Chapter VI: The House-Raising.1

"In your patience possess ye your souls."--_Luke_ xxi. 19.

It grew colder and colder in Nettie's garret--or else she grew thinner and felt it more. She certainly thought it was colder. The snow came, and piled a thick covering on the roof, and stopped up some of the chinks in the clapboarding with its white caulking; and that made the place a little better: then the winds from off the snow-covered country were keen and bitter.

Footnote 1: A festival common in America on the completion of a
house.

One morning Nettie went to Barry secretly in his room, and asked him to bring the pail of water from the spring for her. Barry had no mind to the job.

"Why can't mother do it," he said, "if you can't?"

"Mother is busy and hasn't a minute. I always do it for her."

"Well, why can't you go on doing it? You're accustomed to it, you see, and I don't like going out so early," said Barry, stretching himself.

"I would, and I wouldn't ask you, only, Barry, somehow I don't think I'm quite strong lately, and I can hardly bring the pail--it's so heavy to me. I have to stop and rest ever so many times before I can get to the house with it."

"Well, if you stop and rest, I suppose it won't hurt you," said Barry. "_I_ should want to stop and rest too, myself."

His little sister was turning away, giving it up, when she was met by her father, who stepped in from the entry. He looked red with anger.

"You take the pail, and go get the water!" said he to his son; "and you hear me! Don't you let Nettie bring in another pailful when you're at home, or I'll turn you out of the house. You lazy scoundrel! You don't deserve the bread you eat. Would you let her work for you, when you are as strong as sixty?"

Barry's grumbled words in answer were so very unsatisfactory, that Mr. Mathieson in a rage advanced towards him with uplifted fist; but Nettie sprang in between, and very nearly caught the blow that was meant for her brother.

"Please, father, don't!" she cried;--"please, father, don't be angry! Barry didn't think--he didn't----"

"Why didn't he?" said Mr. Mathieson. "Great lazy rascal! He wants to be flogged."

"Oh, don't!" said Nettie: "he didn't know why I asked him, or he wouldn't have refused me."

"Why did you, then?"

"Because it made my back ache so to bring it--I couldn't help asking him."

"Did you ever ask him before?"

"Never mind, please, father!" said Nettie, sweetly. "Just don't think about me, and don't be angry with Barry. It's no matter now."

"Who does think about you? Your mother don't, or she would have seen to this before."

"Mother didn't know my back ached. Father, you know she hasn't a minute: she is so busy getting breakfast in time; and she didn't know I wasn't strong enough. Father, don't tell her, please, I asked Barry. It would worry her so. Please don't, father."

"_You_ think of folks, anyhow. You're a regular peacemaker!" exclaimed Mr. Mathieson, as he turned away and left her. Nettie stood still, the flush paling on her cheek, her hand pressed to her side.

"Am I that?" she thought. "Shall I be that? O Lord, my Saviour, my dear Redeemer, send Thy peace here!" She was still in the same place and position when Barry came in again.

"It's wretched work!" he exclaimed, under his breath, for his father was in the next room. "It's as slippery as the plague going down that path to the water: it's no use to have legs, for you can't hold up. I'm all froze stiff with the water I've spilt on me!"

"I know it's very slippery," said Nettie.

"And then you can't get at the water when you're there, without stepping into it--it's filled chuck full of snow and ice all over the edge. It's the most wretched work!"

"I know it, Barry," said Nettie. "I am sorry you have to do it."

"Why did you make me do it, then?" said he angrily. "You got it your own way this time. But never mind; I'll be even with you for it."

"Barry," said his sister, "please do it just a little while for me, till I get stronger and don't mind; and as soon as ever I can I'll do it again. But you don't know how it made me ache all through, bringing the pail up that path."

"Stuff!" said Barry. And from that time, though he did not fail to bring the water in the morning, yet Nettie saw he owed her a grudge for it all the day afterward. He was almost always away with his father, and she had little chance to win him to better feeling.

So the winter slowly passed and the spring came. Spring months came, at least; and now and then, to be sure, a sweet spring day, when all nature softened; the sun shone mildly, the birds sang, the air smelt sweet with the opening buds.

