A CANADIAN home. Rolling meadows. Fertile acres. Orchards in full bloom.
Outside a gabled farmhouse five miles from Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, autumn leaves were drifting lightly to the earth. It was late October of the year 1890, and the afternoon sunshine slanted through the gorgeous foliage of the big maple and locusts with their rough bark, thorny branches, and long pods, as they stood like sentries by the door. Fall breezes shook the branches and sent a veritable shower of gay colored leaves cascading through the air and tapping lightly and insistently at the window pane.
Within, a warm little bundle, carefully wrapped in a huge embroidered shawl, rested securely in a mother's arms as she sat rocking by the dining room window, envisioning the day when her new-born baby daughter would do that which she herself had found it impossible to do— go forth in full time Christian service.
Early in life, Mother had felt the call of God to labor in His harvest field. Leaving friends, home and native land, she joined the Salvation Army. However, after a time, illness necessitated a complete change of scene and work. This meant removal to a country farm, away from the active service she loved.
One day, after reading the Bible account of Hannah's vow (1 Sam, 1:11), Mother prayed for a daughter whom she could dedicate unto the work of the Lord.
Thus it was that, as she sat by the window on that October afternoon, some years later, her lips softly paraphrased the scripture which had become a part of her very life:
“For this child I prayed; and the Lord gave me my petition, which I asked of him. Therefore also I have lent her unto the Lord; as long as she liveth she shall be lent unto the Lord.”
My religious training began when I was but three weeks of age, at which time I was taken to a “Jubilee” at the five-mile distant Salvation Army corps, of which Mother was an officer. During the meeting I occupied the front seat and contributed, without request, my full share to the music and interest of the evening!
At the age of six weeks I was promoted to the platform. It was my solemn dedication service in the Army— the hour for which my mother had longed and prayed.
*
Childhood on the farm! What pleasant memories it recalls!
The rainbow flower garden.., butterflies flitting by with careless frivolity... the smell of growing things... a luscious berry patch, and a berry-stained girl with a suspiciously red mouth, emerging triumphant with bucket half full of wilted berries,
Songbirds... a maple forest greeting the neighborly beech and elm in stately merriment... the little creatures of the woods which were my constant friends and playmates... the violets, paying modest attention to the sermon of jack-in-the-pulpit nearby.
Sugar-time... dripping honey into shiny buckets... the pungent odor of burning green wood... the large flat pans atop the great outdoor fireplace... the fragrant aroma of bubbling syrup.
Harvest! Trees gorgeously clad, their vestments dipped in sunset colors... scudding clouds in autumn skies... flurries of wind and dust scurrying down the road... strange whispering murmurs in the tops of the tall poplar trees by the gate... the thrilling ride atop lumbering wagons of wheat racing the storm clouds to full barns... the ringing, triumphant laughter in the warm old barn that came after a race well run, heard above the rain that pelted upon the roof and beat futilely against the doors and windows.
Frost, snow, and ice... the thrill of being a stormbound prisoner, nose flattened against the cold window pane, speculating upon tomorrow's bobsled and snowshoes... trees ermine clad, every twig crystal coated... snow man in stiff dignity standing guard at the gate... icicles on the eaves... ever-widening figure eights left by small flying silver skates on the ice sheen of the lake!
Chores... mangers filled with new mown hay... warm breath of the bossies... the drip, drip, drip of foamy milk in tin pails... the hum of separators, dash of churns, spanking of golden butter into flowered molds... bedding the livestock with soft, yellow straw... searching for eggs in the nests of hens that insisted upon playing hide and seek... the peep of chilled baby turkeys in gathered apron, borne into the farm house to the reviving warmth before an open oven door, securely wrapped in a woolen shawl... lighting the lamps and spreading the red tablecloth for the evening meal.
Many, many times the protecting and guiding hand of the Almighty seemed to hover over my youthful, exuberant life! For example, there was the incident at the well!
Down, down, down our deep black well seemed to travel endlessly, at least as far as my inquisitive eyes could see, as I peered over the square, boarded enclosure which was just on a level with my chin as I stood on tiptoe. At certain times, when the sun was in the right position and the bucket was resting on its shelf inside the well, I could see another little girl looking up at me; when I would call a friendly “hello!” to her, she would always echo back, “lo!”
Reaching across the enclosure that guarded the pit was the windlass with a crank that turned the roller and let down yards and yards of rope, and then drew up the great bucket brimming with icy water.
The large handle had given me many a hard, warning whack when I was experimenting with it, and I had been admonished again and again to stay away from the well.
