Little Joe. Part 2
Although the Indians did not any longer hunt in the woods near to Mr. Barnes new home, they often came to visit him, and the children gazed upon them with a good deal of awe at first. They looked so tall and straight, and their wild, black locks, and painted faces, were so different to anything they had ever seen before, but they were very friendly, and quite willing to exchange meat or berries for a little flour, and they looked in their turn with surprise, and admiration, too, at Joe’s pretty little fair blue-eyed sisters.
At first all went well with the settlers. Two small log houses were built, a quarter of a mile apart, and two little fields were plowed, and sown with barley and turnips. But these prosperous times soon came to a sad end. Mr. Barnes’ ox took sick, and died. He had no money left to replace it, and he was no longer able to work his land, to haul logs and firewood from the forest, or to go to the nearest settlement for supplies of flour and other necessaries. Little by little the food ran low, and winter came on fast, with its keen winds, and intense frost. It kept Mr. Barnes and Toe busy chopping firewood, and dragging it from the forest. Food got more and more scarce, until nothing remained but the turnips, they had grown the previous summer, and a little barley which they rubbed between their hands to free it from the hush, and then boiled. Soap had long been unknown, but the thrifty mother used ashes to wash her little ones, which they found a painful as well as a cleansing process. And all this time these dear suffering people, were bearing their trials alone.
Perhaps you do not understand what I mean? Well, I mean that they did not know God as their Father and their Friend. They had no one to bring their troubles and sorrows to, for neither father nor mother knew the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour. The Bible was an unknown book in that house, neither parent nor child, ever bowed in prayer. Do you say they were no better than the Indians around them? That may be, but how is it with you? you may know much about the Lord Jesus, but can you say “He is my most precious Friend, the One who has given His life for me, to redeem me from sin, and fit me to dwell with Him above?” We read in the Gospel, that “Not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father,” and the One who cares for the birds, cared for these dear little children, and when one night a fire broke out in the shanty, He did not suffer one child to be either burnt or frozen, but enabled the father and his neighbor to put it out and save all their possessions. To be sure there was a big hole in the roof, but what did that matter when all the little darlings were safe.
At length the spring came, and with it plenty of work and wages, and I wish you could have seen those little girls when some bran bread was first baked in their home. Oh! how good it tasted, and how they rejoiced to think that turnips and barley were a thing of the past. Did you ever think how precious it was of our God, to give us such a variety of food, meat, fruit, vegetables, everything we need or could desire, without stint and yet, how often we take it as our right, and never even thank Him for it, or remember that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”
“Bless the Lord: O, my soul and forget not all is benefits.” Ps. 103:2.
ML 05/13/1906