Helen Consoles Katy

Chapter 7

“Oh, was I?” said her cousin. “Well, Katy, we won’t dispute that point, but I’ll tell you a story, if you like, about a girl I once knew, who wasn’t born neat.”
“Oh, do!” cried Katy, enchanted. Cousin Helen had done her good, already. She looked brighter and less listless than for days.
“This girl was quite young,” continued cousin Helen; “she was strong and active, and liked to run, and climb, and ride, and do all sorts of jolly things. One day something happened—an accident—and they told her that all the rest of her life she had got to lie on her back and suffer pain, and never walk any more, or do any of the things she enjoyed most.”
“Just like you and me!” whispered Katy, squeezing cousin Helen’s hand.
“Something like me; but not so much like you, because, you know, we hope you are going to get well one of these days. The girl didn’t mind it so much when they first told her, for she was so ill that she felt sure she should die. But when she got better, and began to think of the long life which lay before her, that was worse than ever the pain had been. She was so wretched, that she didn’t care what became of anything, or how anything looked. She had no Aunt Izzie to look after things, so her room soon got into a dreadful state. It was full of dust and confusion, and dirty spoons and phials of physic. She kept the blinds shut, and let her hair tangle every which way, and altogether was a dismal spectacle.
“This girl had a dear old father,” went on Cousin Helen, “who used to come every day and sit beside her bed. One morning he said to her:
“‘My daughter, I’m afraid you’ve got to live in this room for a long time. Now there’s one thing I want you to do for my sake.’
“‘What’s that?’ she asked, surprised to hear there was anything left which she could do for anybody.
“‘I want you to turn out all these physic bottles, and make your room pleasant and pretty for me to come and sit in. You see, I shall spend a good deal of my time here! Now I don’t like dust and darkness. I like to see flowers on the table, and sunshine in at the window. Will you do this to please me?’
“‘Yes,’ said the girl, but she gave a sigh, and I am afraid she felt as if it was going to be a dreadful trouble.
“‘Then, another thing,’ continued her father, ‘I want you to look pretty. Can’t nightgowns and wrappers be trimmed and made becoming just as much as dresses? A sick woman who isn’t neat is a disagreeable object. Do, to please me, send for something pretty, and let me see you looking nice again. I can’t bear to have my Helen turn into a slattern.’”
“Helen!” exclaimed Katy, with wide-open eyes, “was it you?”
“Yes,” said her cousin, smiling. “It was I though I didn’t mean to let the name slip out so soon. So, after my father was gone away, I sent for a looking-glass. Such a sight, Katy! My hair was a perfect mouse’s nest, and I had frowned so much that my forehead was all criss-crossed with lines of pain, till it looked like an old woman’s.”
Katy stared at cousin Helen’s smooth brow and glossy hair. “I can’t believe it,” she said, “your hair never could be rough.”
“Yes it was—worse, a great deal, than yours looks now. But that peep in the glass did me good. I began to think how selfishly I was behaving, and to desire to do better.
And after that, when the pain came on, I used to lie and keep my forehead smooth with my fingers, and try not to let my face show what I was enduring. So by and by the wrinkles wore away, and though I am a good deal older now, they have never come back.
“It was a great deal of trouble at first to have to think and plan to keep my room and myself looking nice. But after a while it grew to be a habit, and then it became easy. And the pleasure it gave my dear father repaid for all. He had been proud of his active, healthy girl, but I think she was never such a comfort to him as his sick one, lying there in her bed. My room was his favorite sitting-place, and he spent so much time there, that now the room, and everything in it, makes me think of him.”

