Chapter 18

How did Mr. Holbrook know so well what Kitty needed to help her? His words had given her such new thoughts; some way it was all new to her, the idea that she had any duty to perform towards her mother. She stood thinking of it that bright winter day—stood before the little fire, and wondered how it was that she ought to commence. She was to be alone all day. Mrs. Stebbens, their next neighbour, had fallen down and sprained her ankle, and sent to know if Mrs. Lewis could do her promised day’s work in the village. Kitty was left in charge of the house and her sick father. She looked around the room: what an ugly, dreary little room it was! Dust, dirt, and cobwebs everywhere; her hood and shawl lying in one corner; her mother’s apron on the floor in the middle of the room; the breakfast dishes not yet washed; the stove all spattered with grease from the pork gravy; the hearth thickly covered with ashes; the paper window curtain hanging by one tack; and on the mantelpiece, behind the stove, such an array of half-eaten apples, matches, forks, sticky spoons, broken teacups, and dirty candlesticks, as would have frightened any one less used to it than was Kitty. As she looked around her, a forlorn smile came over her face, for she thought of Mr. Holbrook’s words: “When you brush up the floor, or brighten the fire to please your mother—”

“He don’t know,” she said to herself, “that mother don’t care for sweeping and such things; he don’t know how we live. I wonder if mother would notice now if things were different. What if we did live like other folks—had nice tilings, and kept them put up, and the room swept. Suppose I try it. What could I do? I might sweep and wash off the stove, and—and clean off the mantelpiece. I’ll just do it, and see if anybody in this house will care.”

No sooner thought than commenced. Kitty went to work. The dishes were washed until they shone; those clean dishes shouldn’t go in such a disorderly cupboard. There was no help for it, the shelves must be washed; down came the bottles and bundles, papers of this and boxes of that, which had been gathering, Kitty didn’t know how long, and the astonished shelves felt soap and water once more. How they were scrubbed!

“Kitty,” called her father from his bedroom, hearing the racket, “what are you doing?”

“I’m cleaning house,” answered Kitty promptly.

And her father, because he did not know what else to do, let her work. From the cupboard she went to the mantelpiece, bundled the things all off in a heap, washed it thoroughly, and put everything in order. What a day it was to Kitty! One improvement led to another, and as things began to grow clean in her hands, she grew wonderfully interested, and only stopped at noon to warm her father’s gruel.

It was Saturday, and Tip had gone to pile wood for Mr. Bailey. He was to get his dinner and a grammar for his pay. He had wanted a grammar all winter, so he worked with a will; and Kitty saw neither him nor her mother through all the busy day. The early sun had set long before. Kitty thought he certainly would not know that room the next morning, it was all so changed. The paper curtain was mended and tacked up in its place; the old lounge cover was mended and fastened on smoothly; the mantelpiece shone and glowed in the firelight; the two shiny candlesticks, and beside them the little box of matches, were all that remained there of the rubbish of the morning; the floor was just as smooth and clean as soap and ashes, with plenty of hot water and an old broom, could make it; hoods and shawls and aprons and old shoes had all disappeared—nothing was lying around: the table was drawn out, the clean, smooth plates arranged so as to hide the soiled spots on the tablecloth, the pudding was bubbling away in the astonished kettle, and Kitty’s joy had been complete, when, only a few minutes before, after a great deal of stamping and pounding, she had opened the door to Howard Minturn, who said—

“Mother sent you some milk for your supper.—Where’s Tip?—Isn’t it cold, though?—There’ll be prime skating tonight.—Give me the pitcher right away, please.” All this in one breath.

Now they would have beautiful fresh milk for supper; and if there was anything which Tip liked, it was pudding and milk.

So Kitty set the old armchair in the warmest corner for her mother, fastened her father’s door wide open, so that he could see the new room, then stirred her pudding, and watched and waited. Her mother came first. Kitty’s heart had never beat more anxiously than when she heard the slow, tired step on the hard snow. Would she notice anything different? In she came, tired, cross, and cold, expecting to find disorder, discomfort, and cold inside. Could anybody, having eyes, fail to notice the changes which had been wrought in that little room since she went out from it in the early morning? She shut the door with a little slam, and then the flush of the firelight seemed to blind her a little; she brushed her hand over her face, and looked around her with a bewildered air. Kitty went over to her; some way she felt a great kindness in her heart for her mother, a great longing to do something for her.

