p. 350 | Our Wants and Our Work

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 20, 1879

Our Wants and Our Work.

"I WOULD like to have a real work to do, somewhere in this world," said Emily Gray, coming in from the missionary meeting one Saturday afternoon.

"You don't mean to turn missionary, do you, Em?" exclaimed her brother Arthur, looking up from his books in sudden wonder as he spoke.

"N—no, I don't want to go away from home entirely," said Emily, doubtfully. "But I wish I could have some great, glorious work to do—something that could employ all my energies and yet leave me with you, mamma, dear," and she turned to her mother as she spoke.

Mrs. Gray smiled first and sighed afterwards. The smile was for her young daughter's enthusiasm—the sigh for her want of purpose and steadiness. But she only said pleasantly, "There is work ever ready and waiting for us all, dear, if we will but take it up."

Emily looked impatient and a little scornful.

"I've heard all that so often," she answered quickly, "and I don't think it has anything to do with me. What I want is, as I said first, a real, great work, something plainly marked out and just adapted to me—involving toil and sacrifice, no doubt, but bearing fruit so abundantly that I should be cheered and comforted through all my sacrifices."

"Upon my word, mother, Em. is thinking of joining the missionaries, I know she is!" cried Arthur, with a look of well-acted alarm. "If I were you, mother, I'd shut her up till the fever passes off, for we can't let her go, you know."

"Don't be absurd, Arthur, I'm talking to mamma, and I wish you wouldn't interrupt," said his sister, and Mrs. Gray added in a different tone:—

"Don't tease, my boy; Emily is too much in earnest to like it, and I quite appreciate her desire to be useful."

"Well then, I'll help her to be useful," replied Arthur with more gravity. "Here is a piece of work. Look at this frightful rent in my 'Athletic Club' uniform jacket, Emily. Can't you mend it before Monday afternoon, sis? You'll have the satisfaction of doing a hard thing then."

And Arthur laughed again as he held out the dilapidated jacket. But Emily looked annoyed, and made no answer until her brother had left the room. Then turning to her mother she said more earnestly than ever:—

"You do understand me, don't you mamma? You know that I am capable of effort, and that I would not hesitate at any hardship in the way of my duty. Only, I want something better than that round of daily drudgeries—this darning and patching for Arthur and the boys, or making puddings and cakes, or keeping the little ones quiet—it is all so tiresome, and it has to be done right over again day after day."

"That has been the experience of all life's duties, my child," said Mrs. Gray gently. "They must be done right over again, day after day as you say, and in that very repetition is found the education they give us. Patience, thoroughness, system, all these and more, we learn through the monotonous routine of every day cares and duties. I am quite sure that—but hark! was not that Bridget's voice? I told her to call me when the fire was good, for I must preserve those plums this afternoon. I'm afraid they won't keep till Monday," and Mrs. Gray folded up her work, and took her large apron out of the closet as she talked.

Emily heard her mother's words with a sharp, uneasy consciousness that there was something for her to do if she chose. But she hated "kitchen work," as she called everything in the way of cooking, and though she was fond of inviting company to enjoy the dainties of their well-spread table, she was always unwilling to assist in the preparation of those dainties. So now, as usual, she silenced her conscience as it whispered that her mother was tired and needed help, and taking up the book which she was reading just then—"Society and Solitude," chose a comfortable chair and was soon deep in enjoyment of Emerson.

An hour passed unnoted, and then a sudden hubbub arose. The door of the sitting-room flew open, and Jack, Emily's second brother, aged twelve, appeared with a pale face and a hand streaming with blood.

"Oh! Em, can't you help me?" began the boy; "won't you get some rags or salve or something, quick! My, how it bleeds!" winding his pocket handkerchief closer as he spoke. But Emily only covered her face with her hands and screamed:—

"Oh, Jack, how dreadful! Go to mamma, do, I can't bear the sight of blood, it makes me sick, and you'll bleed to death, I'm sure! Run, Jacky, run to mamma, she's in the kitchen—hurry!" and after one look of disgust and a muttered exclamation that "Em. never was good for any thing when you wanted her," Jack went.

Once more Emily felt uncomfortable, and somehow her book had lost its charm. She threw it down and went to her room to smooth her hair for tea, and on the stairs she met Bridget, flying down in headlong haste, with a roll of old linen in her hand. It was for Jack's wounded hand, she knew, but she said not a word.

Arrived in her room she found her new cashmere dress, which had been sent home during her absence. Emily was a very pretty girl, and she was fond of pretty clothes. This new dress of navy blue was just to her taste. It fitted perfectly, and once on she felt that she must wear it to tea. But just as the last fold was adjusted, and the last bow in place, her mother's voice was heard, calling from the foot of the stairs: "Emily, can't you come and put the preserves into the jars? They are all ready now."

"Oh, mamma, I'm all dressed in my new cashmere, and I hate to come into the kitchen with it," she answered hastily. "Couldn't you leave them in the safe until morning? I could do it then."

"Never mind, I can manage it; you needn't come down."

"Why don't you let Bridget finish the plums, mamma? I'm sure she could, and you might as well rest yourself." But her mother had gone back to the kitchen and shut the door without answering, so Emily concluded that she had not heard her last suggestion.

While she was yet considering, she saw Arthur coming in with a letter which he held up for her to see.

"It's for you, Em., from your confidential chum," he called out, and Emily rushed down and out in the porch to secure her welcome letter. Carrying it back to the room she read it with all the delight and interest with which a young girl of sixteen always reads a letter from "her dearest friend." Twice she went over the closely written pages; then, seizing her writing desk, she began an immediate answer. Absorbed in her task, Emily covered sheet after sheet of note paper, without noticing that the tea hour had long passed. When at length the bell summoned her to the evening meal she was surprised to see that the hands of her little clock were pointing to seven instead of six.

"Why, did you know, mamma, that tea is a whole hour late to-night?" she asked as she took her seat. Looking at her mother as she spoke, Emily observed that she was very pale, and that she still wore her morning wrapper. She answered wearily:—

"Yes, I know we are very late, but I could not help it; I had not even time to change my dress."

"It's too bad mother," Arthur broke in. "I wish I hadn't picked those plums this week, and then you wouldn't have tired yourself out preserving them. I do wish you could get a—missionary, to help you sometimes. Don't you Em.?" with a significant glance at his sister.

Emily's face flushed angrily, but she made no reply, and soon after she went back to her room where her unfinished letter was waiting. And this was the last sentence she had written:—

"Yes, dear Helena, I long as you do, to be about my life work—to take my place in the conflict, to draw nearer day by day to the lofty aims we long ago set for ourselves. But alas! dear friend, life is so commonplace, so unheroic—and I feel so deeply the want of congenial companionship, like your own, to encourage my drooping heart. It is strange, is not, that one meets with so little comprehension or sympathy from one's own family? Mamma is always quoting a line about 'the trivial round, the common task,' but I look higher than that. I cannot grovel, dear; I must soar onward and upward, above grovelling common place, into realms—"

And as Emily took up her pen to finish her letter, she heard her mother saying in the hall:—

"Oh, dear, I must see that the children have their evening bath, and I am so tired."

And Emily wrote six pages more before she went to bed.—Christian Intelligencer.