Ursula's Beginnings - Chapter 1

I.

HEARING OF THE WORD .

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II.

HOME.

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III.

A CROSS .

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IV.

THE HEAVY END

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V.

TURNING BACK.

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VI.

COUSIN MERCY.

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VII.

MASON’S PITS .

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VIII.

A NEW BEGINNING

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IX.

THE TOLL-GATE HOME

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X.

ONE MORE STEP

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. 95

XI.

ELVA’S BEGINNING

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. 103

XII.

ROXY’S CHRISTMAS

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. 114

XIII.

GIVING

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. 122

XIV.

GROWING

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XV.

SAFE IN THE WAY .

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XVI.

AT VENTNOR

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7

URSULA’S BEGINNINGS. CHAPTER I. HEARING OF THE WORD.

the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.” A It was strange how persistently these words would run through the mind of Ursula Chapin at this time—the words, and the ND

scene in which they had become a part to her memory. Today she was sitting almost at the very top of Mably’s “hill pasture” around her upheaved or blackened stumps, evidences of man’s contest with the primeval monarchs of the forest behind her the hill bore its waving crown of green as a crest below and around there were other hills, with narrow valley-lines between, and fields whose varying shades of summer color were lined off one from another by the duller hue of the low-built stone walls from the “hardheads” so abundant in that mountain region. The basket of luscious-looking blackberries by her side and her own stained fingers testified as to what had been her business for the past afternoon hours. But that other scene, it was so different, so unlike this, that she could scarcely realize that only eight weeks of time separated her from it. As she leaned back against a fallen tree and with half-closed eyes went over again the ever-recurring picture, it seemed months since the noisy clang of the house-bell in her beautiful seminary home had summoned her and her classmates to the lecture-room for their last evening gathering with their beloved Miss Elno. They were not of the graduating class, and most of them expected to be found again in the familiar places at the opening of the fall term but before that time Miss Elno would have sailed for foreign lands to take up again her loved work of teaching, but with pupils of a darker hue and differing language, to whom she would go as a messenger of the Master. So this last evening here the subdued and shaded light fell through soft crystal globes upon the young faces that were more earnest than their wont in the consciousness that they were standing at one of the “sacred places” of life. There had been many earnest words spoken by this teacher in the many gatherings of the year but tonight her quiet tones had only a very simple and plain message for them.

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U R S U L A’ S B E G I N N I N G S .

“I have asked Him long and often,” she said, “what word I could leave you in parting, and He has shown me it must be only of Himself.” Then she read to them the first thirty-seven verses of the first chapter of the Gospel of John, closing with the verse so running in Ursula’s mind today. And as she had read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” or, “That was the true Light” or “the record of John,” and his confession and testimony, even down to the call of the two, this girl with her great longing and love for everything beautiful, that had met with so much of denial in the plain surroundings of her father’s home, let the words drift in and through her memory along with the soft lights, the tinted shadows from the crimson hues of carpet and desk furniture, the gilded backs of some of the choice volumes in the carved walnut cases before her— the whole forming one complete picture of the dwelling-place of a refined and cultivated nature. For this room with all its contents had been the memorial gift of a good man, and his widow had pleased herself in sparing neither pains nor purse to make it an educating influence of the beautiful for the young girls who should be educated here. To many of these girls this room was only a reminder of their own homes, but to Ursula Chapin it had been the partial satisfaction of some hitherto denied craving, and in her school year, if it had been possible for her to find it vacant for a half-hour, and to remain alone in it, she had been happy in indulging there her most ambitious dreams. Miss Elno had been another of her favorites, though she could not quite understand her. It was not that she wondered as some did “why Miss Elno, with all her gifts and talents, was willing to throw them all away on Africa” Ursula’s enthusiastic nature could understand self-denial, but the rare humility, the living to do good, that was beyond her yet. But her love for the speaker as well as her delight in her surroundings had stamped the whole more indelibly than even she knew upon her memory. Many times since she had gone over the whole. “If you have accepted Christ for a teacher,” the soft voice had said, “he will show you of the Father. He has left this teaching in his written Word which we call the Bible and he has promised that the Holy Spirit ‘shall take of mine and shall show it unto you.’ As you learn your friend through the epistle she has written you, so you must learn the truths and wishes of God through study of the Bible

