Daisy in the Field Part 46

I was silent a little bit, and then I ventured to say, -

"Papa, the Lord Jesus loved them well enough to die for them."

"Well," said papa, rather growlingly, "what then?"

"I am thinking, what will He say to us for handling them so."

"What would you do for them, Daisy?"

"All I could, papa," I said softly.

"How much could you, do you suppose?"

"Papa, I would not stop as long as there was anything more to be done."

"I suppose you would begin by setting them all free?"

"Wouldn't you wish it, papa, for yourself and me, if we were two of them? - and for mamma and Ransom, if they were two more?"

"You are mistaken in thinking it is a parallel case. They do not wish for liberty as we should."

"Then it only shows how much harm the want of liberty has done them already. But they wish for it quite enough, papa; quite enough. It breaks my heart to think how much they do wish for it."

"My child, you do not know what you are talking about!" papa answered; half worried, I thought, and half impatient. "In the first place, they would not be better off if they were set free; though you think they would; and in the second place, do you know how it would affect our own condition?"

"Papa," I said low, - "it has nothing to do with the question.

I do not care."

"You would care."

"I care for this other more, papa."

"Daisy, understand. Instead of being well off, you would be poor; you would be poor. The Southern estates would be worth nothing without hands to cultivate them; and my Northern estates will go to your brother."

"I should never be rich in the way you think, papa."

"How so?"

"I would never be rich in that way."

"What would you do?"

"I would be poor."

"It is not so easy to do as to talk about," said my father.

"At the present time, Daisy, - I suppose, if you had your will, you would set at liberty at once all the people on the Magnolia plantations?"

"Indeed I would, papa."

"Then we should be reduced to a present nothing. The Melbourne property brings in very little, nothing, in fact, without a master on the spot to manage it. I dare say some trifling rent might be obtained for it; and the sale of Magnolia and its corresponding estates would fetch something if the times admitted of sale. You know it is impossible now. We should have scarce anything to live upon, my child, to satisfy your philanthropy."

"Papa, there was a poor woman once, who was reduced to a handful of meal and a little oil as her whole household store.

Yet at the command of the prophet of the Lord, she took some of it to make bread for him, before she fed herself and her child - both of them starving. And the Lord never let her want either meal or oil all the time the famine lasted."

"Miracles do not come for people's help, now-a-days, Daisy."

"Papa, yes! G.o.d's ways may change, His ways of doing the same thing; but He does not change. He takes care of His people now without miracles, all the same."

"All the same!" repeated papa. "That is an English expression, that you have caught from your friends."

We were both silent for a while.

"Daisy, my child, your views of all these things will alter by and by. You are young, and have slight experience of the things of life. By and by, you will find it a much more serious thing than you imagine to be without wealth. You would find a great difference between the heiress and the penniless girl; a difference you would not like."

"Papa," I said slowly, - "I hope you will not be displeased or hurt, - but I want it to be known, and I wanted you should know, that I never shall be an heiress. I never will be rich in that way. I will take what G.o.d gives me."

"First throwing away what He has given you," said papa.

"I do not think He has given it, papa."

"What then? have we stolen it?"

"Not we; but those who have been before us, papa; they stole it. All we are doing, is keeping that which is not ours."

"Enough too, I should think!" said papa. "You will alter your mind, Daisy, about all this, if you wait a while. What do you think your mother would say to it?"

"I know, papa," I said softly. "But I cannot help thinking of what will be said somewhere else. I would like that you and I, and she too, might have that 'Well done' - which the Lord Jesus will give to some. And when they enter into the joy of their Lord, will they care what His service has cost them?"

My eyes were full of tears, and I could scarcely speak; for I felt that I had gained very little ground, or better no ground at all. What indeed could I have expected to gain? Papa sat still, and I looked over at Jerusalem, where the westing sun was making a bath of sunbeams for the old domes and walls. A sort of promise of glory, which yet touched me exceedingly from its contrast with present condition. Even so of other things, and other places besides Jerusalem. But Melbourne seemed to be in shadow. And Magnolia? -

I wondered what papa would say next, or whether our talk had come to a deadlock then and there. I had a great deal more myself to say; but the present opportunity seemed to be questionable. And then it was gone; for Mr. Dinwiddie mounted the hill and came to take a seat beside us.

"Any news, Mr. Dinwiddie?" was papa's question, as usual.

"From America."

"What sort of news?"

"Confused sort - as the custom is. Skirmishes which amount to nothing, and tell nothing. However, there is a little more this time. Fort Henry has been taken, on the Tennessee river, by Commander Foote and his gunboats."

"Successes cannot always be on one side, of course," remarked my father.

"Roanoke Island has been taken, by the sea and land forces under Burnside and Goldsborough."

"Has it!" - said papa. "Well, - what good will that do them?"

"Strengthen their hearts for continuing the struggle," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "It will do that."