Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl

by Amelia E. Barr

To make what dinner she could, and put the house in order was then Christine’s duty, and she went about it, leaving Roberta with Margot. They soon became quite at ease with each other, and Christine could hear them laughing at their own conversation. After awhile they were very quiet, and Christine wondered if her mother had again become sleepy. On the contrary, she found Margot more alive and more interested than she had seen her since her husband’s death.

There was a crochet needle between them, and they were both absorbed in what it was doing. Crochet was then a new thing on the earth, as far as England and Scotland was concerned; and at this date it was the reigning womanly fad. Margot had seen and dreamed over such patterns of it as had got into magazines and newspapers, but had never seen the work itself. Now Roberta was teaching 257 her its easy stitches, and Margot, with all a child’s enthusiasm, was learning.

“Look, Christine,” she cried. “Look, Christine, at the bonnie wark I am learning! It is the crochet wark. We hae read about it, ye ken, but see for yoursel’. Look, lassie,” and she proudly held out a strip of the first simple edging.

The three women then sat down together, and there was wonder and delight among them. A bit of fine, delicate crochet now gets little notice, but then it was a new sensation, and women thought they lacked an important source of pleasure, if they went anywhere without the little silk bag holding their crochet materials. Roberta had crocheted in the train, as long as it was light, and she fully intended to crochet all day, as she sat talking to her new relations.

Margot could knit blindfolded, she learned by some native and natural instinct. In two days she would have been able to teach Roberta.

There was a simple dinner of baked fish, and a cup of tea, and Christine beat an egg in a cup and was going to carry it to Margot, when Roberta stayed her. “Does she like it in that sloppy way?” she asked.

“Weel, it is for her good. She has to like it.”

“We can make it far nicer. See here,” and Roberta beat the egg in the cupful of milk, added a little sugar, and placed it in the oven. In a few minutes it was a solid, excellent custard, and Margot 258 enjoyed it very much. “I ne’er liked raw food,” she said, “and raw egg isna any more eatable than raw fish, or raw meat.”

In the afternoon the Domine and Jamie came in, and Roberta won his heart readily with her gay good nature and thoughtful kindness to the sick woman. He had put a letter into Christine’s hand, as he came in and said to her, “Go your ways ben, and read it, but say naething to your mither anent its contents. Later I’ll give you good reasons for this.”

So Christine went away, and opened her letter, and there fell from it a five-pound note. And the letter was from a great magazine, and it said the money was for the “Fisherman’s Prayer” and he would be very glad if she would write him more about fishers. There were also a few pleasant words of praise, but Christine’s eyes were full of happy tears, she could not read them. What she did was to lay the letter and the money on her bed, and kneel down beside it, and let her silence and her tears thank the God who had helped her. “I was brought low and He helped me,” she whispered, as she bathed her eyes and then went back to the company.