The Potato Child and Others

The Potato Child and Others

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Title: The Potato Child & Others
Author: Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5662] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 5, 2002]

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The Potato Child & Others

By Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury

If only our help could begin as soon as our hindrance does

Contents

The Potato Child A Story That Never Ends A Nazareth Christmas

The Potato Child

It was certain that Elsie had a very hard and solitary life.
When Miss Amanda had selected her from among the girls at "The
Home," the motherly matron felt sorry.
"She is a tender-hearted little thing, and a kind word goes a great way
with Elsie."
Miss Amanda looked at the matron as if she were speaking Greek, and
said nothing. It was quite plain that few words, either kind or unkind,
would pass Miss Amanda's lips. But "The Home" was more than full,
and Miss Amanda Armstrong was a person well known as the leading
dressmaker in the city, a person of some money; not obliged to work
now if she didn't wish to. "If cold, she is at least perfectly just," they all
said.

So Elsie went to work for Miss Amanda, and lived in the kitchen. She
waited on the door, washed the dishes, cleaned the vegetables, and set
the table (Miss Amanda lived alone, and ate in the kitchen). Every
Friday she swept the house. Her bed was in a little room in the back
attic.
When she came, Miss Amanda handed her a dress and petticoat, and a
pair of shoes. "These are to last six months," she said, "and see you
keep yourself clean." She gave her also one change of stockings and
underclothes.
"Here is your room; you do not need a light to go to bed by, and it is
not healthy to sleep under too many covers."
It wasn't so much what Miss Amanda did to her, for she never struck
her, nor in any way ill-treated her; nor was it so much what she said, for
she said almost nothing. But she said it all in commands, and the loving
little Elsie was just driven into herself.
She had had a darling mother, full of love and tenderness, and Elsie
would say to herself, "I must not forget the things mama told me, 'Love
can never die, and kind words can never die.'" But she had no one to
love, and she never heard any kind words; so she was a bit worried. "I
shall forget how kind words sound, and I shall forget how to love,"
sighed the little girl.
She used to long for a doll or cat or something she could call her own
and talk to. She asked Miss Amanda, who said "No." She added, "I
have no money to give for such foolishness as a doll, and a cat would
eat its head off."
Miss Amanda had been blessed with no little-girl time. When she was
young, she always had been forced to work hard, and she thought it was
no worse for Elsie than it had been for herself. I don't suppose it was;
but one looking in on these two could not but feel for both of them.
Elsie would try to talk to herself a little at night, but it was cheerless.
Then she would lift up her knee, and draw the sheet about it for a hood,
and call it a little girl. She named it Nancy Pullam, and would try to
love that; but it almost broke her