Mother assents, in a mild way, when I talk so and says, "Yes, yes, we are indeed lying wounded on the battle-field of life, and in no condition to listen to any words save those of pity.But, dear Katy, we must interpret aright all the well-meant attempts of our friends to comfort us.They mean sympathy, however awkwardly they express it."And then she sighed, with a long, deep sigh, that told how it all wearied her.
Dec.14.-Mother keeps saying I spend too much time in brooding over my sorrow.As for her, she seems to live in heaven.Not that she has long prosy talks about it, but little words that she lets drop now and then show where her thoughts are, and where she would like to be.
She seems to think everybody is as eager to go there as she is.For my part, I am not eager at all.I can't make myself feel that it will be nice to sit in rows, all the time singing, fond as I am of music.
And when I say to myself, "Of course we shall not always sit in rows singing," then I fancy a multitude of shadowy, phantom-like beings, dressed in white, moving to and fro in golden streets, doing nothing in particular, and having a dreary time, without anything to look forward to.
I told mother so.She said earnestly, and yet in her sweetest, tenderest way, "Oh, my darling Katy! What you need is such a living, personal love to Christ as shall make the thought of being where He is so delightful as to fill your mind with that single thought!"What is "personal love to Christ?"
Oh, dear, dear! Why need my father have been snatched away from me, when so many other girls have theirs spared to them? He loved me so!
He indulged me so much! He was so proud of me! What have I done that I should have this dreadful thing happen to me? I shall never be as happy as I was before.Now I shall always be expecting trouble.Yes, I dare say mother will go next.Why shouldn't I brood over this sorrow? I like to brood over it; I like to think how wretched I am; Ilike to have long, furious fits of crying, lying on my face on the bed.
Jan.I, 1832.-People talk a great deal about the blessed effects of sorrow.But I do not see any good it has done me to lose my dear father, and as to mother she was good enough before.
We are going to leave our pleasant home, where all of us children were born, and move into a house in an out-of-the-way street.By selling this, and renting a smaller one, mother hopes, with economy, to carry James through college.And I must go to Miss Higgins' school because it is less expensive than Mr.Stone's.Miss Higgins, indeed!
I never could bear her! A few months ago, how I should have cried and stormed at the idea of her school.But the great sorrow swallows up the little trial.
I tried once more, this morning, as it is the first day of the year, to force myself to begin to love God.
I want to do it; I know I ought to do it; but I cannot.I go through the form of saying something that I try to pass off as praying, every day now.But I take no pleasure in it, as good people say they do, and as I am sure mother does.Nobody could live in the house with her, and doubt that.
Jan.10.-We are in our new home now, and it is quite a cozy little place.James is at home for the long vacation and we are together all the time I am out of school.We study and sing together and now and then, when we forget that dear father has gone, we are as full of fun as ever.If it is so nice to have a brother, what must it be to have a sister! Dear old Jim! He is the very pleasantest, dearest fellow in the world!
Jan.15.-I have come to another birthday and am seventeen.Mother has celebrated it just as usual, though I know all these anniversaries which used to be so pleasant, must be sad days to her now my dear father has gone.She has been cheerful-and loving, and entered into all my pleasures exactly as if nothing had happened.I wonder at myself that I do not enter more into her sorrows, but though at times the remembrance of our loss overwhelms me, my natural elasticity soon makes me rise above and forget it.And I am absorbed with these school-days, that come one after another, in such quick succession that I am all the time running to keep up with them.And as long as Ido that I forget that death has crossed our threshold, and may do it again.But to night I feel very sad, and as if I would give almost any thing to live in a world where nothing painful could happen.
Somehow mother's pale face haunts and reproaches me.I believe I will go to bed and to sleep as quickly as possible, and forget everything.
