A Daily Rate. Grace Livingston Hill

in the lurch, or whether he might turn against him some day. Now with me it is so different. My King is all-powerful. What he has promised, I know he will perform. I need never dread his dying, for he is everlasting. I can trust him perfectly to give me an allowance all the days of my life of whatever I need. And yet, daily and hourly I distrust, and fear and tremble, and dread lest I may be left hungry someday. What a strange contradiction, what an ungrateful, untrustful, unworthy child of the King I am.”

      Then she turned out her light and knelt to pray.

      Chapter 6

       Table of Contents

      It is said that Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees. It is probably true that he also hies him away to take counsel with his evil angels to see if they cannot by some means overtake that saint in his resolves and endeavors, and make him tremble, and perhaps fall. It certainly seemed to Celia the next morning as if everything had conspired to make her life hard.

      In the first place it was raining. A cold, steady drizzle, that bade fair to continue all day and for several days, if it did not turn into snow. The furnace, none too good at any time, was ill-managed. Mrs. Morris usually regulated it herself, but Maggie made a poor hand at it. She chose this morning to forget to see to it at all until the fire had gone out. There was no time to build it up then, for she had breakfast to get for the boarders who must be off to their work at their appointed hours. Celia dressed quickly, for her room was so cold she was in a shiver. With her blue fingers she tried to turn the pages of her Bible to read a few words while she combed her hair, but finally gave it up she was so cold. She was sleepy, too, for she had lost much sleep of late, and it was hard to get up before it was fairly light and hurry around in the cold. Life looked very hard and dreary to her. She thought of aunt Hannah getting breakfast for Nettie’s family, and buttoning the children’s clothes between times. Somehow the thought of aunt Hannah weighed heavily upon her this morning. She could not get away from it. It brought a sob in her throat and a pain at the heart. Why did they have to separate? It was cruel that life was so. The tears came to her eyes. She jerked a snarl out and broke two teeth of her comb at the same time. This did not serve to help her temper. She did hate to use a comb with the teeth out and once out there was no putting them back. Neither could she afford a new comb for some time to come. She glanced at her plain little silver watch and saw it was later than she usually rose, and she hurried through her toilet as much as possible, and ran downstairs to the dining-room. The clerk stood at the dining-room door, an expression of belligerence on his face and his attitude one of displeasure. He filled up the door so completely that Celia was obliged to ask him to let her pass before he moved. She was indignant at him for this. She found herself likening him to one of the animals condemned in the Bible. It was unchristian of course, but Celia did not feel in a very sweet spirit this morning. She recalled what Mrs. Morris had said and wished he would leave the house. He looked like a man whom it was impossible to please anyway. But she found the cause of his displeasure was that there was no breakfast forthcoming as yet. Mr. Knowles came down, greeted her pleasantly, looked at the empty table, and the clock, filled his pocket with some crackers on a plate there, and remarked that he guessed he would skip, that it was as much as his place was worth if he did not get to the store on time, and he would have to run all the way to the car to make it now, it was so late. Celia felt indignant that this young man was obliged to go to a hard day’s work unfed. But there was nothing to be done now, he must go. It was the hard fate of the wage-earner. He must be on time, if the house fell. She went to the kitchen door and peered in. Maggie was slamming about in a grand rage. The biscuits she was baking were not even beginning to brown yet, as Celia saw by a glimpse into the oven door when Maggie opened it and slammed it shut. There was some greasy-looking hash cooking slowly. It did not look as if it ever would be done at the present rate it was cooking. The stove looked sulky and the ashes were not yet taken up.

      “Maggie,” she said, “can I help you get something on the table? These people all have to go to work and so do I. If we can’t eat in five minutes we’ll have to go without.”

      “Well, then, go without!” said Maggie, rising in a towering passion. “I’m sure it won’t hurt you fine folks once in a while. I never hired out to do everything and I ain’t responsible. I’ll get the breakfast as soon as I can and not a bit sooner, and you can get out of my kitchen. I don’t want you bothering ‘round. I get all flustered with so many folks coming after me. Go on out now, and wait till your breakfast’s ready. And tell the rest I won’t cook any dinner fer ’em, if a soul comes in this kitchen again.”

      Celia retreated, indignant and outraged. To be spoken to in such a manner when she was but offering help was an insult. It was a peculiarity of hers that when she felt angry the tears would come to her eyes. They came now. It was exasperating. She went quickly to the window to hide them, and looked out in the dim little brick alley that ran between the houses and watched the rain drop all over the bricks. There was a blank brick wall of the next house opposite her, and a little further toward the front she could see a window and someone standing at it. She turned quickly away again. There was no refuge there. Taking in at a glance the table with its unbrushed crumbs, and the dishes of uncooked hash and underdone biscuits that Maggie was just bringing in, she resolved to follow the example of Mr. Knowles and take some crackers. Then seizing her hat and coat from the hall rack where she had put them, on coming downstairs, she started for the store. It was a long, cold walk and she got very wet, but she did not feel justified in spending the five cents which would have carried her there. In her present mood she had no faith in uncle Abner’s fortune. It would probably turn out to be some poor land somewhere which would never be worth a cent. That was the kind of inheritance which usually came to any one in their family, like the lot in a new town out west that was left to aunt Hannah by her eldest brother, where the city authorities compelled property holders to pave the streets and pay large taxes and where there were no purchasers. Such inheritances one was better off without. She felt very bitter in her heart. As she walked along in the rain, she remembered that she had forgotten to kneel by her bedside in prayer before she left her room that morning, it was so cold and late. She knew that must be the reason why she felt so cross and unreasonable, and she tried to pray as she walked along in the rain, but there were many things to distract her thoughts, and she had to watch carefully that she did not run into some one with her umbrella turned down in front of her to keep off the driving rain. She thought of aunt Hannah again, now probably washing the breakfast dishes, or doing some sewing or ironing, and she sighed and felt that earth was wet and cold and dreary. Half-way to the store, she encountered a little newsboy who followed by her side, and begged her to buy a paper. He looked hungry. His feet were out at the toes from his shoes, much too large. Celia had no money to buy a paper and she answered the boy in a decided negative that made him turn hopelessly away. It made her cross to see his need, when she had no power to help him. She realized how cross her voice had been and that vexed her. Then she blindly stepped into a mud puddle and splashed the water over the tops of her shoes. She shivered as she felt the dampness through the thin leather of her boot, and wondered what she would do when the inevitable sore throat, which always with her resulted from getting her feet wet, arrived. And so she hurried on, tugging after her the heavy cross which she had carefully made that morning for herself to carry, out of bits of her own and other people’s troubles, and letting it spoil the sweet peace God had sent her, and soil the clean heart he had washed from sin for her. It was too bad. Her guardian angel pitied her that she could so soon forget her high resolves, and her heavenly Father.

      Matters were no better when she reached the store. One of the girls who belonged at the ribbon counter with her was sick. Celia had to do her duty and the girl’s also. This might not have been so bad if she had been left to herself, but the head of that department, a young woman with a sour expression and disappointed eyes, was also out of temper, and did her ordering in an exceedingly disagreeable manner. She found a great deal of fault and kept demanding of Celia more than she could well accomplish in a given time. Celia had hoped it would not be a busy day on account of the rain, but on the contrary every woman in town seemed to be in need of ribbon and to have hit upon that particular rainy morning in which to shop, thinking doubtless that the others would stay at home and leave