Chapter 59
Lessons had begun now in earnest for our little people Christopher was seven and a half and I am ashamed to say could not yet read well, though very skillful with his hands. He was a dear little boy, so very fair, with the pink and white complexion he had inherited from his father, and strong and well grown for his age, but he was a sad rogue and he was rarely out of my sight without getting into someone’s black books. I always date the coming of Ada Coulter to live with us as the turning point in the little lad’s life. She seemed to know how to handle him so well, and though her common name for him was “you toad in a puddle”, she won his confidence and he would do anything for her. “He’s only a child”; how often she repeated that, assuring everyone that he “meant no harm”, and she often called him her “little husband”.
My mother had an old friend called Mrs. Meredith. She took a great fancy to Christopher and he to her, and he often went alone to visit her. She was the first person who talked to him about China and I believe the seed was at this time sowed in his heart, which was in years to come to bring forth such good fruit. It was during this winter that he first confessed the Lord. He was a sturdy little chap and often walked out on Sunday evening with his father to a meeting in the country. One Sunday, a cold winter day it was, they went out to the house of one Dan Ward. There was only one person at the meeting and Jack was walking home feeling quite discouraged, when he was roused by his little son saying, “Daddy, I believe in Jesus”. His profession was a real one and from that time he showed signs of the New Life that was in him.
It was this same winter that Jack being away, Mr. Cullum, a good brother from Alma, came to spend the week end and take the country meeting. Christopher under-
took to show him the way and Mr. Cullum used to relate with a chuckle that on his remarking on the length of the road, his little companion offered to carry him on his back. Christopher did not change all at once. He was still “Mr. Benoyer”, a name he gave himself as a very little boy, to his younger brother and sister, but is it not first “the stalk, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear”?
I will let Dorothy tell the story of her conversion in her own words. “Daddy’s apt quotations impressed us very much. One day Christie and I were fighting over some trifle when Sommie joined in the fray and got hurt. Daddy happened to be present and I well remember his advice to Sommie: ‘He that passeth by and intermeddleth with strife that belongeth not to him is like one that taketh a mad dog by the ears’. The faith of little children is usually merely the reflected faith of their parents. That is when the parents have real faith. If it is not real the children soon find it out, but if it is real, the reflected faith of the children will probably deepen into an experienced and personal faith. Christopher and I cannot remember the time when we did not realize our position as strangers and pilgrims on the earth. The little meeting, first at Mrs. Ward’s house and afterwards in the ‘upper room’ over Dalzell’s drug store was the most sacred thing. I know that I never doubted that the Lord was present, and that if my eyes were opened I should see Him there in the midst.
“What happy Sundays we had. One woke up feeling it was Sunday. If it was summer the sun seemed to shine more brightly. There was an exquisite pause and leisure over things. Then we put on our white frocks, seldom worn on any other day, and went to the meeting. There was usually much time of quiet waiting in that ‘upper room’. I used to read the Bible at this time. One day I learned the 229th hymn, ‘O happy morn! the Lord will come’, which I always felt was my favorite hymn and yet it was never sung. Somerville sat by Daddy and amused himself making up stories about lions and tigers in a whisper. The whispers Daddy found so distracting that he was left at home one Sunday, with Sunday picture books. When we returned Mother asked him: ‘What did you do while we were away?’ ‘I didn’t do anything. I lay under the bed and thinked.’ ‘Yes, and what did you think about?’ I thinked how bad I was.’ After that day he never imagined audibly in the meeting.
“After the meeting what friendly greetings there were with the others. First only Mr. McMahon, then Mr. Trinbeth, and then Mr. Holdaway and his wife and Mr. Wickett. I remember the gladness we felt as each new face came into the circle. Then one day a stranger came, Mr. Vincent, a Christian man with such a good honest face. He had been living and working near James Bay. He was a stranger in town and happened in to the meeting (I cannot think how he found it). He also broke bread with the rest and then went his way and we saw him no more. But this occurrence seemed to open like a flash the real meaning of our position. Here in this room, about this table, were places for all the Christians in town, if only they would separate themselves from the world and come—not our Table but the Lord’s.
