Christmas with Grandma Elsie

CHAPTER III

Lulu's first thought on awaking the next morning, was of the talk of the previous evening, with her father. He had said she might have the pleasure of telling Gracie the good news in regard to the money to be earned by good conduct, and that which was to be given by him in the name of each of his older children; also the privilege he would accord them of selecting the particular cause, or causes, to which the money should go.

Eager to avail herself of the permission, and see Gracie's delight, she sprang from her bed, ran to the door of communication between their sleeping rooms, which generally stood open – always at night – and peeped cautiously in.

Gracie's head was still on her pillow, but at that instant she stirred, opened her eyes, and called out in a pleased tone, "O Lu, so you are up first!" speaking softly though, for fear of disturbing their father and Violet, in the room beyond, the door there being open also.

Lulu hurried to it and closed it gently, then turning toward her sister, "Yes," she said, "but it's early, and you needn't get up just yet. I'm coming to creep in with you for a few minutes while I tell you something that I'm sure will please you."

She crept into Grace's bed as she spoke, and they lay for a while clasped in each other's arms, Lulu talking very fast, Grace listening and now and then putting in a word or two. She was quite as much pleased with what Lulu had to tell, as the latter had anticipated.

"Oh won't it be just lovely to have so much money to do good with!" she exclaimed when all had been told. "Haven't we got the very best and dearest father in the world? I don't believe, Lu, there's another one half so dear and kind and nice. We ought to be ever such good children!"

"Yes, but I'm not," sighed Lulu. "O Gracie, I'd give anything to be as good as you are!"

"Now don't talk so, Lu; you make me feel like a hypocrite; because I'm not good," said Grace.

"You are; at any rate you're a great deal better than I am," asserted Lulu with warmth. "You never disobey papa, or get into a passion; and I don't think you love finery as I do. Gracie, I want that ring yet; oh I should like to have it ever so much! and I oughtn't to want it; it's very selfish, because to buy it would use up money that ought to go to send missionaries to the heathen, or do good to some poor miserable creature; and it's wrong for me to want it, because papa says it wouldn't be good for me; and if I were as good as I ought to be I'd never want anything he doesn't think best for me to have. But, oh dear, how can I help it when I'm so fond of pretty things!"

"Lu," said Grace, softly, "I do believe that if you ask the Lord Jesus to help you to quit wanting it, he will. But if you didn't care for it, it wouldn't be denying yourself to do without it for the sake of the heathen."

"Maybe so; but I don't believe papa would let me have it even if I wouldn't consent to give it up, and begged him ever so hard for it."

"No, I s'pose not, for he loves us too well to give us anything that he thinks will make it harder for us to love and serve God and go to heaven when we die."

"Yes, and of course that's the best way for people to love their children. It's time for me to get up now, but you'd better lie still a little longer."

With that Lulu slipped from the bed, ran back to her room, and kneeling down there, gave thanks for the sleep of the past night, for health and strength, a good home, her dear, kind father to take care of, and provide for her, and love her, and all her many, many comforts and blessings; and confessing her sins, she asked to be forgiven for Jesus' sake, and to have strength given her to do all her duty that day, – to be patient, obedient, industrious, kind and helpful to others and willing to deny herself, especially in the matter of the ring she had been wishing for so ardently.

When the captain came into the apartments of his little daughters for a few minutes chat before breakfast, as was his custom, he found them both neatly dressed and looking bright and happy.

"How are you, my darlings?" he asked, kissing them in turn, then seating himself and drawing them into his arms.

"I think we're both very well, papa," answered Lulu.

"Yes, indeed!" said Grace, "and I'm ever so glad of what Lu's been telling me 'bout the money you are going to give us if we're good, and the choosing 'bout where the other shall go that you're going to give to help send missionaries to the heathen. Thank you for both, dear papa; but don't you think we ought to be good without being paid for it?"

