
”Oh, but I do want to ever so much,” Marty protested.
She felt better after telling her mother all about the matter, and now was quite ready to brighten up and start afresh. The next morning besides dropping in two pennies for tenths she put in another, which she said was a ”sorry” offering, but did not know the Bible name for it. She would have liked to make amends by putting in the whole ten cents, but her mother would not allow it.
”Things would soon be as bad as ever,” were her warning words, ”if that's the way you are going to do. The next thing you will want to take some of it out, as you did the penny for the chair.”
”No, no, mamma! I don't b'lieve I ever _could_ be so mean again,” Marty declared.
”I don't believe either that you would do it again. But you will certainly save yourself a great deal of worry, and will be likely to do more good in the work you have begun, by following Mrs. Howell's advice of having a plan of giving and keeping to it.”
”Well, I'm going to try that way in real earnest now,” said Marty; ”but I wish it was as easy for me to be steady about things as it is for Edith. She never seems to get into trouble over her tenths.”
A few days after this, when she was spending the afternoon with Edith, Marty told Mrs. Howell what a time she had had, and added,
”Doesn't it seem strange that I can't give my money regularly?”
”Perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Howell, ”you have not asked G.o.d to help you in your new enterprise.”
”Why, no, I haven't,” replied Marty. ”I never thought of it.”
”My dear child, we are nothing in our own strength. We should always ask G.o.d to help us, in what we attempt, and ask for his blessing. Unless he blesses our work, it cannot prosper.”
”But I don't know how to ask him,” said Marty, speaking softly. ”The prayers I say every night are 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' and there's nothing in them about mission work. I should have to say another prayer, shouldn't I?”