 CHAPTER XI. Things are even worse than I expected. Ernest evidently looked at me with his father's eyes, and this father has got the jaundice or something, and certainly is cooler toward me than he was before he went home. Martha still declines eating more than enough to keep body and soul together, and sits at the table with the air of a martyr. Her father lives on crackers and stewed prunes, and when he has eaten them fixes his melancholy eyes on me, watching every mouthful with an air of plaintive regret that I will consume so much unwholesome food. Then Ernest positively spends less time with me than ever, and sits in his office reading and writing nearly every evening. Yesterday I came home from an exhilarating walk and a charming call at auntie's, and at the dinner table gave a lively account of some of the children's exploits. Nobody laughed, and nobody made any response. And after dinner Ernest took me aside and said kindly enough, but still said it. My little wife must be careful how she runs on in my father's presence. He has a great dread of everything that might be thought levity. Then all the vials of my wrath exploded and went off. Yes, I see how it is, I cried passionately. You and your father and your sister have got a box about a foot square that you want to squeeze me into. I've seen it ever since they came, and I can tell you it will take more than the three of you to do it. There was no harm in what I said, none whatever. If you only married me for the sake of screwing me down and freezing me up why didn't you tell me before it was too late? Ernest stood looking at me like one staring at a problem he had got to solve and didn't know where to begin. I am very sorry, he said. I thought you would be glad to have me give you this little hint. Of course I want you to appear at your very best before my father and sister. My very best is my real self, I cried. To talk like a woman of forty is unnatural to a girl of my age. If your father doesn't like me, I wish he would go away and not come here putting notions into your head and making you as cold and hard as a stone. Mother liked to have me run on, as you call it, and I wish I had stayed with her all my life. Do you mean, he asked very gravely, that you really wish that? No, I said, I didn't mean it. For his husky troubled voice brought me to my senses. All I mean is that I love you so dearly, and you keep my heart feeling so hungry and restless. And then you went and brought your father and sister here and never asked me if I should like it, and you crowded mother out and she lives all alone and it isn't right. I always said that whoever married me had got to marry mother, and I never dreamed you would disappoint me so. Will you stop crying and listen to me, he said? But I could not stop. The floods of the great deep were broken up at last and I had to cry. If I could have told my troubles to someone, I could thus have found vent for them. But there was no one to whom I had a right to speak of my husband. Ernest walked up and down in silence. Oh, if I could have cried on his breast and felt that he loved me and pitied me. At last I grew quieter and he came and sat by me. This has come upon me like a thunderclap, he said. I did not know I kept your heart hungry. I did not know you wished your mother to live with us. Then I took it for granted that my wife, with her high-toned heroic character, would sustain me in every duty and welcome my father and sister to our home. I do not know what I can do now. Shall I send them away? No, no, I cried. Only be good to me, Ernest. Only love me. Only look at me with your own eyes, not with other people's. You knew I had faults when you married me. I never tried to conceal them. And did you fancy I had none myself? He asked. No, I replied. I saw no faults in you. Everybody said you were such a good and noble man, and you spoke so beautifully one night at an evening meeting. Speaking beautifully is little to the purpose, unless one lives beautifully, he said sadly. And how is it possible that you and I, a Christian man and a Christian woman, are going on and on with such scenes as this? Are you to wear your life out, because I have not your frantic way of loving? And am I to be made weary of mine, because I cannot satisfy you? But Ernest, I said, you used to satisfy me. Oh, how happy I was in those first days when we were always together and you seemed so fond of me. I was down on the floor by this time and looking up into his pale, anxious face. Dear child, he said, I do love you. And that more than you know. But you would not have me leave my work and spend my whole time telling you so. You know I'm not so silly. I cried. It is not fair. It is not right to talk as if I were. I ask for nothing unreasonable. I only want those little daily assurances of your affection that I should suppose would be spontaneous if you felt at all toward me as I do toward you. The fact is, he returned, I am absorbed in my work. It brings many grave cares and anxieties. I spend most of my time amid scenes of suffering and at dying beds. This makes me seem abstracted and cold. But it does not make you less dear. On the contrary, the sense it gives me of the brevity and sorrowfulness of life makes you doubly precious, since it constantly reminds me that sick beds and dying beds must sooner or later come to our home as to those of others. I clung to him as he uttered these terrible words in an agony of terror. Oh, Ernest, promise me, promise me that you will not die first, I pleaded. Foolish little thing, he said, and was as silly for a while as the silliest heart could ask. Then he became serious again. Katie, he said, if you can once make up your mind to the fact that I am an undemonstrative man, not all fire and fury and ecstasy as you are, yet loving you with all my heart, however it may seem, I think you will spare yourself much needless pain. And spare me also. But I want you to be demonstrative, I persisted. Then you must teach me. And about my father and sister, perhaps we may find some way of relieving you by and by. Meanwhile, try to bear with the trouble they make for my sake. But I don't mind the trouble. Oh, Ernest, how you do misunderstand me. What I mind is there coming between you and me and making you love me less. By this time there was a call for Ernest. It is a wonder that there had not been forty. And he went, I feel as heart sore as ever. What has been gained by this tempest? Nothing at all. Poor Ernest, how can I worry him so when he's already so full of care? March 20th. I have had such a truly beautiful letter today from dear mother. She gives up the hope of coming to spend her last years with us with a sweet patience that makes me cry whenever I think of it. What is the secret of this instant and cheerful consent to whatever God wills? Oh, that I had it too. She begs me to be considerate and kind to Ernest's father and sister, and constantly remind myself that my heavenly father has chosen to give me this care and trial on the very threshold of my married life. I am afraid I have quite lost sight of that in my indignation with Ernest for bringing them here. April 3rd. Martha is closeted with Ernest in his office day and night. They never give me the least hint of what is going on in these secret meetings. Then this morning, Sarah, my good, faithful cook, bounced into my room to give warning. She said she could not live where there were two mistresses giving contrary directions. But really, there is but one mistress, I urged. Then it came out that Martha went down every morning to look after the soap fat and to squimp in the housekeeping and see that there was no food wasted. I remembered then that she had inquired whether I attended to these details, evidently ranking such duties with saying one's prayers and reading one's Bible. I flew to Ernest the moment he was at leisure and poured my grievances into his ear. Well, dear, he said, suppose you give up the housekeeping to Martha. She will be far happier, and you will be freed from much annoying petty care. I bit my tongue, lest it should say something, and went back to Sarah. Suppose Miss Elliot takes charge of the housekeeping and I have nothing to do with it. Will you stay? Indeed, and I won't, then, I can't bear her, and I won't put up with her nasty, scrimping, pinching ways. Very well. Then you will have to go, I said, with great dignity, though just ready to cry. Ernest, on being applied to for wages, undertook to argue the question himself. My sister will take the whole charge, he began. And may and welcome for all me, quotes Sarah. I don't like her and never shall. Your liking or disliking her is of no consequence whatever, said Ernest. You may dislike her as much as you please, but you must not leave us. Indeed, and I'm not going to stay and be put upon by her, persisted Sarah. So she has gone. We had to get dinner ourselves, that is to say Martha did, for she said I got in her way and put her out with my awkwardness. I have been running hither and thither to find some angel who will consent to live in this ill-assorted household. Oh, how different everything is from what I had planned. I wanted a cheerful home, where I should be the center of every joy, a home like aunties without a cloud. But Ernest's father sits, the personification of silent gloom, like a nightmare on my spirits. Martha holds me in disfavor and contempt. Ernest is absorbed in his profession and I hardly see him. If he wants advice, he asks it of Martha while I sit humbled, degraded, and ashamed, wondering why he ever married me at all. And then come interludes of wild joy when he appears just as he did in the happy days of our bridal trip, and I forget every grievance and hang on his words and look like one intoxicated with bliss. October 2. There has been another explosion. I held in as long as I could, then flew into 10,000 pieces. Ernest had gotten to the habit of helping his father and sister at the table and apparently forgetting me. It seems a little thing, but a chafed and fretted my already irritated soul, till at last I was almost beside myself. Yesterday they all three sat eating their breakfast, and I, with empty plate, sat boiling over and looking on, when Ernest brought things to a crisis by saying to Martha, if you can find time today, I wish you would go with me for half an hour or so, I want to consult to you about— Oh, I said, rising with my face all in a flame, do not trouble yourself to go out in order to escape me. I can leave the room, and you can have your secrets to yourselves as you do your breakfast. I don't know which struck me most. Ernest appalled, grieved look, or the glance exchanged between Martha and her father. He did not hinder my leaving the room, and I went upstairs as pitiable