Chapter VI: Sunday Morning

"YOU'D better! Sall, let that alone! What are you after, Will? Always teasing somebody. I never did see such children for quarrelling and mischief. Have done!"

Mrs. Gardiner dragged two struggling children apart, and shook them by turns.

"Plaguing one another, and making baby cry! Now you'll just keep quiet and hold your tongue, or you'll get it again."

This was the way in which Sunday morning began at Rose Cottage.

John Gardiner had not left his bed yet; nor Bess, the elder girl, who earned enough in the factory to clothe herself and pay for her board, and who counted herself at sixteen an independent young woman, free from control. Jem, Sally, and Will ought to have been now starting for the Sunday school; but dressing was barely accomplished, and breakfast had not yet been thought of. Little Tom and the baby were in night-dresses still; and Mrs. Gardiner hurried to and fro distractedly.

"Well, it's no good driving and scurrying," she said at length. "I shall just keep you all at home to-day."

Sally and Will set up a shout of approval; and Jem only remarked, "We shan't get tickets for the school-feast."

"If you like to eat a bit of bread quick, and have some milk and be off, I'm sure I don't care," said Mrs. Gardiner.

And this was the saddest part of the matter, that neither parents nor children cared. Even the thought of the school-feast did not decide Jem to follow out his mother's suggestion.

With the coming of Sunday morning there came, in the Gardiner household, no loving thoughts of the great Father in heaven; no wish to worship at the footstool of the King; no desire to ask pardon of that gentle Redeemer Who had shed His blood for them; no remembrance of the Holy Spirit, Who is promised as a Divine Gift to every one that will earnestly ask.

There was nothing of all this. John was only pleased to lie lazily in bed the whole morning; and Betsy's thoughts were on the smoking hot dinner which had to be provided. Bess, the elder girl, presently appearing in a slovenly dress and curl-papers, busied herself with putting some finishing touches to the gaudy cheap costume which she meant to don later in the day; and the children played and quarrelled, and thought how they might best find amusement.

Lounging! Eating! Dressing! Amusing themselves! This was the Gardiner notion of how to keep Sunday.

The sweet Church bells might ring, ring, invitingly; but the Gardiners could not reply, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the House of the Lord." They were only glad of an opportunity for self-indulgence.

"Mother," Bess said in her rough careless tones, some minutes after coming into the kitchen, "what sort of people have come next door?"

"How should I know?" Mrs. Gardiner asked. "They've only been here three days."

"They look to me as stuck-up as possible," said Bess. "I don't believe we shall like them."

"Well, I only know I wish you were more like that Dunn girl," said Betsy Gardiner, with shortness. "She does treat her mother civilly; and that's more than you do."

Bess gave her head a scornful toss.

"You weren't home till I don't know when night. And I know who you were with, too. It's no good me interfering, for you won't stand it, and you'll choose your own friends, whatever anybody says. But I can tell you, Bess, if father hears you are taking up with those people, there'll be a row. I know it quite well."

Bess's freckled face, with its light-coloured fringe, wore a very unpleasant expression.

"The Jones' will board me any time I choose," she said proudly. "I needn't stay here."

"And you'd leave your own home and go to strangers!" Mrs. Gardiner burst into angry tears.

"The Jones' aren't strangers to me. I'm not going to be bothered and meddled with, I can tell you, mother!"

Poor unhappy girl! And poor unhappy mother! Hot words passed between the two, and Bess walked off in a huff, while Mrs. Gardiner sat and cried.

What a contrast to this scene might have been found next door, only just beyond the thin dividing wall.

Breakfast was over in good time; everybody having come down early, looking clean, bright, and happy, in neat fresh attire. Dunn, wearing his "Sunday best" suit, and also his "Sunday best" face of quiet content, sat near the door, with Susie on his knee.

Usually Dick and Susie were off to Sunday school at this hour, but having only just come to the place, they did not yet know about the hours of school. True, Mr. Wilmot had called at Woodbine Cottage, and as a rule his plan was to secure at once the children for Sunday school. But there had been much to talk about in connection with Nancy's narrow escape, and doubtless Mr. Wilmot's own mind had been slightly pre-occupied. Somehow the subject had not been referred to.

"It don't matter for just once. We'll ask somebody at Church, and you can both go in the afternoon," Susan Dunn said.

"I shouldn't wonder if there'll be a Bible Class I can go to as well," remarked Nancy, who was busily washing up the breakfast things. She had quite recovered from the fright of her narrow escape, and was as rosy and pretty as ever.

"Shouldn't wonder if there is," said Dunn. "You'll miss your old class, my girl."

"Yes, father, very much," the girl said, with a sigh. "And a good many things beside."

But she was much too busy to stand still, and indulge melancholy recollections.

Sometimes, when they could manage it, the Dunns all went to Church together in the morning, Dunn contenting himself with a cold Sunday dinner, that Susan might be free; and that was the plan for to-day. Susan always took care that he should have something extra nice, though cold, in return for this self-denial; and the vegetables, being prepared beforehand, were cooked after their return.

Now and then they would all go together in the evening also. If Dick or Susie seemed tired, however, or disinclined for the second service, then Susan or Nancy would remain at home. The children were really too young for both services, in addition to Sunday school, yet they often begged to go. For they had been brought up to look upon Church-going not only as a duty, but as a happiness. And though there was much that they could not understand, yet they did clearly understand that people came together in Church for the purpose of united worship and praise of God, and united prayer for others as well as for themselves.

These thoughts must surely have been in Dunn's mind as he sat with Susie on his knee, and Dick by his side; for after hearing the two repeat some hymns, he said suddenly—

"We shan't be in the old Church to-day, Susie. But we shall all be doing the same here as they'll be doing there—saying the very same words to God. It's nice to think of."

"Will we have the same hymns, father?" asked Susie.

"No, that's not likely. But the same prayers. It's wonderful to remember the thousands and thousands who'll be asking the very same things of God presently all through England, and in many other parts of the world."

"And God always hears, don't He, father?" little Dick observed.

"He always hears real prayer, Dick. I'm afraid there's lots of people go to Church who let the clergyman say the prayers, and don't join in themselves,—don't really mean to ask anything of God. And some even say the words aloud, and never think of the sense. But that's not prayer at all."

"I do try to think," said Susie. "Only there's a lot of words I can't understand."

"Well, you needn't try to pray what you don't understand, Susie. You're such a little thing yet. And there's one prayer you always know when it comes,—'Our Father, which art in Heaven.'"

"Isn't it a good thing that comes so often?" said Dick. "That's the prayer the Lord Jesus made for us, isn't it, father?"

"For us and for everybody," said Dunn.

Dick looked thoughtful.

"And the more you try, the more you'll understand the other prayers, too," said Dunn. "It isn't hard when something comes about asking God to forgive us all our sins and naughtinesses, for Jesus' sake; and when we ask God to bless the Queen, and to help people who are sick and unhappy. Why, there's lots of things even you and Dick can pray in Church, like the rest of the people, Susie. And most commonly, there's one hymn, at least, that you can join in."