Home seemed to have settled once more into steady lines, with just the three in the family. But as this was a bark that seldom rested in quiet seas, another storm-cloud was seen arising, and it was larger than a man’s hand.
Chapter 28. — A STORMY SEASON
One day Austin sat in his room in deep and troubled thought. It had been many months since such a burden lay on his heart. He was perplexed as well as troubled. That there must be a way out of his trial he knew, but where to find it was his problem. There had been many times in his life when he had longed for some older and wiser one than himself to guide him and his family through the rocks that threatened the little bark, but never did he feel that lack as now. The very foundations of his home were at stake.
Every home must have its breadwinner and its home-maker. Ever since that day on which Nell had made her promise to stand by him and do her best, she had filled the place of home-maker to his satisfaction. There had been times when she had grown restless with the confinement of it, and he had arranged for her to be relieved or to have a change of employment for a time; but always she had come back with renewed love and zeal for her home. He had expected her always to be so.
Austin was young in years, but his struggle with the real problems of life had developed his nature until he thought and felt as a man ten years older. In his mind his home was a permanent thing. There was, for him, to be no leaving of the old home and going out to make a new one. This was his home in as strong a sense as the word could ever be used. Whatever threatened this establishment was placing his earthly happiness in jeopardy. He was ready to rise and defend it with all his strength.
With Nell it was different. When she had given her promise to Austin to help him with the undertaking, she had felt the need of the shelter home would give. She was a little girl then, now she was at the door of womanhood. Instinctively she felt that this was not always to be her home, and she had a longing for the freedom, that normal girlhood feels, from responsibility and care. She longed to go out, as other girls went, to face the battles and make the conquests of life. It seemed to her that unless she made a bold dash for freedom her whole life would be given up to dull household tasks.
These vague longings and dissatisfied thoughts caused Nell to lose interest in her home duties. And in turning her attention to outside affairs she, for lack of experience and of the wise, guiding hand of a mother, began placing her affections and desires upon those things that are very enticing to youth but which do not bring the best good. It seemed to her that better clothes, more social activity, worldly amusements, and entire freedom from restraint would bring her the opportunities and the pleasures she craved. Since there was coming to her, as comes to every girl, that indefinite time when she must “settle down in life,” why should she not have her good times now!
Austin saw, or thought he saw, the course these “good times” would take, and their final outcome. Nell was impulsive and strong willed; she had no mother to guide her, and he feared the results of a period of wildness. He needed her help in the home, help that she could not give with a divided mind. He was a Christian at heart, one who had covenanted to live by the Word of God, leaving all that was “of the world” behind. He wanted his home to be in every sense a Christian home. It disappointed him that Nell was choosing the world.