Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [67]
Anne, overhearing this, said, ‘God is in everything, dear. He is the friend who is always near us to give strength and courage. And Nan is quite right in praying to Him when and where she wants to.’ Though, if Anne had known the truth about her small daughter’s devotions, she would have been rather horrified.
Nan had said one night in May, ‘If You’ll make my tooth grow in before Amy Taylor’s party next week, dear God, I’ll take every dose of castor oil Susan gives me without a bit of fuss.’
The very next day the tooth, whose absence had made such an unsightly and too prolonged gap in Nan’s pretty mouth, had appeared and by the day of the party was fully through. What more certain sign could you want than that?
Nan kept her side of the compact faithfully, and Susan was amazed and delighted whenever she administered castor oil after that. Nan took it without a grimace or protest, though she sometimes wished she had set a time-limit… say three months.
God did not always respond. But when she asked Him to send her a special button for her button-string… collecting buttons had broken out everywhere among the Glen small girls like the measles… assuring Him that if He did she would never make a fuss when Susan set the chipped plate for her, the button came the very next day, Susan having found one on an old dress in the attic. A beautiful red button set with tiny diamonds, or what Nan believed to be diamonds. She was the envy of all because of that elegant button, and when Di refused the chipped plate that night Nan said virtuously, ‘Give it to me, Susan. I’ll always take it after this,’ Susan thought she was angelically unselfish and said so. Whereupon Nan both looked and felt smug. She got a fine day for the Sunday School picnic, when everyone predicted rain the night before, by promising to brush her teeth every morning without being told. Her lost ring was restored on the condition that she kept her finger-nails scrupulously clean; and when Walter handed over his picture of a flying angel which Nan had long coveted she ate the fat with the lean uncomplainingly at dinner thereafter. When, however, she asked God to make her battered and patched Teddy Bear young again, promising to keep her bureau drawer tidy, something struck a snag. Teddy did not grow young, though Nan looked for the miracle anxiously every morning and wished God would hurry. Finally, she resigned herself to Teddy’s age. After all, he was a nice old bear and it would be awfully hard to keep that bureau drawer tidy. When Dad brought her home a new Teddy Bear she didn’t really like it, and, though with sundry misgivings of her small conscience, decided she need not take any special pains with the bureau drawer. Her faith returned when, having prayed that the missing eye of her china cat would be restored, the eye was in its place next morning, though somewhat askew, giving the cat a rather cross-eyed aspect. Susan had found it when sweeping and stuck it in with glue, but Nan did not know this and cheerfully carried out her promise of walking fourteen times around the barn on all fours.
What good walking fourteen times around the barn on all fours could do God or anybody else Nan did not stop to consider. But she hated doing it… the boys were always wanting her and Di to pretend they were some kind of animals in Rainbow Valley… and perhaps there was some vague thought in her budding mind that penance might be pleasing to the mysterious Being who gave or withheld at pleasure. At any rate, she thought out several weird stunts that summer, causing Susan to wonder frequently where on earth children got the notions they did.
‘Why do you suppose, Mrs Doctor dear, that Nan must go twice around the living-room every day without walking on the floor?’
‘Without walking on the floor! How does she manage it, Susan?’
‘By jumping from one piece of furniture to the other, including the fender. She slipped on that yesterday, and pitched head-first into the coal-scuttle. Mrs Doctor dear, do you suppose she needs a dose of worm