Betty's Battles Part 6

"Is that _really_ the way out of it? Can love, and keeping one's temper, make all that difference? Of course, I know that Bob would like me better if I didn't scold when he is rough and careless; and I'm sure mother would rather I didn't worry her about the house being so untidy and badly managed. But then, if I _don't_ scold and worry, how can I get things into proper order?"

Suddenly a bright thought, like a ray of pure light, darts into her mind--"Does Grannie mean me to work just as hard to make things nicer, but in a different way? To love everybody so much that I don't get cross when they seem careless and unreasonable?

"Oh, have I been thinking too much of myself--of my own plans? Oh, dear Lord, help me, help me to seek the good of others, help me to suffer long and be kind; not to be easily provoked; help me to feel that my home and all within it are precious gifts from Thee!"

CHAPTER V

REAL TROUBLE

Betty washes her face, brushes her hair, and runs downstairs; new courage thrilling her heart.

"Yes, now, indeed, I will try what love can do! Now I really will keep my temper whatever happens; now love shall speak for me however aggravating things may be!"

She feels so sure of herself; nevertheless, she has hardly been downstairs half a minute before she nearly slips into her old habits of irritation again.

An ominous rumbling in the direction of the kitchen chimney announces that the sweep is still at work. The children's dinner-hour has nearly arrived, there is no dinner ready, and the sitting-room fire has not even been lighted.

"What _was_ the use of telling me to go away and rest, and then forgetting all about the children's dinner in this way? It's too bad!

I'd much rather have been without the rest altogether than be worried like this, and I shall just go and tell mother so--no, I won't."

Betty stops short. Where are all the good resolutions she made not five minutes ago? Where is the Love she was to listen to, and learn from?

"Mother has forgotten the dinner because she is doing all the horrid, dirty work of having the sweep herself, that I might rest. I won't say anything; no, I _won't_. I'll just run out and buy some fish, and cook it myself, without saying a word."

She lights the fire, buys the fish, prepares and cooks it in her swift, methodical fas.h.i.+on, and has dinner quite ready just as Bob and the younger children troop in from school, and Lucy returns from her music-lesson.

"Dinner ready?" cries Bob roughly, flinging his cap down on a chair.

"Bob, how dare you do that? Hang your cap up in the hall, directly."

"Oh, bother; I shall want it again in half a minute. Where's mother?"

A wave of indignation sweeps over Betty at his careless answer.

"Not one sc.r.a.p of dinner shall you have, Bob, until your cap is hanging up in its proper place; take it out at once!"

"Shan't; where's mother? I want my dinner. I don't want any of your nagging."

Nagging--how Betty hates the word! Bob knows her dislike of it well enough, and always uses it when he means to be especially aggravating.

He does so now, fully expecting her to begin scolding violently.

But somehow her very dislike of the word reminds her of Grannie's letter, with its warning about troubles and trials. Is she nagging? has she failed already? Yet how rude Bob is--how wrong!

No, she _will_ conquer; and she answers quite gently.

"Bob, how can you expect the younger ones to behave properly if you set them a bad example? They all watch you," and she goes out to call her mother to dinner.

The kitchen is in a truly dreadful state; table, chairs, and saucepans, all heaped together; a liberal sprinkling of soot over everything; mother, with a great smudge of soot across her face, Clara as grimy as a sweep herself.

"Dinner? Why, I declare I forgot all about it! Can I come? Bless the child, of course not. Just look at the state that careless man has left everything in; it's disgraceful."

"But, mother, dinner's all ready, and----"

"Oh, that's all right; help the children, and I'll come when I can."

Betty's feelings are all up in arms again. She has cooked the dinner herself, and mother won't even take the trouble to come and eat it--her birthday dinner, too! Again her indignation almost masters her.

"You must come, mother. Bob's horridly cross."

"Poor boy. Something has upset him at school, I expect. He's made to work much too hard over those lessons. Now, Clara, I've told you over and over again that I won't have the table scrubbed before the floor's swept. Take that pail away at once, and fetch the soft broom!"

Betty sees that further interference will be equally hopeless, and goes upstairs, the spirit of rebellion surging in her heart.

"So unnecessary, all this fuss and muddle; what possible good can 'Love'

do to all this sort of thing?"

Yet Love has already won one small victory for her. Bob would not have hung up his cap had she scolded for an hour. But she had answered his last unkind remark gently, and when she returns to the sitting-room the cap is gone.

Nevertheless, as the day wears on, Betty feels more and more despondent.

"I don't see how things could be worse," she thinks, "and I can't see how I can ever make them any better."

The younger children are in bed now, and mother is trying to wash the soot from her hands and face in her own room.

"Father will be late to-night; he will want his supper directly he comes home. Of course, it will be left to me to get it. I wonder what Lucy finds to do so perpetually in her own room? I've a good mind to tell her pretty plainly what I think of her selfish, unsociable ways, always going away by herself, and leaving me to attend to everything," and Betty sighs wearily, and, seating herself on the little sofa, begins to sort over the heap of unmended stockings.

The next moment she is startled by a loud double knock at the street door. She jumps to her feet and stands listening. What can it be?

Ah, now Clara is coming upstairs. She is always so slow.

What is that? Clara screaming? Betty flies down the pa.s.sage.

"Oh, Oh, Oh!" shrieks Clara. "The master's killed, and they've brought him home in a cab!"

"Killed? No, no, miss; don't be frightened. It's only a bad accident,"

says the cabman, rea.s.suringly, as he catches sight of Betty's white face.

"A bad accident! Father? Oh, what is it?" gasps Betty.

"Smashed his knee-cap, miss."

"Oh, is that all?" cries Betty.

"All! Why, miss, that is the worst kind of accident. Like as not, he'll never put foot to ground again; he'd better by far have broken both his legs. Is there anyone in the house to help me get him in?"