“I think it was from Granny that I learned to love the Lord’s coming, for to her it was the most real and beloved event. And yet, until I was eight years old I had no settled peace, nor did I really understand the Gospel. Then one day in the winter, lying on my bed, I read from my own Bible John 3:16,16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) and great light and joy came over me. I never doubted again, for I had that verse as a rock on which to stand sure. But life was so manifold, so full of interests and pleasures, that thorns choked the Word in a certain measure.”
This is Dorothy’s account, given years after of her spiritual experience, and much of it to me was new, for our children had a reticence about them all which hindered them speaking of what was perhaps nearest to them. And yet perhaps it was my fault in part, for in my dread of forcing their confidence or leading them to speak of these things unless they were realities to them perhaps I went too far and did not invite their confidence. It is long past how, and what a comfort that in a future state all these things will be clear and plain to us.
I have wandered on, speaking of my children, always a pleasant theme, and now I must once more return to my story, but a word or two about the younger ones. Somerville was about five and a half and a remarkably intelligent little fellow. He was not so lively and talkative as his brother, but very gentle and unselfish and given to wise remarks. I remember one day, not being well, he had his breakfast in bed. Edie carried it up to him and, turning away, left him to manage it for himself. The first thing that happened was his egg fell over and broke. “Why did you do that?” he asked Edie. “I did not do it,” she replied. “Well,” he said, “somebody must be blamed.” He was passionately fond of animals. When a monkey came to perform in front of the house he was seized with an overwhelming desire to be a monkey; “if I only had a tail,” he said. My mother supplied this great need by producing a wolf’s tail. This he wore tied around his waist with great satisfaction for a long time. I have it still in one of my boxes far over the sea.
Miss Hicks was very fond of Sommie and found him much easier to manage than his more boisterous elder brother. He and Helen were fast friends and managed to get into a good deal of mischief together. They were just the same size and when the older ones dressed her in his clothes she made a fine little boy. One day they dressed themselves in a suit of their father’s and a dress of mine and, coming to show off, both fell down the stairs together. Another time, when left alone in the kitchen, they locked all the doors—there were seven—and then mixed up the keys and could not unlock them. The faithful Ada climbed in at a window and released them. Yet again, Helen locked herself into the servants’ room. The window of this room was very high, the house being built on a hill, and there was no possibility of reaching it. At last Christopher was pushed through the fanlight and got the door unlocked.
The two boys had a present about this time of a large white goat, and they had harness and a little cart. It used to take the little chaps, only five and seven, a very long time to harness the beast. Then they would drag him out of the stable and get into the cart. But the goat knew who he was dealing with and never would move a step. At last, in despair, we gave him away.
The horse had been sold after my accident and we never had another, but we kept a nice lot of chickens in the stable and once I tried my hand at ducks but it was not a success. The children had a big family of guinea pigs in the cellar, which was an immense place, and had great pleasure out of them. We also had three flying squirrels, very pretty creatures and quite a novelty in the line of pets. They slept in their cage all day, but in the evening would come out of the cage and climb up the curtains and then spreading the membrane between their legs would gracefully fly down.
At one time while in Hillcrest, as our house was named, we had a couple of doves. They were very tame and used to come in and out of the windows at pleasure. One day when I was sitting on the verandah and the doves were walking around on the lawn, a vicious hen flew at one of them and pecked it so violently, before I could interfere, that the poor thing died. I must not forget the birds in enumerating our pets. We had a succession of them for many years and I had a great deal of pleasure out of them.
As I said before, Mother brought her cat over with her, the same Mrs. Gray she had had so long. She was a cuing creature and when Edie wanted to put her out at night she was nowhere to be found. Dorothy and Edie were mystified for some time but at last discovered her concealed in the springs of my bed. That winter we got a new kitten, which of course Dorothy had for her own. She and Miss Hicks named it Daisy Innocent. It was such a gentle looking little thing but it grew up a cat of much character and determination and was a much loved member of the family for many years.