Chapter VIII: A Prayer Answered

"For pain is not the end of pain."

MR. TRAFTON kept a livery establishment which was extensively patronized by gay and fashionable people—people to whom the Sabbath was a day of pleasuring—and it was through this Sabbath-breaking that Henry Trafton's trial of faith was to come. It so happened that about the time of the summer school vacation they were short of help at the stables, and as Henry understood the management of horses remarkably well for a boy of fourteen, he was drafted into service. He was fond of horses and rather liked the employment, until one Sabbath morning a party wished to be driven to the lake, fifteen miles away.

"But, father," said Henry, "I can't go to-day."

"I'd like to know why?"

"Why, it's Sunday, and I must go to Sunday-school."

"Must, eh? Who says you must?" asked his father, half angrily.

"'Well, I always do. I—I never thought of driving out Sundays," said the boy, in a troubled tone.

"Well, suppose you never did think of it? The time has come now to do it. Don't let's have any nonsense about it," was the impatient reply.

Henry went to his mother with his trouble, who reasoned that it was necessary work, that it was their business, that it was a proper and useful business. He was not responsible for the way in which the party spent the day. He need not join in their frolics. And while they had their sail on the lake, he could rest in the grove and study the Bible lesson. It was very different from going for his own pleasure. If they kept horses to let, they must let them out on the Sabbath. If they let them to young Reeves to go to his mission school at the Ridge, could they refuse to drive young Golden and his friends to the lake? Should they dictate to their customers the direction and object of their drives?

This reasoning did not satisfy the boy. It was all a muddle. He could not tell exactly what would be the right way to conduct the business, and, besides, obedience to his parents was one of his strong points. If his father would not yield, he must. These were miserable Sabbaths. Sometimes he ventured to remonstrate, then his father grew angry, declaring that he should not go to Sunday-school any more even when he was at liberty.

"A pretty piece of business! Teaching a boy to set himself up for authority!"

"Father," said Henry, softly, "It is the Bible that is up for authority."

"Oh, you needn't quote Bible to me. I reckon I understand that quite as well as you do, or your saintly teacher. You have never been too nice to eat the bread or wear the clothes bought with the Sunday earnings of the horses and their drivers. Seems to me you are making extra fine distinctions. And, too, I wonder if your pious friends down there know any difference between my money and other people's? They are glad enough to have me pay twenty-five dollars for a pew that I never sit in, and in return they put nonsensical notions into your head. I believe in religion, but I don't believe in that kind. The whole concern is a humbug."

Now Mr. Trafton did not think any such thing as he indicated in his last remark. He did believe the very truths which had been put into Henry's heart through the teachings of the Sunday-school, though he had so long practically denied the gospel that it was only now and then that his conscience stirred, and then he grew bold and defiant.

Henry was very unhappy. He went to evening service, but hurried out to avoid an interview with Miss Wynn. Reaching home he went directly to his own room. He took his Bible, turned over the leaves, read a few verses here and there. There were plenty of promises, plenty of verses, that had comforted him at other times; but it seemed that there was no word for him now, and he closed the book, saying, "There's no promise to Sabbath-breakers, and that is just what I am. But father says it is not wicked, that it is necessary. And Mr. Brown came for a carriage to go to the springs this evening, and he is a member of our church. If he could go to ride instead of going to evening service, is it wrong for me to obey father and go off in the daytime? Dear me, I don't know anything about it. Anyway I can't stand it much longer. If God only would hear me."

And then the perplexed and troubled boy prayed, "O God, my Father, help me. I want to do right, but I am so miserably weak and cowardly that I am afraid to resist my father's will. O God, don't let me be so tempted. Take away my trouble. Deliver me out of this dark place. Please to show my father how wrong it is, and do not let him ask me to drive out any more upon the Sabbath." This was the burden of his prayer, not "Give me strength to follow the right," but "Deliver me out of my trouble."

Were the events of the week in answer to that prayer?

Wednesday morning Mr. Trafton said—

"Henry, a gentleman, a stranger in town, wants to go out to Crandall's. You may take the black horse and a light buggy and drive out for him."

"O father, that horse! Can't I have Lady Bess?"

"No; Mrs. Jenks wants Bess to drive out by herself this afternoon, and you will not be back in time," replied Mr. Trafton, adding, "You needn't be afraid to drive the black; he has been very sober lately. I am not afraid to trust you with him."

"Oh, I don't mind. I had a little rather drive Bess, but it's no matter."