But one day, when we were having company, I slipped quietly down out of my chair at the table and went straight to the well which held such mystery and interest for me. What fun it would be to get hold of the swinging rope, climb into the bucket and travel down to pay a visit to the other little girl I had seen reflected in the water!
I had climbed over the casement of the well, into the bucket which sat upon the shelf and was just swinging myself clear when my parents, noticing a suspicious silence about the place, ran to the door in time to see the tail of my pink skirt disappearing. The iron handle was just beginning to turn when they caught it, wound me up, and snatched me from the mouth of the pit!
Just as there was naught but clammy despair and ultimate death at the end of that beckoning, luring, echoing voice, so I am persuaded that there is nothing but despair, disillusionment, and ruin in the black depths of the pits of unbelief.
Childhood days—childhood dreams, childhood plans, and childhood pets—days of barefoot freedom, days of galloping hoofs and flying manes.
I remember the day when I had invited the school children home with me—children who did not have a horse and to whom one was a great novelty. Five of them wanted to ride, and none was willing to wait for the other, yet none could guide a horse, Therefore, I had to go too.
It was decided that six of us should ride together. Mounting, we all sat like clothespins on a line. The last girl sat almost over the horse’s tail. There was no place for me but the neck and I depended upon a tight rein and holding the horse’s head up to maintain my seat. After sagging a lot in the middle and groaning in protest, Flossie at last started off. Each girl locked her arms around the waist of the girl just ahead,
All went well until we began to descend a meadow slope. One of the rear girls nervously dug her heels into a particularly ticklish spot on Flossie’s side and up went Flossie's heels and down went her head.
I was the first one off, therefore the last to extricate myself from the landslide of girls, but was in time to see the horse standing, head still down, feet apart, actually laughing at us.
How I loved old Flossie!
Patiently she used to take me to school, winter and summer, sloshing through the mud in the spring, plowing knee deep in the snow banks in winter.
One day when driving to school Flossie and I saw the first “horseless carriage” top the hill of our country road. It was a snorting, smoking, sneezing, fearful monster. It rattled and clattered and shivered along, guided by the hands of its proud possessor, the local doctor.
Poor Flossie. She jerked to a standstill and stood with her four feet spread, nostrils dilated, snorting in fear, the hair rising up on her back. She shook from stem to stern and promptly tried to climb over the shafts.
The doctor was obliged to stop his contraption and lead the horse past. She shied in a wide circle and threatened to tip the carriage into the ditch, eyes wildly rolling at every step. But when she was once past—oh, my!
Flossie was as fat as a butter ball and had never felt the whip. I only carried it along to flick her with the silken tassel to encourage her into a brisk trot. But on this day she picked up her feet and flew down the road as I hadn't seen her do since the day the hornets were after her. We entered the town, I with feet pressed on the dashboard, clinging to the reins with a half frightened, half proud feeling that I was driving a race horse.
The farm never lacked thrills and excitement in these days of childhood and early high school. There was always something doing. The day, for instance, during the dry summer when we were obliged to take the horses to the swamp well for water. Old Sandy, pawing and floundering, got mired in the swamp. I was alone with the two great work horses, and cried wildly for help, but to no avail. Finally I took the rails off the nearby fence, slid them under poor Sandy and kept him from sinking until I could go for the neighbors.
1 often think of that incident when I witness the rails of saving faith and love being placed under some soul, mired and sinking in the bogs of sin and despair.
Father brought home an owl one time and put it on the back of a kitchen chair where it blinked and blinked in the lamplight. He told me if I walked around the owl long enough it would wind its neck up like a spring in a clock. Though I walked round and round until I was dizzy with the wide, unblinking, yellow eyes following me, the head still was on straight. The owl, turning his head with me as I walked, snapped it from one side to the other so fast that I thought it went clear round, I couldn't understand why it didn’t wind.
Being such an outdoor girl, I was quite a problem while convalescing from pneumonia. Almost every pet on the farm had to be brought to my room. Whitetail, the dignified family cat who had never suffered herself to be petted until I was sick, came in and permitted me to dress her in doll clothes and stroke her by the hour. Then she would go down to the cellar and catch a mouse for me, nipping it daintily through the neck, and lay it down upon my pillow as her love offering.
Sometimes I have wondered if she thought I was starved. I pretty nearly was; but was not reduced to mice. Each day she repeated the performance until one day she discovered I was not using the mice for the purpose they had been caught. With an extremely injured look on her face, she turned and walked away, and from that day on there were no more mice offerings from Whitetail.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” asked the hired man ‘one of those weary days while I lay in bed.