an object as could be seen. I heard him go into his office, then take his hat and set forth on his rounds. What wretched hours I passed, thus left alone. One moment I reproached myself, the next I was indignant at the long series of offenses that had led to this disgraceful scene. At last Ernest came. He looked concerned, and a little pale. Oh, Ernest! I cried, running to him. I am so sorry I spoke to you as I did. But indeed I cannot stand the way things are going on. I am wearing all out. Everybody speaks of my growing thin, feel of my hands, they burn like fire. I knew you would be sorry, dear, he said. Yes, your hands are hot, poor child. There was a long, dreadful silence, and yet I was speaking, and perhaps he was. I was begging and beseeching God not to let us drift apart, not to let us lose one jot or tittle of our love for each other, to enable me to understand my dear, dear husband, and make him understand me. Then Ernest began. What was it vexed you, dear? What is it you can't stand? Tell me, I am your husband. I love you. I want to make you happy. Why are you having so many secrets that you keep from me? And you treat me as if I were only a child, consulting Martha about everything. And of late you seem to have forgotten that I am at the table and never helped me to anything. Secrets, he echoed. What possible secrets can I have? I don't know, I said, sinking weirdly back on the sofa. Indeed, Ernest, I don't want to be selfish or exacting, but I'm very unhappy. Yes, I see it, poor child. And if I have neglected you at the table, I do not wonder you are out of patience. I know how it has happened. While you were pouring out the coffee, I busied myself in caring for my father and Martha and so forgot you. I do not give this as an excuse, but as a reason. I have really no excuse and am ashamed of myself. Don't say that, darling, I cried. It is I who ought to be ashamed for making such an adieu about a trifle. It is not a trifle, he said. And now to the other points. I dare say I have been careless about consulting Martha, but she has always been a sort of oracle in our family, and we all look up to her. And she is so much older than you. Then, as to the secrets, Martha comes to my office to help me look over my books. I have been careless about my accounts, and she has kindly undertaken to attend to them for me. Could not I have done that? No. Why should your little head be troubled about money matters? But to go on. I see that it was thoughtless of me not telling you what we were about, but I am greatly perplexed and harassed in many ways. Perhaps you would feel better to know all about it. I have only kept it from you to spare you all the anxiety I could. Oh, Ernest, I said. Aught not a wife share in all her husband's cares? No, he returned. But I will tell you all that is annoying me now. My father was in business in our native town and went on prosperously for many years. Then the tide turned. He met with loss after loss till nothing remained but the old homestead. And on that there was a mortgage. We concealed the state of things from my mother. Her health was delicate, and we never let her know a trouble we could spare her. Now she has gone, and we have found it necessary to sell our old home and to divide and scatter the family. My father's mental distress when he found others suffering from his own losses threw him into the state in which you see him now. I have, therefore, assumed his debts and with God's help, hope and time to pay them to the uttermost farthing. It will be necessary for us to live economically until this is done. There are two pressing cases that I'm trying to meet at once. This has given me a preoccupied air, I have no doubt, and made you suspect and misunderstand me. But now you know the whole, my darling. I felt my injustice and childish folly very keenly and told him so. But I think, dear Ernest, I added, if you will not be hurt at my saying so, that you have led me to it by not letting me share at once in your cares. If you had, at the outset, just told me the whole story, you would have enlisted my sympathies in your father's behalf and in your own. I should have seen the reasonableness of your breaking up the old home and bringing them here, and it would have taken the edge off my bitter, bitter disappointment about my mother. I feel sorry about that, he said. It would be a real pleasure to have her here. But as things are now, she could not be happy with us. There is no room, I put in. I am truly sorry. And now my dear little wife must have patience with her stupid, blundering old husband, and we'll start together once more fair and square. Don't wait next time until you are so full that you boil over the moment I annoy you by my inconsiderate ways. Come right and tell me. So then I called myself all the horrid names I could think of. May I ask one thing more? Now we are upon the subject, I said at last. Why couldn't your sister Helen have come here instead of Martha? He smiled a little. In the first place, Helen would be perfectly crushed if she had the care of father in his present state. She is too young to have such responsibility. In the second place, my brother John, with whom she has gone to live, has a wife who would be quite crushed by my father and Martha. She is one of those little, tender, soft souls one could crush with one's fingers. Now you are not of that sort. You have force of character enough to enable you to live with them while maintaining your own dignity and remaining yourself in spite of circumstances. I thought you admired Martha above all things and wanted me to be exactly like her. I do admire her, but I do not want you to be like anybody but yourself. But you nearly killed me by suggesting that I should take heed how I talked in your father's presence. Yes, dear, it was very stupid of me, but my father has a standard of excellence in his mind by which he tests every woman. This standard is my mother. She had none of your life and fun in her and perhaps would not have appreciated your droll way of putting things any better than he and Martha do. I could not help sighing a little when I thought what sort of people were watching my every word. There is nothing amiss in my mind, Ernest continued, in your gay talk. But my father has his own views as to what constitute a religious character and cannot understand that real earnestness and real genuine mirthfulness are consistent with each other. He had to go now and we parted as if for a week's separation. This one talk had brought us so near to each other. I understand him now as I never have done and feel that he has given me as really proof of his affection by unlocking the door of his heart and letting me see its cares as I give him with my wild pranks and caresses and foolish speeches. How truly noble it is in him to take up his father's burden in this way. I must contrive to help lighten it. End of chapter 11. Recording by Theresa Downey. Chapter 12 of Stepping Heavenward. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Theresa Downey. Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentis. Chapter 12. November 6. Auntie has put me in a way of doing that. I could not tell her the whole story, of course, but I made her understand that Ernest needed money for a generous purpose and that I wanted to help him in it. She said the children needed both music and drawing lessons and that she should be delighted if I would take them in hand. Auntie does not care a fig for accomplishments, but I think I'm right in accepting her offer as the children ought to learn to sing and to play and to draw. Of course, I cannot have them here as Ernest's father could not bear the noise they would make. Besides, I want to take Ernest by surprise and keep the whole thing a secret. November 14. I have seen by the way Martha draws down the corner of her mouth of late that I am unusually out of favor with her. This evening, Ernest, coming home quite late, found me lolling back in my chair, idling after our hard day's work with my little cousins, and Martha sewing nervously away at the rate of ten knots an hour, which is the first pun I ever made. Why will you sit up and sew at such a rate, Martha? He asked. She twitched at her thread, broke it, and began with a new one before she replied. I suppose you find it convenient to have a whole shirt to your back. I saw then that she was making his shirts. It made me both hot and cold at once. What must Ernest think of me? It is plain enough what he thinks of her, for he said quite warmly for him. This is really too kind. What right has she to prowl around Ernest's things and pry into the state of his wardrobe? If I had not had my time so broken up giving lessons, I should have found out he needed new shirts and set to work on them. Though I must own, I hate shirt-making. I could not help showing that I felt aggrieved. Martha defended herself by saying that she knew young people would be young people and would gad about shirts or no shirts. Now it is not her fault that she thinks I waste my time gadding about, but I am just as angry with her as if it were. Oh, why couldn't I have had Helen to be a pleasant companion and a friend to me? Instead of this old, well, I won't say what. And really, with so much to make me happy, what would become of me if I had no trials? November 15th. Today, Martha has a house-cleaning mania and has dragged me into it by representing the sin and misery of those deluded mortals who think servants know how to sweep and to scrub. In spite of my resolution not to get under her thumb, I have somehow let her rule and reign over me to such an extent that I can hardly sit up long enough to write this. Does the whole duty of a woman consist in keeping her house distressingly clean and prim, in making and baking and preserving and pickling, in climbing to the top shelves of closets lest happily a little dust should lodge there, and getting down on her hands and knees to inspect the carpet? The truth is there is not one point of sympathy between Martha and myself, not one. One would think that our love of Ernest would furnish it, but her love aims at the abasement of her character and mine at its elevation. She thinks I should bow down to and worship him, jump up and offer him my chair when he comes in, feed him with every unwholesome dainty he fancies, and feel myself honored by his acceptance of these services. I think it is for him to rise and offer me a seat because I am a woman and his wife, and that a silly subservience on my part is degrading to him and to myself, and I am afraid I make known these sentiments to her in a most unpalatable way. November 18th. Oh, I am so happy that I sing for joy. Dear Ernest has given me such a delightful surprise. He says he has persuaded