Mrs. Macdonald had taken up a half-finished sock, and, as she disposed of the chances of all the unfortunate owners of wealth, she briskly turned the heel. Jean knew her hostess too well to be depressed by her, so she smiled at the minister, who said, "Heaven's gate is too narrow for a man and his money; that goes without saying, Jean."
Jean leant forward and said eagerly, "What I really want to know is about the tenth we are to put away as not being our own. Does it count if it is given in charity, or ought it to be given to Church things and missions?"
"Whatever is given to God will 'count,' as you put it—lighting, where you can, candles of kindness to cheer and warm and lighten."
"I see," said Jean. "Of course, there are heaps of things one could slump money away on, hospitals and institutions and missions, but these are all so impersonal. I wonder, would it be pushing and furritsome, do you think, if I tried to help ministers a little?—ministers, I mean, with wives and families and small incomes shut away in country places and in the poor parts of big towns? It would be such pleasant helping to me."
"Now," said Mrs. Macdonald, "that's a really sensible idea, Jean. There's no manner of doubt that the small salaries of the clergy are a crying scandal. I don't like ministers to wail in the papers about it, but the laymen should wail until things are changed. Ministers don't enter the Church for the loaves and fishes, but the labourer is worthy of his hire, and they must have enough to live on decently. Living has doubled. I couldn't manage as things are now, and I'm a good manager, though I says it as shouldn't…. The fight I've had all my life nobody will ever know. Now that we have plenty, I can talk about it. I never hinted it to anybody when we were struggling through; indeed, we washed our faces and anointed our heads and appeared not unto men to fast! The clothes and the boots and the butcher's bills! It's pleasant to think of now, just as it's pleasant to look from the hilltop at the steep road you've come. The boys sometimes tell me that they are glad we were too poor to have a nurse, for it meant that they were brought up with their father and me. We had our meals together, and their father helped them with their lessons. Indeed, it's only now I realise how happy I was to have them all under one roof."
She stopped and sighed, and went on again with a laugh. "I remember one time a week before the Sustentation Fund was due, I was down to one six-pence And of course a collector arrived! D'you remember that, John?… And the boys worked so hard to educate themselves. All except Duncan. Oh, but I am glad that my little laddie had an easy time—when it was to be such a short one."
"He always wanted to be a soldier," Mr. Macdonald said. "You remember, Anne, when you tried to get him to say he would be a minister? He was about six then, I think. He said, 'No, it's not a white man's job,' and then looked at me apologetically afraid that he had hurt my feelings. When the War came he went 'most jocund, apt, and willingly,' but without any ill-will in his heart to the Germans.
"'He left no will but good will
And that to all mankind….'"
Mrs. Macdonald stared into the fire with tear-blurred eyes and said: "I sometimes wonder if they died in vain. If this is the new world it's a far worse one than the old. Class hatred, discontent, wild extravagance in some places, children starving in others, women mad for pleasure, and the dead forgotten already except by the mothers—the mothers who never to their dying day will see a fresh-faced boy without a sword piercing their hearts and a cry rising to their lips, 'My son! My son!'"
"It's all true, Anne," said her husband, "but the sacrifice of love and innocence can never be in vain. Nothing can ever dim that sacrifice. The country's dead will save the country as they saved it before. Those young lives have gone in front to light the way for us."