"Put her down," said Hannah gravely. "She'll get scholars; Jennie has prayed it all out for her. I know what I can do; I can teach decimal fractions; I've been at it all day, and I think I could teach them to a post. But the question is, where is the post?"
"Mr. Nelson is willing to send his chore boy to an evening class, if one is started; and Mrs. Silverton is willing to send both the Brewster boys."
"I shall teach an evening school; and teach decimal fractions, and circulating decimals at that. Every scholar shall circulate around a new Sabbath-school library before another year. I begin to see floods of daylight."
Do you think this scheme came to naught? Not in a single instance. During the long winter evenings, the cake classes, and the soup classes, and the writing classes, and the dress-cutting classes and the arithmetic classes, were busy and enthusiastic.
"I suppose Jennie prayed them all there," said Sarah Potter, thoughtfully, when after a night of heavy rain they met to compare notes, and found that all could report progress. It grew to be their working motto, "Jennie prayed us through." They worked carefully; if Jennie was praying, the work must match the prayer.
"Girls," she said to them one night, "I've been thinking. Hannah, you dear child, Bud says he begins to understand how to divide; he thought he would never know. He said the carrying business bothered him always, until last night you made it as plain as day. Can't you teach him how to carry himself over bodily into the service of the Lord?"
Said Hannah, with amused voice, but tearful eyes, "O you blessed little fraction! I'll try! I truly will."
"We must all try hard," Jennie said. "It is God's chance for us each. It grows on me. The library will come; I feel sure of that, but so much else will come if we teach for His glory. O girls, it is blessed to work for Him! I cannot do it, and over again, but I am glad to say over and over again, 'They also serve who only stand and wait.' I can only lie and wait, but I pray for the workers."
"Ah," said Hannah, "foolish child! She doesn't see that she is the hub, and we nothing but the spokes in the wheel!"
They went home strengthened. There was more to do than merely to secure a Sabbath-school library; and there was more done.