James to come and spend his college days here and finally study medicine with him. Dear darling old James, he is to be here tomorrow. He is to have the little hall bedroom fitted up for him, and he will be here several years. Next to having mother, this is the nicest thing that could happen. We love each other so dearly and get along so beautifully together. I wonder how he'll like Martha with her grim ways and Ernest's father with his melancholy ones. November 30th. James has come and the house already seems lighter and cheerier. He is not in the least annoyed by Martha or her father. And though he is as jovial as the day is long, they actually seem to like him. True to her theory on the subject, Martha invariably rises at his entrance and offers him her seat. He pretends not to see it and runs to get one for her. Then she takes comfort in seeing him consume her good things since his gobbling them down is a sort of tacit tribute to their merits. Mrs. Embry was here today. She says there is not much the matter with Ernest's father, that he has only got the hypo. I don't know exactly what this is, but I believe it is thinking something as the matter with you when there isn't. At any rate, I put it to you, my dear old journal, whether it is pleasant to live with people who behave in this way. In the first place, all he talks about is his fancy disease. He gets book after book from the office and studies and ponders his case till he grows quite yellow. One day he says he has found out the seat of his disease to be the liver and changes his diet to meet the view of the case. Martha has to do him up in mustard and he takes kindly to blue pills. In a day or two, he finds his liver is all right, but that his brain is all wrong. The mustard goes now to the back of his neck and he takes solemn leave of all of us with the assurance that his last hour has come. Finding that he survives the night, however, he transfers the seat of his disease to the heart, spends hours in counting his pulse, refuses to take exercise, lest he should bring on palpitations and warns us all to prepare to follow him. Everybody who comes in has to hear the whole story. Everyone prescribes something and he tries each remedy in turn. These all failing to reach his case, he is plunged into tenfold gloom. He complains that God has cast him off forever and that his sins are like the sands of the sea for number. I am such a goose that I listened to all these varying moods and symptoms with the solemn conviction that he's going to die immediately. I bathe his head and count his pulse and fan him and take down his dying depositions for earnest solace after he is gone. And I talk theology to him by the hour while Martha bakes and brews in the kitchen or makes mince pies, which, after eating, one might give him the whole Bible at one dose without the smallest effect. Today I stood by his chair, holding his head and whispering such consoling passages as I thought might comfort him when James burst in, singing and tossing his cap in the air. Come here, young man, and hear my last testimony. I am about to die, the end draws near, where the seprical words that made James bring his song to an abrupt close. I shall take it very ill of you, sir, quote James. If you go and die before giving me that cane you promised me, who could die decently under such circumstances? The poor old man revived immediately, but looked a good deal injured. After James had gone out, he said, it is very painful to one who stands on the very verge of the eternal world to see the young so thoughtless. But James is not thoughtless, I said. It is only his merry way. Daughter Catherine, he went on. You are very kind to the old man, and you will have your reward. But I wish I could feel sure of your state before God. I greatly fear you deceive yourself and that the ground of your hope is delusive. I felt the blood rush to my face. At first I was staggered a good deal. But is a mortal man who cannot judge of his own state to decide mine? It is true he sees my faults, anybody can who looks. But he does not see my prayers or my tears of shame and sorrow. He does not know how many hasty words I repress, how earnestly I am aiming all the day long to do right in all the little details of life. He does not know that it costs my fastidious nature and appeals to God every time I kiss his poor old face and that what would be an act of worship in him is an act of self-denial in me. How should he? The Christian life is a hidden life, known only by the eye that seeeth in secret and I do believe this life is mine. Up to this time I have contrived to get along without calling Ernest's father by any name. I mean now to make myself turn over a new leaf. December 7th, James is my perpetual joy and pride. We read and sing together just as we used to do in our old school days. Martha sits by with her work grimly approving for is he not a man? And as if my cup of felicity were not full enough, I am to have my dear old pastor come here to settle over this church and I shall once more hear his beloved voice in the pulpit. Ernest has managed the whole thing. He says the state of Dr. C's health makes the change quite necessary and that he can avail himself of the best surgical advice this city affords in case his old difficulties recur. I rejoice for myself and for this church but mother will miss him sadly. I am leading a very busy happy life only I am perhaps working a little too hard. What with my scholars, the extra amount of housework Martha contrives to get out of me, the practicing I must keep up if I am to teach and the many steps I have to take I have not only no idle moments but none too many for recreation. Ernest is so busy himself that he fortunately does not see what a race I am running. January 16th, 1838. The first anniversary of our wedding day and like all days has had its lights and its shades. I thought I would celebrate it in such a way as to give pleasure to everybody and spent a good deal of time in getting up a little gift for each from Ernest and myself and I took special pains to have a good dinner particularly for father. Yes, I had made up my mind to call him by that sacred name for this first time today cost what it may but he shut himself up in his room directly after breakfast and when dinner was ready refused to come down. This cast a gloom over us all. Then Martha was nearly distracted because a valuable dish has been broken in the kitchen and she could not recover her equanimity at all. Worst of all Ernest who is not in the least sentimental never said a word about our wedding day and didn't give me a thing. I have kept hoping all day that he would make me some little present no matter how small but now it is too late. He has gone out to be gone all night probably and thus ends the day an utter failure. I feel a good deal disappointed. Besides when I look back over this my first year of married life do not feel satisfied with myself at all. I can't help feeling that I have been selfish and unreasonable toward Ernest in a great many ways and as contrary towards Martha as if I enjoyed a state of warfare between us and I have felt a good deal of secret contempt for her father with his moods and tenses his pillboxes and his plasters his feastings and his fastings. I do not understand how a Christian can make such a slow progress as I do and how old faults can hang on so. If I had made any real progress should I not be sensible of it? I have been reading over the early part of this journal and when I came to the conversation I had with Mrs. Cabot in which I made a list of my wants I was astonished that I could ever have had such contemptible ones. Let me think what I really and truly most want now. First of all then if God should speak to me at this moment and offer to give just one thing and that alone I should say without hesitation love to thee oh my master next to that if I could have one thing more I would choose to be a thoroughly unselfish devoted wife down in my secret heart I know there lurks another wish which I'm ashamed of it is that in some way or other some right way I could be delivered from Martha and her father I shall never be any better while they are here to tempt me. February 1st Ernest spoke today of one of his patients a Mrs. Campbell who is a great sufferer but whom he describes as the happiest most cheerful person he ever met he rarely speaks of his patients indeed he rarely speaks of anything I feel strangely attracted by what he said of her and asked so many questions that at last he proposed to take me to see her I caught at the idea very eagerly and have just come home from the visit greatly moved and touched she's confined to her bed and is quite helpless and at times her sufferings are terrible she received me with a sweet smile however and led me on to talk more myself than I ought to have done I wish Ernest had not left me alone with her so I should have had the restraint of his presence February 14th I am so fascinated with Mrs. Campbell that I cannot help going to see her again and again she seems to me like one whose conflict and dismay are all over and who looks on other human beings with almost divine love and pity to look at life as she does to feel as she does to have such a personal love for Christ as she has I would willingly go through every trial and sorrow when I told her so she smiled a little sadly much as you envy me she said my faith is not yet so strong that I do not shudder at the thought of a young enthusiastic girl like you going through all I have done in order to learn a few simple lessons which God was willing to teach me sooner and without the use of a rod if I had been ready for them but you are so happy now I said yes I am happy she replied and such happiness is worth all it costs if my flesh shudders at the remembrance of what I have endured my faith sustains God through the whole but tell me a little more about yourself my dear I should so love to give you a helping hand if I might you know I began dear mrs. Campbell that there are some trials that cannot do us any good they only call out all there is in us that is unlovely and severe I don't know of any such trials she replied suppose you had to live with people who are perfectly uncongenial who misunderstood you and who are always getting into your way as stumbling blocks if I were living with them and they made me unhappy I would ask God to relieve me of this trial if he thought it best if he did not think it best I would then try to find out the reason he might have two reasons one would be the good they might do me the other the good I might do them but in the case I was supposing neither party can be of the least used to the other you forget perhaps the indirect good one may gain by living with uncongenial