Live to be Useful/Chapter I
CHAPTER I.
ANNIE'S PLAN.
ANNIE LEE was a cripple. Until her eighth summer she had been strong and well, like most other children; but then disease began to appear, and although she had skilful doctors and kind nurses, it was soon too plain that she was never to be well again.
Five years of pain and weakness had been her portion at the time our story commences. So accustomed had she become to her sad situation, that it seemed like a delusive dream when she remembered the sportive hours of her earlier childhood. Like other sick children, she was far more thoughtful than was quite natural at her age, and very seldom in her easiest moments laughed aloud. But she was not an unhappy child.
As soon as she was old enough to understand that she had a sinful heart and needed salvation, she had earnestly sought the Saviour of sinners, and had been graciously received by him, and made a lamb of his flock. In the school of Christ she learned to bear pain without murmuring, and to submit with cheerfulness to her lot in life. Instead of requiring comfort from her parents, who seemed to realize her misfortune more fully than she did herself, she became their consoler, and rarely failed in her efforts to lighten their sorrow on her account.
"It might have been so much worse, mamma," she said one day, when Mrs. Lee was lamenting her condition. "Only think of poor lame Phelim, Biddy Dillon's little boy."
"What is the matter with him?" asked her mother.
"Have you not seen him? He is often in the back-yard when Biddy comes to wash in the kitchen. I've watched him often. I think it was before he came to this country—but I'm not sure—that a large stone, falling from a wall, so mangled his poor limbs that one of them had to be cut off. I never see him limping about on his crutches while Biddy is washing without thanking God for my happier fate."
"Why, Annie, it is not probable that he suffers one-half as much as you do."
"As much pain, do you mean, mamma?"
"Yes."
"I wasn't thinking of that. They are very poor; and if he lives to be a man, how can he earn the comforts of life? I need have no care on that account."
"I daresay he has none. There are several trades that he might learn which require a sitting posture; he might be a shoemaker, for instance. Do not fret on his account, Annie."
"It seems to me, mamma," replied Annie, with a thoughtful air, "that his only prospect for the future is to be pushed about here and there in the crowd, until at last he finds a refuge in the grave."
"What foolish fancies!" said Mrs. Lee, rising, as a noise in the yard below attracted her to the window. "We know nothing about the future, and it is not quite right to make ourselves sad about it. It is hardly like your usual trust in God, to be thus imagining trouble. There's a little lame boy in the yard, who, I suppose, is Phelim; he seems happy enough. Hark! don't you hear him sing? He is sitting on the bench behind the clothes-frame, and his mother is hanging out the clothes to dry. Don't you hear her laugh at what he is singing?"
"What is it, mamma? Can you hear the words?" asked Annie, brightening up, and raising herself on her elbow as she lay on her low couch.
"I hear them very well; but his Irish gibberish is as Greek to me. All that I can make out is what seems to be the chorus:
"'O Ireland, green Ireland,
Swate gem o' the sae!'"
"Mamma," said Annie, after listening with smiling interest a while, "it troubles me very often because Phelim knows nothing about our Saviour. He has a sister, two years older than I am, who cannot read. She never went to school; and none of the family can read a word."
"How did you learn this?"
"From Phelim. I speak to him sometimes when he plays under the window."
"Well, I don't know how we can help them. If we should offer to teach them, they would not be willing to learn."
"Are you sure of it, mamma?"
"Not quite so sure, perhaps, as if I had tried to instruct them; but I know that they regard a book as a sort of Protestant trap, made on purpose to catch them, soul and body. It is an evil that we cannot remedy.—Have you more pain than usual, my dear?" said Mrs. Lee, appearing a little startled, and bending anxiously over Annie's couch as she observed an unusual flush on her pale cheek.
"No, mamma; but I was thinking of a plan that I have had for some weeks, and hoping that you would not object to it."
"Object! You shall have whatever you like, if it can be procured. What is it, Annie?"
