Also I had a most disquieting memory of a little girl about eight years old, after a missionary meeting in Penrith Chapel, declaring that as soon as she was grown up, she was going to the heathen at the ends of the earth. She was going to tell them about their good brother Jesus, who stretched out his arms to them, even from the Cross. And I was ashamed before this ghost of a child from the past, and then remembered how Lilly had even neglected her school and her lessons to go to serve at the poor children’s dinners in Glasgow, finding in this service a consolation for a life lonely and not happy. So there was no reason at all to wonder at her enthusiasm for mission work. It was an inherited tendency, strengthened by the experience of three generations.
The next time Mr. Mingens called he made a proposal I had neither heart, nor argument to oppose. He said he had taken dinner the previous evening with Mr. and Mrs. William E. Dodge, and that during a conversation about city missions, Mrs. Dodge had expressed a desire that Miss Barr would act as her private missionary. He told us that Mrs. Dodge was very rich and charitable, and had letters every day asking her help in a variety of troubles, and that she thought Miss Barr would be the very person to investigate the real condition of the writers, 333 and if their cases were worthy of help, to see that they obtained it.
The offer greatly pleased Lilly, and after she had an interview with Mrs. Dodge, she was taken captive by that lady’s spiritual and personal charms and was very happy in the work assigned her. The salary she received for it brightened all our lives, for it enabled us to rent and make the comfortable home we all longed to possess. For there was but one purse in the family. I carried it, but it belonged alike to all; and I never once remember Lilly asking for a dollar of her salary, for her private use or pleasure.
In the meantime my reputation grew imperceptibly as a tree grows. In a little more than a year after I began writing for the Christian Union I had a great deal to do for Dr. Stephen Tyng, a notable young clergyman of that day. My first literary work for him was to write twenty little stories about Olivet Chapel and its mission. They were to be about seven or eight hundred words long, and though all on the same subject, to be varied as much as possible. I found no difficulty in doing what he wished. It was only to make men of different creeds and nationalities, age and temperament, wealth and poverty, discuss the mission. To me it proved a pleasant mental exercise, and Dr. Tyng was more than satisfied, and paid me one hundred dollars. I thought the cars would never get me home. I was in such a hurry to tell the children, I must have taken two steps at once.
That day remains in my memory as a perfectly happy day, for Dr. Tyng paid me with such cordiality and unstinted praise, that my pleasure was doubled. Subsequently when Dr. Tyng and Dr. Hepworth began to publish a weekly newspaper, called the Working Church, they associated me with them in its preparation. This paper published the first novel I ever wrote, as simple a story as “Jan Vedder’s Wife,” but laid among the Cumberland Fells and in the city of Glasgow. At that time I knew nothing about book rights, and English rights, and I suppose Dr. Tyng never imagined a writer could be ignorant about such personal points, for he did not speak to me on the subject. So when Dr. Tyng had paid me for its publication in 334 the Working Church I believed I had no further right in it. It was put away and forgotten, until about half a year ago, when I found it in a box full of old diaries, papers, et cetera. Its name was “Eunice Leslie” and if any one has early copies of the Working Church they will find it there, and I should be glad to hear of it.
Among my duties on this paper was the preparation of the columns of church news, and general news, and Dr. Lyman Abbott in writing to Dr. Tyng about the newspaper said, “They were well done,” and asked, “Who prepared them?” And as Dr. Abbott knew I was responsible for their accuracy and brightness, it was very kind of him to make the inquiry. It was a small kindness; it was done forty years ago, and Dr. Abbott has doubtless forgotten it, but I still remember how much it pleased me. As for Dr. Abbott, he may count it, as Wordsworth says, in
“That best portion of a good man’s life—
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness, and of love.”
Dr. Tyng showed me Dr. Abbott’s question, and his compliment to the general character of the Working Church as a popular religious weekly, and with a gay little laugh commented thus, “I am glad the doctor did not spell ‘Weekly’ with an ‘a.’” Then his countenance beamed with pleasure, and I can see him this moment, as I saw him then, standing with the note in his hand, as fine a type of a highly-cultured good-hearted gentleman as I ever met.