Chapter 46.
Soon after her arrival, my sister began a Sunday school, to which Dorothy and two of Mr. McMahon’s children went. One day he remarked to me that his children, having no teaching at home, forgot what they learned from one Sunday to another. He said he worked such long hours that they were often asleep before he came home, and his wife was still unconverted. I told him that I read to Dorothy every day after dinner and that if he liked I would postpone the reading on Wednesday afternoons until four o’clock and his children could then come over from the school they attended and share the teaching I gave Dorothy. This pleased him well and soon became an established rule. The maid I had, Annie Woods, asked me if her little brother might come too. Of course I was glad to have him and so began those classes which I kept up so many years. I also began a sewing meeting and soon gathered about twenty children. Mrs. Wickett at the grocery store was glad for her little girls to come, and the three Gliddons from the store at the corner, and little Elsie Stott and many others whose names I have forgotten. They came for two hours on Saturday afternoons, and we began by dressing two dolls for some charitable purpose, but I learned by experience that this was not a very good plan. At Christmas time we had a tea for the children and our numbers for the sewing began to increase.
Our little Christopher, now three years old, had another attack of fever after Christmas, and we began to think something must be wrong with the house and that it was unhealthy. In this we were certainly right, for after leaving it the next tenants lost a child with diphtheria and on having the drain examined found it was running into the well. We felt that the good hand of our God was again preserving us. We found a nice house, still on the main street. It was the middle one of three, each standing in its own garden, though we lost our pleasant back verandah with its wonderful view, we gained in many other respects, as this house had a nice “upstairs kitchen” and a good sized garden at the back, where the children played. As the summer came on we had a little chicken house built and kept a few hens. Our livestock at this time consisted only of a rather ordinary cat, which Dorothy had named “Alice Henry”. There was a large apple tree at the back on which grew some of the most delicious apples I have ever eaten.
It did not seem a large house to us, but revisiting it this summer I was surprised to see how large the rooms were. Over the kitchen was a nice warm nursery. My mother, who had no room in her tiny house for her large mangle, had lent it to me and it lived in this nursery, and I think the children had more satisfaction out of it than they did out of the large old rocking horse which Mrs. Frank Cayley had passed on to them. It was used for a fort and ship and innumerable other things.
What happy, peaceful days those were. It was not yet the time when wars and rumours of wars caused men’s hearts to fail for fear of those things coming upon the earth. In the morning I washed and dressed my baby, teaching Dorothy to read at the same time. Then came the morning walk and shopping, and after dinner that pleasant hour for reading which Christopher could now share in. While I read to them they sat at a small square wooden table which my mother had given them, and generally had blocks or some other toy which they could play with quietly. On Sunday we walked up to Mrs. Eli Ward’s to the meeting, and Christopher used to take his weekly sleep, which we said kept him good for another seven days. In the afternoon there was the Sunday school and then a walk, but my husband used to have a meeting in the country and was seldom home to tea. One thing we especially looked forward to was an occasional visit from Mr. Rufus McDowell. He and Christopher were great friends and he tried to cure him of a lisp. He promised Christopher a knife if next time he came he could say: “Please, Mr. McDowell, have some....” (I forget the rest).
My grandmother died after a short illness. She was eighty-six and active to the last. She dined out as usual at her friend Mrs. Baldwin’s on Sunday but passed away during the week. My sister went up and helped to arrange her things. She left everything in her room to Dora and me and later on we had a sad pleasure in dividing them. I especially remember having the feather bed, which mother helped me to make into pillows, and a small chest of drawers, which I gave to Christopher. It was in use in the Book Room in China for many years. Dorothy was left her great-grandmother’s work box.
By a strange coincidence, the very day my grandmother “went home”, our two houses on John Street were sold. She told me the last time I saw her that she was praying every day that they might be sold. They were old-fashioned now and the time was past when John and Peter Streets were the best residential streets in the city; Jarvis Street was now considered far more select. We had had much expense with ours, putting in a new furnace and paying taxes when it was unlet. The money for this I had borrowed from Dora, as we had a very small income, and while paying her interest, promised her the capital when the house was sold. So my disappointment was great when I found the capital could not be touched and I must find other means to pay her. I remember how I fretted over this: it would mean saving up my little interest for at least two years and I was so counting on employing a nurse-maid during the coming winter, to help with another little stranger when it arrived. How little confidence we have in our loving Father, Who does not try us beyond what we are able to bear; a week or two afterwards a paper was found directing that certain stock be divided between my sister and myself. The amount coming to me was exactly the sum I owed, so I simply passed it on. I never forgot this lesson and put it down in case it may help a child or grandchild.