The Prodigal Daughter CHAPTER 6.
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"Shall I read to you, mother?" asked little Alice, now six years old.
"Yes, dear. Draw a chair up to the table, and while I sit here in bed and sew, you can read for me."
Thus do we again introduce Mrs. Anderson, five years from the day she moved, with her husband, from Washington to Baltimore. The store in which her husband had engaged, was a liquor store, or cheap tavern, where he spent most of his time, becoming more and more dissipated and brutalized in his feelings every day. For a short time, he provided scantily for his wife and children, but soon he neglected them again, cruelly. The burden of almost their entire maintenance fell, of course, upon his wife, in whose delicate frame, disease had begun to make painful inroads. Her nervous system had become much shattered, and there were, besides, too apparent symptoms of a pulmonary disease, but not of the worst kind. Still, she was a daily sufferer, and much of her time she was unable to sit up in her chair, but had to prop herself up in bed with pillows, where, half seated, half reclining, she would ply her needle all day, and frequently for half the night.
James, her eldest boy, who was nine years old, had, with sympathies and right thoughts developed at that tender age, sought and obtained a job in a cigar factory, and was earning a dollar and a half, and sometimes two dollars, a week. He had been taught to read well, and write a little, by her for whom he was now devoting his young years, cheerfully, to daily and often nightly toil.
Little Alice has numbered six summers, and has also learned to feel for and sympathize with her mother. She, too, has been taught to read. As directed in the opening of this chapter, she brought a book and laid it upon the table, which had been drawn up to the bed, on which reclined her mother. She then sat down, and opening the book, commenced reading. It was the book she most loved herself to read, and which her mother most liked to have read — the Bible. Turning to the book of Psalms, the little girl read slowly.
"The Lord is my shepherd I shall not lack. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
A sound like that of a sob caught the ear of the child, and she paused and looked anxiously up into her mother's face. But her mother's eyes were bent as usual on her work, and her hand that held the needle was moving regularly. Alice again read, and continued reading thus for nearly an hour, when she became wearied and closed the book.
"Mother," said the child, looking up into her mother's face, as a sudden thought occurred to her, "Haven't I got a grandmother, too? Mary Ellis has a grandmother."
"Yes, dear," Mrs. Anderson replied, after a moment's thought, while her heart trembled.
"Where is she, mother? I'd like to see her," pursued Alice, leaning on the side of the bed, and looking up with a countenance full of newly awakened interest.
"She lives a good way from here, Alice."
"Well, I would like to see her. Won't she love me as well as Mary Ellis' grandmother loves her?"
This was probing a wound which time could not heal. But the mother endeavored to bear the pain.
"If she saw you, Alice," she replied, "I am sure she would love you very much."
"Why don't she come here, mother?"
"She lives a great way off, dear."
"Well, I wish she would come, for I would love her so much," the child said, half musingly, and then remained silent.
"You love to read in the good book, do you not, dear?" asked Mrs. Anderson, partly because she felt inclined to ask the question, and partly to suggest other thoughts for the child, than those which were occupying her mind.
"O yes, I love to read in the Bible."
"And why do you love to read in the Bible, Alice?"
"Because, I always feel good when I am reading it. I don't know what the reason is, but no book makes me feel like the good book does."
"How does it make you feel, dear?"
"It makes me feel kind of warmer here," the child replied, laying her hand upon her bosom. "And just as if I could love everybody."
Mrs. Anderson mused upon the answer of the child, and mentally ejaculated, "Blessed book!"
Thus, amid pain, and wrong, and exile, and privation, were the consolations flowing from a genuine religious principle, beginning to dawn upon the troubled heart of Alice Melleville, or rather Mrs. Anderson.
Towards nine o'clock, James came in. He was a delicate looking boy, with his mother's fair face and dark bright eyes.
"I am afraid you work too late, James," said his mother, as he came in.
"Who works longest, Mother? and who is best able — you or I?" he asked, with earnest tenderness, and with a tone and manner that were meant evidently to settle the question at once.
Mrs. Anderson smiled affectionately upon her noble-spirited boy, and said,
"You are very considerate of your mother, James."
"Not more considerate than she is of me," he replied, smiling in turn. "But come, mother, put up your work; I know your head aches badly, and the pain in your chest must be bad, for you look paler than usual. I'll work harder tomorrow to make up for it."
The tears came into Mrs. Anderson's eyes, in spite of an effort to keep them back.
"I have promised this shirt tomorrow," she said, "and if I don't get pretty well on with it now, I shall not have it done in time. You know I always feel faint and sick in the morning, and can't do much until towards the middle of the day."
"And that is because you always work so late at night."
"That may have some effect. But I cannot change tonight. Mrs. Mansfield is very kind in getting me work, and giving me a good deal from her own family. I know she wants the half-dozen shirts, of which this is the last, tomorrow, by the middle of the day. Her husband is going away on the day after, and she must have them in time, to do up."
The boy saw the force of what his mother said, and was silent. He now read for his mother a chapter or two in the Bible; and then, as he had to rise very early in the morning, retired to his bed, which was in one corner of the room, on the floor, with a curtain drawn before it, prepared and arranged by the hands of his mother.
Mr. Anderson rarely came home, and little Alice therefore slept with her mother. Both of the children were soon fast asleep, while their mother continued her wearisome task until the hour of midnight, and then, after lifting her heart upwards to God, resigned herself to slumber, which was now becoming sounder and sweeter than it had been for years, notwithstanding her fast failing health.
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