tempting persons first such people do good by the very self-denial and self-control their mere presence demands then they're making one's home less home-like and perfect than it would be in their absence may help render our real home in heaven more attractive but suppose one cannot exercise self-control and is always flying out and flaring up I objected I should say that a Christian who was always doing that she replied gravely was in pressing need of just the trial God sent when he shut that person up to such a life of hourly temptation we only know ourselves and what we really are when the force of circumstances brings us out it is very mortifying and painful to find out how weak one is that is true but our mortifications are some of God's best physicians and do much toward healing our pride and self-conceit do you really think then that God deliberately appoints to some of his children a lot where their worst passions are excited with the desire to bring good out of the seemingly evil why I have always supposed the best thing that could happen to me for instance would be to have a home exactly to my mind a home where all were forbearing loving and good-tempered a sort of little heaven below if you have not such a home my dear are you sure it is not partly your own fault of course it is my own fault because I am very quick-tempered I want to live with good-tempered people that is very benevolent in you she said archly I colored but went on oh I know I am selfish and therefore I want to live with those who are not so I want to live with persons to whom I can look for an example and who will constantly stimulate me to something higher but if God chooses quite another lot for you you may be sure that he sees that you need something totally different from what you want you said just now that you would gladly go through any trial in order to attain a personal love for Christ that should become the ruling principle of your life now as soon as God sees this desire in you is he not kind is he not wise in appointing such trials as he knows will lead to this end I meditated long before I answered was God really asking me not merely to let Martha and her father live with me on sufferance but to rejoice that he had seen fit to let them harass and embitter my domestic life I thank you for your suggestion I said at last I want to say one thing more Mrs. Campbell resumed after another pause we look at our fellow men too much from the standpoint of our own prejudices they may be wrong they may have their faults and foibles they may call out all the meanest and most hateful in us but they are not all wrong they have their virtues and when they excite our bad passions by their own they may be just as ashamed and sorry as we are irritated and I think some of the best most contrite most useful of men and women whose prayers prevail with God and bring down blessings into the homes in which they dwell often possess unlovely traits that furnish them with their best discipline the very fact that they are ashamed of themselves drives them to God they feel safe in his presence and while they lie in the very dust of self-confusion at his feet they are dear to him and have power with him that is a comforting word and I thank you for it, I said my heart was full and I longed to stay and hear her talk on but I had already exhausted her strength on the way home I felt as I suppose people do when they have caught a basket full of fish I always am delighted to catch a new idea I thought I would get all the benefit out of Martha and her father and as I went down to tea after taking off my things I felt like a holy martyr who had as good as won a crown I found however that the butter was horrible Martha had insisted that she alone was capable of selecting that article and had ordered a quantity from her own village that I could not eat myself and was ashamed to have on my table I pushed back my plate and discussed I hope Martha that you have not ordered much of this odious stuff I cried Martha replied that it was of the very first quality and appealed to her father in earnest who both agreed with her which I thought was very unkind and unjust I rushed into a hot debate on the subject during which earnest maintained an ominous silence that indicates his not being pleased and that irritated and led me on I would far rather he should say Katie, you are behaving like a child and I wish you would stop talking Martha I said you will persist that the butter is good because you ordered it if you will only own that I won't say another word I can't say it she replied Mrs. Jones' butter is invariably good I have never heard it found fought with before the trouble is you are so hard to please no I am not and you can't convince me that if the butter milk is not perfectly worked out the butter could be fit to eat this speech I felt to be a masterpiece it was time to let her know how learned I was on the subject of butter though I wasn't brought up to make it or see it made but here earnest put in a little oil I think you are both right he said Mrs. Jones makes good butter but just this once she failed I dare say it won't happen again and meanwhile this can be used for making seed cakes and we can get a new supply this was his masterpiece a whole furkin of butter made up into seed cakes Martha turned to encounter him on that head and I slipped off to my room to look with a miserable sense of disappointment at my folly and weakness in making so much a do about nothing I find it hard to believe that it can do me good to have people live with me who like rancid butter and who disagree with me in everything else end of chapter twelve recording by Teresa Downey chapter thirteen of stepping heavenward this is a liper box recording all liper box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit labor box dot org recording by Teresa Downey stepping heavenward by Elizabeth Prentice chapter thirteen march first auntie sent for us all to dine with her today to celebrate Lucy's fifteenth birthday ever since Lucy behaved so heroically in regard to little Emma really saving her life Ernest says auntie seems to feel that she cannot do enough for her the child has taken the most unaccountable fancy to me strangely enough and when we got there she came to meet me with something like cordiality mama permits me to be the bearer of agreeable news she said because this is my birthday a friend of whom you are very fun has just arrived in his impatient to embrace you to embrace me i cried you foolish child and the next moment i found myself in my mother's arms the despised Lucy had been the means of giving this pleasure it seems that auntie had told her that she should choose her own birthday treat and that after solemn meditation she decided that to see your mother again would be the most agreeable thing she could think of i have never told you dear journal why i did not go home last summer and never shall if you choose to fancy that i couldn't afford it you can wasn't it nice to see mother and to read in her dear loving face that she was satisfied with her poor wayward katie and fond of her as ever i only longed for Ernest's coming that she might see us together and see how he loved me he came i rushed out to meet him and dragged him in but it seemed as if he had grown stupid and awkward all through the dinner i watched for one of those loving glances that would proclaim to mother the good understanding between us but i watched in vain it will come by and by i thought when we get by ourselves mother will see how fond of me he is but by and by it was just the same i was preoccupied and mother asked me if i were well it was all very foolish i daresay and yet i did want to have her know that with all my faults he still loves me then, besides the disappointment i have to reproach myself for misunderstanding poor lucy as i have done because she was not all fire and fury like myself i need not have assumed that she had no heart it is just like me i hope i shall never be so severe in my judgment again april thirtieth mother has just gone her visit has done me a world of good she found out something to liken father at once and then something good in martha she says father's sufferings are real not fancied that his error is not knowing where to locate his disease and is starving one week and overeating the next she charged me not to lay up future misery for myself by misjudging him now and to treat him as a daughter ought without the smallest regard to his appreciation of it then as to martha she declares that i have no idea how much she does to reduce our expenses to keep the house in order and to relieve us from care but mother i said did you notice what horrid butter we have and it is all her doing but the butter won't last forever she replied don't make yourself miserable about such a trifle for my part it is a great relief to me to know that with your delicate health you have this tower of strength to lean on but my health is not delicate mother you certainly look pale and thin oh well i said whereupon she felt to giving me all sorts of advice about getting up on step ladders and climbing on chairs and sewing too much and all that june fifteenth the weather or something makes me rather languid and stupid i begin to think that martha is not an entire nuisance in the house i have just been to see mrs. cambell in answer to my routine lamentations she took up a book and read me what was called as nearly as i can remember four steps that lead to peace be desirous of doing the will of another rather than thine own choose always to have less rather than more seek always the lowest place and be inferior to everyone wish always and pray that the will of god may be holy fulfilled in the i was much struck with these directions but i said despondently if peace can only be found at the end of such hard roads i am sure i shall always be miserable are you miserable now she asked yes just now i am i do not mean i have no happiness i mean that i am in a disheartened mood weary of going round and round in circles committing the same sins uttering the same confessions and making no advance my dear she said after time have you a perfectly distinct settled view of what christ is to the human soul i do not know i understand of course more or less perfectly that my salvation depends on him alone it is his gift but do you see with equal clearness that your sanctification must be as fully his gift as your salvation is no i said after a little thought i have had a feeling that he has done his part and now i must do mine my dear she said with much tenderness and feeling then the first thing you have to do is learn christ but how on your knees my child on your knees she was tired and i came away and i have indeed been on my knees july