The mission work that Marty had entered upon was teaching her to pray.
She really wished to be a mission worker in her small way and she tried hard to be faithful, but owing to her forgetfulness or impatience or selfishness, things sometimes went wrong. Once or twice she forgot to learn a verse to say at the meeting, and was much mortified. Once she got very impatient with a piece of sewing and spoiled it, and then was angry because some of the girls laughed at her. And she still found it hard to give her money regularly; some weeks she wanted it so much for something else.
But all these little trials she carried to God and was helped. This led to the habit of bringing all her little troubles to him.
One day Miss Agnes remarked that we don't put enough thanks in our prayers. We ask that such and such things may be done, but we don't thank God half enough for what he has done and is constantly doing for us. We come to him with all the miseries of our lives, but don't tell him about the happy and joyous things. Afterward Marty put more thanks in her prayers, and she told Miss Agnes that it was astonishing how many thankful things there were to say.
Marty also used her Bible a great deal more after she joined the band than before.
Besides the verse they were expected to repeat at roll-call, Miss Agnes sometimes asked them to bring all the texts they could find bearing upon a certain subject. The golden text for Sunday-school might be learned from the lesson-paper, but it was necessary to search the Bible for these other verses. At first Marty did not know how to begin to find them and appealed to her mother for help. Mrs. Ashford gave all the assistance in her power, though saying with a half-sigh,
“I'm afraid I don't know much about these things, Marty.”
One day Mrs. Ashford had been out shopping and in the evening several parcels were sent home. These she opened in the sitting-room. As she unwrapped quite a large one Mr. Ashford inquired,
“What is that huge book?”
When his wife handed it to him he whistled and exclaimed,