by A. A. Milne
“I wonder where my pussy is?” Grace was saying, from the library door. “I thought she’d be lying on the rug before the fire here, like she was the other night; but she isn’t.”
“Oh, and my Polly!” cried Lulu. “Is she in there?”
“I will carry Elsie to the nursery, my love,” said the captain. “Lulu and Gracie, you may perhaps find your pets in your own little sitting room.”
“Oh yes!” they cried in chorus, and started up the stairs after their father and Violet.
Outside the night was cold, but within the house the atmosphere was that of summer; doors stood open, and in the halls, and the rooms used by the family, lights were burning; also the air was sweet and fragrant with a faint odor of roses, heliotrope and mignonette, coming from the conservatory and from vases of cut flowers placed here and there; all the result of Capt. Raymond’s kind forethought for the comfort and pleasure of wife and children, and the careful carrying out of his orders by the faithful housekeeper Christine.
No wonder home looked so attractive to its returning occupants, even coming from a former one quite as beautiful and luxurious.
“Oh how sweet it does look here!” exclaimed both the little girls as they entered their little sitting-room.
“Oh! and there is my pussy lying on the rug all curled up like a soft round ball!” added Grace. “You are having a nice nap, pretty kitty, and I don’t mean to wake you, but I must pet you just a little bit,” dropping down beside her, and gently stroking the soft fur.
“And there’s my Polly in her cage and fast asleep too, I do believe,” said Lulu, “I want ever so much to hear her talk, but I’ll be as good to her as you are to your pet, Gracie; I won’t wake her.
“Now we must take off our things, Gracie, for you know papa always says we mustn’t keep them on in the house, and that we must put them away in their places.”
“Yes; but I’m so tired! Papa would let me wait a minute.”
“Of course, you poor little weak thing! I’ll take them off for you and put them away too; and you need hardly more,” Lulu said, hastily throwing off her own coat and hat.
Then kneeling on the rug beside her sister, she began undoing the fastenings of her coat.
“Dear Lu, you’re just as good to me as can be!” sighed Grace in tender, grateful accents. “I really don’t know what I’d ever do without my nice big sister.”
“Somebody else would take care of you,” said Lulu, flushing with pleasure nevertheless. “There now, I’ll go and put both our things in their right places.”
When she came back she found Grace brimming over with delight because the kitten had waked, crept into her lap, and curled itself up there for another nap.
“O Lu, just see!” she cried. “I do believe she’s fond of me. Isn’t it nice?”
“Yes, very nice; but you’re burning your face before that bright fire. Oh you do need your big sister to take care of you!” lifting a screen in between Grace and the glowing grate.
Then seating herself on a hassock, “Now put your head in my lap and stretch yourself out on the rug. You can rest nicely that way and we’ll have a good talk. Such a nice, big, soft rug as this is! I should think it must have taken several big sheep skins to make it, and it was so good in papa to have it put here for us.”
“Yes, indeed! our dear papa! how I do love him! he’s always doing kind things to us.”
“Yes, O Gracie, if I were only good like you and didn’t ever do and say naughty things that make him feel sad!” sighed Lulu. “Oh do you know we are going to have a party on New Years? All the folks that were at Ion are to come; the grown up ones to be papa’s and Mamma Vi’s company, and the young ones your’s and Maxie’s and mine.”
“Yes, I know. And we’re all to go to Fairview to spend Monday.”
“Won’t it be nice?”
“Yes— ” a rather doubtful yes— “but I— ’most think I like being at home the best of all.”
“Why? didn’t you enjoy yourself at Ion?”
“Yes; but I believe I’m a little bit tired now.”
“Tired?”
“Yes; of being with so many folks. It’s nice for a while, but after that it sort of wears me out; and I’m glad to get back to my own dear home where I can be just as quiet as ever I please.”
“Oh, there is papa!” exclaimed Lulu, turning her head and seeing him standing in the open doorway.
He was smiling on his darlings, thinking what a pretty picture they made— the little slender figure on the rug with the kitten closely cuddled in its arms, the golden head lying in Lulu’s lap, while her blooming face bent tenderly over it, one hand toying with its soft ringlets.
“Tired, Gracie, my pet?” he asked, coming forward and stooping to scan the small pale face in loving solicitude.
“Only a little, dear papa,” she answered, with a patient smile up into his face. “I think I shall be quite rested by to-morrow morning, and I’m so glad we’re at home again.”
“Yes; and just now the best place in it for my weary little girl is her bed. Lulu and I will get you there as soon as we can.”
“Mustn’t I stay up for prayers?”
“No, darling, you are too tired and sleepy to get any good from the service. I see your eyes can hardly keep themselves open.”
“I believe they can’t, and I shall be so glad to go right to my nice bed,” she returned sleepily, pushing the kitten gently from her.
So she was lifted to her father’s knee and Lulu sent for her night dress.