“Is it cold, mother?” she asked brightly. “Take that chair,” pointing to the seat in the warm corner. “Supper’s all ready, and I’ve made a cup of tea for you.”

Mrs. Lewis took off her hood and shawl in silence, untied her wet shoes, and placed her cold feet on the clean, warm stove-hearth; took in the brightness of the room, the shiny candlesticks, the neatly-spread tea-table; took whiffs of the steaming tea—all in utter silence. Only when Kitty’s father, looking out, said, “There’s been business done here since you went away,” something in her mother’s voice, as she answered, “I should think there had,” made the blood rush warmly into Kitty’s cheeks, and made her whisper to herself, as she stooped to place the wet shoes under the stove to dry, “Mr. Holbrook told me true, I do believe. I guess I have pleased Jesus today; I feel so.”

While she was taking up the pudding, there was a merry whistle outside, a brisk, crushing step on the snow, and Tip whizzed into the room.

Oh, there was no mistaking the look of delight on his face, nor the glad ring in his voice, as he said, “Oh, Kitty! why, Kitty Lewis! what have you been doing? Why, it looks almost as nice here as it does at Howard Minturn’s.”

All that evening there seemed a spell upon the Lewis family. Mrs. Lewis didn’t say one cross or fretful word; indeed, she had no cause, for in Kitty’s heart there was a strange, new feeling of love for her mother, of longing to please and give her comfort; and never was mother waited on with a more quiet care than Mrs. Lewis received that night.

This was the first coming of home-comfort to the family. Tip had apples in his pocket, which Howard Minturn had given him; he roasted them before the fire, and his father ate very little pieces of them; and his mother darned stockings by the light of the candle in the clean little candlestick set on the clean little stand; and they were happy.

By and by Tip brought out his grammar, and, finding Kitty very much interested in examining it, said, “What if you should begin and study grammar with me?”

“What if I should?” answered Kitty. So that evening she commenced her education, and, though grammar was a queer study to begin with, still it was a beginning.

The pleasant evening wore away; the town clock had struck nine; Kitty’s father had gone quietly to sleep, and the bedroom door was shut to keep all sounds from disturbing him. Tip had taken his candle and gone. Mrs. Lewis sat toasting her feet before the dying fire. Yet still Kitty lingered. She wanted to take Tip’s advice, and tell her mother about her dear, new Friend, and this evening, of such wonderful peace, seemed the good time for doing so; but she didn’t know how. If her mother would only say something to help her! And presently she did.

“Kitty, what fit came over you, to go to work and clear up at such rate?”

“I wanted to please you, I guess.”

Kitty knew that this answer would surprise her mother, and it did—into utter silence. But, after what seemed to Kitty a long, long time, she spoke again:

“What did you want to do that for?”

Now for it! This was the best chance she could ever hope to have, and her voice trembled a little:

“I wanted to please Jesus, too, mother, and Mr. Holbrook said if I did things to help you, and that you would like, He would be glad—-Jesus would, you know.” A little silence, and then: “I want to please Jesus all the time now, because I love Him, and I’m going to try to do right.”

It was all out now, and her heart was beating so that it almost stopped her voice. Her mother shaded her face with her hand, and neither spoke nor moved. Kitty waited a little, then moved slowly towards the door of her bit of a bedroom; it was moonlight, so she needed no candle.

“Good night, mother,” she found courage to say at last.

“Good night”; and her mother’s voice sounded strangely, coming from behind the closely-held hand.

There was something like a great sob in Kitty’s throat as she went to her room that night; in her heart was a great longing for mother-love. She would have liked to kiss her mother good night, but she felt how queerly that would look; even to say good night was something very unusual. So she knelt down beside her bed, and prayed for her mother.

I don’t think Mr. Holbrook knew that the few kind words which he spoke to Kitty Lewis, on her way home from prayer meeting, were seeds which were going to spring up and bear fruit unto everlasting life.