A Book of Quaker Saints

by L. V. Hodgkin

It was a most uncomfortable First Day morning. The children looked at each other and wondered what would happen next, as they stood in the small bedroom under the thatched roof. Dorcas, the eldest, already half dressed, held Baby Stephen in her arms; but the twins, Tryphena and Tryphosa, were running about the floor with bare feet and only their petticoats on, strings and tapes all flying loose. Baby was crying, whilst the Twins shouted with mischievous glee. Something must be done. So Dorcas seated herself in a big chair and tried to dress Baby. But Baby was hungry. He wanted his breakfast and he did not at all want to be dressed! Oh, if only Mother was here! Where was Mother all this long time? Had she and Father really been taken to prison? Dorcas felt heart-sick at the thought. Happily the Twins and Baby were too little to understand. She herself was nearly ten and therefore almost grown up. She understood now all about it quite well. This was what Mother had meant when she bent down to kiss her little girl in bed last night, saying that she was going out to a Meeting at Friend Curtis' house, hoping to be back in an hour or two. 'But if not'—here Dorcas remembered that Mother's eyes had filled with tears. She had left the sentence unfinished, adding only: 'Anyway, I know I can trust thee, Dorcas, to be a little mother to the little ones while I am away.' 'But if not....' Dorcas had been too sleepy last night to think what the words meant, or to keep awake until Mother's return. It seemed as if she had only just closed her eyes for a minute or two; and yet, when she opened them again, the bright morning sunlight was filling the room.

'But if not....' After all, there had been no need for Mother to finish the sentence. Now that Dorcas was wide awake she could complete it for herself only too well. For Dorcas knew that at any moment a Meeting of five or more persons who met to practise a form of worship not authorized by law might be rudely interrupted by the constables, and all the Friends who were sitting in silence together dragged off to prison for disobeying the Quaker Act. Since that Act had been passed in this same month of May 1662, Quaker children understood that this might happen at any moment, but of course each child hoped that it would not happen just yet, or at least not to his own Father and Mother. But now apparently it had happened here in peaceful Reading beside the broad Thames.

Last night's Meeting had been fixed at an unusually late hour. For, as the late Spring evenings were lengthening, the Reading Quakers had wished to take advantage of the long May twilight to gather together and meet with a Friend, one of the Valiant Sixty, who had come in for a few hours unexpectedly on his way to London. So the children had fallen asleep as usual, fully expecting to find their parents beside them when they woke. But now the empty places and the unslept-in beds told their own tale.

'Be a mother to the little ones, Dorcas,' Mother had said. Well, Dorcas was trying her very best, but it was not easy. Baby had many strings to tie and many buttons to fasten, and just as she was getting the very last button safely into its button-hole the Twins came running up to say that they had got into each other's clothes by mistake and could not get out of them again. This was serious; for though Phenie's frock was only a little too big for Phosie, Phosie's frock was much too small for Phenie.

Dorcas was obliged to put Baby down to attend to them; but this reminded Baby that he had still not been provided with his much-desired breakfast, whereupon he began to howl, till Dorcas took him up in her arms again, and dandled him as Mother did. This made him crow for happiness, just as he did when Mother took him, so for a few minutes Dorcas was happy too, till she saw that the Twins were now beginning to squabble again, and to tear out each other's hair with the comb. At that unlucky moment up came brother Peter's big voice calling from below, 'Dorcas, Dorcas, what are you all doing up there? Why is not breakfast ready? I have milked the cow for you. You must come down this very minute; I am starving!'

It was an uncomfortable morning; and the worst of it was that it was First Day morning too. Dorcas had not known before that a First Day morning could be uncomfortable. Usually First Day was the happiest day in the whole week. Mother's hands were so gentle that, though the children had been taught to help themselves as soon as they were old enough, still Mother always seemed to know just when there was an unruly button that needed a little coaxing to help it to find its hole, or a string that wanted to get into a knot that ought to be persuaded to tie itself into a bow.

Then breakfast was always a pleasant meal, with the big blue bowls full of milk, warm from the cow, set out on the wooden table, and Father sitting at one end raising his hand as he said a silent Grace. Father never said any words at these times. But he bent his head as if he were thanking Someone he loved very much, Someone close beside him, for giving him the milk and bread to give to the children and for making him very happy. So the children felt happy too. Dorcas thought that the brown bread always tasted especially good on First Day morning, because Father was at the head of the table to cut it and hand it to them himself. On other, week-day, mornings he had to go off much earlier, ploughing, or reaping, or gathering in the ripe corn from the harvest-fields behind the farm. Also, Peter never teased the little ones when Father was there. But to-day if there were no breakfast, (and where was breakfast to come from?) Peter would be dreadfully cross. Yet how could Dorcas go and get breakfast for Peter when the three little ones were all wanting her help at once?

'I'm coming, Peter, as fast as ever I can,' she called back, in answer to a second yet more peremptory summons. But, oh! how glad she was to hear a gentle knock at the door of the thatched cottage a minute or two later.

'Come in! come in!' she heard Peter saying joyfully as he opened the door, and then came the sound of light footsteps on the wooden stairs. Another minute, and the bedroom door opened gently, and a sunshiny face looked into the children's untidy room.

'Why, it is thee, Hester!' Dorcas exclaimed, with a cry of joy. 'Oh, I am glad to see thee! And how glad Mother would be to know thou wert here.'