ANY child who has lived in a large city knows what a tenement house is, —a tall building, with many stories, where a number of families have their homes.
In the very lowest rooms, in a large tenement house in the city of Montreal, there lived, some years ago, four little children, with their father and mother. They were low, dark little rooms, almost entirely underground. You had to go down four or five steps to get to them, but the father was only too thankful to have a place where he could live, without paying rent, for times had been hard, and money was very scarce.
Nearly a year before the time of which I am speaking, Mr. Smith had been taken very ill, and lay for months in the hospital, hardly expected to live. He suffered much pain in his body, but what he suffered in his mind, was still harder to bear. Day and night he was thinking of his wife, and little Mary, and her brothers Jimmy and Jack, and the tiny baby girl.
“How will they get food?” he asked himself, many times, and then he would cry to God, asking Him to feed and care for his loved ones, so poor and helpless. Each time his wife or little Mary came to see him, they gave the same answer to his anxious question,
“How are you getting on?”
“We have never been hungry yet.”
At last the father was well enough to come home, —very thin, and very weak, and quite unable to work, but ready to do the light jobs, which were required of him in return for the two rooms in which they lived.
Whenever the mother could get a day’s work, she was glad to do it, and little Mary played mother at home, amusing the little boys, and nursing the little delicate baby, who was just trying to walk. Though only eight years old, she could be trusted to take care of the younger ones, and even prepare their dinner, if both father and mother were out.
But work was scarce, and many days there was none to be had, and mother had to remain at home. There came a Saturday, when the last bit of bread, and the last scrap of butter was used for dinner. No work was in sight, and Mrs. Smith looked sadly at her husband, and said,
“What shall we do for supper and for Sunday?”
“We must trust in God,” was all the father would say, “He will not let us starve.”
Early in the afternoon, the mother went out to try to get some work, and the father, leaving Mary with the little one went about his daily duties.
One thing the father had to do, was to collect the garbage from each flat, and carry it down to the big can, outside the back door. The people used to wrap the garbage in paper, and put it on the veranda, off which each flat opened. When he came to the top flat he noticed a number of parcels lying by the door, supposing them garbage, he picked them up, and carried them downstairs, but as he was going down, something prompted him to open one of the parcels, and to his surprise, he found instead of garbage, a box with a dozen eggs in it. Then he opened the others. There was bread and butter, and a nice large dried fish, and several other things. He at once carried them upstairs, and knocking at the door, beside which they had been lying, he handed them to the lady, who opened the door.
“They are not mine,” she said. “Try the next flat.” But though he tried at every door, no one owned them, nor was there a bill with them, to show from what store they had been sent.
“You had better keep the things yourself,” said the landlord of the flats, “you can easily find use for them.”
When Mrs. Smith came home, cold and hungry and sad, what a good supper she found, all laid out, and waiting for her. You can guess her surprise, and how she asked,
“Where did you get all these things?” and how little Mary answered,
“God sent them to us.” To the happy little family, that was the best part of all. It seemed so wonderful to think that God, the Maker of heaven and earth, had really thought of them, had known their need, and supplied it so bountifully.
Shortly after this, Mr. Smith found work, which he was now well enough to do, and they no longer had to wonder from day to day, where the next meal would come from, but I am sure they have never forgotten how the Lord cared for them, when their need was so very great.
If you look through the Bible you will find there is a great deal said about “needy” people, and they are the very ones the Lord loves to provide for.
ML 08/10/1924