As Henry was starting out his father said—

"See here, Henry, it is the day of the picnic, isn't it?"

"Yes," responded Henry; "but I don't care a great deal. It is a nice drive out to Crandall's. I think I shall enjoy it."

"Yell, I guess you can have the day's earnings for your lesson fund."

"Oh, that's grand! Thank you."

Henry Trafton cared very little for books; he hated study, and the weekly school reports showed a wretchedly low standing in his classes, but his knowledge of some particular branches was remarkable; for instance, natural history and physical geography. Some one once expressed surprise at this, when he responded, "I learned those things from pictures."

The walls of his room were covered with pictures; his table was strewed with them; his trunk and drawers were full; they overflowed and spread through the house; he carried them in his pocket and between the leaves of his books; pictures of all sorts and sizes, bought with his pocket-money, torn from magazines, cut from newspapers, and not a few drawn by himself, some in pencil and some in coloured crayons. It was plain that he was a lover of art. Whether he had a talent for picture making remained to be seen. He was anxious to take some lessons of an artist who had a studio in town, and his father, who thought it the merest nonsense and waste of time and money, had finally consented, provided Henry should save his pocket-money to pay for the lessons.

As the now delighted boy harnessed the spirited horse, he said, "Old fellow, the money you'll earn to-day will be a heavy lift for me. Five dollars! Whoa! You needn't prance about as if the ground wasn't good enough for you to step on. You're likely to get considerable of it into your shiny coat before night. I s'pect we'll make the dust fly, won't we, old fellow?"

In the course of that afternoon, a man came to the house to say that the horse which Henry had driven had just come panting to the stables without driver or carriage, and with part of the harness dragging, and that one of the men had gone out on horseback to look for the castaways.

"And," said the man, "I had just come from the depot with the carriage, and so I drove right up here, thinking maybe you'd want to follow. One can't tell what may have happened."

Mr. Trafton only delayed to go to the kitchen and give a few hasty orders. "You need not tell Mrs. Trafton," he said. "If anything serious has occurred, I will come or send some one to tell her."

Just as he was stepping into the carriage, Dr. Myers passed. "Here, doctor, we may need you. Just go along with us," was the abrupt invitation, which was promptly accepted.

It was a sad and almost silent party that came back two hours later. Very slowly and carefully the driver guided his horses; very tenderly Mr. Trafton supported his suffering boy, and very anxious was the expression of every face. The stranger, who had escaped with a sprain or two and a few bruises, stated that the horse had been very restive all day, but that Henry had managed him remarkably well until, on their return, frightened at a peddler's cart, he sprang down a steep bank, overturning the buggy, landing the gentleman upon the opposite bank, while Henry, holding on stoutly, was dragged some distance over brush and stones. He was insensible when picked up, but he had revived a little before reaching home, though not able to speak.

When Dr. Myers had made an examination of his patient's state, he said, "Mr. Trafton, I should like to have you call in a more experienced surgeon. I do not feel willing to take the responsibility of treating the case without counsel. If you will call Dr. Maxwell, and if his diagnosis agrees with mine, we shall all feel better satisfied."

"Tell me," began the father, and stopped, unable to ask the question.

"I do not think," replied the doctor, "that your son will die; but I tell you frankly that his injuries are very serious."

And the poor man understood then, quite as well as he did a week later when Dr. Maxwell told him, that his boy could never walk again without a crutch.

When gently and tenderly Dr. Myers told Henry the sad truth, he only said, "No matter, I don't think I shall mind so very much." Then seeing the doctor's look of surprise, he added, "I have just found out that God has his own way of answering prayers, and when we don't ask for the right thing, or forget to say, 'Thy will be done,' it seems as though he just took us at our word and gave us what we asked for, but it comes a little differently from the way we expected."

"You don't mean that you think your lying here with your broken bones is an answer to prayer! I'm sure I wouldn't pray any more in that case!" The speaker was Aunt Harriet, a sister of Mr. Trafton, who had come to help care for the sufferer. One might know by the tone in which she spoke that she knew nothing of the power of prayer.

"O auntie," said Henry, "I wouldn't stop praying, but just learn to pray right. I can't tell all that God means by this, but it puts an end to a great trouble. I had been praying over it, but I never once asked for help to follow the White Line—" (glancing at the framed motto which hung at the foot of the bed) "straight through it all. I just begged God would take away the trouble, and I rather think," he continued, smiling faintly, "that he has."

