“Scarce, my dear. We hardly know what are the right things to grieve over. You and I might have thought it a very mournful thing when the prodigal son was sent into the field to feed swine: yet—speaking after the manner of men—if that had not happened, he would not have arisen and have gone to his father.”
“Do you think Rhoda will have to go through trouble before she can find peace, Mrs Dorothy?”
“‘Before she can—’ I don’t know, my dear. Before she will—I am afraid, yes.”
“I am so sorry,” said Phoebe.
“Dear child, the last thing the prodigal will do is to arise and go to the Father. He will try every sort of swine’s husks first. He doth not value the delicates of the Father’s house—he hath no taste for them. The husks are better, to his palate. What wonder, then, if he tarry yet in the far country?”
“But how are you to get him to change his taste, Mrs Dorothy?”
“Neither you nor he can do that, my dear. Most times, either the husks run short, or he gets cloyed with them. That is, if he ever go back to the Father. For some never do, Phoebe—they stay on in the far country, and find the husks sweet to the end.”
“That must be saddest of all,” said Phoebe, sorrowfully.
“It is saddest of all. Ah, child!—thank thy Father, if He have made thy husks taste bitter.”
“But all things are not husks, Mrs Dorothy!”