"There's that house-raising to-morrow, Nettie," said Mrs. Mathieson; "it's been on my mind this fortnight past, and it kills me."

"Why, mother?"

"I know how it will be," said Mrs. Mathieson: "they'll have a grand set-to after they get it up, and your father'll be in the first of it; and I somehow feel as if it would be the finishing of him. I wish almost he'd get ill--or anything to keep him away. They make such a time after a house-raising."

"Oh, mother, don't wish that," said Nettie; but she began to think how it would be possible to withdraw her father from the frolic with which the day's business would be ended. Mr. Mathieson was a carpenter, and a fine workman, and always had plenty of work, and was much looked up to among his fellows.

Nettie began to think whether _she_ could make any effort to keep her father from the dangers into which he was so fond of plunging. Hitherto she had done nothing but pray for him: could she do anything more, with any chance of good coming of it? She thought and thought, and resolved that she must try. It did not look hopeful; there was little she could urge to lure Mr. Mathieson from his drinking companions; nothing except her own timid affection and the one other thing it was possible to offer him--a good supper. How to get that was not so easy; but she consulted with her mother.

Mrs. Mathieson said she used in her younger days to know how to make waffles[2], and Mr. Mathieson used to think they were the best things that ever were made: now, if Mrs. Moss, a neighbour, would lend her waffle-iron, and she could get a few eggs, she believed she could manage it still.

Footnote 2: _Waffles_, a species of sweet cake used on such
festivals in America.

"But we haven't the eggs, child," she said; "and I don't believe any power under heaven can get him to come away from that raising frolic."

Nor did Nettie. It was to no power _under_ heaven that she trusted. But she must use her means. She easily got the iron from Mrs. Moss. Then she borrowed the eggs from Madame Auguste, who in Lent-time always had them; then she watched with grave eyes, and many a heart-prayer the while, the mixing and making of the waffles.

"How do you manage the iron, mother?"

"Why, it is made hot," said Mrs. Mathieson, "very hot, and buttered; and then, when the batter is light, you pour it in and clap it together, and put it in the stove."

"But how can you pour it in, mother? I don't see how you can fill the iron."

"Why, you can't, child; you fill one half, and shut it together: and when it bakes it rises up and fills the other half. You'll see."

The first thing Nettie asked when she came home from school in the afternoon was, if the waffles were light?

She never saw any look better, Mrs. Mathieson said. "But I forgot, child, we ought to have cinnamon and white sugar to eat on them. It was so that your father used to admire them; they won't be waffles without sugar and cinnamon. I'm afraid he'll think----but I don't believe you'll get him home to think anything about them."

Mrs. Mathieson ended with a sigh. Nettie said nothing; she went round the room, putting it in particularly nice order, then set the table. When all that was right, she went up to her garret, and knelt down and prayed that God would take care of her and bless her errand. She put the whole matter in the Lord's hands; then she dressed herself in her hood and cloak, and went down to her mother. Mr. Mathieson had not come home to dinner, being busy with the house-raising; so they had had no opportunity to invite him, and Nettie was now on her way to do it.

"It's turned a bad afternoon; I'm afraid it ain't fit for you to go, Nettie."

"I don't mind," said Nettie. "Maybe I'll get some sugar and cinnamon, mother, before I come back."

"Well, you know where the raising is; it's out on the Shallonway road, on beyond Mrs. August's a good bit."

Nettie nodded and went out; and as the door closed on her grave, sweet little face, her mother felt a great strain on her heart. She would have been glad to relieve herself by tears, but it was a dry pain that would not be relieved so. She went to the window and looked out at the weather.

"Lord, Thy children guide and keep,
As with feeble steps they press
On the pathway rough and steep,
Through this weary wilderness.
Holy JESU, day by day
Lead us in the narrow way.

"There are stony ways to tread;
Give the strength we sorely lack.
There are tangled paths to thread;
Light us, lest we miss the track.
Holy JESU, day by day
Lead us in the narrow way."