"Why should mother not let me get all the good of the fire?" said the little murmuring girl. "I'm sure there's no use in that thing that puts the fire in a cage, and keeps me from doing what I like, and making it blaze up high!" The child did not consider that one much older and wiser than herself was likely to have good reasons for putting on the guard. Emmy was no better judge of these reasons than the widow herself was of the wisdom which had fenced round the day of rest with the command, "On it thou shalt do no manner of work." All that either mother or child had to do was simply to trust and obey. But Emmy had a wilful temper, and could not bear anything like restraint.
Presently from looking at the fire, the child cast her eyes on the mantel-piece above it, and the bread and white jug upon it.
"Why did mother put them up there, when she knew that Emmy might be hungry, and want to eat before she comes home?" And impatiently the child stretched out her hand, and rose on her tiptoes, trying to reach the food. She could not touch the lower part of the shelf; and well was it for Emmy that the guard so wisely placed over the fire, prevented her little frock from catching the flame as she did so!
"Emmy will pull the chair to the place and climb up, and get at the loaf!" cried the child, determined by some means to have her own way, and procure what she thought that she needed. She ran off to a chair placed in a corner, which was almost the only article of furniture, besides the bed, to be found in that bare little room. But the chair was of clumsy and heavy make, and had several articles heaped upon it; all the efforts of Emmy were of no avail to drag it out from its place.
The difficulty which she found in getting what she desired only served to increase the eagerness of the child, and her determination to have the loaf which had been purposely placed out of her reach. Emmy was ready to cry, and accuse her tender mother of unkindness. And was she not in this but too much like many who doubt the love of their Heavenly Father because He has not placed in their hands what they think to be needful for their comfort?
At last a thought came into the mind of little Emmy, as she gazed, through her tears, at the fire. She had not strength to move the big chair, in vain she had struggled to do so; but might she not manage to move the guard, and would it not serve her for a footstool to reach the loaf on the mantel-piece? But then mother had told her so often not to meddle with the guard! Why should mother forbid her to touch it? The voice of discontent and distrust in the bosom of the little child, was much the same as that whose whisperings had led Mary Cowell to go out selling on Sunday. With both parent and daughter it proved to be stronger than conscience. Emmy laid hold of the guard and shook it; but old as it was, she had not the power to pull it from its place. Presently, however, the child felt that though she could not pull she could lift it. With eager pleasure Emmy raised the guard high enough to release its iron hooks from the bars, and then there was nothing to prevent her from removing the fence altogether.
Emmy's first pleasure was to poke up the fire with the little rusty bit of a poker which she had seen her mother use for the purpose, but which she herself had never been permitted to touch. Then, eager to get at the loaf; she put down the guard in front of the fire, so that she might be able to step upon it. Wretched, disobedient little child! With one foot on that trembling, yielding wire-work, one hand stretched up to take food not lawfully her own, her dress so close to the flame that in another moment it must be wrapt in a roaring blaze, what can now save her from destruction?
Suddenly the door opened, and with a cry of terror Mary Cowell sprang forward in time—but just in time, to snatch her only child away from a terrible death!
"Oh, thank God—thank God—that I came home, that He made me turn back!" exclaimed the widow, bursting into tears.
Little Emmy was punished, as she well deserved to be, for breaking her mother's command, and doing what she knew that she ought not to have done. But Mary Cowell, with a contrite heart, owned to herself, and confessed to God, that she had deserved sharper punishment than her child. There had been doubt and disobedience in both; but the older sinner was the greater, for she had most cause to trust the providence of a Father who is almighty as well as all-good. If the child had removed a guard carefully and wisely placed before the fire which, while kept to its proper use, is one of our greatest blessings, but which to those who misuse it may prove the cause of burning and death; what had the mother done? She had tried on the Lord's Day to earn bread by treading her duty under foot, by putting aside, as far as she could, that law by which the great God has fenced round His holy day, "Thou shalt do no manner of work."