"Yes, I certainly do, my dear little girl; but at the same time I want my children to have the luxury of being able to give something which they have, in some sense, earned for that purpose. I want you to learn in your own experience the truth of the words of the Lord Jesus, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'

"Now while you are so young, not capable of earning much in any other way, your proper business the task of gaining knowledge and skill to fit you for future usefulness, I see no more fitting way than this for you to be furnished with money for religious and benevolent purposes."

"Papa," asked Lulu, "do you think it is never right for anybody to have diamonds or handsome jewelry of any kind?"

"I do not think it my business to judge in such matters for everybody," he answered, caressing her and smiling down tenderly into her eyes; "but I must judge for myself – applying the rules the Bible gives me – and to a great extent for my children also while they are so young."

"Not for Mamma Vi?" Lulu asked, with some little hesitation.

"No; she is my wife, not my child, and old enough to judge for herself."

"She has a great deal of beautiful jewelry," remarked Lulu with an involuntary sigh, "and Grandma Elsie has still more. Rosie asked her once to show it to us children, and she did. Oh she has just the loveliest rings and whole sets of jewelry – pins and ear-rings to match – and chains and bracelets! I'm sure they must be worth a great deal of money; Rosie said they were, and I'm sure Grandma Elsie is a real true Christian – a very, very good one and that Mamma Vi is too."

"And I agree with you in that," was the emphatic reply. "But my daughter and I have nothing to do with deciding their duty for them in regard to this or other things. God does not require that of us; indeed forbids it; 'Judge not, that ye be not judged,' Jesus said.

"But I see plainly that my duty is as I explained it to you last evening, and I thought then you were convinced that it would be selfish and wrong for you and me to spend a large sum for useless ornament that might otherwise be used for the good of our fellow creatures, and the advancement of Christ's kingdom."

"Yes, papa, I was, and I'm trying, and asking God to help me, not to want the ring I asked you for; but I'm afraid it'll take me quite a while to quite stop wishing for it," she sighed.

"You will conquer at length, if you keep on trying and asking for help," he said, giving her a tender kiss.

"A good plan will be to fill your thoughts with other things," he went on; "your lessons while in the school-room, after that you may find it pleasant to begin planning for Christmas gifts to be made or bought for those you love, and others whom you would like to help. I shall give each of you – including Max – as much extra spending money as I did last year."

"Beside all that for benevolence, papa?" they asked in surprise and delight.

"Yes; what I provide you with for benevolence, is something aside from your spending money, which you are at liberty to do with as you please, within certain bounds," he said rising and taking a hand of each as the breakfast bell sounded out its summons to the morning meal.

Misconduct and poor recitations were alike very rare in the school-room at Woodburn; neither found a place there to-day, so that the captain had only commendations to bestow, and they were heartily and gladly given.

The ice and snow had entirely disappeared, and the roads were muddy; too muddy, it was thought, to make travel over them particularly agreeable; but the children obtained sufficient exercise in romping over the wide porches and trotting round the grounds on their ponies.

But in spite of the bad condition of the roads, the Ion carriage drove over early in the afternoon, and Grandma Elsie, Mrs. Elsie Leland – her namesake daughter – Rosie and Evelyn alighted from it. Everybody was delighted to see them, and to hear that they would stay to tea.

"O girls," said Lulu, "come up to my room and take off your things. I've something to tell you," and she looked so gay and happy that they felt quite sure it was something that pleased her greatly.

"I think I can guess what it is," laughed Rosie; "your father has promised you the diamond ring you want so badly."

"No, it isn't that; you may have another guess; but I don't believe you could hit the right thing if you should guess fifty or a hundred times."

"Then I sha'n't try. I give it up. Don't you, Eva?"

"Yes, please tell us, Lu," said Evelyn.

Then Lulu, talking fast and eagerly, repeated to them what she had told to Grace, in bed that morning.

"Oh how nice!" Evelyn exclaimed. "How I should like to be in your place,

Lu!"

"I think it's nice, too," Rosie said, "and I'd like mamma or grandpa to do the same by me. But I'd want my pearls too," she added, laughing. "Mamma's rich enough to give me them, and do all she need do for missions and the poor beside."

"But so very, very much is needed," remarked Evelyn.

