MOTHER says I am to write about all that happened last Saturday night, before I forget it. It was such a terrible night! Melville says he shall never forget it as long as he lives; and mother says she hopes he never will. She does not think God would like us to forget it.
We had had such a happy evening. On Saturday evenings we always get ready for ‘God’s Sunday-day,’ as the children call it. We put by all our toys and dolls and week-day picture books, and make everything quite neat and tidy. Mother has a drawer in her room which we call the ‘Sunday drawer,’ and here she keeps all our Sunday books, and the letters with which we make texts, and the beautiful Sunday pictures Uncle John gave us. We may never open this drawer except on Sunday, but on Saturday night mother gives me the key, that I may be able to open it the first thing in the morning.
So last Saturday night, when Melville and I had put everything away, mother called us into her room, and had her little Saturday-night prayer with us. We all knelt down, and mother prayed that we might have a happy Sunday together, and that God would make u all His own dear children.
It always seems so real when mother prays ; I cannot help thinking of it for a long time after. Then I went to bed, and mother said, as she tucked me up,—
‘Little Olive, do you think you are safe yet? Have you ever come to the Lord Jesus?’ I told mother that I did not know, but that I was afraid I had not.
And then mother said, ‘If you only knew, Olive, how I long to know that my darlings are all safe! I think I could go back to India cheerfully, if I felt sure you had all come to Jesus.’
And then, after she had talked a little more to me, mother knelt down, and prayed that I might come to Jesus and take Him for my Saviour.
I lay awake a long time, thinking of what mother had said, and wondering what she meant by coming to Jesus, and then I became very sleepy, and turned over on my pillow, and fell fast asleep.
It seemed a long time after that, for I had been dreaming about a number of things, when I woke up quite suddenly.
Mother was getting out of bed and going to the window. She pulled aside the thick curtain, which was fastened up tightly to keep the light from coming into baby’s eyes in the morning, and, in a moment, the room, which had been dark before, was full of light, bright red light.
‘Olive !’ said mother ; ‘don’t be frightened, darling. The house is on fire. Get dressed very quickly, and pray to God to take care of us.’
Her voice trembled very much as she spoke, and I could see by the bright light that her face was very white. She ran away, just as she was, into the next room, to wake Mrs. M’Bride and Emma, and downstairs to wake Mrs. M’Intire.
Oh, how quick we were! In two minutes Mrs. M’Bride had dressed the baby, and Emma had put some clothes on the boys, and we were ready to go out.
I looked out of the window before I left the room, and saw sparks flying past, and a great deal of smoke driving along with the wind.
Then mother opened the front door, and we went across the road, and she put us all under a hedge with Emma, and told us to sit there quite quietly, and to pray that God would put the fire out!
We could see the fire quite well now. Under the same roof as the house was a stable, and it was this stable, and the two rooms over it, which were on fire. I never saw such a terrible sight; the flames were pouring out of the windows and blazing away, and every moment the fire was getting larger! The floor of the two rooms over the stable had fallen in, and soon the whole place would be nothing but a heap of smoking ruins.
‘I wonder where old Colin is?’ said Emma, as she sat beside us with baby on her knee.
‘Who is old Colin, Emma?’ said Melville.
‘He’s the old man who looks after the cows and the horse,’ she said. ‘He sleeps in one of those rooms over the stable. I wonder he isn’t here helping them.’
All this time, mother and Mrs. M’Intire and Mrs. M’Bride, and Mrs. M’Intire’s daughter, were running backwards and forwards, dragging everything out of the house and putting it on the road.
‘Miss Olive,’ said Emma at last, ‘don’t you think you could mind the children whilst I go and give a help?’
So I took the baby on my knee, and all the others crept quite close up to me under the hedge.
Oh, how mother worked ! I thought she would kill herself, she lifted such heavy weights, and did so much! But they kept looking up at the fire and they saw that it had already caught hold of the roof of the house, and the wind was driving it on at a dreadful pace.
But just then it began to rain. Mother said she had been praying that it might. Oh, how it poured! It was a drenching, soaking rain. Mother ran to us with some blankets, and I wrapped them round the children, and made diem as snug as I could.
They were so good the whole time, they over cried once, nor were the least bit cross, though they had been waked up so suddenly end taken out of their warm little beds into the cold and wet outside. Charlie and Willie seemed quite to enjoy it, and little Walter asked me if it was a picnic, and wanted mother to bring him some sandwiches! They were too young to understand how dreadful it was.
Mother let Melville go into the house once, to help her to bring out the children’s strong boots, for they only had their thin shoes on. I should so much have liked to have helped mother to carry some of the things out, but she said I was helping her much more by taking such care of the children ; she was quite happy about them when she knew that I was with them.
By this time a man, who lived in a cottage near, had come up to help, and he brought a ladder, and went up on the roof, and pulled some of the slates off, and tried to stop the fire spreading.
Everything in the house had been dragged out, and put in a large heap on the road; chairs, and tables, and sofas, and books, and beds, and mattresses, and pillows, and pokers, and fenders, and shovels, and pans, and basins, and cups, and saucers, and all our clothes, and everything that could be carried. Our dear little birds, that we brought with us all the way from London, were with us under the hedge; mother had brought; then to us first of all, before she carried anything else out.
The rain was coming down faster than ever, and the children began to get very wet; mother brought us a waterproof cloak to put over us, but still it was very hard to keep them dry. It was getting very cold and miserable under the hedge, and we were all very tired and sleepy, and my arms ached so much that I could hardly hold the baby. Just then we saw the light of a lantern in the distance.