In a few minutes she was resting peacefully in her bed, while the captain and Lulu went down hand in hand to the library, where they found Max sitting alone, reading.
He closed his book as they entered, rose and wheeled an easy chair nearer the fire for his father, who took it with a pleasant “Thank you, my son,” and drew Lulu to a seat upon his knee. “What were you reading, Max?” he asked.
“‘Story of United States Navy for Boys,’” answered the lad. “Papa would you be willing for me to go into the navy?”
“If you have a strong inclination for the life, my boy, I shall throw no obstacle in your way.”
“Thank you, sir; I sometimes think I should like it, yet I’m not quite sure I’d rather be there than anywhere else.”
“You must be quite sure of your inclination before we move in the matter,” returned his father.
“Is there something you would prefer for me, papa?” asked Max.
“If I were quite sure you were called of God to the work, I should rather see you a preacher of the gospel, an ambassador for Christ, than anything else. Yet if you lack the talent, or consecration, you would better be out of the ministry than in it.”
“I’m glad I’m not a boy and don’t have to go away from home and papa,” Lulu said, nestling closer in her father’s arms.
“Home’s a delightful place and nobody loves to be with papa more than I do,” said Max, “but for all that I’m glad I’m going to be a man and able to do a man’s work in the world.”
“And I,” said the captain, “am glad that God has given me both sons and daughters, and that you two are satisfied to be what God has made you.”
For some moments no one spoke again, then Lulu remarked thoughtfully, “This is the last Saturday, and to-morrow will be the last Sunday of the old year. Papa, do you remember the talk we had together a year ago?”
“On the last Sunday of that year? yes, daughter, quite well. And now it is time for another retrospect, and fresh resolutions to try to live better, by the help of Him who is the Strength of His people, their Shield and Helper.”
“It hasn’t been nearly so good a year with me as I hoped it would be,” sighed Lulu.
“Yet an improvement upon the one before it, I think,” remarked her father in a tone of encouragement. “You have not, so far as I know, indulged, even once, in a fit of violent anger— and knowing my little girl as most truthful and very open with me— I certainly believe that if she had bee
n in a passion she would have come to me with an honest confession of her fault.”
“I’m sure Lu would,” said Max; “and I do think she has improved very much.”
“No; I haven’t been in a passion, papa, and I hope if I had, I wouldn’t have been deceitful enough to try to hide it from you. But oh I’ve been very, very naughty two or three times in other ways, you know; and you were so good to forgive me and keep on loving me in spite of it all.”
“Dear child!” was all he said in reply, accompanying the words with a tender caress.
“I, too, have come a good deal short of my resolves,” observed Max, with a regretful sigh. “Yet I suppose we have both done better than we should if we hadn’t made good resolutions.”
“No doubt of it,” said his father. “I feel it to be so in my case, though I, too, have fallen far short of the standard I set myself. But shall we not try again, my children?”
“Oh yes, sir, yes!”
“And try, not only to make the new year better— if we are spared to see it— but also the three remaining days of the old?”
“Yes,” sighed Lulu, “perhaps I may get into a dreadful passion yet before the year is out.”
“I hope not, daughter,” her father said; “but watch and pray, for only so can you be safe. There is One who is able to keep you from falling. Cling close to Him like the limpet to the rock.”
“Oh I will!” she replied in an earnest tone. “But papa what is a limpet? I don’t remember ever having heard of it before.”
“It is a shell-fish of which there are numerous species exhibiting great variety of form and color. The common limpet is most abundant on the rocky coasts of Britain. They live on the rocks between low and high tide marks.
“They move about when the water covers them, but when the tide is out, remain firmly fixed to one spot; so firmly that unless surprised by a sudden seizure, it is almost impossible to drag or tear them from the rock without breaking the shell.”
“How can they hold so tight?” asked Max.
“The animal has a round or oval muscular foot by which it clings, and its ability to do so is increased by a viscous or sticky secretion.”
“Please tell some more about them, papa,” requested Lulu, looking greatly interested. “Have they mouths? and do you know what they eat?”
“Yes, they have mouths and they live on seaweed, eating it by means of a long ribbon-like tongue covered with rows of hard teeth; the common limpet— which, as I have told you, lives on the British coast— has no fewer than one hundred and sixty rows, twelve teeth in a row. How many does that make, Max?”
“Nineteen hundred and twenty,” answered the lad after a moment’s thought.
“Right,” said his father. “The tongue when not in use, lies folded deep in the interior of the limpet.”
“Are their shells pretty, papa?” Lulu asked.
“Those of some of the limpets of warmer climates are very beautiful,” he answered; “large too. I have seen them on the western coast of South America, a foot wide; so large that they are often used as basins.”
“Oh I’d like to have one!” she exclaimed. “Is it for their shells people try to pull them off the rocks?”
“It may be so in some instances, but the limpet is used for food and also as bait, by the fisherman.
“Try, my children, to remember what I have been telling you about it; but most of all let your thoughts dwell upon the lesson to be drawn from its close clinging to the rock.