first i think that i do begin dimly it is true but really to understand that this terrible work that i was trying to do myself is christ's work and must be done and will be done by him i take some pleasure in the thought and wonder why it has all this time been hidden from me especially after what doctor c said in his letter but i get hold of this idea in a misty unsatisfactory way if christ is to do all what am i to do and have i not been told over and over again that the christian life is one of conflict and that i am to fight like a good soldier august fifth doctor cavett has come just as i need him most i long for one of those good talks with him that always used to strengthen me so i feel a perfect weight of depression that makes me a burden to myself and to poor earnest who after visiting sick people all day needs to come home to a cheerful wife but he comforts me with the assurance that this is merely physical despondency and that i shall get over it by and by how kind how even tender he is my heart is getting all at once from him only i am too stupid to enjoy him as i ought father too talks far less about his own bad feelings and seems greatly concerned at mine as to martha i have done trying to get sympathy or love from her she cannot help it i suppose but she is very hard and dry toward me and i feel such a longing to throw myself on her mercy and have one little smile to assure me that she has forgiven me for being earnest wife and so different from what she would have chosen for him doctor eliot to mrs mortimer october fourth eighteen thirty eight my dear katie's mother you will rejoice with us when i tell you that we are the happy parents of a very fine little boy my dearest wife sends quote an ocean of love unquote to you and says she will write herself tomorrow that i shall not be very likely to allow as you will imagine she is doing extremely well and we have everything to be grateful for your affectionate son j e mrs crofton to mrs mortimer i am sure my dear sister that the doctor has not written you more than five lines about the great event that is made such a stir in our domestic circle so i must try to supply the details you will want to hear i need not add that our darling katie behaved nobly her self-forgetfulness and consideration for others were really beautiful throughout the whole scene the doctor may well be proud of her and i took care to tell him so in presence of that dreadful sister of his i have never met so angular so uncompromising a person as she is in all my life she does not understand katie and never can and i find it hard to realize that living with such a person can furnish a wholesome discipline which is even more desirable than the most delightful home and yet i not only know that this is true in the abstract but i see that it is so in the fact katie is acquiring both self-control and patience and her christian character is developing in a way that amazes me i cannot but hope that god will in time deliver her from this trial indeed i feel sure that when it had done its beneficent work he will do so martha elliot is a good woman but her goodness is without grace or beauty she takes excellent care of katie keeps her looking as if she had just come out of a band box as the saying is and always has her room in perfect order but one misses the loving word the reassuring smile the delicate thoughtful little forbearance that ought to adorn every sick rim and light it up with genuine sunshine there is one comfort about it however and that is i can spoil dear katie to my heart's content as to the baby he is a fine little fellow and his mother is so happy in him that she can afford to do without some other pleasures i shall write again in a few days meanwhile you may rest assured i love your katie almost as well as you do and shall be with her most of the time till she's quite herself again james to his mother of course there never was such a baby before on the face of the earth katie is so nearly wild with joy that you can't get her to eat or sleep or do any of the proper things that her charming sister-in-law thinks becoming under the circumstances you never saw anything so pretty in your life as she is now i hope the doctor is as much in love with her as i am he's the best fellow in the world and katie is just the wife for him november fourth my darling baby is a month old today i never saw such a splendid child i love him so that i lie awake at nights to watch him martha says in her dry way that i had better show my love by sleeping and eating for him and urnist says i shall as soon as i get stronger but i don't get strong and that discourages me november twenty-six i begin to feel rather more like myself and as if i could write with less labor i have had in these few past weeks such a revelation of suffering and such a revelation of joy as mortal mind can hardly conceive of the world i live in now is a new world a world full of suffering that leads to unutterable felicity oh this precious precious baby how can i thank god enough for giving him to me i see now why he has put some thorns into my domestic life but for them i should be too happy to live it does not seem just the moment to complain and yet as i can speak to no one it is a relief a great relief to write about my trials during my whole sickness martha has been so hard so cold so unsympathizing that sometimes it has seemed as if my cup of trial could not hold another drop she routed me out of bed when i was so languid that everything seemed a burden and when sitting up made me faint away i heard her say to herself that i had no constitution and had no business to be married the worst of all is that during that dreadful night before baby came she kept asking earnest to lie down and rest and was sure he would kill himself and all that while she had not one word of pity for me but oh why need i let this wrinkle in my heart why can i not turn my thoughts entirely to my darling baby my dear husband and all the other sources of joy that make my home a happy one in spite of this one discomfort i hope i am learning some useful lessons from my joys and from my trials that both will serve to make me in earnest and to keep me so december fourth we have had a great time about poor baby's name i expected to call him Raymond for my own dear father as a matter of course it seemed a small gratification for mother in her loneliness dear mother how little i have known all these years what i cost her but it seems there has been a jotham in the family ever since the memory of man each eldest son handing down his father's name to the next in descent an earnest real name is jotham earnest of all the extraordinary combinations his mother would add the latter name in spite of everything earnest behave very well through the whole affair and said he had no feeling about it at all but he was so gratified when i decided to keep up the family custom that i feel rewarded for the sacrifice father is in one of his gloomiest moods as i sat caressing baby today he said to me daughter Catherine i trust you make it a subject of prayer to god that you may be kept from idolatry no father i return i never do an idol is something one puts in god's place and i don't put baby there he shook his head and said the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked i have heard mother say that we might love an earthly object as much as we pleased if only we love god better i might have added but of course i didn't that i prayed every night that i might love earnest and the baby better and better poor father seemed puzzled and troubled by what i did say and after musing awhile went on thus the almighty is a great and terrible being he cannot bear a rival he will have the whole heart or none of it when i see a young woman so absorbed and i created thing as you are in that infant and in your other friends i tremble for you i tremble for you but father i persisted god gave me this child and he gave me my heart just as it is yes in that heart needs renewing i hope it is renewed i replied and i know there is a great work still to be done in it and the more effectively it is done the more loving i shall grow don't you see father don't you see that the more christlike i become the more i shall be filled with love for every living thing he shook his head but pondered long as he always does on whatever he considers audacious as for me i am vexed with my presumption in disputing with him and i'm sure too that i was trying to show off what little wisdom i have picked up besides my mountain does not stand so strong as it did perhaps i am making idols out of earnest in the baby january sixteenth eighteen thirty nine this is our second wedding day i did not expect much from it after last year's failure father was very gloomy at breakfast and retired to his room directly after it no one could get in to make his bed and he would not come down to dinner i wonder earnest let's him go on so but his rule seems to be to let everyone have their own way he certainly lets me have mine after dinner he gave me a book i had been wanting for some time and had asked him for the imitation of christ ever since that day at mrs campbell's i have felt that i should like it though i did think in old times that it preached too hard a doctrine i read aloud to him the four steps to peace he said they were admirable then took it from me and began reading to himself here and there i felt the precious moments when i had got him all to myself were passing away and was becoming quite out of patience with him when the words constantly seek to have less rather than more flashed into my mind i suppose this direction had reference to worldly goods but i despise money and despise people who love it the riches i crave are not silver and gold but my husband's love and esteem and of these must i desire to have less rather than more i puzzled myself over this question in vain but when i silently prayed to be satisfied with just what god chose to give me of the wealth i crave yes hunger and thirst for i certainly felt a sweet content for the time at least that was quite resting and quieting and just as i had reached that acquiescent mood earnest threw down his book and came and caught me in his arms i thank god he said my precious wife that i married you this day the wisest thing i ever did was when i fell in love with you and made a fool of myself what a speech for my silent old darling to make whenever he says and does a thing out of character and takes me all by surprise how delightful he is now the world is a beautiful world and so is everybody in it i met martha on the stairs after earnest had gone and caught her and kissed her she looked perfectly astonished what spirits the child has i heard her whisper to herself no sooner down than