"Hallo, Katie, wake up, wake up!" and Eric rattled the knob of his sister's door. But he was compelled to do so many times before he heard a sleepy "What's the matter?"
"Matter? Why, it's high time you were up if you mean to get to the factory this morning."
"It's the middle of the night," said Katie, yawning.
"Indeed, it is not. It's after five o'clock, and work begins at half-past six. You haven't a moment to spare if you want to dress yourself, get your breakfast, and get to the mill in time; it's farther off than the bindery. Come, be a brave girl, and jump up quickly."
Thus adjured, the little girl jumped out of bed—but how cold and dark it was! although Eric had left the lamp in the hall outside. One of Katie's failings—not an uncommon one among girls and boys—was a great dislike to getting up early in the morning, and her mother had always humored her in the matter, getting up herself and giving the boys their breakfast early, and then waking her little girl just in time to eat her own and get to school at nine o'clock. Even then it was sometimes a difficult task.
The young work-woman had not included the necessity of getting up so very early in the morning as one of the many anticipated delights of her new position. This first taste of it seemed, on the contrary, quite a hardship. Still, when she was once out of bed, there was a certain romance in dressing by lamplight, and she knelt down by her bedside to offer her morning prayer, with a strange feeling of mingled awe and thankfulness.
Katie Robertson was a Christian girl, and was really desirous to please the blessed Saviour who had done so much for her. She could not remember the time when she did not love him; but for the last few years, since she had grown older and begun to understand things better, she had felt a longing desire to be like him and to please him in her life and actions. She found time to open her little Bible this morning and read one or two verses by the light of the lamp. They were these:—
"In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths"; "Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," and "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
And then she prayed earnestly that she might in these "ways" upon which she was entering always "acknowledge" God, be faithful to her work, do it "to the glory of God," and have the strength which the Lord Jesus Christ has promised to give to those who ask him, to resist temptation and stand up for truth and righteousness in the new life which lay before her. She prayed, also, that her heavenly Father would give her some work to do for him among her companions in the mill, and then she went downstairs.
Breakfast was all ready, and it seemed quite funny to eat it by lamplight; but by the time it was over it was pretty light outside, and when, warmly wrapped up, Katie left the house with her brothers there was a rosy flush over the snow which sparkled and glistened, and the young factory-girl set out in high spirits for her first day's work. The boys escorted her as far as the great gates, where a good many other girls and boys were waiting among a crowd of men and women, and then ran back to be in time at the bindery, which was a little nearer home.