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and the teachings of the Spirit. That teaching will grow plainer and more precious to you the more you ask for it, until it becomes the voice of a friend leading and guiding you. And the loving hearts of girls know what a friend may effect in their lives.” There were a few of these girls who understood well these thoughts, more who passed them by as “beyond them,” a few who, like Ursula, retained the form of the words in their memory until the Spirit should breathe life into them. This was all that was said of the first thoughts of the chapter. The soft tones took up then the last verse read, the one that so haunted Ursula today: “And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.” “It was Andrew and probably John, these two,” Miss Elno said. “They were plain men working hard for their daily bread, accustomed to rising early, even if they did not toil all night, and going out in small, unhandy boats to catch what fish they might in the Sea of Galilee. They snatched their breakfasts or dinners or suppers as they could, and doubtless they were generally of the plainest and sometimes scantiest. They knew what it was to be tired in every bone, to be wet through, to suffer hunger, and they were called from all this and from their obscurity to the service of the Son of God and to the immortality of the gospel history. “My dear girls, we do not always know from what plain work God may call us to our best gifts and highest honors. We may do our everyday work so well that God shall say, ‘Well done,’ and call us up higher. “But it did not look much like honor to these two who were called that day in Palestine. They thought only of love. The divine voice called, and they followed. That voice called them on through many years after, through perils and stripes and imprisoning, tradition says even by the bloody cross. Doubtless the human nature in them often failed by the way. They made mistakes, committed sins, halted, and repented. But they could never quite forget the hour in which the voice of Jesus had called them and they had first followed him. “Dear young Christian heart, this is all you have to do today or through life: simply follow Jesus as you find him in his written Word. My dear girls, this is my parting word to you. As one by one the recording angel writes down your names in the finished book of human life, may he be able to record against the completed list, ‘And they followed Jesus.’ ” “This is the last time we hear Miss Elno, I suppose,” said Clara

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U R S U L A’ S B E G I N N I N G S .

Stanley, as they passed out into the hall. “What a pity she will throw herself away so as to go off to that heathen Africa.” Ursula nodded. “I wonder if that is not what the friends of Andrew and John thought when they left their daily work and went away as followers of the almost unknown Jesus?” “Perhaps so who could wonder? I like to see things plain and open before me, like expecting to go to Europe, for instance, in September with Uncle John and Aunt Flora.” Their ways parted here. “I never expect to see anything quite like that,” thought Ursula, a little bitterly, stopping at the large end window to look out on the beautiful grounds. “Isn’t the moonlight lovely!” She knew it was Lottie Ransom at her elbow, and answered, “Yes, indeed,” more quietly than she felt. She greatly admired the Senior Lottie. “Shall we go out on the grounds a few minutes if Miss Wing will give us permission?” she continued, and Ursula readily consented. The full moon was pouring a flood of light through the soft summer air, and lay in shining sheets or broken outlines upon the velvet lawn covered with its silvery haze of dew. On the gravel walks where the two girls loitered and talked the shadows were deeper, and often the leafy branches almost met over their heads. “I can almost envy you,” Lottie said, turning with a lingering glance from the large pile of gray stone that had been her home for four years. “I have enjoyed so much here, and now it is all in the past, while you have yet more to look forward to.” “Yes, indeed, I am thankful tonight that I am not a Senior,” Ursula replied. “I shall be very sorry to be through here. To go to boardingschool has been the dream of my life, and when three years ago father said I might come here for two years if I could fit myself, I cannot begin to tell you how happy I was.” “I think you have made me understand that a little,” Lottie returned with her grave smile. “I never talked so freely to any one else,” Ursula answered with a little blush “but you are so good I cannot help it.” “I am not good at all,” the Senior replied more quickly than her wont, “and I believe I dread leaving the shelter of this seminary even more than you will.” “But you are going to such a pleasant home, right in a large place where you can find so much to do,” protested Ursula. “I suppose every place brings its own temptations, and I am not

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afraid but that God can go with me to one place as well as another only my friends at home are not Christians, and do not see things just as I do so sometimes I get discouraged, which is useless of course. But what good word did Miss Elno give you tonight? Something worth remembering?” “She talked with us about being followers of Jesus.” “Followers! of course. She did not say that we were to be leaders of him then?” “Leaders?” exclaimed Ursula in surprise. “Yes that is the way it seems to me sometimes about our own plans for life, as though we could not wait for them to be made plain to us, but liked to take them into our own hands to manage, and hurry matters in our impatience.” “Wouldn’t you have any plans about life then?” asked Ursula. “I wish I could say that I really had no plan about life other than just what He wished but I am afraid I cannot. Now I think Miss Elno has really such a mind, to work out His plans.” “But she has her plan, this of going to Africa.” “Of course it is right for her to make that.” “But do you think she could give it up if she saw she ought to— happily, I mean?” “Yes, I do.” “But she prays over it she told me she did,” persisted Ursula. “It would not be a very good plan if she could not pray about it.” “But what would be the use of praying for a thing if you could not expect to get it?” “You must expect it.” “And then if he says, No?” “Be just as willing to take the ‘no’ as ‘yes’ for your answer.” “I never could do that!” Ursula answered emphatically. “When want a thing, I want it with all my might.” “Then you would rather be a leader of Jesus than a follower, after all?” “Why, Lottie!” “Think of it, dear, and see if it does not amount to the same thing. Miss Elno told me what she was going to talk with you about, so I know. And to me it is very pleasant to think that after that call Andrew and John did not have to decide what way they should take, or where or when, but only to follow as they were led, as long as Jesus was with them.”

