A Bit of Brightness
By Mary Joanna Porter
It not only rained, but it poured; so the brightness was certainly not in the sky. It was Sunday, too, and that fact, so Phœbe thought, added to the gloominess of the storm. For Phœbe had left behind her the years in which she had been young and strong, and in which she had no need to regard the weather. Now if she went out in the rain she was sure to suffer afterward with rheumatism, so, of course, a day like this made her a prisoner within doors. There she had not very much to occupy her. She and her husband, Gardener Jim, lived so simply that it was a small matter to prepare and clear away their meals, and, that being attended to, what was there for her to do?
Phœbe had never been much of a scholar, and reading even the coarse-print Bible, seemed to try her eyes. Knitting on Sunday was not to be thought of, and there was nobody passing by to be watched and criticised. Altogether Phœbe considered it a very dreary day.
As for Gardener Jim, he had his pipe to comfort him. All the same he heaved a sigh now and then, as if to say, “O dear! I wish things were not quite so dull.”
In the big house near by lived Jim’s employer, Mr. Stevens. There matters were livelier, for there were living five healthy, happy children, whose mother scarcely knew the meaning of the word quiet. When it drew near two o’clock in the afternoon they were all begging to be allowed to go to Sunday-school.
“You’ll let me go, won’t you, ma?” cried Jessie, the oldest, and Tommy and Nellie and Johnny and even baby Clara echoed the petition. Mrs. Stevens thought the thing over and decided that Jessie and Tommy might go. For the others, she would have Sunday-school at home.
“Be sure to put on your high rubbers and your water-proofs and take umbrellas.” These were the mother’s instructions as the two left the family sitting-room. A few moments after, Jessie looked in again. “Well, you are wrapped up!” exclaimed Mrs. Stevens, “I don’t think the storm can hurt you.” “Neither do I, ma, and Oh! I forgot to ask you before, may we stop at Gardener Jim’s on the way home?”
“Yes, if you’ll be careful not to make any trouble for him and Phœbe, and will come home before supper-time.”
Tommy, who was standing behind Jessie in the doorway, suppressed the hurrah that rose to his lips. He remembered that it was Sunday and that his mother would not approve of his making a great noise on the holy day.
He and Jessie had quite a hard tramp to the little chapel in which the school was held. The graveled sidewalks were covered with that uncomfortable mixture of snow and water known as slush, which beside being wet was cold and slippery, so that walking was no easy thing. Yet what did that matter after they had reached the school?
Their teachers were there, and so was the superintendent, and so were nearly half of the scholars. Theirs was a wide-awake school, you see, and it did not close on account of weather.
Each of the girls in Jessie’s class was asked to recite a verse that she had chosen through the week. Jessie’s was this:
“To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”
The teacher talked a little about it and Jessie thought it over on her way to Gardener Jim’s. The result was that she said to her brother:
“Tommy, you know mother said we must not trouble Jim and Phœbe.”
“Yes, I know it, but I don’t think we will, do you?”
“No, I’m sure they’ll be glad to see us, but I was thinking we might do something to make them very glad. Suppose that while we’re in there, I read to them from the Bible, and then we sing to them two or three of our hymns.”
“What a queer girl you are, Jess! Anybody would think that you were a minister going to hold church in the cottage. But I’m agreed, if you want to; I like singing anyway. It seems to let off a little of the ’go’ in a fellow.”
By this time they had reached the cottage, and if they had been a prince and princess—supposing that such titled personages were living in these United States—they could not have had a warmer welcome. Gardener Jim opened the door in such haste that he scattered the ashes from his pipe over the rag-carpet on the floor. Phœbe, too, contrived to drop her spectacles while she was saying “How do you do,” and it took at least three minutes to find them again.
At length, however, the surprise being over, the children removed their wraps, Jim refilled his pipe, and Phœbe settled herself in her chair. She was slowly revolving in her mind the question whether it would be best to offer her visitors a lunch of cookies or one of apples, when Jessie said:
“Phœbe, wouldn’t you like to have me read you a chapter or two?”
“‘Deed and I would, miss, and I’d be that grateful that I couldn’t express myself. My eyes, you see, are getting old, and Jim’s not much better, and neither of us was ever a scholard.”
So Jessie read in her sweet, clear voice the chapters beloved in palace and in cottage, about the holy city New Jerusalem, and about the pure river of water of life, clear as crystal; about the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations; about the place where they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever.
“Dear me, dear me!” exclaimed Phœbe, “it seems almost like being there, doesn’t it? Now I’ll have something to think of to-night if I lie awake with the rheumatism.”
“We’re going to sing to you, too,” was Tommy’s rejoinder.
Then he and Jessie sang “It’s coming, coming nearer, that lovely land unseen,” and “O, think of the home over there” and Phoebe’s favorite:
“In the far better land of glory and light
The ransomed are singing in garments of white,
The harpers are harping and all the bright train
Sing the song of redemption, the Lamb that was slain.”
Jim wiped his eyes as they finished. He and Phœbe had once had a little boy and girl, but both had long, long been in the “better land.” Yet though he wept it was in gladness, for the reading and singing had seemed to open a window through which he might look into the streets of the heavenly city.
Thus Tommy and Jessie had brought sunshine to the cottage on that rainy Sunday afternoon. They had given the cup of cold water—surely they had their reward.