Elsie's Womanhood

by Martha Finley

The consolations of God were not small with any of our friends at Ion and the Oaks; yet was it a winter of trial to all.

For some weeks after the above conversation, Mr. Dinsmore and Rose called every day, and showed themselves sincere sympathizers; but young Horace and little Rosebud were taken with scarlet fever in its worst form, and the parents being much with them, did not venture to Ion for fear of carrying the infection to wee Elsie.

By God's blessing upon skilful medical advice and attention, and the best of nursing, the children were brought safely through the trying ordeal, the disease leaving no evil effects, as it so often does. But scarcely had they convalesced when Mr. Dinsmore fell ill of typhoid fever, though of a rather mild type.

Then as he began to go about again, Rose took to her bed with what proved to be a far more severe and lasting attack of the same disease; for weeks her life was in great jeopardy, and even after the danger was past, the improvement was so very slow that her husband was filled with anxiety for her.

Meanwhile the beloved invalid at Ion was slowly sinking to the grave. Nay, rather, as she would have it, journeying rapidly towards her heavenly home, "the land of the leal," the city which hath foundations, whose builder and Maker is God.

She suffered, but with a patience that never failed, a cheerfulness and joyful looking to the end, that made her sick-room a sort of little heaven below.

Her children were with her almost constantly through the day; but Mr. Travilla, watchful as ever over his idolized young wife, would not allow her to lose a night's rest, insisting on her retiring at the usual hour. Nor would he allow her ever to assist in lifting his mother, or any of the heavy nursing; she might smooth her pillows, give her medicines, order dainties prepared to tempt the failing appetite, and oversee the negro women, who were capable nurses, and one of whom was always at hand night and day, ready to do whatever was required.

Elsie dearly loved her mother-in-law, and felt it both a duty and delight to do all in her power for her comfort and consolation; but when she heard that her own beloved father was ill, she could not stay away from him, but made a daily visit to the Oaks and to his bedside. She was uniformly cheerful in his presence, but wept in secret because she was denied the privilege of nursing him in his illness.

Then her sorrow and anxiety for Rose were great, and all the more because, Mrs. Travilla being then at the worst, she could very seldom leave her for even the shortest call at the Oaks.

In the afternoon of a sweet bright Sabbath in March, a little group gathered in Mrs. Travilla's room. Her pastor was there: a man of large heart full of tender sympathy for the sick, the suffering, the bereaved, the poor, the distressed in mind, body, or estate; a man mighty in the Scriptures; with its warnings, its counsels, its assurances, its sweet and precious promises ever ready on his tongue; one who by much study of the Bible, accompanied by fervent prayer for the wisdom promised to him that asks it, had learned to wield wisely and with success "the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God." Like Noah he was a preacher of righteousness, and like Paul could say, "I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears."