A tap at the door; “May I come in?” Enter visitor No. 1. And then they follow in quick succession.
Finally, Abigail kindly undertakes to tidy up my papers “without disturbing a single thing!”
Next day (if still wet) you repeat from * to *, as they tell us in the crochet patterns.
I had just got settled to work on the missing-and-now-discovered letter, when Abigail tapped and entered.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, ma’am, but could you spare me one of those Missionary books?” pointing to a shelf containing a selection of the annual reports of religious and philanthropic societies.
Now for some time past I had been trying to interest Abigail—who is a church member—in foreign missions. I rather prided myself that I had done it tactfully, not forcing it upon her, but just arousing her interest by taking her to attractive meetings. I found that she had even gone to one on her own account. Hence I was naturally pleased to find that she was anxious to follow up the subject; but as I did not consider an ordinary official report, with its small print, and balance-sheets and monotonous lists of subscribers, the type of literature best calculated to enthuse the novice, I reached down a small volume of bright stories of girl-life in India, well illustrated and prettily got-up.
“Here is just the very thing,” I said. But she took it reluctantly, dubiously, turning it about and looking it over in a dissatisfied manner.
“No,” she said, “it’s one like that I want,” pointing to a solid tome issued by one of the most revered of our missionary societies. “Can I have that one?”
“Certainly,” I acquiesced, though it was an out-of-date report, and I knew the other book would have suited her better.
“Yes, that’s just right,” she said cheerfully, as I handed it to her. “That other’d be too thin; it’s to go under the back leg of the side table in the kitchen, where the stone floor’s broken. I’ve used one like this regular since last summer, but it’s getting shabby. I thought a new one would smarten us up a bit.”
I remember on one occasion being at a missionary meeting for young people, at which there was a remarkably fine speaker from the foreign mission field. He said that if any felt they had a call to take part in the work in any way, he would be pleased to see them at the close. When the meeting was over, a small boy approached the platform. “Please can I speak to you, sir?”