up again and she sighed can it be that under that stern hard crust there lie hidden affections and perhaps hidden sorrows i ran back and asked as kindly as i could what makes you sigh martha is anything troubling you have i done anything to annoy you you do the best you can she said and push past me to her own room end of chapter thirteen recording by teresa downy chapter fourteen of stepping heavenward this is a labor box recording all labor box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit labor box dot org recording by teresa downy stepping heavenward by elizabeth prentice chapter fourteen january thirtieth who would have thought i would have anything more to do with poor old susan green doctor cabot came to see me today and told me the strangest thing it seems that the nurse who performed the last offices for her was taken sick about six months ago and that doctor cabot visited her from time to time her physician said she needed nothing but rest and good nourishing food to restore her strength yet she did not improve at all and at last it came out that she was not taking the food the doctor had ordered because she could not afford to do so having lost what little money she had contrived to save doctor cabot on learning this gave her enough out of susan's legacy to meet her case and in doing so told her about that extraordinary will the nurse then assured him that when she reached susan's room and found the state that she was in and that i was praying with her she had remained waiting in silence fearing to interrupt me she saw me faint and sprang forward just in time to catch me and keep me from falling i take great pleasure therefore doctor cabot continued in making over susan's little property to you to whom it belongs and i cannot help congratulating you that you have had the honor and the privilege of perhaps leading that poor benighted soul to christ even at the eleventh hour oh doctor cabot i cried what a relief it is to hear you say that for i have always reproached myself for the cowardice that made me afraid to speak to her of her savior it takes less courage to speak to god than to man it is my belief replied doctor cabot that every prayer offered in the name of jesus is sure to have its answer every such prayer is dictated by the holy spirit and therefore finds acceptance with god and if your cry for mercy on poor susan's soul did not prevail with him in her behalf as we may hope it did then he has answered it in some other way these words impressed me very much to think that every one of my poor prayers is answered every one doctor cabot then returned to the subject of susan's will and in spite of all i could say to the contrary insisted he had no legal right to this money and that i had he said that he hoped that it would help to relieve us from some of the petty economics now rendered necessary by earnest struggle to meet his father's liabilities instantly my idol was rudely thrown down from his pedestal how could he reveal to doctor cabot a secret that he had pretended cost him so much to confide to me his wife i could hardly restrain tears of shame and vexation but did control myself so far as to say that i would sooner die than appropriate susan's hard earnings for such a purpose and that i should use it for the poor as i was sure he would have done he then advised me to invest the principal and use the interest from year to year as occasions presented themselves so i shall have more than a hundred dollars to give away each year as long as i live how perfectly delightful i can hardly conceive of anything that could give me so much pleasure poor old susan how many hearts she shall cause to sing for joy february twenty-fifth things have not gone on well of late dearly as i love earnest he has lowered himself in my eye by telling that to doctor cabot it would have been far nobler to be silent concerning his sacrifices and he certainly grows harder graver sterner each day he's all shut up within himself and i'm growing afraid of him it must be that he is bitterly disappointed in me and takes refuge in this awful silence if only i could please him and could know that i pleased him how different my life would be baby does not seem well i've often plume myself on the thought that having a doctor for his father would be such an advantage to him as he would be ready to attack the first symptoms of disease but earnest hardly listens to me when i express anxiety about this or that and if i ask a question he replies oh you know better than i do mothers know by instinct how to manage babies but i do not know by instinct or in any other way and i often wish that the time i spent over my music had been spent in learning how to meet all the little emergencies that are constantly arising since baby came how i used to laugh in my sleeve at those anxious mothers who live near us and always seem to be in hot water martha will take baby when i have other things to attend to and she keeps him every sunday afternoon that i may go to church but she knows no more about his physical training than i do if my dear mother were only here i feel a great deal worn out what would the care of baby who is restless at night and with whom i walk about lest he should keep earnest awake the depressing influence of father's presence martha's disdain and earnest keeping so aloof from me life seems to me little better than a burden that i have not strength to carry and would gladly lay down march thirteenth if it were not for james i believe i should sink he is so kind and affectionate so ready to fill up the gaps earnest leaves empty and is so sunshiny and gay that i cannot be entirely sad baby two is a precious treasure it would be wicked to cloud his little life with my depression i tried to look at him always with a smiling face before he already distinguishes between a cheerful and a sad countenance i am sure that there is something in christ's gospel that would soothe and sustain me amid these varied trials if i only knew what it is and how to put forth my hand and take it but as it is i feel very desolate earnest often congratulates me on having had such a good night's rest when i have been up and down every hour with baby half asleep and frozen and exhausted but he shall sleep at any rate april fifth the first rays of spring make me more languid than ever martha cannot be made to understand that nursing such a large voracious baby losing sleep and confinement within doors are enough to account for this she is constantly speaking in terms of praise of those who keep up even when they do feel a little out of sorts and says she always does in the evening after baby goes to sleep i feel fit for nothing but to lie on the sofa dosing but she sees in this only a lazy habit which ought not to be tolerated and is constantly devising ways to rouse and set me at work if i had more leisure for reading meditation and prayer i might still be happy but all the morning i must have baby till he takes his nap and as soon as he gets to sleep i must put my room in order and by that time all the best part of the day is gone and at night i am so tired that i can hardly feel anything my weariness that too is my only chance of seeing earnest and if i lock my door and fall upon my knees i keep listening for his steps ready to spring to welcome him should he come this is wrong i know but how can i live without one loving word from him and every day i am hoping it will come may second auntie was here today i had not seen her for some weeks she exclaimed at my looks in a tone that seemed to upgrade earnest and martha though of course she did not mean to do that you are not fit to have the whole care of that great boy at night said she and you ought to begin to feed him both for his sake and your own i am willing to take the child at night martha said a little stiffly but i supposed his mother preferred to keep him herself and i do i do i cried i should be perfectly miserable if i had to give him up just as he's getting teeth and so wakeful what are you taking to keep up your strength dear asked auntie nothing in particular i said very well it is time the doctor looked after that she cried it really never will do to let you run down in this way let me look at baby why my child his gums need lancing so i have told earnest half a dozen times i declared but he's always in a hurry and says another time will do i hope baby won't have convulsions while he is waiting for that other time said auntie looking almost savagely at martha i never saw auntie so nearly out of humor at dinner martha began i think brother the baby needs attention mrs crofton has been here and says so and she seems to find kathryn run down i am sure if i had known it i should have taken her in hand and built her up but she did not complain she never complains father here put in calling all the blood i had into my face my heart so leaped for joy at his kind word earnest looked at me and caught the illumination on my face you look well dear he said but if you do not feel so you ought to tell us as to baby i will attend to him directly so martha's one word prevailed where my twenty fell to the ground baby is much relieved and has fallen into a sweet sleep and i've had time to carry my tired oppressed heart to my compassionate saviour and to tell him what i cannot utter to any human ear how strange it is that when through many years of leisure and strength prayer was only a task it is now my chief solace if i can only snatch time for it mrs. embery has a little daughter how glad i am for her she is going to give it my name that is a real pleasure july fourth baby is ten months old today and in spite of everything is bright and well i have come home to mother earnest waked up at last to see that something must be done and when he's awake he is very wide awake so he brought me home dear mother is perfectly delighted only she will make an adieu about my health but i feel a good deal better and think i shall get nicely rested here how pleasant it is to feel myself watched by friendly eyes my faults excused and forgiven and what is best in me called out i have been writing to earnest and have told him honestly how annoyed and pained i was at learning he had told his secret to dr. cabot july twelfth earnest writes that he has had no communication with dr. cabot or anyone else on a subject that touching his father's honor as it does he regards as a sacred one you say dear he said you often say that i do not understand you are you sure that you understand me of course i don't how can i how can i reconcile his marrying me and professing to do it with delight with his indifference to my society his reserve his carelessness about my health his letters are very kind and really warmer than he is i can hardly wait for them and then