Mrs. Grumbleshanks
THE children stood close together, and stared at a small cottage that appeared suddenly just as they reached the end of the wood. Both felt that they must do something here. If this crusade was to be anything more than just a day out in the woods, they would have to make a start on the purpose that had brought them there. But they suddenly felt very nervous about it.
Wendy’s hand sought Joan’s and gripped it tightly. “I think everybody’s asleep in there,” she said hopefully.
“They wouldn’t like to be wakened up so that we could tell them about God,” said Joan. “They might be cross.”
“If we just tip-toe past, we shan’t wake them,” said Wendy, but she did not move to do so.
“Yes,” said Joan, but she did not move either. They stood still for a moment or two, wishing that they could go away, but not liking to do so.
“I suppose we’d better just have a look,” said Wendy at last. “Perhaps they’re lighting their fire, or something.”
“Or perhaps they’re ill,” said Joan. “Come along!”
Still hand in hand they approached the cottage and opened the little gate. As they went more and more slowly up the path, they heard a voice coming from inside: a moaning sort of voice, and at first they stopped short, scared by the sound of it, and then they went on and peeped in through the kitchen window.
A very fat old woman was trying to light the fire; but as soon as she bent her knee to get down to it, she groaned and mumbled to herself, and this was what the children had heard.
“Oh, my poor knees! Oh, my rheumatics! I shall never get this fire lit, and I shall never get a kettle on, and I shall never get a cup of tea! I shall live here and starve till I die! Nobody loves me! Nobody cares if I live or die! Oh, my poor knees! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
Wendy turned with shining eyes to Joan, and nodded her head hard. Then they ran round to the kitchen door.
“Please may we light your fire for you?” she asked.
The old woman, who had got one knee bent and now could not bend the other, stared at them both.
“And who might you be? Oh, my poor knees!” she moaned.
“We can light fires all right,” said Joan. She went into the room and put her hand under the old woman’s elbow. “I’ll help you up. I often have to help my Gran.”
“I’ll help, too,” said Wendy, and together they did help her to her rocking-chair.
“Well, I never did! Oh, my poor knees!” said the old woman, and she sat staring at the girls and rubbing her knees, while they became busy with the fire.
Wendy cleared the ashes out, while Joan ran outside and found some sticks. Then Wendy screwed up the newspaper that the old woman had put beside the grate, and Joan took the kettle out and filled it at the well. Wendy was laying the sticks in a neat crisscross pattern over the paper, and putting lumps of cinder and coal on top, as if she were building a house with toy bricks. Joan grew impatient.
“No need.to be so fussy!” she said. “Just bung it on!”
“It’s all ready now,” said Wendy. “Please, have you got a match?” she asked the old woman.
“Just inside the cupboard,” was the answer.
“Where shall I put the ash?” asked Joan.
“In the hen-run. Don’t you spill it, now!”
“Shall I feed the hens, too?” asked Joan.
“If you like. The grain is in the wash-house. And don’t you drop the eggs! You be careful!” said the old woman.
“Please, what is your name?” asked Wendy, standing up and watching the crackling, spluttering fire with great pleasure.
“I’m Mrs. Grumbleshanks — and who might you be?”
“I’m Wendy Morris, and my friend is Joan Butler.”
“Never heard of either of you,” said the old woman crossly.
“Well, would you like me to sweep your room now? The kettle won’t boil for a little while,” said Wendy, wishing that Joan would hurry back.
“I ain’t paying a farthing for this, mind!” said the old woman. “I didn’t ask you to come, now did I?”
“No, and we don’t want paying,” said Wendy, going rather red. “Is this the broom?” she asked, spying one in the wash-house.
“What does it look like — a frying-pan?” snapped the old woman. “Don’t ask silly questions!”
Wendy got the broom in silence, thinking that it was a pity they had to be kind to such a nasty old woman. And fancy having to love her! Poor Wendy wanted to cry at the bare idea. But their text said that they must, and that God loved her. That was what they had come to tell her. Wendy swept, while Mrs. Grumbleshanks snapped at her and told her she wasn’t doing the corners properly, and the poor girl wondered if it really was true that God loved this old woman, as she seemed so cross and unkind.
When she had swept the dust outside, she saw Joan coming up the path, and went to meet her.
“Joan, she’s an awful old woman! She’s as cross as cross! She’s been saying horrid things all the time I’ve been sweeping. Do you think God can possibly love her?”
Joan looked thoughtful.
“Perhaps she’s cross because her knees hurt,” she said. “I’m cross when I’ve got tummy-ache, aren’t you?”
“Oh!” said Wendy, looking startled. “Yes — I hope God doesn’t stop loving me then!”
“Of course He doesn’t. And I expect He still loves her too, poor old thing. I don’t suppose she means it, anyway.”
They went indoors again, to find the kettle boiling all over the stove.
“Just like a couple of silly children!” said the old woman. “What did you want to fill that kettle so full for? Now look at the mess!”
“I’ll clean it up,” said Wendy, sighing.
“Make me a pot of tea first,” said Mrs. Grumble-shanks.
“Where do you keep the tea?” asked Joan.
“Well, of all the stupid questions! In the tin on top of the mantelpiece, behind the clock, of course!” snapped the old woman, still rubbing her knees.
