Christie Redfern's Troubles

"I've heard folks say it--I've seen it in a book myself--and I heard my father read something like it, out of the Bible, last Sunday--`Ask, and ye shall receive,' and in another place, `In everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known unto God.' I might try it, anyway."

But the voice that spoke was by no means a hopeful one, and there was anything but a hopeful look on the face of the little girl who slowly raised herself up from a mossy seat, where she had been quite hidden by the branches of a tall birch-tree, that hung so low as to dip themselves into the waters of the brook at the times when it ran fullest. It was a very pretty place, and a very strange place for any child to look anxious or discontented in. But the little girl looked as if she were both; and there was, besides, a great deal of weariness in her manner, as she leaned for a moment against a branch, and then stooped to let the water flow over a spray of crimson maple that she held in her hand.

"I might try it, anyway," she repeated, as she left the place.

In some spring or autumn long ago, the swollen waters of the brook had quite washed away the soil from between the roots of the birch-tree; and the roots themselves, and the hollow place which the waters had made, were covered with grass and soft moss now. In this pretty natural seat, after an eager, half-frightened glance around, the little girl placed herself, kneeling. She closed her eyes, and folded her hands with a reverent gesture; but a doubtful, uneasy look passed over her face as she let her head droop, and murmured:

"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come"-- and so on to the end.

Then her head was raised; but the doubtful look had not passed away.

"That's no' just what I'm needing," she continued. "I have my daily bread. I'm no' sure about the other things; and I canna mind another prayer. I would make one, if I knew the way. I need so many things!"

There was a pause, and then she said, softly:

"O Lord, dinna let Aunt Elsie be vexed with me for biding here so long. I'm sure I need that. And, O Lord, mind Effie to bring home the book she promised me. Oh, there are so many things that I need! and I'm no' sure that I'm asking right. But the Bible says, `Whatsoever ye ask in My name, believing, ye shall receive.'"

She slipped from her kneeling posture, and leaned, with her eyes still closed, against the shining bark of the birch-tree. She lay quiet for some time, as if she were thinking of many things; then, kneeling again, with her head bowed down on her clasped hands, she said:

"O Lord, make me a good child, and take me to heaven when I die, for Jesus' sake!"

Then she opened her eyes, and rose up with a sigh.

"Oh, how long the shadows have grown! I should have been at home a long while ago. But now I'll see if Aunt Elsie's no' vexed. If she doesna scold me, I'll ken that there is some use in praying. And if Effie brings me a book, such a book as I like, I shall be sure, sure. Then I shall know that God hears people when they pray; and that will be something."

And, really, the tired, pale little creature looked as though she needed something to make her look more cheerfully on a world which generally seems so happy a place to the young--something to banish the look of discontent which seemed to have settled on her face.

This was little Christie Redfern--just such a plain, common-looking child as one might see anywhere without turning to look again. Her eyes were neither black nor blue, but grey, and dark only when the long lashes shaded them. Her mouth was too wide to be pretty, and her lips were pale and thin. She might naturally have had a fair, soft skin; but it was tanned and freckled by exposure to the air and sun, and looked neither fair nor soft now. Her brow was high and broad, and would have been pretty but that she gathered it together in wrinkles when she looked at anything closely with her short-sighted eyes. She wore a dark cotton frock and checked pinafore, and her feet, without stockings, were slipped into shoes that seemed a world too big for them. She would not have been pretty in any circumstances; but shuffling along in her big shoes and odd dress, she was a very queer-looking little creature indeed.

But there was something about the child more to be deplored than the wide mouth, or the dim eyes, or the drooping figure. There was a look of unhappiness upon her face which, as any one might see, was in consequence of no momentary trouble. It seemed to be habitual. As she plodded along with her eyes cast down on the rough pathway, it never changed. Once, when the sun, which she thought had set, flashed out for a moment through the clouds of purple and crimson, causing her to look up suddenly, the sad expression passed away; but when her eyes fell it was there again, and she sighed wearily, as though her thoughts were always sad. It was a long time before she looked up again.

