Katie Robertson

by Margaret E. Winslow

CHAPTER VII.

STRIFE AND VICTORY.

No thought had as yet suggested itself to Katie concerning her right to the money which had thus come into her possession, and as she lay there planning the things she was going to get with it, she enjoyed to the full the dignity of ownership. How glad her mother would be when there was a decent water-pail in the house, plates enough of one kind to go round, and a table-cloth that was not nearly all darns! Then her mother should have a new shawl and bonnet, and each of the boys a straw hat and a bright necktie, and she would have something to put in the plate every Sunday in church, and to add to the missionary collection of the Sunday-school class. Perhaps, even, she could give something toward a present that the girls were talking of giving to Miss Eunice.

But just then an idea, so painful that at first she turned away from it, struck her, and a question that she did not want to answer suggested itself to her mind. Had she a right to keep the money? Was it really hers? Of course it was, said inclination; whose else could it be? She had found it, no one else; if she had not picked it up it would have gone in with the rags to be boiled and ground up into paper again, or it might have been swept away among the dust and waste paper, and no one been the better or wiser. "Findings is keepings" was a familiar school-boy proverb; was it the right principle or not?

Katie tried to persuade herself that it was. Nevertheless, she was glad that, as she supposed, no one had seen her find the bill, and that her mother as yet knew nothing about the finding. Also, she did not plan out any more ways of spending the money.

Katie was so silent all teatime that her brothers continually rallied her upon her preoccupation, and her mother, fearing she must be sick, sent her to bed very early. To this the little girl did not object, as she wanted to be alone to think over the question that was so perplexing her brain.

Before getting into bed, our young friend opened her drawer, took out the box, gazed lovingly at the bill for a time, then put it away, and knelt to say her evening prayer. What was the matter to-night? For almost the first time since she had known what prayer really was, she could not pray. Her thoughts would not be controlled; they kept wandering away to the finding of that bill. She wondered whether any one had seen her find it, what use she should put it to, and if it were really hers after all. She knew it was wrong to think of other things at such a solemn moment, and felt guilty and condemned. Her conscience troubled her; it seemed as though God were angry with her. So far the finding of the money had not been a very happy event for its finder. It often happens that secular things, the things we are interested in in our daily lives, will come in between us and our prayers, and we cannot get rid of them. Young Christians especially are greatly troubled in this way, and have many weary fights in the attempt to control their thoughts. They have an idea that prayer is such a sacred thing, and God is so holy, that they must only talk to him about religion, and use pretty much the same words which they hear in church, and when they cannot do this, they either fall into the habit of saying such words formally without in the least thinking of their meaning, or else they are wretched and self-condemned because of what are called "distractions in prayer." But there is a more excellent way, even to take all the things that really interest us directly to "our Father which art in heaven," and tell him all about them. He encourages us to do so when he says, "casting all your care upon him," and "in everything by prayer and supplication make your requests known unto God." If we are really his children we may be sure that nothing is too small to interest him which rightfully interests us, and if it is not a right interest there is no surer way of finding that out, and gaining the victory over it, than by bringing it to the light of his Holy Spirit and asking him for strength to dispose of it as we ought.

Had Katie thus taken the money which she had found directly to the Lord, she would soon have understood all her duty concerning it. Her desire would have been only to do his will, and she would have gone to sleep as peacefully as a little child who trusts its mother to manage for it just as she sees to be for the best. But this she did not dare to do, partly because she had not yet learned to understand how God "careth" for his children in all little things, and partly because down at the bottom of her heart she was not quite ready to do his will—that is, she hoped that it would be right for her to keep the money, and hoped this so strongly that she could not look fairly on the other side of the question. Nearly all night—or it seemed so to a little girl who was generally asleep by the time her head touched the pillow—she lay tossing from side to side, troubled by a dozen different sides of the question. And when she did get to sleep it was to dream confused dreams of thieves being taken to prison, and of being one of them herself.

As soon as it was light, for the long days had come now, the tired little girl sprang from her bed, and dressed herself, in a very unhappy frame of mind. She must decide very soon now, and she began to see more and more clearly that that money did not belong to her, but to the owner of the vest in which she had found it. To be sure, she could not now find the original owner, but Mr. Mountjoy certainly owned it, because he had bought the rags. It was one thing, however, to see this, and quite another to decide to give up to him who had so much the little that was so much to her. All the pleasant planning must go with it; all the things she had desired for her mother and the boys. She was sure she had not been selfish; it was not for herself she wanted money at all. From force of habit she opened her Bible and read the first words she saw, which were these: "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts." And again the words flashed upon her: "Thou God seest me."

What did God see? Did he see "truth in the inward part" of her heart? Was she prepared in all her ways to acknowledge him? his right to her and all that was hers?