Stepping Heavenward [118]
to hide my amusement.
AUG. 10.-After being cooped up in town so large a part of the summer, the children are nearly wild with delight at being in the country once more. Even our demure Una skips about with a buoyancy I have never seen in her; she never has her ill turns when out of the city, and I wish, for her sake, we could always live here. As to Raymond and Walter, I never pretend to see them except at their meals and their bedtime; they just live outdoors, following the men at their work, asking all sorts of absurd questions, which Mr. Brown reports to me every night, with shouts of delighted laughter. Two gay and gladsome boys they are; really good without being priggish; I don't think I could stand that. People ask me how it happens that my children are all so promptly obedient and so happy. As if it chanced that some parents have such children, or chanced that some have not! I am afraid it is only too true, as some one has remarked, that "this is the age of obedient parents!"' What then will be the future of their children? How can they yield to God who have never been taught to yield to human authority? And how well fitted will they be to rule their own households who have never learned to rule themselves?
AUG. 31.-This has been one of those cold, dismal, rainy days which are not infrequent during the month of August. So the children have been obliged to give up the open air, of which. they are so fond, and fall back upon what entertainment could be found within the house. I have read to them the little journal I kept during the whole life of the brother I am not willing they should forget. His quaint and sagacious sayings were delicious to them; the history of his first steps, his first words sounded to them like a fairy tale. And the story of his last steps, his last words on earth, had for them such a tender charm, that there was a cry of disappointment from them all, when I closed the little book and told them we should have to wait till we got to heaven before we could know anything more about his precious life.
How thankful I am that I kept this journal, and that I have almost as charming ones about most of my other children! What I speedily forgot amid the pressure of cares and of new events is safely written down, and. will be the source of endless pleasure to them long after the hand that wrote has ceased from its .labors, and lies inactive and at rest.
Ah, it is a blessed thing to be a mother!
SEPTEMBER 1-This baby of mine, is certainly the sweetest and best I ever had I feel an inexpressible tenderness for it, which I cannot quite explain to myself, for I have loved them all dearly, most dearly. Perhaps it is so with all mothers, perhaps they all grow more loving, more forbearing, more patient as they grow older, and yearn over these helpless little ones with an ever-increasing, yet chastened delight. One cannot help sheltering their tender infancy, who will so soon pass forth to fight the battle of life, each one waging an invisible warfare against invisible foes. How thankfully we would fight it for them, if we might!
SEPTEMBER 20.-. The mornings and evenings are very cool now, while in the middle of the day it is quite hot. Ernest comes to see us very often, under the pretense that he can't trust me with so young a baby ! He is so tender and thoughtful, and spoils me so, that this world is very bright to me; I am a little jealous of it; I don't want to be so happy in Ernest, or in my children, as to forget for one instant that I am a pilgrim and a stranger on earth.
EVENING.-There is no danger that I shall. Ernest suddenly made his appearance tonight, and in a great burst of distress quite unlike anything I ever saw in him, revealed to me that he had been feeling the greatest anxiety about me ever since the baby came. It is all nonsense. I cough, to be sure; but that it is owing to the varying temperature we always have at this season. I shall get over, it as soon as we get home, I dare say.
But suppose I should not; what then? Could I leave this precious little flock, uncared
AUG. 10.-After being cooped up in town so large a part of the summer, the children are nearly wild with delight at being in the country once more. Even our demure Una skips about with a buoyancy I have never seen in her; she never has her ill turns when out of the city, and I wish, for her sake, we could always live here. As to Raymond and Walter, I never pretend to see them except at their meals and their bedtime; they just live outdoors, following the men at their work, asking all sorts of absurd questions, which Mr. Brown reports to me every night, with shouts of delighted laughter. Two gay and gladsome boys they are; really good without being priggish; I don't think I could stand that. People ask me how it happens that my children are all so promptly obedient and so happy. As if it chanced that some parents have such children, or chanced that some have not! I am afraid it is only too true, as some one has remarked, that "this is the age of obedient parents!"' What then will be the future of their children? How can they yield to God who have never been taught to yield to human authority? And how well fitted will they be to rule their own households who have never learned to rule themselves?
AUG. 31.-This has been one of those cold, dismal, rainy days which are not infrequent during the month of August. So the children have been obliged to give up the open air, of which. they are so fond, and fall back upon what entertainment could be found within the house. I have read to them the little journal I kept during the whole life of the brother I am not willing they should forget. His quaint and sagacious sayings were delicious to them; the history of his first steps, his first words sounded to them like a fairy tale. And the story of his last steps, his last words on earth, had for them such a tender charm, that there was a cry of disappointment from them all, when I closed the little book and told them we should have to wait till we got to heaven before we could know anything more about his precious life.
How thankful I am that I kept this journal, and that I have almost as charming ones about most of my other children! What I speedily forgot amid the pressure of cares and of new events is safely written down, and. will be the source of endless pleasure to them long after the hand that wrote has ceased from its .labors, and lies inactive and at rest.
Ah, it is a blessed thing to be a mother!
SEPTEMBER 1-This baby of mine, is certainly the sweetest and best I ever had I feel an inexpressible tenderness for it, which I cannot quite explain to myself, for I have loved them all dearly, most dearly. Perhaps it is so with all mothers, perhaps they all grow more loving, more forbearing, more patient as they grow older, and yearn over these helpless little ones with an ever-increasing, yet chastened delight. One cannot help sheltering their tender infancy, who will so soon pass forth to fight the battle of life, each one waging an invisible warfare against invisible foes. How thankfully we would fight it for them, if we might!
SEPTEMBER 20.-. The mornings and evenings are very cool now, while in the middle of the day it is quite hot. Ernest comes to see us very often, under the pretense that he can't trust me with so young a baby ! He is so tender and thoughtful, and spoils me so, that this world is very bright to me; I am a little jealous of it; I don't want to be so happy in Ernest, or in my children, as to forget for one instant that I am a pilgrim and a stranger on earth.
EVENING.-There is no danger that I shall. Ernest suddenly made his appearance tonight, and in a great burst of distress quite unlike anything I ever saw in him, revealed to me that he had been feeling the greatest anxiety about me ever since the baby came. It is all nonsense. I cough, to be sure; but that it is owing to the varying temperature we always have at this season. I shall get over, it as soon as we get home, I dare say.
But suppose I should not; what then? Could I leave this precious little flock, uncared