Dr. Myers interposed. "I must not let you talk too much, my boy. I think God has you in his keeping, and is leading you onward. This trial may prove the greatest blessing of your life. Good morning, now. Rest all you can."

"Blessing," muttered Aunt Harriet, as she followed the doctor into the next room for directions. "I must say it looks like it, having to hobble through life on a stick, with no chance to do anything or be anything."

"I think, Miss Trafton," responded the doctor, "that you will see it quite differently by and bye. It seems sad, but I am not sure that Henry's chances of doing and being something worthwhile are not better than they were a fortnight since. I met him three or four weeks ago, and a more discouraged, dispirited appearing boy I don't often see. He did not tell me the trouble he speaks of, but I think I guessed it. There are worse troubles than broken bones."

At the gate the doctor met Mabel Wynn. "You'd better not go in now," he said, "the boy needs rest."

"How is he to-day?" she asked.

"Improving," he replied. "And, Mabel, he looks and talks like one who has been lifted up to a higher plane than a good many of us have reached."

"Does he know?" she asked.

"Yes, I have just told him. He says it is all right. He has never uttered a complaining word from the beginning. Somehow I can't help thinking that he will grow to have a rarely beautiful Christian character."

"And I have been so anxious about him!" said Mabel. "So faithless. I have sometimes almost doubted if he really understood what it means to be a Christian. He always seemed interested and attentive; but I feared he did not comprehend the truth. And of late he has often been absent front the class, and seemed to avoid an explanation. I could not understand it at all. But," she added, after a pause, "I suppose it was not necessary that I should. God takes care of his own."

"Yes, he does," replied the doctor. "But, Mabel, he sometimes makes use of us in doing it. Perhaps your anxieties and your fears for your pupil made you more careful to explain the truth and make the way to Christ plain. Do you know, I think that motto a particularly happy thought, if they only get the sentiment into their hearts?"

Here their ways parted, and Mabel went home with a lighter heart than she had carried for many days, she had been so anxious for her pupil.

It was Saturday evening, a month after the accident. Mr. Trafton answered a ring at the door, and found it was young Golden, who had brought a basket of grapes for the invalid.

"Come in and present them yourself. Henry will be glad to see you," said Mr. Trafton.

"Thank you, I will."

Henry was now able to take a half-sitting posture, propped up by pillows, and was allowed to receive his friends. The three chatted cheerfully, even gaily, for some time. At length Mr. Golden turned to Henry.

"Well, I suppose you won't be ready to drive a party of us out to the lake to-morrow?"

The boy's cheeks flushed a little as he replied, smiling—

"Hardly."

The young man continued, turning now to Mr. Trafton—

"I would like to have a carriage to-morrow. We want to start at six. Can you accommodate us?"

"I am sorry," was the reply, "to refuse, Mr. Golden; but we have lately passed a resolution down at the office to let no more horses upon the Sabbath for secular business or pleasure excursions."

"Why, Mr. Trafton! Really—I—! You are not in earnest?"

"In serious earnest. Our notice was put in the 'Standard' this morning, and also posted on the doors at the office and the stables," replied Mr. Trafton.

"Really, this is very astonishing! What does it mean? Aren't you afraid your business will fall off seriously?" asked Mr. Golden.

"I presume it will. But you see I wanted to do something to please my boy here, and hit upon this thing."

"Too bad! I wish you could accommodate us this once. It will be a great disappointment, as our party is all made up."

"I am sorry for your disappointment," was the reply. "I meant to have got the notice in the paper early in the week, but by an oversight of Dalton's, it was omitted."

"Well, all I have to say," said Mr. Golden, half angrily, "is that you will lose by it. It is an unheard of proceeding. Mon who expect the public to patronize them must try to please the public."

At this indirect threat Mr. Trafton smiled, and replied—

"I am not obliged to continue this business. If it fails me, I can saw wood."

As the gentleman was the owner of a fine block of houses, which brought him a good rental, the danger of his being reduced to wood-sawing for a livelihood did not appear very imminent.

"Anyway," he continued, "I have decided to try the experiment."

As he came back, after showing his visitor out, Henry exclaimed—

"O father, I am so glad!"

A little while after, he said—

"I am glad I wasn't hurt on Sunday."

"So am I! It was the thought of what I must have suffered had it happened upon some of those Sabbaths when I sent you off so against your conscience that first led me to think of giving up Sunday business."

As he was bidding his father good night, Henry whispered—

"Do you know, father, what beautiful promises there are in the Bible for those who hallow the Sabbath?"