“Certainly, Tom.”
“Well, it seems hard, if this is true, that he should let me get hurt so the other morning, as I was trying to shoot the hens for you, and you needed them so much, when there’s Jo Priest, and ever so many more, swearing, ugly fellows, that go a gunning almost all the time, and kill things just for the fun of it, and they get plenty of game, and never get injured;” and the lad spoke bitterly.
“My child,” said the mother, “there are many things hard to be understood about God’s dealings with us, and I am afraid that a great part of them seem harder than they really are, because we are so ignorant. But you know how I am situated. I don’t hear any preaching, nor see those that do, very often; and it’s not to be 42 expected that I can clear up these things, as they can.”
“I wish,” interrupted Tom, petulantly, “that the preacher was here. I’d like to ask him; but perhaps he wouldn’t like to talk with a poor ignorant boy like me.”
“Well,” continued the mother, “I know here”–and she placed her hand upon her heart–“that all God does is just right, however dark it seems, and that satisfies me.”
Tom was impressed by his mother’s faith, but soon objected,–
“Mother, do you think we can always trust our feelings? You said a little while ago that you felt that there would be trouble with the Indians; but nobody expects that. And now you say that you feel that all God does is right. Now, if you are wrong about the Indians, and about father’s being in danger from them, how can you be sure that your feelings are right about God?”
“Tom,” replied she, “I have a great many impressions that come to nothing. But there are some that never do. And I know that God does right; for I feel that he does; and, Tom, we shall see about the Indians;” and she sighed heavily, and rose, and gazed long and earnestly off over the prairie, and towards the woods. 43 Then, seating herself on the bedside, she said, gently,–
“My son, you haven’t told me all your troubles yet. Hadn’t you better hold nothing back from me?”
The lad turned away at this, deeply touched again; “for,” thought he, “her feelings are right about me; perhaps they are about God;” and her persevering and delicate solicitude pierced his very soul.