After that, they dared not ask any more questions, but found a teapot and a cup, and some milk and sugar, by looking for them, and at last the tea was made and the old woman was sipping a cup, and groaning about her rheumatics with every second sip.
“Have you got any liniment?” asked Joan suddenly. “I always rub my Gran with liniment when she gets rheumatics.”
The old woman looked surprised, and admitted that she had some liniment somewhere. Joan found the bottle, and began to rub the poor old knees, and presently the old woman stopped grumbling and seemed to feel better.
Wendy brought some bread and butter to the table, and, seeing bacon in the cupboard, asked if she should fry some for Mrs. Grumbleshanks. The idea was approved, and she did so. At last the old woman gave a sigh.
“That’s much better. The pain’s quite gone now. I must say, it was good of you two, to come and help a poor old woman that nobody loves! What did you do it for?”
“Well, we heard you say that,” said Joan, putting the liniment bottle away and washing her hands. “And we came to tell you it isn’t true. There is someone who loves you.”
“You’re wrong there, because there isn’t,” said Mrs. Grumbleshanks very positively. “I know what I’m talking about. I haven’t anybody left in the world but my brother, and I haven’t been on speaking terms with him for twenty years.”
“Well, I didn’t mean your brother, I meant your Father,” said Joan.
“My father’s been dead sixty years, dead and buried!” said the old woman.
“I meant your Heavenly Father. He loves you,” said Joan.
The old woman looked terribly sad.
“Ah! How do you know that?” she asked.
“Because it says so in the Bible. Where’s your Bible? I’ll show you the place.”
“I used to have a Bible somewhere,” said the old woman slowly. “But I don’t know where it is now. At the back of some cupboard, I expect. I don’t read it now.”
“I’ll find it,” said Wendy quickly. “You see, if you had read it, you wouldn’t have thought that no one loved you, because it says quite plainly there that God does.”
“You don’t understand, dear. He couldn’t love a wicked old woman like me. He’d turn from me!” sighed Mrs. Grumbleshanks.
“No, He wouldn’t. It says in the Bible that Jesus died for sinners; so, I suppose, the worse sinner you are, the more He died for you. Anyway, we’ll find your Bible and show you the place,” said Joan.
The two little girls began a hunt through the cottage, and finally found the Bible in the front parlour, under a plant pot. It was a very old Bible, with large print, and it was very heavy to carry. Wendy bore it carefully, with Joan walking behind her, watching in case she dropped it, and so together they put it down on the kitchen table beside the old woman’s cup of tea.
“There it is,” said Joan triumphantly. “Now I’ll find you the place.”
The old woman put on her spectacles and watched while the two girls found the place for her. They consulted their list first of all, to see if they could find a more suitable text for their new friend, but came to the conclusion that the one in the Epistle of St. John, where he said that God first loved us and so we ought to love other people, was the best. So they turned it up, and pointed it out to her; and she read it, and tears began to run down her cheeks.
“I’ll be a better old woman now, as long as I keep on remembering this,” she said, mopping her eyes.
“I’d forgotten it, and I thought no one in all the world cared whether I was in pain or whether I lived or died. I won’t forget again.”
“We’ll come and see you again some day,” said Wendy.
“Yes, come and see me again. I’m sorry if I spoke sharply to you about the sweeping, but really the pain in my knees and the pain in my heart just drove me distracted.”
“I hope they stay better,” said Joan sympathetically.
“Well, I don’t care so much about the pain in my knees, as long as my heart doesn’t ache,” said Mrs. Grumbleshanks, with a smile that made her face quite different. “If I can only go on remembering that the dear Lord loves me, even a cross old woman like me, I shan’t feel so lonely. Thank you, dears. And God bless you!”
Joan and Wendy were so pleased with the result of their first task, that they danced down the path to the gate, and ran along the road, with Pluto barking at their heels.
“That was lovely!” panted Wendy, as she slowed down to a walk. “Wasn’t it lovely, to see that horrid old woman turn nice? She had quite a kind smile at the end.”
“I wonder if we shall get lots of jobs like that?” said Joan, skipping merrily. “It wasn’t as hard as I expected, once we were started. I believe I’d make an awfully good preacher, really!”
“You are clever!” Wendy said admiringly.
“Well, so are you. We’re both clever, really, to have got that old woman good in such a short time. I wonder what the next job will be?”
Poor Wendy and Joan! They thought that it was all their own cleverness that had brightened the life of poor Mrs. Grumbleshanks, forgetting that the Holy Spirit of God was working with them and through them. They forgot the holy angels that they had talked about on the previous afternoon, and went along the lane feeling tremendously pleased with themselves, instead of giving God the glory and thanks.
The old woman in her lonely little cottage thought about the things she had heard. She turned the pages of her Bible, and found more and more things there to make her happy. At last she got down on her poor old knees and asked God to use her life, the little that was left of it, to use it as He willed. She asked pardon for having forgotten Him and so gone astray; and she thanked her Heavenly Father for sending Joan and Wendy to point her to the right way.
“Little angels, they were,” she said fondly. “Little messengers of God!”
But the two little girls were dancing along the lane, rather too much pleased with themselves; which was a pity, for when people are pleased with themselves, they usually begin to make mistakes!