"Mother's sick, and I'm a-keeping house!" said a little flaxen-headed girl, in all the importance of seven years, as her father entered the dwelling.
"Your mother sick! what's the matter?" inquired Mr. Stanton.
"She caught cold washing, yesterday, while you were gone;" and when the minister stood by the bedside of his sick wife, saw her flushed face, and felt her feverish pulse, he felt seriously alarmed. She had scarcely recovered from a dangerous fever when he left home, and with reason he dreaded a relapse.
"My dear, why have you done so?" was the first expostulation; "why did you not send for old Agnes to do your washing, as I told you."
"I felt so well, I thought I was quite able," was the reply; "and you know it will take all the money we have now in hand to get the children's shoes before cold weather comes, and nobody knows when we shall have any more."
"Well, Mary, comfort your heart as to that. I have had a present to-day of twenty dollars—that will last us some time. God always provides when need is greatest." And so, after administering a little to the comfort of his wife, the minister addressed himself to the business of cooking something for dinner for himself and his little hungry flock.
"There is no bread in the house," he exclaimed, after a survey of the ways and means at his disposal.
"I must try and sit up long enough to make some," said his wife faintly.
"You must try to be quiet," replied the husband. "We can do very well on potatoes. But yet," he added, "I think if I bring the things to your bedside, and you show me how to mix them, I could make some bread."