"Oh, dear mamma," said Annie, "I do so long to do some good! I cannot bear to live such a useless life. Every day, when I feel the goodness of God and his great love to me, I long to do something for him. And I think, mamma, that I have planned a way to do good without getting off my sofa."
"You are always doing good, Annie. Do you suppose that your patience under suffering is not a lesson to us in our smaller trials? There are many ways in which you are a blessing to us all; so do not weary yourself with new schemes. If God had required active service from you, he would have given you health and strength."
"But I can do something, mamma. Please to hear my plan. I want to tell you something more about Phelim's sister. She has been Mrs. Green's servant, and her business was to assist in the nursery. She would have done nicely, Phelim says, but for her violent temper. Last week one of the children was cross and provoking, and the girl got angry and pushed him down-stairs. He was much bruised; and, of course, she was dismissed at once."
"I should hope so. But your plan, Annie?"
"The poor girl has no place, mamma, and, with such a dreadful temper, is not likely to get one soon. And they are very poor. I know that since Jessie left us, you are too closely confined here with me; and my plan is to have this poor girl to wait on me, and—"
"Why, Annie, what a wild project!" interrupted her mother. "You must not think of it. She would be throwing you out of the window, or beating you to a jelly, in her first fit of ill-temper."
"Oh no, she won't, mamma," urged Annie. "She will not be so easily vexed here, and no one is ever angry with me. Please to try her."
"Are you really in earnest, Annie?"
"Yes; and very anxious to be indulged in my strange plan."
"Have you thought how awkward she will be in assisting you?"
"I have thought of it all, over and over," replied Annie, "and I think she will make a good nurse for me."
Mrs. Lee hesitated a long time. She could not bear to deny Annie, and could not overcome her dislike to the proposed arrangement. But Annie's pleading look at length decided her.
"You wish very much to try this wild-goose plan!" she said, resuming the conversation.
"Very much, mamma," replied Annie.
"Well, you shall have your own way about it. It will last but a few days, I am sure; and the change will interest you at any rate, poor thing!" Then going to the window, she looked down into the yard, and said, "Mrs. Dillon, come up to Miss Annie's room, will you?"
In a minute the woman made her appearance at the door, with the suds still lingering in foamy flakes upon her arms and along the folds of her apron.
"You have a daughter, I believe?" said Mrs. Lee.
"Two of them, an' ye plaze, ma'am," replied Biddy, wiping her arms as she spoke.
"Are they both at home?"
"It's Bessie that is in service; and it's only Annorah that's at home, shure."
"What is Annorah doing?" inquired Mrs. Lee.
"Doing?" repeated Biddy wonderingly.
"I mean, how does she get her living?"
"At service too, ma'am, when it is to be had. But, shure, it's a bad timper she has, and will sthrike and scold whin her blood is up. An' she has lost the fine, comfortable place she had with Mrs. Green, jist for a thrifle of spaach."
"That is unfortunate."
"Oh, thin, ye may well say that. Anither mouth in a family like me own is far from convenient whin the cost of the mate and the flour is beyond raach intirely."
"Well, Biddy, Miss Annie wants some one to wait on her in the place of Jessie, who has gone. She has taken a fancy to try your girl. When can she come?"
"Coom! Why, this very hour, an' ye like. A blessin' on yer swate, pale face!" said Biddy, looking pityingly towards Annie.
"She must be gentler here," said Mrs. Lee; "she must govern her temper. Miss Annie must not be excited and made worse by your girl's fits of ill-humour."
"Leave her to me, mamma," said Annie. "I think, Mrs. Dillon, that there will be no trouble. What did you say is her name?"
"Annorah, an' ye plaze, miss."
"Annorah? Very well. When shall she come, mamma?"
"Not until Monday, I think," replied Mrs. Lee. Then turning to Mrs. Dillon, she added, "You may send her on Monday."
"An' she gets a mad streak along o' that pritty crathur," said Mrs. Biddy, as she went down-stairs, "she desarves the warm bating she'll get from her own mother at home."