“God is often spoken of in the Scriptures as his people’s rock, because he is their strength, their refuge, their asylum, as the rocks were in those places whither the children of Israel retired in case of an unexpected attack from their foes.
“David says; ’The Lord is my rock and my fortress… . Who is a rock save our God?’
“Jesus is the rock on which we must build our hope of salvation; any other foundation will be as the sand upon which the foolish man built his house; ’and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell; and great was the fall of it.’
“The limpet is wiser; it never trusts to the shifting sand, but holds firmly to the immovable rock. Be like it in resisting all attempts whether of human or spiritual foes, to drag you from your Rock.”
“Papa,” said Max, slowly and with some hesitation. “I wish to do so— I think it is my settled purpose— but I— I feel afraid that sometime I may let go. I’m a careless, heedless fellow you know, and— and I’m afraid I may forget to hold fast to Jesus, and be overcome by some sudden and great temptation.”
“There is danger of that, my boy,” the captain returned with feeling, “yet I should have greater fear for you if I heard you talk in a self-confident and boasting spirit. Trusting in ourselves we are not safe, but trusting in Jesus we are. We are safe only while we cling to our sure foundation, the Rock Christ Jesus; but our greatest security is in the joyful fact that he holds us fast and will never let us go; if we have indeed given ourselves to him.
“He says, ’My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.’”
“Such sweet words, papa, aren’t they?” Lulu said softly.
“Yes, words that have been an untold comfort and support to many of God’s dear children on their way Zionward. The sword of the Spirit with which they have fought Satan’s lying assertion that they might yet be lost in spite of having fled for refuge to Him who died on Calvary.”
“Is it those words the Bible means when it speaks of the sword of the Spirit, papa?” asked Max.
“Not those alone, but all the word of God. And in order to be prepared to wield that sword we must store our memories with the word, we must hide it in our hearts. David says, ’Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.’
“Christ is our pattern; we must strive to follow his example in all things; and it was with the sword of the Spirit he repelled every temptation of the devil there in the wilderness— beginning each reply to the evil suggestions with ‘It is written.’”
“That is why you have us learn so many Bible verses, papa?”
“Yes; open the Bible lying on the table there, Max, and turn to the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy.”
Max did so, then read, by his father’s direction, the sixth and seventh verses.
“And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”
“I think you obey that command, papa,” said Lulu; “indeed I think you try to obey every command in God’s word.”
“I do,” he replied, “and I want my children to follow my example in that. In the eleventh chapter of the same book the command is repeated and these words are added, ’That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.’
“Speaking of the law, the testimony, the statutes, the commandments of the Lord, the psalmist tells us that, ’in keeping of them there is great reward.’
“True happiness is known by none but those who are at peace with God; but living in the light of his countenance, one may be full of joy even in the midst of great earthly tribulation.
“Ah, my darlings, I can wish nothing better for you than that you may thus live!”
At that moment Violet joined them.
“The babies were unusually wakeful and troublesome to-night,” she remarked, “but have at last fallen asleep and so released mamma from attendance upon them.”
“To our great content,” added her husband, gently putting Lulu off his knee and rising to give his wife a seat, while Max sprang up and gallantly placed a chair for her; selecting the most comfortable an
d placing it close beside his father’s.
She thanked him with one of her sweetest smiles, the captain remarking, “Max was too quick for me that time.”
“Like his father, he is extremely polite and attentive to ladies,” said Violet. “How cosy you are here! and you two children have been having a pleasant time, no doubt, with papa all to yourselves.”
“We have missed you, my dear,” said her husband; “at least I may speak for myself.”
“And would have been glad if you could have come to us sooner,” added Max.
“Have you been laying plans for the entertainment of our expected guests who are to keep New Year’s day with us?” she asked.
“No, my dear; your help will be needed in that,” replied her husband.
“Can’t we have some charades again?” asked Lulu.
“I see no objection,” answered her father, “provided something new can be thought of.”
“Misunderstand, I think might do for one,” said Max.
“Yes, Max, I think that might be very good,” Violet said; “and perhaps madman would do for another.”
“We’ll need several words for our charades, I think,” said Lulu, “and a number for the sports at Fairview.”
“But fortunately we are not responsible for the entertainment there,” remarked Violet pleasantly.
“No,” said the captain, “and I think we will dismiss thought for our own for the present. It is time now for evening worship. Max you may ring for the servants.”
As usual the captain went into Lulu’s room for a bit of good night chat with her, about the time she was ready for bed.
“Papa,” she said, nestling close in his arms. “I have been thinking more about the kind of year this has been to me, and oh I think I must always remember it as a good one because in it I have learned to love Jesus! I know I have done some very wrong things even since I begun to try to be his servant,” she went on, hanging her head in shame and contrition, “but O papa I do love him and want to serve him all my life! How glad I am that he is so loving and forgiving, and that he says he will never let any one pluck me out of his hand!”
