Katharine's Yesterday (2 page)

Under this word hate she made a black, crooked little flourish, and stopped a moment with a mark just like it puckered into her forehead, and her lips twisted into the shape of med to realize a little what sort of a spirit she
had been showing all day, and what she had put upon the clear, white sheet before her; and she bent her head once more, and wrote: “Oh, how ugly I am, anyway! I wish I could be different; but I can’t.”

She put the cap on her pen, and with a long-drawn sigh placed it in its little case. But in opening the cover of the book she discovered a small slip of paper. She pulled it out, wondering if it were another note from Hetty. No; it was only a little printed card. The heading caught her eye – “Difference,” in large letters. It seemed a queer title for anything. She read the first line:

I was poor yesterday, but not today.

She smile
d
half sneeringly to herself. That wasn’t her case. She might be said to have been rich yesterday, but today there was nothing but drudgery and dismal prospects. She read on, to discover why the individual who wrote it was poor no longer.

I was poor yesterday, but not today;

For Jesus came this morning

And took the poor away;

And he left the legacy

He promised long ago.

So peace and joy and love

Through all my being flow.

A strange feeling took possession of her as she read the quaint little poem:

I was tired yesterday, but not today.

I could run and not be weary,

This blessed way;

For I have his strength to stay me,

With his might my feet are shod.

I can find my resting places

In the promises of God.

A servant yesterday, a child today,

A loved one of his household,

Bearing his name
always
.
Do you know this blessed difference?
Do you long for this better way?
He will come to you as he came to me
With the joy of an endless day.

No, she did not know that difference, and she was not at all sure that she longed for that better way. Indeed, that way did not seem better to her, but it always seemed gloomy and forbidding.

It was the first time in her life that she had ever really taken into her consciousness the thought that there might be joy in the service of Christ for any but very old people who did not expect to live long anyway. There was a charm in the bit of rhyme that made her read it over again before she put it away. Was it really true that Jesus could take the “poor” and the “tired” away, and leave happiness? Had he promised a legacy to her? What was it? What were the promises of God, that made themselves into resting places? She was tired, and she wished she could feel that way, and stop thinking about yesterday. Somehow even that didn’t look very bright now. There was an uplifting about the thoughts written here that for the moment helped her to realize the comparative smallness of all other joys. She put it away in the pocket, and went about her preparations for the night; but serious thoughts of a different kind from any she had ever had before kept coming and going in her mind. At the last light was turned out, and she knelt beside her bed, as was her custom, for the few formal words of prayer which she had said every night since she was old enough to lisp the words. There had never been any real heart praying in them. It had been a mere form, gone through without much thought, and more from habit and a superstitious feeling that something would go wrong if she omitted it, than from any desire to ask anything from the Father in heaven.

She relighted the lamp again before she lay down, and took down her Bible that had been neglected much, opening at random, and beginning to read at the first place. It proved to be the eleventh chapter of Matthew. She read on without much taking in the meaning of the words, until she came to the last three verses: “Come unto me, all ye that labour are heavy laden, and I will give rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find real unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” Of course the words were as familiar to her as they are to you and me; and yet, because of their familiarity, and because of the urgent need of her soul, they seemed to mean more to her that night than they ever had before.

She put away the book, thinking as she once more turned out her light and lay down, how very tired she was, and how much she would like to be rested. She wondered how Jesus Christ could rest her, and whether he would, and wished it would come soon. Then she closed her eyes, and though of the past summer again, and of the girls. A slight smile crossed her face at thought of Cousin Hetty. Hetty would be glad if she could have seen her reading the Bible, she was sure. Hetty was a true Christian, if there ever was one; and then Katharine sighed, and thought how impossible it would be for her to ever be as good as Hetty was, and wished again she were rich, and did not have to do things she disliked.

The October wind sighed among the half-naked branches outside the window, and the distant sound of the whistle of the midnight train could be faintly heard, as Katharine dropped off to sleep.