though my pride bids me be reticent as he is my heart runs away with me and i pour out upon him such floods of affection that i'm sure he is half-drowned mother says baby is splendid august first when i took leave of earnest i was glad to get away i thought he would perhaps find after i was gone that he missed something out of his life and would welcome me home with a little of the old love but i did not dream that he would not find it easy to do without me till summer was over and when this morning he came suddenly upon us carpet bag and hen i could do nothing but cry in his arms like a tired child and now i had the silly triumph of having mother see that he loved me how could you get away i asked at last and what made you come and how long can you stay i could get away because i would he replied and i came because i wanted to come and i can stay three days three days of earnest all to myself august fifth he has gone but he is left behind him a happy wife with the memory of three happy days after the first joy of our meeting was over we had time for just such nice long talks as i delighted in earnest began by upgrading me a little for my injustice and fancying he had betrayed his father to dr. cabot that is not all i interrupted i even thought you had made a boast of the sacrifices you were making that explains your coldness he returned my coldness all the ridiculous things in the world i cried you were cold for you and i felt it don't you know that we undemonstrative men prefer loving winsome little women like you just because you are our own opposites and when the pet kitten turns into a cat with claws now earnest that really is too bad to compare me to a cat you certainly did say some sharp things to me about that time did i really oh earnest how could i and it was at a moment when i particularly needed your help but do not let us dwell upon it we love each other we are both trying to do right in all the details of life i do not think we shall ever get very far apart but earnest tell me are you very very much disappointed in me disappointed why katie then what makes you seem so indifferent what made you so slow to observe how miserably i was as to health did i seem indifferent i am sure i never loved you better as to your health i am ashamed of myself i ought to have seen how feeble you were but the truth is i was deceived by your bright ways with baby for him you were all smiles and gaiety that was from principle i said and felt a good deal elated as i made the announcement he fell into a fit of musing and none of my usual devices for arousing him had any effect i pulled his hair and his ears and shook him but he remained unmoved at last he began again perhaps i owe it to you dear to tell you that when i brought my father and sister home to live with us i did not dream how trying a thing it would be for you i did not know that he was a confirmed invalid or that she would prove to possess a nature so entirely antagonist to yours i thought my father would interest himself in reading visiting etc as he used to do and i thought martha's judgment would be of service to you while her household skill would relieve you of some care but the whole thing has proved a failure i'm harassed by the side of my father sitting there in his corner so penetrated with gloom i reproach myself for it but i almost dread coming home when a man has been all day encompassed with sounds and sights of suffering he naturally longs for cheerful faces and cheerful voices in his own house then martha's pertinacious i won't say hostility to my little wife what shall i call it it is only want of sympathy she is too really good to be hostile to anyone thank you my darling he said i believe you do her justice i'm afraid i've not been as for bearing with her as i ought i said but oh earnest it is because i've been jealous of her all along that really is too absurd you certainly have treated her with more deference than you have me you looked up to her and looked down upon me at least it seems so my dear child you have misunderstood the whole thing i gave martha just what she wanted most she likes to be looked up to and i gave you what i thought you wanted most my tenderest love and i expected that i should have your sympathy amid the trials with which i am burdened and that with your strong nature i might look to you to help me to bear them i know you have the worst of it my dear child but then you have twice my strength i believe women almost always have more than men i have indeed misunderstood you i thought you like to have them here and that martha's not fancy me influenced you against me but now i know just what you want to me and i can give it darling after this all our cloud melted away i only long to go home and show earnest that he shall have one cheerful face about him and have one cheerful voice august twelve i have had a long letter from earnest today he says he hopes he has not been selfish and unkind in speaking of his father and his sister as he has done because he truly loves and honors them both and wants me to do so if i can his father had called them up twice to see him die and to receive his last messages this always happens when earnest has been up all the previous night there seems to be a fatality about it end of chapter fourteen recording by teresa downey chapter fifteen of stepping heavenward this is a little box recording all the box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit leverbox dot org recording by teresa downey stepping heavenward by elizabeth prentice chapter fifteen october fourth home again and with my dear earnest delighted to see me baby is a year old today and as usual father who seems to abhor anything like merry making took himself off to his room tomorrow he will be all the worse for it and will be sure to have a theological battle with somebody october fifth that somebody was his daughter kathryn as usual baby was asleep in my lap and i reached out for a book which proved to be a volume of shakespeare that had done long service as an ornament to the table but that nobody had ever read on account of the small print the battle began thus father i regret to see that worldly author in your hands my daughter daughter a little mischievously why were you wanting to talk father no i'm too feeble to talk today my pulse is very weak let me read aloud to you then not from that profane book it would do you good you never take any recreation do let me read a little father gets nervous recreation is a snare i must keep my soul ever fixed on divine things but can you no alas no it is my grief and shame that i do not but if you would indulge yourself in a little harmless mirth now and then your mind would get rested and you would return to divine things with fresh zeal why should not the mind have its seasons of rest as well as the body we shall have time to rest in heaven our business here on earth is to be sober and vigilant because of our adversary not to be reading plays i don't make reading plays my business dear father i make it my rest in amusement christians do not need amusement they find rest refreshment all they want in god do you father alas no he seems a great way off to me he seems very near so near that he can see every thought of my heart dear father it is your disease that makes everything so unreal to you god is really so near really loves us so is so sorry for us and it seems hard when you are so good and so intent on pleasing him that you get no comfort out of him i'm not good my daughter i'm a vile worm of the dust god is good at any rate and he would never have sent his son to die for you if he did not love you so then i began to sing father likes to hear me sing and the sweetest sense i had that all i had been saying was true and more than true made me sing with a joyful heart i hope it is not a mere miserable presumption that makes me dare to talk so to poor father of course he is ten times better than i am and knows ten times as much but his disease whatever it is keeps his mind be fogged i mean to begin now to pray that light may shine into his soul it would be delightful to see the peace of god shining in that pale stern face march twenty-eighth it is almost six months since i wrote that about the middle of october father had one of his ill turns one night and we were all called up he asked for me particularly and earnest came for me at last i was a good deal agitated and would not stop to have dressed myself and as i had a slight cold already i suppose i added to it then at any rate i was taken very sick and the worst cough i ever had has racked my poor frame almost to pieces nearly six months confinement to my room six months of uselessness during which i have been a mere comberer of the ground poor earnest what a hard time he has had instead of the cheerful welcome home i was to give him whenever he entered the house here i have lain exhausted woe be gone and good for nothing it is the bitterest disappointment i ever had my ambition is to be the sweetest brightest best of wives and what with my childish follies and my sickness what a weary life my dear husband has had but how often i have prayed that god would do his will in defiance if need be of mine i've tried to remind myself of that every day but i'm too tired to write anymore now march thirtieth this experience of suffering has filled my mind with new thoughts at one time i was so sick that earnest sent for mother poor mother she had to sleep with martha it was a great comfort to have her here but i knew by her coming how sick i was and then i began to ponder the question whether i was ready to die death looked to me as a most solemn momentous event but there was something very pleasant in the thought of being no longer a sinner but a redeemed saint and of dwelling forever in christ's presence father came to see me when i had just reached this point my dear daughter he asked are you prepared to face the judge of all the earth no dear father i said christ will do that for me have you no misgivings i could only smile i had no strength to talk then i heard earnest my dear calm self-controlled earnest burst out crying and rush out of the room i looked after him and how i loved him but i felt that i loved my savior infinitely more and that if he now let me come home to be with him i could trust him to be a thousandfold more to earnest than i could ever be and to take care of my darling baby in my precious mother far better than i could the very gates of heaven seemed open to let me in and then suddenly they were shut in my face and i found myself a poor weak tempted creature here upon the earth i, who fancied myself in air of glory was nothing but a peevish human creature very human indeed overcome if martha shook the bed as she always did irritated if my