Eunice

by Margaret M. Robertson

It was the grandfather this time who proposed to Miss Eunice that she should let Jabez have her garden again. He was afraid of the mischief found for idle hands, and he could not be satisfied that in his books Jabez might find enough work to keep him out of any temptation to idleness. So the proposal about the garden was made by him.

Jabez had no objection. The garden had paid well last year, and would do better this year, he thought; and he knew that as much as he ought to do with his eyes, in the way of study, would not be hindered by the work of the garden. So he sat and listened while his grandfather set the matter in all lights, and assented quietly to all arrangements made. Fidelia was listening also, and watching Jabez. His silent and smiling assent to all that was agreed on,—so different from the boyish self-assertion which had amused them last year,—made her wonder. His manner to his grandfather also was very different.

“Yes,” said Eunice, when Fidelia spoke of this to her, “Jabez is changed. His sickness has been blessed to him.”

“His sickness, or something else, is making a man of him,” said Mrs Stone. “The world will hear of Jabez before he dies.”

“He is going to be President,” said Fidelia laughing. “One thing is sure. He is getting beyond my teaching. I shall have to look out, or I shall be left behind.”

There was more truth in Fidelia’s admission than she knew. Jabez had indeed “taken a new departure.” He had a new motive for work, and he worked better. He had no troubled thoughts as to what he was to do, or as to how he was to do it. He knew all would go well with him, because his life’s work, and his life itself, belonged to Him who had all things at His disposal, and Whose promise was sure that “all things shall work together for good” to His children.

He could speak to Miss Eunice about these things when she encouraged him to do so; he could not so easily speak to Fidelia. It was about their reading, as it had always been, and about the garden, that he had much to say to her for a time, and there was enough to say about both.

Gardening was pleasant enough work as they did it. They did not make hard work of it. Jabez sowed and planted; and, when the time came for the disposal of the products of the garden, he was as pleased with the results as he had been last year, though he did not show his pleasure quite in the same way. His success meant even more to him than it had done the last year, for he saw more clearly the way before him, and the end of the way.

And, after all, the real work of the summer was not done in the garden. A good deal of it was done in his grandfather’s old buggy, which carried here and there the garden products for the benefit of the summer visitors, who were this year more numerous than ever. One book, and sometimes more than one, in covers of thick brown paper, found a place beneath the cushion; and the deacon’s trustworthy old horse was allowed to take his own way, and to choose his own pace along the hilly road between Halsey Centre and Halsey Corners, while Jabez read or pondered the wise words which they contained.

And more was done in the back porch when the time came for a pause in the work of the garden. There on fine mornings Miss Eunice sat with her needlework, and Fidelia with her books; and it was her part usually to read for the benefit of the three. In this way were gone through a good many books, and, among the rest, Fidelia’s text-book on “The Evidences,” which she acknowledged had been gone over rather hurriedly; and Butler’s “Analogy,” which was one of the studies of the last year in the seminary, to which she was beginning to think she might possibly go again. Neither of these would help Jabez in the preliminary examinations to which he looked forward. They might come in afterwards; and he took part in the reading, and in the talk which grew out of it, with an eagerness and a just appreciation which astonished the sisters. All enjoyed these mornings. Even Mrs Stone brought sometimes her peas to shell, or her beans to pick over, so that she might share the pleasure and the profit of the reading with the rest.