Newspaper Page Text
18 THE
The Family
BETWEEN THE DAYS.
Between the days, the-weary days,
He drops the darkness and the dew;
Over tired eyes his hands he lays,
Ana sirengm ana nope, ana nie renews.
Thank God for rest between the days!
Else who could hear the battle stress
Or who withstand the tempest's shock.
Who tread the dreary wilderness
Among the pitfalls and the rocks,
Came not the night with folded flocks?
The white light scorches and the ulain
Stretches before us, parched with the
heat;
But, by and by, the fierce beams wane;
And lo! the nightfall, cool and sweet,
With dews to bathe our aching feet!
I
For He remembereth our frame!
Even for this I render praise,
O, tender Master, slow to blame
The falterer on life's stormy ways,
Abide with us?between the days!
?The British Weekly.
THE BLUE PITCHER.
By Harriet Lummis Smith.
When Hulda unpacked her trunk, after
her visit to the city, her mother looked
surprised. "I declare, Hulda," she
said, "If I'd been going to buy dishes,
I'd have bought something new and upto-date.
Why?my mother had a pitcher
that was the image of that."
"Yes, I know," nodded Hulda, "I bought
it because it made me think of grandma's
pitcher. I was a little bit of a girl when
it got broken. One of the cats was stealing
cream." She placed the pitcher on
the mahogany sideboard and drew back
to survey her purchase. "I think it looks
real nice," she exclaimed.
"It does so," Mrs. Wylie acknowledged.
"They seem to belong together, as you
might say. I suppose that's because
they're both old. At least the sideboard
is, and the pitcher looks that way."
"It only cost twenty-nine cents," said
Hulda. "Aunt Ernestine took me to a
place where there were thousands of
them, I guess. They were marked down
from forty cents," she added proudly.
"So it was quite a bargain."
The blue pitcher was an old story in
the household when the summer came,
and with it Miss Pendleton. Most of
the farm houses in the vicinity had at
least one boarder during summer months,
and Mrs. Wylie's big, airy front room,
the wide porch which extended around
the three sides of the house, and the
stately maples bordering the drive, all
possessed an undeniable fascination for
city people. Miss Pendleton was delighted
with them all. But it took the
blue pitcher to kindle her enthusiasm.
When Hulda carried up a pitcher of
cold water the first evening of her stay
Miss Pendleton uttered an exclamation
and dropped her magazine.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOUT
"Why, you dear careless girl," she
cried. "To think of using that lovely
old-fashioned pitcher for every day. Suppose
I should break it, what would you
think then?" She took the pitcher up,
turning it from side to side, and did not
seem to mind when she splashed a little
spring water over her pretty gown. "I
suppose your mother prizes this very
highly," she observed.
"It belongs to me,", said Hulda. It
was on the tip of her tongue to add
that she had bought it in the very city
that was Miss Pendleton's home, and
had paid twenty-nine cents for it. But
Hulda was rather shy with strangers and
so the moment passed for making her
confidence.
"Beautiful, beautiful," murmured Miss
Pendleton, seeming to forget Hulda for a
moment. Then she looked up, adjusting
her glasses. "Has your mother much oldfashioned
china?"
"She used to have," replied Hulda,
"but we don't have arty now. There were
a good many children, you see, before,
the others grew up and went away, and
there were lots of cats and dogs, too, so
that dishes were always getting broken."
Miss Pendleton sighed, as if it were
very bad news indeed. "But the pitcher
is left," she said, "and you are its fortunate
owner." She poured a glass of
water and sipped it with relish, as if
the blue pitcher had imparted to it a
delicate flavor.
J list now it came aDout Huida nardiy
knew. She certainly had no idea of trying
to deceive Miss Pendleton in the beginning,
and yet as the days went by,
she found that she was giving countenance
to the city lady's assumption that
the blue pitcher was a family heirloom.
It did not take long to discover that
Miss Pendleton considered herself an authority
on such matters, and Hulda realized
that an explanation would be embarrassing
to them both. If she had taken
her mother into her confidence, Mrs.
Wylie's sturdy good sense would undoubtedly
have been equal to the emergency,
but Hulda did not see the possibility
of making a third person understand
how simply it all had come about.
At any moment, she realized the truth
might come out. If Miss Pendleton
should mention the blue pitcher to Mrs.
Wylle, explanations were sure to follow.
Hulda's mother found it hard to understand
the girl's nervousness that summer,
and her brusque, almost unmannerly
way of changing the subject of a conversation.
Hulda herself wished, with all her
heart, that her twenty-nine cents were
back in her pocket and the blue pitcher
in the department store where she saw
it first. She wished that the pitcher had
been broken before Miss Pendleton's arrival.
She reached at last an equally
useless wish that she had been frank at
the start. Ten words that first evening
would have saved the necessity for all
tnese disquieting tnougnts. Hulda was
sure she should know better another
time.
One evening as she carried Miss Pendleton
the pitcher of water, she found
'H. September 15, 1909.
the lights turned low in the room and
the moonlight flooding it. Miss Pendleton
sat by the window and she called
Hulda to look out on the silvery, serene
night. "The breeze is quite cool, isn't
it?" said Miss Pendleton. "If I am to
sit here long, I believe I shall need a
wrap."
She moved away, and a moment later
Hulda heard a crash and a cry. She
turned quickly. The blue pitcher was in
fragments on the floor, and Miss Pendle
ion was gazing at mem, norror-siriciien.
Before Hulda could find her voice to
say that it did not matter. Miss Pendleton
had spoken. "O, Hulda, you are to
blame," she cried: "you set it too near
the edge of the table.'
"Yes, it was my fault," Hulda agreed
readily. "Don't mind. Miss Pendleton."
"Ot but I do mind," Miss Pendleton
exclaimed despairingly. "What will your
mother say?"
Hulda knew only too well what her
mother would say. She could almost
hear Mrs. Wylie's cheerful voice exclaiming,
"Why don't give yourrelf another
thought about it, Miss Pendleton, it on
ly cost twenty-nine cents. Hulda bought
it when she visited her aunt in the city."
That would not do Hulda sighed, and
took another step in the wrong direction.
"1 guess maybe we'd better not tell
mamma," she said. "You know the pitcher
is mine. And I'll hide the pieces away
somewhere."
"But certainly she will miss it immediately."
"F Hnn't hplipvp rHp will " rpnlipd Will
da, "and if she does I'll say I broke it."
Her respect for Miss Pendleton was not
heigthened by the evident relief this suggestion
brought, and when the lady crossed
the room and kissed her, she felt an
odd impulse to shrink away.
Now that the perplexity of the blue
pitcher was removed, the summer went
on uneventfully. One day, indeed, Mrs.
Wylie said to her daughter. "I wonder
what's become of that blue pitcher, Hulda?"
And when Hulda replied. "It got
broken one night when I was takiug
some water to Miss Pendleton," the subject
was dropped. But if Hulda flattered
herself that it was safe to forget the matter,
she was mistaken. For deception.
even when it comes about so gradually
that one hardly realizes its true nature,
has a way of turning up again at the
most unexpected and inopportune times.
The summer came to an end. Miss
Pendleton went back to the city, promising
to come again another year, and
though she kissed Hulda good-bye with
an affection which touched the girl, Hulda
could not help hoping that some one
else would occupy the spacious front
room the following summer. She had a
miserable feeling that things would never
be .qultA the same as they were before
the afTair of the blue pitcher. For
the first time in her life there was a
shadow between her mother and herself,
the shadow of a secret. Vainly she tried
to comfort herself by thinking that it was
iuu ii iv mi a uiauer.
When she came home from school one