Indeed, there was not very much in the scene around her to attract the attention of the child, even if her short-sighted eyes could have taken in the view. There were the clouds; but their crimson and purple glories had faded. There was the little grove of birch and maple by the side of the brook--the prettiest place on her father's farm, Christie thought; and that was all. A bird's-eye view of the country for many miles around showed no variety of scenery, except the alternation of long, broad fields of grass and wheat, or, rather, fields where grass and wheat had been, with wide, irregular stretches of low-lying forest. There was scarcely a hill deserving of the name to break the monotonous level. It was a very fine country indeed in the estimation of the busy groups who were here and there gathering in the last sheaves of a plentiful harvest. The farmers of Laidlaw were wont to boast, and with reason, too, of their wheat-crops, and their fine roads and fences, declaring that there was not in all Canada a district that would surpass or even equal theirs in respect of these things. But beauty of this sort a child cannot be supposed to appreciate. Christie's home for the first ten years of her life had been in a lovely Scottish village, within three miles of the sea on one side and less than three miles from the hills on the other; and the dull, unvaried level, the featureless aspect of her present home, might well seem dreary to the child.

But the contrast between the old life and the new was greater still; and here lay the secret of the shadow that seldom left the face of the little girl now. For in the old times, that seemed so long ago, Christie had been the one delicate child in a large and healthy family, and therefore her loving mother's constant and peculiar care. And her mother was dead now. I need not say more to prove how sad and changed her life had become.

I think that, meeting her on her homeward way that afternoon, one might have almost seen the motherless look in her pale face and drooping figure and in the lingering tread of her weary little feet. It was a look more painful to see than the look of sadness or neglect which motherless children sometimes wear. It was of a wayward temper grown more wayward still for want of a mother's firm and gentle rule. One could not doubt that peevish words and angry retorts fell very naturally from those pale lips. She looked like one who needed to be treated with patience and loving forbearance, and who failed to meet either. And, indeed, the rule to which Christie was forced to submit was neither firm nor gentle. Sometimes it was firm, when Christie, as she not unfrequently did, ventured to resist it; but gentle--never.

When Christie's mother died, all their friends said the little Redferns were very fortunate in having an Aunt Elsie to supply her place in the household; and in some respects they were. If a constant and conscientious determination to do her duty to her brother's motherless children would have made up to them for their loss, they would have been quite happy under Aunt Elsie's care. She made a great sacrifice of her own ease and comfort when she left her quiet home to devote herself to their interests; and if they had all been wise and good and thoughtful, they would not have needed to be reminded so frequently of her self-denial as Aunt Elsie seemed to think necessary. But few children are so wise, or good, or thoughtful as they ought to be; and there were oftentimes secret murmurings, and once or twice during the first year of her stay there had been open rebellion among them.

It could hardly have been otherwise. No middle-aged woman unaccustomed to the care of a family, whose heart had never been softened by the helpless loveliness of little children of her own, could have filled the place of a mother, wise, firm, and tender, all at once; and so for a time their household was not a happy one. Their father left his children to the care of their aunt, as he had always left them to the care of their mother; and if an appeal from any decision of hers were made to him, it very seldom availed anything.

It was not so bad for the elder ones. They were healthy, good-tempered girls, who had companions and interests out of the home-circle; and they soon learned to yield to or evade what was distasteful in their aunt's rule. With the little children she was always lenient. It was the sickly, peevish little Christie who suffered most. More than any of the rest, more than all the rest put together, she missed her mother: she missed her patient care and sympathy when she was ill, and her firm yet gentle management amid the wayward fretfulness that illness brought upon her. Night after night did her weary little head slumber on a pillow which her tears had wet. Morning after morning did she wake up to the remembrance of her loss, with a burst of bitter weeping, angry at or indifferent to all her aunt's attempts to console her or win her love. No wonder that her aunt lost patience at last, calling the child peevish and wilful, and altogether unlovable, and declaring that she had more trouble and unhappiness with her than with all her sisters put together.