“I would like to hear the frogs sing,” I said. “Do go down to the swamp and bring me three or four frogs and put them in a pail of water by my bed.”
An hour later he came sloshing up the stairs in wet boots, triumphantly bearing in his arms, much to mother's disgust, a bucket with some lily pads and four frogs.
The water must have been too high in the bucket or something, for the frogs hopped out and under the bed. By this time the hired man was far away in the field and mother had to crawl under the bed and get them.
To me, the memories of childhood days are like throwing up the window for a breath of fresh air when a room is hot and stuffy.
There was Jenny, the pet pigeon, who fell into the pan of milk on the lower shelf of the kitchen cabinet, and came out a creamy white dove, leaving a tell-tale path across the linoleum and thoroughly disgracing herself by flying upon the shoulder
* of the preacher who had come to tea; the guinea pigs who were the worry of my life when visitors came to the farm because my father had told me if any one picked them up by their tails their eyes would fall out; and the kittens that I would never permit any one to drown until at last the number increased to thirteen cats sitting in a row awaiting their evening meal. All these are refreshingly happy recollections.
Many of the simple happenings of childhood days have stood me in good stead, too, teaching a lesson and bringing a moral in later life.
For instance, there was the time I was sent out behind the barn to gather a pail of chips for the kitchen fire; this was one of my daily chores. My father was a bridge contractor and builder, and there were always huge mounds of chips and shavings in the locations where he had been hewing the great timbers.
This particular evening I was wearing a little white dress with red moons in it, of which I was quite proud,
My pail was nearly filled when hearing the lowing of the cattle coming in, I straightened up to look. The sight that met my eyes was a startling one:
There near the gate, head down, nostrils distended and eyes blazing stood the “gentleman cow.” From all appearances he took violent exception to the fine red moons in my dress which I had thought so beautiful. He had always been so gentle and harmless before that I had never feared him; but now, something in the menacing way in which he advanced toward me uttering low, angry bellowing noises, frightened me.
Throwing a chip at him, I told him to “go away;” but without halting he came on—in a business-like determined sort of manner that prophesied only evil intent!
Towering over me, he struck me with his great head and down I went, new dress and all, in the muddy barnyard. Fortunately my father had sawed the bull's horns off some time previous, but I believe it was only the mercy of God that kept the animal from pawing me under his great, angry feet, and that gave me the presence of mind to escape.
I struggled to my feet, but again he knocked me down. My dress was covered with mud and my face with blood; but in the midst of my fear I looked about for an avenue of escape. It was very evident that it was too far to the corner of the barn for me to run that way. Looking around I discovered a hollow place that ran under the pile of lumber which my father had stacked up over a saw-horse—a hollow that ran clear to the other end. Into that I struggled, and while my attacker watched for me at one end, I escaped through the other and started for the house.
I seemed perfectly numb; my mouth was filled with dirt and blood, but tightly in my hands I clasped that bucket of chips. I had been sent after chips and chips I was going to take back. It never occurred to me, somehow, to let go of the bucket, even in the midst of my trouble. It was not until I fainted in the house that I released my hold on my bucket of chips.
Being called upon to endure hardships as a good soldier, and bring back precious souls for Jesus, no matter how hard the conflict, the Lord has put that within me which causes me to go through, refusing defeat, refusing even to be discouraged, and I often think of that little girl in the bedraggled, redmooned dress, who brought home the bucket of chips. Like that little girl we have each been given a white dress—a white robe of righteousness—with the red of the precious blood of Christ in it, and have been given a basket—our lives—and sent out to gather precious souls for the Master. Though the struggle is sometimes hard, and though the devil with legions of lies and accusations may seek to destroy us, somehow I know that just as that little girl was gathered up, scarred by the combat but with the chips still in her arms, our heavenly Father will meet us at the end of life's little day and gather us, with our tight-clasped, precious burden of souls, into His arms. * Childhood's happy days on the farm sped away into the year of study in the little white schoolhouse, then into high school days.
It was while in high school that I attended my first dance— the school ball. My parents had always taken a stand against dancing; but after my first dance I knew they must be mistaken, for my first partner was a preacher. Other church members
. Were there, so surely it was all right and my parents were a little old-fashioned.
My future and educational prospects looked promising, No effort or labor was counted too great upon the part of my parents to send me to school, and indeed it was no little matter for them—ten miles to be covered each day on the train or with horses and cart over country roads with their mud, rain or snow.
There was introduced into our classroom at this time a textbook of physical geography which delved into the formation, rock strata, etc., of the earth and learnedly described the origin of life and process of evolution.
How these theories or teachings impressed other students I cannot say, but they had a remarkable effect on me.