The next morning after breakfast, while she stood at the kitchen door waiting for some concoction on the stove to boil, Katharine thought over this matter of rest.

She was watching old Andy, the man who sawed wood for them, and wondering how he stood this cheerless life, full of hard work. Where did the rest come in for him? She resolved to ask him. He was fond of talking to Miss Katharine; and many a long sermon he had preached to her, choosing his own text. Sometimes he began:

“Ah, Miss Katharine, an’ isn’t this a bright, beauty morning, to be sure! Oh, how good our God is to make us such mornings! We just ought to be praising him all the day long. Sometimes I fell just like getting right down in the dust an’ ashes an’ a-tellin’ him what a sinner I be for not bein’ thankfuller for all his goodness to me.”

Katharine liked to hear him talk. There was a quaint earnestness about him which always interested her, and sometimes his thoughts were original. She turned to him as he came near where she stood, to put the armful of wood he had just finished sawing on the neat pile he was constructing near the door.

“Andy,” she said, more real earnestness in her voice than she was accustomed to use when speaking to the old man, “do you know that verse about ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’?”

“Oh, certain, certain, miss; that I do!” responded Andy heartily, stopping in front of her, the great armful of wood clasped tight in his worn old arms. “Many’s the time, miss, when I’ve come, weary an’ heavy laden as I was, an’ foun’ that rest. Oh it’s wonderful! Wonderful!” and he drew one hand meditatively across his eyes, then began to lay the sticks in regular rows on the pile.

“But Andy,” said Katharine, with a puzzled expression, “you have to work hard all the time just the same. I don’t see as you’ve been given any rest.”

“Surely, Miss Katharine, you didn’t suppose I was never to work again, did you? The good book never says, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor an’ are heavy laden, an’ I will take away your work, so that you won’t have to do it anymore.’ Why, that would be to make a lazy set of folks of us; an’ Jesus himself, when he was here on the earth, he worked hard. No; oh, no, miss! Rest never means no more work. Why, when a man’s rested, he’s all ready an’ eager to work again, an’ especially if the works’s for the One who’s rested him; an’ I reckon all work that’s right to do at all is for him. That’s my way a-thinkin’. Ah, I’ve come to him many a time, an’ he’s made me all ready to go out an’ go to work again. He’s took the tiredness all away, an’ made me new again. What would the Lord do with a lot o’ laborers a-sittin’ roun’ on the edges o’ the vineyard, a-foldin’ their hands, and a-sayin’, ‘I’m getting rested’? Why, it don’t take him no time at all to rest us! He can do it quick’s we ask him, or quicker, too, for the matter o’ that. It just ‘pears to me that that there verse about restin’ is the unlaziest verse in the hull Bible; ‘cause if a man’s got rest, what need’s he of it? Course he’ll go right to work.”

Something was boiling over, and Katharine was obliged to go in and attend to it; and Andy went back to his saw again, humming in a quavering old voice:

“Work, for the night is coming,
When man works no more.”

Katharine, as she stirred the boiling mixture on the stove, told herself she needed rest; for she certainly did not fell like working at anything, and wondered how she could get it. Instantly came the answer in the words of her text: “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.”

But there was really very little time to think about that or anything else. The day was even fuller of duties than the one before. There was much nerve-trying ripping, work that had to be done carefully, lest a little slip of knife or scissors should cut the goods. Besides, the dress she was ripping was for herself, and was one that she had never liked. To add to the disagreeableness of her task, there was no possibility of bettering the dress by having it made over in any very pleasing fashion; for everyone was wearing long, straight-up-and-down dresses, with little or no drapery, and this dress had been made with much half-length drapery, and all the breadths were hopelessly short.
Katharine
’s temper was by no means smooth when she had finished her work and sat down to the dinner table with her father, mother, and brother.

