I asked mamma if I must hurry back, and she said, “Just as you please; if you want to take a walk in this crisp air, there is nothing to hinder you from being gone for a couple of hours.”
Then up spoke Aunt Helen, “But if you should happen to come back in time to go out shopping with me, I have some Christmas errands which I think you might like to help about.”
Just think how glad I was! I said, “O Aunt Helen! that is just exactly what I want; and could you find time to give me a little Christmas advice?”
She laughed and said she was good for any amount of advice.
I put on one of my very prettiest dresses and my best hat, so as to be ready to go with Aunt Helen; and then I started for Grandma Dunlap’s as fast as I could; I said it would not take me over a half-hour to go there and back.
O girls, I had such lovely schemes. I wish I had time to tell you about them, but of what use would it be to tell now that they are fallen through? I had a five dollar gold piece of my very own, and I was going to lay it out for Christmas in what I hoped would be seeds, bearing fruit for Jesus. And don’t you think I didn’t do it at all! I found Grandma Dunlap in bed; she had a hoarse cold and a headache, and so much rheumatism that she could not even turn over in bed.
“I managed to keep up until after breakfast,” she said, “and then I went right back to bed, and this stiffness came on me, so that I haven’t been able to stir since.”
The cunning little kitchen hadn’t been swept that day; and there wasn’t any fire on the hearth. Grandma said it happened that nobody had been in to see her. Now of course you know, girls, what came to me right away; that I ought to sweep the room and make a fire and get her a cup of tea and something to eat. But I am ashamed to tell you that I said to myself: “Well, I can’t do it; Aunt Helen will be waiting for me, and besides I have my best dress on, and mamma does not like me to do housework in this dress. And besides all that, if I don’t buy some of those things right away, it will be too late to carry out my plans.” I told Grandma Dunlap I was sorry she was sick, and I would tell mamma, and have something done for her, and then I took my sun umbrella and turned toward the door; when up came that verse which I was working by, “The seed is the word,” and along with it came the verse, “Even Christ pleased not himself.” And another, “If Christ, so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” And then, piling on top of that, came the Golden Rule about doing to others as you would have them do to you; and, O dear! I don’t know how many more there were; seeds, you know, which had been dropped in my heart, and were trying as hard as they could to spring up and bear fruit and I was trying to choke them. I stopped short, with my hand on the door latch and turned around, and the queer little tile over grandma’s chimney which has painted on it in funny old-fashioned letters, “Polly, put the kettle on,” seemed to speak to me as plainly as though my name had been Polly, instead of Emmeline.
EMMELINE IS CONVINCED.