food did not come at the right moment or was not of the right sort hurt and offended if earnest put on a tone less anxious and tender than he had used when i was very ill and in short my own poor faulty self once more though fearful battles i fought for patience forbearance and unselfishness what sorrowful tears of shame i shed over hasty and patient words and fretful tones no wonder i longed to be gone where weakness should be swallowed up in strength and sin gave place to eternal perfection but here i am and suffering and work lied before me for which i feel little physical or mental courage blessed be the will of god april fifth i was alone with father last evening earnest and martha both being out and soon saw by the way he fidgeted in his chair that he had something on his mind so i laid down the book i was reading and asked him what it was my daughter he began can you bear a plain word from an old man i felt frightened for i knew i had been impatient to martha of late in spite of all my efforts to the contrary i'm still miserably unwell i have seen many deathbeds he went on but i never saw one where there was not some dread of the king of terrors exhibited nor one where there was such absolute certainty of having found favor with god as to make the hour of departure entirely free from such doubts and such humility and as becomes a guilty sinner about to face his judge i never saw such a one either i replied but there have been many such deaths and i hardly know of any scene that so honors and magnifies the lord yes he said slowly but they were old mature ripened christians not always old dear father let me describe to you a scene earnest described to me only yesterday he waived his hand in token that this would delay his coming to the point he was aiming at to speak plainly he said i feel uneasy about you my daughter you are young and in the bloom of life but when death seemed to be staring you in the face you expressed no anxiety asked for no counsel showed no alarm it must be pleasant to possess so comfortable persuasion of our acceptance with god is it safe to rest on such an assurance while we know that the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked i thank you for the suggestion i said and your father do not be afraid to speak still more plainly you live in the house with me see all my shortcomings and my faults and i cannot wonder that you think me a poor weak christian but do you really fear that i am deceived in believing that not withstanding this i do really love my god and saviour an emiss child no he said hesitating a little i can't say that exactly i can't say that this hesitation distressed me at first it seemed to me that my life must have uttered a very uncertain sound if those who saw it could misunderstand its language but then i reflected that it was, at best a very faulty life and that its springs of action were not necessarily seen by lookers on father saw my distress and perplexity and seemed touched by them just then urnist came in with martha but seeing something was amiss the latter took herself off to her room which i thought really kind of her what is it father what is it katie asked urnist looking from one troubled face to the other i tried to explain i think father you may safely trust my wife's spiritual interests to me urnist said with some warmth you do not understand her i do because there is nothing morbid about her because she has a sweet cheerful confidence in christ you doubt and misjudge her you may depend upon it that people are individual in their piety as in other things and cannot all be run in one mold katie has a playful way of speaking i know and often expresses her strongest feelings with what seems like levity and is perhaps a little reckless about being misunderstood in consequence he smiled on me as he thus took up the cudgels in my defense and i have never felt so grateful to him in my life the truth is i hate sentimentalism so cordially and have besides such an instinct to conceal my deepest most sacred emotions but i do not wonder people misunderstand and misjudge me i do not refer to her playfulness father return old people must make allowances for the young they must make allowances what pains me is that this child full of life and gaity as she is sees death approach without that becoming awe and terror that be fits mortal man earnest was going to reply but i broke in eagerly upon his answer it is true that i express no anxiety when i believe death to be at hand i felt none i had given myself away to christ and he had received me and why should i be afraid to take his hand and go where he led me and it is true that i asked for no counsel i was too weak to ask questions or to like to have questions asked but my mind was bright and wide awake while my body was so feeble and i took counsel of god let me read to you two passages from the life of caroline fry that will make you understand how a poor sinner looks upon death the first is an extract from a letter written after learning that her days on earth were numbered as many will hear and will not understand why i want no time of preparation often desired by far holier ones than i i tell you why and shall tell others and so shall you is not because i am so holy but because i am so sinful the peculiar character of my religious experience has always been a deep and agonizing sense of sin the sin of yesterday of today confessed with anguish hard to be endured and cried for pardon that could not be unheard each day cleansed anew in jesus' blood and each day more and more hateful in my own sight what can i do in death i have not done in life what do in this week when i'm told i cannot live other than i did last week when i knew it not alas there is but one thing undone to serve him better and the deathbed is no place for that therefore i say if i'm not ready now i shall not be by delay so far as i have to do with it if he has more to do in me that is his part i need not ask him not to spoil his work by too much haste unquote and these are her dying words a few days later this is my bridal day the beginning of my life i wish there should be no mistake about the reason of my desire to depart and to be with christ i confess myself the vilest chiefest of sinners and i desire to go to him that i may be rid of the burden of sin the sin of my nature not the past repented of every day but the present hourly momentary sin which i do commit or may commit the sense of which at times drives me half mad with grief unquote i shall never forget the expression of father's face as i finished reading these remarkable words he rose slowly from his seat and came and kissed me on the forehead then he left the room but returned with a large volume and pointing to a blank page requested me to copy them there he complains that i do not write legibly so i printed them as plainly as i could with my pen june twentieth on the first of may they came to us with other spring flowers little fair-haired blue-eyed daughter how rich i felt when i heard urnist voice as he replied to a question asked the door proclaim mother and children all well to think that we who thought ourselves rich before are made so much richer now but she is not large and vigorous as little urnist was and we cannot rejoice in her without some misgivings yet her very frailty makes her precious to us little urnist hangs over her with an almost lover-like pride and devotion and should she live i can imagine what a protector he will be for her i've had to give up the care of him to martha during my illness i do not know what would have become of him but for her one of the pleasant events of every day at that time was her bringing him to me in such exquisite order his face shining with health and happiness his hair and dress so beautifully neat and clean now that she has the care of him she has become very fond of him and he certainly forms one bond of union between us for we both agree that he is the handsomest best most remarkable child that ever lived or ever will live july six i have come home to dear mother with both my children urnist says our only hope for baby is to keep her out of the city during the summer months what a petite we made and she is where does all the love come from if i had had her always i do not see how i could be more fond of her and do people call it living who never had any children july tenth if this darling baby lives i shall always believe it is owing to my mother's prayers i find little urnist has a passionate temper and a good deal of self-will but he has fine qualities i wish he had a better mother i am so impatient with him when he is wayward and perverse what he needs is a firm gentle hand moved by no caprice and controlled by the constant fear of god he never ought to hear an irritable word or a sharp tone but he does hear them i must own with grief and shame the truth is it is so long since i really felt strong and well but i'm not myself and cannot do him justice poor child next to being a perfect wife i want to be a perfect mother how mortifying how dreadful in all things to come short of even one's own standard what approach then does one make to god standard mother seems very happy to have us here though we make so much trouble she encourages me in all my attempts to control myself and to control my dear little boy and the chapter she gives me out of her own experience are as interesting as a novel and a good deal more instructive august dear urnist has come to spend a week with us he is all tired out as there has been a great deal of sickness in the city and father has had quite a serious attack he brought with him a nurse for the baby as one more desperate effort to strengthen her constitution i reproached him for doing it without consulting me but he said mother had written to tell him i was worn out and not in a state to have the care of the children it has been a terrible blow to me one by one i'm giving up the sweetest maternal duties god means that i shall be nothing and do nothing a mere useless sufferer but when i tell urnist so he says i'm everything to him and that god's children please him just as well when they sit patiently with folded hands if that is his will as when they are hard at work but to be at work to be useful to be necessary to my husband and children is just what i want and i do find it hard to be set against the wall as it were like an old piece of furniture no longer of any service i see now that my first desire has not been to please god but to please myself find restless under his restraining hand and find my prison a very narrow one i would be willing to bear any other trial if i could only have health and strength from my beloved ones i pray for patience with bitter tears end of chapter fifteen recording by teresa downey