Her brother was a little younger than herself, but tall for his age, and would easily pass for a year or two older than he was; there were never much together. The truth was, there were many particularly trying things to
Katharine
about her brother. She often wondered why It was that he always had to act so shy and awkward, and almost disagreeable, whenever he went among people with her, and especially when there were summer guests in town. Besides, he smoked cigarettes-when he was out of his mother’s sight-and always had the odor of the corner grocery about him.
Katharine
wished much that her brother were like some other girls’ brothers, but never dreamed that she was in the least to blame for the sort of brother he was. Now, as she sat down to the table opposite him, with her nerves all unstrung ever the utterly impossible task of planning a stylish suit out of the old brown cashmere, her eye fell upon the bright colors of her brother’s new necktie, and it struck her as extremely loud and out of taste. It was a little thing, perhaps, to put one out of temper with one’s brother; but the in harmony of the colors jarred her, and expressed in one flaring, tangible thought the whole idea of the difference between her brother and some other boys she knew. She fixed her eyes upon the offending bit of silk; and all the disappointment and ill-temper of the morning, and, indeed, of the day before, vented itself in some sharp words she said to John about his tie.

Now, John was good-natured, and usually replied to any sharp words of his sister in bright, funny retorts, until father and mother would break down in a laugh, and the whole would end in merriment; but today his face clouded over, and the color rose in his cheeks. The truth was, he did not like the tie much himself. He had good taste, and knew as well as his sister when a thing was becoming. But he had wanted some money very much for some scheme of his, and this tie had been a little cheaper than the one he preferred, so on a sudden impulse he had bought it.

“If you don’t like my tie, you needn’t look at it!” he retorted in a gruff tone. “There are plenty of other directions to look. You get so set up with all your elegant young gentlemen here in the summer, you can’t speak decently to your own brother anymore. I’d just like to have that snob of a Frank Warner see you now. He’d think you were a perfect angel.” And he broke off his sentence with a rough laugh.

It was
Katharine
’s turn to flash her eyes and grow red in the face now, and more sharp words came from her lips.

It was a very uncomfortable dinner. Of course the father checked John in the midst of his bitter reply to
Katharine
, and then administered a sharp rebuke to
Katharine
, which brought the red still deeper to her cheeks. John swallowed his dinner rapidly, declined any dessert, and then departed, while his mother looked after him with a weary, anxious face, and sighed; and the father, following her troubled glance, grew more severe of countenance, and said to
Katharine
, “If you would devote a little more of your time to your own brother, and less to other girls’ brothers, he might turn out more to your liking.”

Then Katharine left the table in a deluge of tears, and spent the rest of the afternoon in her own room, alternately blaming and pitying herself. The father and mother, left to enjoy their dinner alone, ate little, and sat for the most part in troubled silence, wondering what they had done or left undone in bringing up their children that they should turn out in such a disappointing way.

Already to
Katharine
the dreaded long winter seemed far on its way. It could not be, she thought, that it was only two days since the girls and boys had all been here. Oh, if the winter were ended, and a new summer begun! She thought over the scene at the dinner table. How dreadful it was to have her father talk so to her about John! What could she have done? Anything? No; John was not like others. He did not care for anything she did. If he only did, what a comfort he might be! And she fell to picturing him as she would like have him. But her thoughts ended in her feeling quite well satisfied with her own conduct, and very much dissatisfied with her brother. Still, she was unhappy. She thought often also during the afternoon of the “rest,” and wished she knew exactly how to “come" in the right way, that she might be sure to get it. Nevertheless, when she prayed that night, though she asked to be shown how to come, she asked in a halfhearted way, and not at all as if it were there one great desire of her life. She looked back to the bright days of fun and frolic as even more desirable. She wrote much in her new diary that night about longing to have rest. She carefully recalled and noted down what Andy had said about it, and thought with satisfaction of the delight with which the girls would read this entry next summer; for she knew they would appreciate and enjoy Andy’s quaintness as much as she had.