There were tears in cousin Helen’s eyes as she ceased speaking. But Katy looked bright and eager. It seemed somehow to be a help, as well as a great surprise, that ever there should have been a time when cousin Helen was less perfect than she was now.
“Do you really think I could do so too?” she asked.
“Do what? Comb your hair?” Cousin Helen was smiling now.
“Oh no! Be nice and sweet and patient, and a comfort to people. You know what I mean.”
“I am sure you can, if you try.”
“But what would you do first?” asked Katy; who, now that her mind had grasped a new idea, was eager to begin.
“Well—first I would open the blinds, and make the room look a little less dismal. Are you taking all those medicines in the bottles now?”
“No—only that big one with the blue label.”
“Then you might ask Aunt Izzy to take away the others. And I’d get Clover to pick a bunch of fresh flowers every day for your table. By the way, I don’t see the little white vase.”
“No—it got broken the very day after you went away; the day I fell out of the swing,” said Katy, sorrowfully.
“Never mind, pet, don’t look so doleful. I know the tree those vases grow upon, and you shall have another. Then, after the room is made pleasant, I would have all my lesson-books fetched up, if I were you, and I would study a couple of hours every morning.”
“Oh!” cried Katy, making a wry face at the idea.
Cousin Helen smiled. “I know,” said she, “it sounds like dull work, learning geography and doing sums up here all by yourself. But I think if you make the effort you’ll be glad by and by. You won’t lose so much ground, you see—won’t slip back quite so far in your education. And then, studying will be like working at a garden, where things don’t grow easily. Every flower you raise will be a sort of triumph, and you will value it twice as much as a common flower which has cost no trouble.”
“Well,” said Katy, rather forlornly, “I’ll try. But it won’t be a bit nice studying without anybody to study with me. Is there anything else, cousin Helen?”
Just then the door creaked, and Elsie timidly put her head into the room.
“Oh, Elsie, run away!” cried Katy. “Cousin Helen and I are talking. Don’t come just now.”
Katy didn’t speak unkindly, but Elsie’s face fell, and she looked disappointed. She said nothing, however, but shut the door and stole away.
Cousin Helen watched this little scene without speaking. For a few minutes after Elsie was gone she seemed to be thinking.
“Katy,” she said at last, “you were saying just now, that one of the things you were sorry about was that while you were ill you could be of no use to the children. Do you know, I don’t think you have that reason for being sorry.”
“Why not?” said Katy, astonished.
“Because you can be of use. It seems to me that you have more of a chance with the children now, than you ever could have had when you were well, and flying about as you used. You might do almost anything you liked with them.”
“I can’t think what you mean,” said Katy, sadly. “Why, cousin Helen, half the time I don’t even know where they are, or what they are doing. And I can’t get up and go after them, you know.”
“But you can make your room such a delightful place, that they will want to come to you! Don’t you see, a sick person has one splendid chance—she is always on hand. Everybody who wants her knows just where to go. If people love her, she gets naturally to be the heart of the house.
“Once make the little ones feel that your room is the place of all others to come to when they are tired, or happy, or grieved, or sorry about anything, and that the Katy who lives there is sure to give them a loving reception—and the battle is won. For you know we never do people good by lecturing; only by living their lives with them, and helping a little here, and a little there, to make them better. And when one’s own life is laid aside for a while, as yours is now, that is the very time to take up other people’s lives, as we can’t do when we are scurrying and bustling over our own affairs. But I didn’t mean to preach a sermon. I’m afraid you’re tired.”
“No, I’m not a bit,” said Katy, holding cousin Helen’s hand tight in hers; “you can’t think how much better I feel. Oh, Cousin Helen, I will try!”
“It won’t be easy,” replied her cousin. “There will be days when your head aches, and you feel cross and fretted, and don’t want to think of any one but yourself. And there’ll be other days when Clover and the rest will come in, as Elsie did just now, and you will be doing something else, and will feel as if their coming was a bother. But you must recollect that every time you forget, and are impatient or selfish, you chill them and drive them farther away. They are loving little things, and are so sorry for you now, that nothing you do makes them angry. But by and by they will get used to having you sick, and if you haven’t won them as friends, they will grow away from you as they get older.”
Just then Dr. Carr came in.
“Oh, Papa! you haven’t come to take cousin Helen, have you?” cried Katy.
“Indeed I have,” said her father. “I think the big invalid and the little invalid have talked quite long enough. Cousin Helen looks tired.”
For a minute, Katy felt just like crying. But she choked back the tears. “My first lesson in patience,” she said to herself, and managed to give a faint, watery smile as Papa looked at her.
“That’s right, dear,” whispered cousin Helen, as she bent forward to kiss her. “And one last word, Katy. In this school, to which you and I belong, there is one great comfort, and that is that the Teacher is always at hand. He never goes away. If things puzzle us, there He is, close by, ready to explain and make all easy. Try to think of this, darling, and don’t be afraid to ask Him for help if the lesson seems too hard.”
Katy had a strange dream that night. She thought she was trying to study a lesson out of a book which wouldn’t come quite open. She could just see a little bit of what was inside, but it was in a language which she did not understand. She tried in vain; not a word could she read; and yet, for all that, it looked so interesting that she longed to go on.
“Oh, if somebody would only help me!” she cried impatiently.
Suddenly a hand came over her shoulder and took hold of the book. It opened at once, and showed the whole page. And then the forefinger of the hand began to point to line after line, and as it moved the words became plain, and Katy could read them easily. She looked up. There, stooping over her, was a great beautiful Face. The eyes met hers. The lips smiled.
“Why didn’t you ask me before, Little Scholar?” said a voice.
“Why, it is You, just as cousin Helen told me!” cried Katy.
She must have spoken in her sleep, for Aunt Izzie half woke up, and said:
“What is it? Do you want anything?”
The dream broke, and Katy roused, to find herself in bed, with the first sunbeams struggling in at the window, and Aunt Izzie raised on her elbow, looking at her with a sort of sleepy wonder.

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