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U R S U L A’ S B E G I N N I N G S .

“But do not you suppose they wanted to go a little differently at times?” “I asked Miss Elno that, and she said she presumed so, often they did not lose their human nature but the Bible does not think it worth while to detail that. Jesus knew his followers would always be a halting, failing company but if they are followers really and truly, he knows they will not stray far.” “And perhaps before that they had had plans of their own,” Ursula said. “Very likely.” “They had planned to be rich perhaps, to own boats of their own, to make pleasant little Palestine homes for their wives and children.” “Perhaps so.” “But we never hear that they did. After they became followers the only things that are told of them are what they did for the Leader.” “That is what they lived for, you remember.” “It seems to me, in one sense, such a grand thing,” Ursula went on still quietly. “I would like to have one aim or wish of my life so strong that it would rule everything in my thoughts or work. I have often envied artists or musicians or philanthropists even, who were so absorbed in their ideas as to be able to forget everything else.” “I understand that feeling.” “But it must be very different when the feeling does not come from the inside I mean, isn’t natural. Now these two must have had everything to learn.” “ ‘The love of Christ constraineth us,’ ” quoted Lottie. “I know but when it comes to everyday working I do not think it is easy to think of that. Now, for myself, I have a plan for my life, and have had ever since I can remember.” “To be a teacher?” “Yes I want to be a teacher: to study this next year and be graduated here, then find a place and work in it year after year, studying and knowing more all the time, and sending out good Christian boys or girls, or both, to make good men and women in the world, strong and helpful. Now, don’t you think I may ask for a blessing upon such a work?” “I most certainly do.” “And will not I do it better for having it so plain before me?” “Yes.” “Some of the girls are always talking about when they will have a

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home of their own, and the things they will do then, but I never think of that. I would rather be a worker for others.” “You are not very domestic in your tastes,” Lottie said, smiling. “Not a bit of it,” with a shrug. “Mother has often said she wished I did like such things, but I do not, though I have had enough of them to do. My home is not just like yours.” “There is always plenty to do in mine.” “Yes, but it is so different. You have two good girls and never have to do kitchen work, and our house is mostly all kitchen that is, I mean that kind of work, sweeping and such and nobody to do it but mother and myself, and four boys and two little girls to sew for.” “I almost envy you so many there. It is very lonely being an only child.” “I should not like that.” “And does your mother do all the work, now that you are away?” “Mostly, yes but she wished me to come.” “She will have a warm welcome for your coming home, I think.” “Yes, and I mean to do a great deal this summer to save her, and to help ahead. I like to be driven for a while, and do a great deal, and feel of some use in the world.” “It is the quiet following then you do not like so well. And yet in all the years that Andrew and John were disciples how few days’ work is specially mentioned.” “I had not thought of that.” “The others of course were filled in, with little things probably, their daily bread perhaps.” “I must try and remember that. But I fear up in my home I should never have a single day that would have anything in it worth recording.” “You must not feel so hopeless.” “I cannot help it my home is in a valley among the tops of hills.” “But you have neighbors?” “You would hardly think so. A few scattered farmhouses and a sawmill and toll-gate near is all.” “How far from the village?” “A mile by the road. The village has one bleak-looking white church, one old square hotel, a store and post office together, a blacksmith’s shop, two or three small mills, and a hamlet of houses.” “But you have all out of doors, beautiful views and a pure air.” “Plenty of those the hotel has quite a number of boarders in the summer.”

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U R S U L A’ S B E G I N N I N G S .

“Of course you know everybody, and there are some sick, some mourners, and some who have not learned of your Master among these neighbors.” “Oh, yes, I presume so.” “Then, Ursula Chapin, I think you can find plenty to do even in your quiet home.” “I presume so but I am glad I am only going to stay ten weeks. But, Lottie, don’t think me all selfish. My greatest longing, to get an education and to be a teacher, is that I may help the others at home. There is a small mortgage on the farm, and that worries father and I would like to hire a good girl for mother, and I want the children to have a chance for better things in life. There are so many good things, and father and mother always seem so denied in some way. I want them to have and enjoy, and I want to do so much for them.” “I hope you will, dear, but with Christ for your Leader, so close that you will feel his hand.” The warning-bell rang, and in quiet the two girls sauntered slowly up the leaf-shadowed walk, up the stone steps, and in at a side-door of the large gray building, and then, with loving kiss and “good night,” parted for their different ways in a quiet, reverent mood. And it was this picture, these words, that Ursula Chapin on the hillside had been going over in the quiet hush of this late summer afternoon.