"I've read in some of the religious papers, that if every church member would give but a small sum yearly, there would be enough," said Rosie; "and mamma gives hundreds and thousands of dollars; and grandpa gives a great deal too. So I don't see that I ought to do without the set of pearls I've set my heart on. It isn't mamma's place to do other people's duty for them – in the way of giving, any more than in other things."

Grandma Elsie and her older daughters were in Violet's boudoir.

"I had letters this morning, from your brothers Harold and Herbert, Vi, and have brought them with me to read to you," the mother said, taking the missives from her pocket.

"Thank you, mamma; I am always glad to hear what they write; their letters are never dull or uninteresting," Violet replied, her sister Elsie adding, "They are always worth hearing, Lester and I think. What dear boys they are!"

"And quite as highly appreciated by my husband as by yours, Elsie,"

Violet said with a bright, happy look.

"They are a great blessing and comfort to their mother," Grandma Elsie remarked, "as indeed all my children are – their letters always a source of pleasure, but these even more so than most; for they show that my college boys are greatly stirred up on the subject of missions at home and abroad; full of renewed zeal for the advancement of the Master's cause and kingdom."

She then read the letters which gave abundant evidence of the correctness of her estimate of the state of her sons' minds.

They were working as teachers in a mission Sunday school, as Bible readers and tract distributors among the poor and degraded of the city where they were sojourning; doing good to bodies as well as souls – their mother supplying them with means for that purpose in addition to what she allowed them for pocket-money; – also exerting an influence for good among their fellow students.

They told of interesting meetings held for prayer and conference upon the things concerning the kingdom; of renewed and higher consecration on the part of many who were already numbered among the Master's followers, and the conversion of others who had hitherto cared for none of these things.

The reading of the letters was followed by an earnest talk between the mother and her daughters, in which Violet told of her husband's plans for giving through his children, in addition to what he would give in other ways.

"What excellent ideas?" Grandma Elsie exclaimed, her eyes shining with pleasure. "I shall adopt both with my younger two children, one with all of you."

"Which is that last, mamma?" asked Violet sportively.

"The letting each of you select an object for a certain sum which I shall give."

"Mamma, that is very nice and kind," remarked her daughter Elsie, "but we should give of our own means. Do you not think so?"

"You may do that in addition," her mother said. "I have seven children on earth – eight counting Zoe, and one in heaven. I shall give a thousand dollars in the name of each."

"Mamma, I for one fully appreciate your kindness, but think you would make a wiser choice of objects than we," said Violet, looking lovingly into her mother's eyes.

"I want you to have the pleasure," her mother answered, "and I am reserving much the larger part of what I have to give, for objects of my own selection; for it has pleased the Lord to trust me with the stewardship of a good deal of the gold and silver which are his."

At that moment the little girls entered the room, and Rosie, hurrying up to her mother, asked, "Mamma, have you heard, has Vi told you what the captain intends doing? how he is going to reward his children for good behavior?"

"Yes; and I shall do the same by you and Walter."

"That's a dear, good mamma!" exclaimed Rosie with satisfaction. "I thought you would."

"And I intend to follow the captain's lead in another matter," Grandma Elsie went on, smiling pleasantly upon her young daughter; "That is in allowing each of my sons and daughters to select some good object for me to give to."

"That's nice too," commented Rosie: "I like to be trusted in such things – as well as others," she added laughing, "and I hope you'll trust me with quite a sum of money to give or spend just as I please!"

"Ah, my darling, you must not forget that your mother is only a steward," was the sweet toned response, given between a smile and a sigh; for Grandma Elsie was not free from anxiety about this youngest daughter, who had some serious faults, and had not yet entered the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Evelyn, dear, you too, as my pupil and a sort of adopted daughter, must share the reward of good behavior," she said, with a tenderly affectionate look at the fatherless niece of her son-in-law.

Evelyn flushed with pleasure; but more because of the loving look than the promise of reward. "Dear Grandma Elsie, how very kind and good you always are to me!" she exclaimed feelingly, her eyes filling with tears of love and gratitude.