Missy | Page 7

up to the time Missy
undressed and said her prayers. Some special sweetness seemed to have
crept into saying prayers; our Lord Jesus seemed very personal and
very close as she whispered to Him a postlude:
"I will fear no evil, for Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I'll
dwell in Thy house forever, O Lord--Amen."
For a time she lay open-eyed in her little white bed. A flood of
moonlight came through the window to her pillow. She felt that it was a
shining benediction from our Lord Himself. And indeed it may have
been. Gradually her eyes closed. She smiled as she slept.
The grace of God continued to be there when she awoke. It seemed an
unusual morning. The sun was brighter than on ordinary mornings; the
birds outside were twittering more loudly; even the lawnmower which
black Jeff was already rolling over the grass had assumed a peculiarly
agreeable clatter. And though, at breakfast, father grumbled at his eggs
being overdone, and though mother complained that the laundress
hadn't come, and though Aunt Nettie's head was still aching, all these
things, somehow, seemed trivial and of no importance.
Missy could scarcely wait to get her dusting and other little "chores"

done, so that she might go to the piano.
However, she hadn't got half-way through "One Sweetly Solemn
Thought" before her mother appeared.
"Missy! what in the world do you mean? I've told you often enough
you must finish your practising before strumming at other things."
Strumming!
But Missy said nothing in defence. She only hung her head. Her mother
went on:
"Now, I don't want to speak to you again about this. Get right to your
exercises--I hope I won't have to hide that hymn-book!"
Mother's voice was stern. The laundress's defection and other domestic
worries may have had something to do with it. But Missy couldn't
consider that; she was too crushed. In stricken silence she attacked the
"exercises."
Not once during that day had she a chance to let out, through music,
any of her surcharged devotionalism. Mother kept piling on her one
errand after another. Mother was in an unwonted flurry; for the next
day was the one she and Aunt Nettie were going to Junction City and
there were, as she put it, "a hundred and one things to do."
Through all those tribulations Missy reminded herself of "Thy rod and
Thy staff." She didn't yet know just what these aids to comfort were;
but the Psalmist had said of them, "they shall comfort me." And,
somehow, she did find comfort. That is what Faith does.
And that night, after she had said her prayers and got into bed, once
more the grace of God rode in on the moonlight to rest upon her pillow.
But the next afternoon, when she had to kiss mother good-bye, a great
tide of loneliness rushed over Missy, and all but engulfed her. She had
always known she loved mother tremendously, but till that moment she

had forgotten how very much. She had to concentrate hard upon "Thy
rod and Thy staff" before she was able to blink back her tears. And
mother, noticing the act, commented on her little daughter's bravery,
and blinked back some tears of her own.
In the excitement of packing up to go to grandma's house, Missy to a
degree forgot her grief. She loved to go to grandma's house. She liked
everything about that house: the tall lilac hedge that separated the yard
from the Curriers' yard next door; the orchard out in back where grew
the apples which sometimes gave her an "upset"; the garden where
grandpa spent hours and hours "cultivating" his vegetables; and
grandma's own particular garden, which was given over to tall gaudy
hollyhocks, and prim rows of verbena, snap-dragon, phlox, spicy pinks,
heliotrope, and other flowers such as all grandmothers ought to have.
And she liked the house itself, with its many unusual and delightful
appurtenances: no piano--an organ in the parlour, the treadles of which
you must remember to keep pumping, or the music would wheeze and
stop; the "what-not" in the corner, its shelves filled with fascinating
curios--shells of all kinds, especially a big conch shell which, held
close to the ear, still sang a song of the sea; the marble-topped
centre-table, and on it the interesting "album" of family photographs,
and the mysterious contrivance which made so lifelike the double
"views" you placed in the holder; and the lamp with its shade dripping
crystal bangles, like huge raindrops off an umbrella; and the crocheted
"tidies" on all the rocking-chairs, and the carpet-covered footstools
sitting demurely round on the floor, and the fringed lambrequin on the
mantel, and